OK so I'm doing some more research before putting my foot down and risking my savings. I was hoping you guys that have hired or dealt with having someone else create and manage a site. A quick summary of what I'm getting myself into.

I'm going to be starting my own company (myself and one other, and basically just a $50 business license), I'll be publishing 99% of my product and free open source (not redistributable). I plan on having the majority of the income coming from donations and advertisement. So I don't expect to make much profit the first year if any.

Now on the topic of the site, I'm not the best at web development. I know only the basics of HTML, and very little about CSS and JAVA. I've used Dreamweaver in the past and really liked that because of it wysiwyg ide. but I'm not confident that Id be able to create a decent website and still be able to work on my products at the same time. But I'm not rich and I don't want to put my self too far in the hole without a guarantee that I'll be able to start coming out by the end of the first year.

So for those that have dealt with employing someone to create and run a business website, what is your perspective on the service. For a very small indie group is it worth hiring them, would they really provide something far beyond that an amateur could do on his own?

I have one more option of letting someone else in on the group, but this person has no coding experience. They have made they're own site's using online editors, but they're design abilities aren't what I desire so once again I have to way whether Time or money is more important.

I'm not sure if you would be interested but both of our project goals intersect at some level. I'm working on an open source video game library and have a website which I wrote myself. I know it may be preferable to have someone who you can actually meet in person but I am sure if we can combine our projects this could be a mutually beneficial partnership. Goto the link in my signature for more information about my project. However, be aware that I have not put much of my time into the website since I have been busy polishing my library and trying to write some example projects for it. Also a lot of features on my website are not accessible unless you register an account.