FBC – 210 – What’s the best way to get stuff done by others

What's the best way to get stuff done by others?

Today, we are going to cover one of the most important things you need to do if you want people to do stuff for you. If you forget to do this, just like I did, you are in for a world of trouble.

This very simple tip can preserve you from headaches and high costs.

So working with developers is a skill. You need to acquire the skill. I think I told you that already in a previous podcast. It's not as easy as people think. Creating something like a development is a science. It's an art.

So you need to perfect it. So just be prepared for the fact that the first time you want to develop something, it may be very long and tedious and frustrating because you think that the person doesn't understand what you want to do. OK, so one thing I can tell you is to use some software called Loom. www.loom.com.

This is the best thing there is. I mean, this is the absolute best. The thing I use the most in my business. I record videos and stuff. So if you need to get something developed, what I suggest is you show it visually to the developer. I think I already told you this.

So you will prepare a list of things you want the developer to do. You prepare everything beforehand. So you have your tabs ready and stuff. There is a little bit of preparation. But trust me, if you had to type all that stuff, it will take forever. I have done it in the past. It's a nightmare.

Once I started doing this, the number of back and forth with the developer was divided by a factor of 20. It's crazy. It works because it's visual. The guy can actually see exactly what you want. And it's free!

The way I organize things is this. I will divide the screen into three different sections. So the first is the header. The top of your site if it's a Web site, for example. Even if it's a like an application or something, you'll tell them; here in the header you have this. Bam, bam, bam.

What's the best way to get stuff done by others?

All right. I like this blue just like on this Web site. On this page, you see that blue? That's the blue that I like. I like the menu presented, just like on this Web site. Here's the URL and you can go get it and stuff. So you work in the header section. You give them everything they need.

And then you create another section and you tell them. This is the body of what I want. So the body is basically what's in the middle of the of the Web page. And you do the same thing. I would like to have a video here. I like this video player there. Can you do that? Oh, I like this button. And for the colour, I want that.

And, you know, stuff like that. Do that and it's going to work wonders. And then you do the same thing for the footer.

Right. So honestly, once you've done that, I mean, for the developer, the margin for error is pretty much zero. OK. Because they've seen exactly what you want. Just this year, how many tools did I have developed? I'll say between six and 10, something like that.

All right. Because the developer, you have to pay them, so if they were going in the wrong direction and then all of a sudden you're like No! This is what I meant. Well, it's an additional let's say, spent 10 hours creating whatever he thought was what you wanted. And then next thing you know, he needs another 10 hours to reverse the change. So you just lost money there.

So my aim is to make sure that you don't lose money, you don't lose time. So make sure always when you are developing something and especially for something you already do today manually. And you want to automate it or make it better and scale it and the stuff, show the developer exactly what you're doing.

A screen recording is worth ten pages of written specs. When a developer can see exactly what you mean, in your own environment, with your own words, the margin for misunderstanding drops to almost zero. Loom is free and it is the single biggest productivity upgrade for anyone working with remote developers.

How I get work done by other people without babysitting them

The best way to get stuff done by others is to stop giving tasks and start giving outcomes. Tasks need supervision. Outcomes need trust and a clear finish line. I run 4 companies from Bali across 49 countries, which means I cannot hover, so I had to learn this the hard way.

Here is the system. Define the outcome, hand over the decision, and check the result, not the process. Before a person even enters the picture, I automate everything a machine can handle. I built 1,500+ workflows for clients like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and eBay precisely so humans only touch the parts that need judgment. I explain the exact delegation stack in The Diary of a Virtual CEO and across 578+ episodes of my Freedom by Choice podcast. If you want to automate the boring layer first, Zapier shows the patterns, and McKinsey has research on why clear ownership beats micromanagement every time.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you brief a developer effectively without writing long documents?

Record a short screen recording using a free tool like Loom and walk through exactly what you want. Show the developer your actual screen, point at the elements you are describing, and reference other websites or apps you want to model. Visual briefs eliminate ambiguity in a way that written descriptions simply cannot. The developer sees your actual environment and intent in real time rather than trying to decode text instructions.

Why does using Loom reduce back-and-forth with developers?

Because most revisions happen due to misunderstanding, not incompetence. The developer builds what they imagined you meant, not what you actually meant. A screen recording makes your intent literal and unambiguous. When I switched to Loom briefs, my revision cycles dropped by a factor of 20. The developer sees the exact colors, layouts, interactions, and examples you want. There is very little room for interpretation errors.

How should a non-technical founder structure a development brief?

Divide your brief into three sections: header, body, and footer for web projects, or feature by feature for application work. In each section, walk through exactly what you want and reference examples from other sites or apps where possible. Prepare your browser tabs before you record. Have everything you want to reference already open. The goal is for the developer to be able to work directly from your recording without needing to ask a single clarifying question.

What is the cost of not briefing developers properly?

You pay for the wrong work twice. First when the developer builds something based on a misunderstanding, and second when they have to reverse it and rebuild correctly. If a developer charges by the hour and spends 10 hours going the wrong direction, you just paid for 20 hours of work to get 10 hours of correct output. A 20-minute Loom recording upfront prevents that entirely. The preparation time is always worth it.

About the Author

Martin Ebongue is the founder of martinebongue.com, an online business and lifestyle design blog focused on helping aspiring entrepreneurs build location-independent businesses. Since 2014, he has been creating and scaling online ventures across multiple niches, from digital products and affiliate marketing to SaaS and content platforms, while traveling the world. He shares the real-world strategies, tools, and systems that work, with a particular focus on AI-powered automation for solopreneurs. Follow him on YouTube, X (Twitter), and Instagram.

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