I’ve spent the last few years deeply embedded in Web3: running operations, building products, and pitching to VCs. Here's how i pick a dev team:

The single biggest operational risk for early-stage founders remains hiring traditional hourly dev shops. Before partnering with any external dev team, I've learned to run them through this 5-point evaluation framework:

The 5-Point Evaluation (co-founder approved)

1. Quality of Questions

If a team asks zero questions, it’s an immediate red flag. It's impossible to deeply understand a project without asking anything. But quality matters. Weak devs ask easily googled questions about basic blockchain mechanics. Strong engineers ask highly specific questions focused entirely on your business logic, edge cases, and tokenomics.

2. Proposing Solutions, Not Problems (obvious one)