Good job!  You have read the NPD Planning Post and realize that to complete a prototype you may need outside expertise and the sooner you line it up the better.  This post will give a quick run through of a assembling those experts.  We use several different sites, depending on the type of expertise we need but this morning I used www.guru.com so I will focus on that today.  Registering for Guru as an employer grants you access to search for freelancers depending on their area of expertise.  Although this method may provide some results eventually, posting the project for freelancers to peruse delivers results quickly.  Once a project is posted, you can invite specific freelancers to bid.  The posting process begins with selecting the area of expertise required to complete the section of the project.  Then you get to the project description.  Here are some tips for the project description.

• Catchy title describing skills and project
• Quick description of who you are and what you are doing
• Don’t give direct contact information
• Describe type of work and what other aspects of the project need to be integrated
• Don’t go into detail about what the project entails, that comes later
• Ask questions like hourly rate, fixed bid projects, examples of similar projects etc.

The desired response from the project description is an available consultant in the necessary field that works with your pricing structure and has some experience with a similar project.  Quotes from this stage are useless because you haven’t provided enough information for the consultant to accurately quote the project.  Send the top tier of responders an NDA.  If they don’t want to sign it and you care about that (we do) then don’t work with them.

After you have recieved the NDA, send out the Spec Doc (See Spec Doc and T5+2 Post).  The spec doc will be questioned and you must work through those issues.  This is not an opportunity to shy away from the potential issues with your product.  Some consultants may want money upfront to look through and critique the spec doc, we don’t participate in this type of arrangement.  Hopefully now you have shrunk the list of consultants to a few good candidates.  Some projects this is like 50 responders, 10 top tier, 6 NDAs, 3 Final candidates.  Now you must evaluate the options based on price, lead time, location and  any other variables that are necessary for this project.  Make your pick and work with it.  It is also important to let the other candidates know that you have chosen someone else and provide a quick reason why.  Now you have an expert and are on your way!