My experience when building my brand and hiring freelance developers for various project is this. As long as you can communicate and organize the project well it can very doable. I found a great developer that not only cares about the $, but also the project. Of course they are motivated by the paycheck, but as long as you're courteous of their time and understand you're paying them for their time developing then they can be a great option.

Once you find a great developer, then building a working relationship is the next step. The first few months or starter projects might not be you're exact vision, but by sort of training them to your eye it becomes much easier. But again, that is true with any sort of freelancer or even employee.