Why More U.S. Startups Are Turning to Outsourced Talent — Insights from a Founder on the Ground

As the U.S. startup ecosystem recalibrates in the face of shifting investor expectations and tighter budgets, a growing number of founders are rethinking how they build product teams. One trend gaining real traction: the strategic outsourcing of technical talent.

To understand what’s really driving this shift — and how founders are approaching it today — I spoke with Kostya Khuta, CEO of Volpis, a software design and development company that partners with startups across North America and Europe. After a recent trip to San Francisco and Los Angeles, where he met with dozens of startup leaders, Kostya shared a grounded perspective on how startups are navigating this talent equation.

The Mindset Shift: From “Cost-Saving” to “Friction-Reducing”

“The biggest misconception I kept hearing,” Kostya begins, “is that outsourcing is just about lowering costs. But most of the founders I spoke with were thinking beyond that. They’re trying to reduce friction — in hiring, execution, and speed to market.”

While offshore teams do offer cost efficiency — often reducing development costs by 2–3x — the deeper value is in flexibility, speed, and access to specialized knowledge.

Founders today are asking sharper questions:

• Do we need a full-time team for something that’s not core to our product?
• Can we validate our MVP faster by working with a team that already knows our industry?
• Are we wasting time hiring roles we’ll phase out in six months?

For many, the answer is clear.

Case Study: “We Raised Money to Validate — Not to Hire”

One early-stage founder building a fleet-tech solution put it bluntly:

“We raised money to validate the idea — not to spend three months hiring a Kotlin developer just to hope they work out.”

Faced with tight timelines and limited internal mobile expertise, he considered three options:

1. Hiring locally — slow and expensive
2. Outsourcing to a U.S. agency — faster, but costly
3. Partnering with a domain-specific product team — fast, lean, and focused

He chose the third — Volpis.

Thanks to their background in fleet management and location-based apps, the team was able to deliver a production-ready MVP in under 10 weeks. Just as important, their industry fluency helped steer the product away from common early-stage missteps.

“We didn’t just write code — we helped the founder prioritize what to build, avoid dead weight, and align the product with real-world usage patterns,” Kostya explains.

Why Scaling In-House Is Getting Tougher

Even when startups can afford top-tier engineers, retaining them is a different battle. “Several founders I met said they’ve lost talent to Meta or Amazon after just a few months,” Kostya notes.

With compensation packages ballooning and startup volatility still high, many early-stage companies are shifting toward a hybrid structure:

• A core team in-house to manage product, strategy, and communication
• An external team to execute fast, adapt to changing scope, and scale without HR overhead

This approach keeps internal focus sharp while freeing up capacity to move.

So, When Does Outsourcing Make Sense?

According to Kostya, outsourcing works best in three common scenarios:

1. When you need to build fast, but don’t want long-term hiring commitments
2. When you need domain-specific expertise, like logistics, mapping, or real-time location tracking
3. When you're scaling dynamically, and can't afford the lag of sourcing, onboarding, or restructuring

“Founders aren’t looking to outsource everything,” he clarifies. “But they do want partners who can plug in quickly, deliver reliably, and bring their playbook — not just hours.”

It’s Not a Compromise — It’s a Strategy

Outsourcing used to feel like a fallback. Today, it’s often a competitive advantage.

When used intentionally, it helps startups preserve runway, focus internal teams, and hit milestones faster, without overbuilding.

The founders getting it right aren’t chasing the cheapest rates. They’re looking for execution partners who understand product, move fast, and bring proven results.

“The smartest founders I met in the U.S.,” Kostya concludes, “weren’t just saving money. They were building smarter.”