The Risks of Going Solo with AI Freelancers
Going solo with AI freelancing
It’s common to hire AI freelancers to do the initial work. It’s flexible, fast, and typically less expensive than hiring a team of developers to build a whole product. But let’s be clear on this, founders who are not technical don’t understand that:
• Code written by AI involves vulnerabilities. Chat GPT and GitHub Copilot are excellent accelerators, but they generate code that contains latent problems such as poorly designed architectures, a lack of scalability, and significant security issues
• Freelancers are lone programmers. They do not commit to the process publicly and might not follow the best practice or write code coverage. Once freelancers disappear into thin air, all the above information goes with them.
• The technical debt is what you inherit. This rapid MVP results in a problem when nobody else has (or even wants to have) the ability to lay hands on the code.
Essentially, this means that you didn’t merely lose a freelancer. You have also lost the only person who understood the true nature of your AI product.
Introduction
You discovered a capable AI freelancer on a reputable online platform. They created a functional MVP for you. The prototype wowed your investors. You were all set for expansion. And then. Nothing. They quit responding to your emails. Stopped attending meetings. Just vanished from Slack. Your product roadmap came to a grinding halt, and now you were not just stalled, but stuck.
If this situation rings a bell, you’re not alone. At Appricotsoft, we hear regularly from entrepreneurs just like you in this exact situation. A promising AI project on the shelf, unresolved, and a product that none of you know what to do with.
Okay. Now, let’s talk about what happened, what it all might mean in terms of your business, and – most importantly – what you can do next.
The Hidden Cost of Fast MVPs
Why rapid development might.
Speed matters. To succeed at an early stage of a startup, to reach a point where you can showcase the product in weeks, it actually becomes a matter of funding or crashing. However, MVPs developed with AI from freelancers will include:
• Some hard-coded configurations create issues in the staging environment.
• There was no clear ownership or handover plan for the code
• Missing documentation or unit tests
• There shall be no validation of the quality of the output of the AI.
And so, when things inevitably break, your team will be left wondering what happens next.
Read more: The Hidden Cost of Maintaining AI-Generated Products
Step 1: Don't Panic - Audit
Your first action isn’t to reject the project completely. First, understand what it is that you are working with.
A code review performed by a team versed in AI product development techniques may reveal:
• Which portions of the code were generated through the AI Tools
• How maintainable, secure, and flexible your system is.
• Where the biggest technical risks exist
• What it would take to bring the project under control
This isn’t just a rescue mission, it’s damage assessment.
At Appricotsoft, we provide AI code audit and code refactoring services that are very helpful for start-ups. We can give you a clear understanding before making costly decisions.
Step 2: Reclaim Ownership
The freelancer may be out of the picture, but your product does not have to be a losing proposition. This is how you take back control.
Find out as much as you can document. Go through your emails, chats, and files. Look for any information on notes, architecture diagrams, or anything related to how it works.
List all the environments and dependencies. Where is the app hosted? Which AI APIs are being used here? What tools are installed?
Introduce those professionals who would be able to reverse engineer the system. At Appricotsoft, we were able to bring back abandoned AI systems and scale them despite a lack of overall context for our clients.
Our team is capable of analyzing the problematic code, understanding it, and refocusing on building something better. We have worked with founders in the healthcare, education, logistics industries, and more.
Step 3: Building the Right Foundation for the Future in this step
This is the hard truth: “Your freelancer disappearing wasn’t the problem. It just revealed how fragile the process was.”
In order not to repeat the error, rebuild on the following basis:
• Check AI code just as other code needs to be checked, tested, validated, and managed with version control systems. AI doesn’t give a pass to poor programming practices.
• Worry about teams, not just people. Freelancers can be fantastic to work with. However, as you are creating products, it is necessary to partner with a software development company that provides reliability, support, and continuity.
• Make it all transparent and accountable. Trust me: at Appricotsoft, we’re not big fans of micromanaging – but we’re huge fans of ownership. No timers, no drama, just delivered results.
• Implement audits as a part of your process. In case of an AI-based product, it is essential that you go in for audits from time to time in order to avoid drift, bugs, as well as technical debt.
Related Posts: AI Without Human Oversight = Massive Technical Debt
Why This Happens (and How We Help Fix It)
You didn’t do anything wrong by hiring a freelancer. The issue is that most AI projects won’t appear broken until they are.
At Appricotsoft, we have expertise in transforming “uh-oh” into “ah, now we get it.”
• We investigate and refactor abandoned code repositories.
• When reconstructing MVPs, we take into consideration scalability, testability, and documentation.
• We work together with founders on re-aligning technology with business objectives.
• And we do it all with integrity, curiosity, and an unrelenting commitment to creating software we’re proud of.
If this happened to you, don’t be discouraged if your AI freelancer ghosted you. Instead, let’s use this opportunity to level up.
Concluding Remarks
AI offers unparalleled opportunity – but it’s also introduced novel risks, and these are particularly dangerous to non-tech founders. A vanishing freelancer may just be an inconvenience. No, it’s an indication that your software development life cycle needs organization, visibility, and infrastructure.
You don’t need to start again. You need a partner with the skill to clean up the mess and build something better.
Let’s make it awesome. Talk to us about where you’re stuck. We’re here to help.