… is right after you’ve made a substantial effort and hit a wall.
If you ask before you’ve made the effort, you risk wasting your help’s time on something truly menial.
If you ask before making a substantial effort, your help might think you’re incompetent, hopeless, or worse – lazy.
This holds true no matter what you’re doing – panhandling or production.
Bonus: rather than asking your help to solve the problem for you, what if you asked them to help you think of solutions you haven’t thought of yet?