Best Way to Build a Directory Site
I need to develop a service directory of local professionals - with reviews, similar to Yelp. Eventually, I'd like to add a lead capture system to the backend, so that visitors can submit a request for a type of vendor on a particular date, and get "bids" from companies in their area.
I know it will take a lot of work, and I already have a lot of contacts in the particular industry I'm targeting. I have a killer exact match domain name. Where I'm stumbling is how to get started.
In the past, I've wasted a lot of money ordering designs (from 99Designs, etc.) BEFORE having a roadmap or fully conceptualizing the coding of the site. So this time around, I want to make sure the development side is legit before making it look "pretty." But I'm not sure which platform or CMS to use.
Most everyone I've talked to at local tech meetups and the Lean Startup community has advised me to build something from scratch, NOT to rely on Wordpress and 3rd party plugins. They're recommending Ruby, or Django, and that I learn it myself or hire someone. I'm not opposed to that, but I don't have a lot of funds and would like to get something up and running sooner than later.
And there's the minor problem that most "outsource" devs I've worked with aren't that responsive and seem to disappear after a few months.
I definitely do not want to use any of the typical out-of-the-box WP Geo themes that get shopped around. They're fine for other projects, but I'd need to hack it to death to get it to do everything I need, and from what I've read, they're buggy and not that flexible.
I guess my main question is: how do you go about the vetting process of finding the perfect designer and developer? I really want to build this site the RIGHT way, rather than cut corners and do everything in a rush. Any advice is greatly appreciated!
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