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Ask HN: Where to find co-developers for side projects?

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Ask HN: Where to find co-developers for side projects?

#1

Post by Liberator »

I'm college student, working as a part-time Java developer. During summer I would like to work on a side project, which includes building a webpage from a scratch. It is not a billion dollar startup idea, in fact, it probably won't be profitable at all, I'm doing it only for fun and to learn new things. The thing is, I don't know anything about webdesign except for some basic html and css and I don't want to spend whole summer learning javascript and responsive design, because it would feel more like a chore to me, when it is supposed to be interesting and fun. I'm looking for a front-end developer (Angular/React/...), who would join me and together we would attempt to create something. No rush, no deadlines, no salaries. So the question is:

Is there a place where can I find people looking for something to work on and expecting nothing, but an experience in return?

EDIT: HN won't let me to reply to all comments, because I am "submitting too fast". I just want to clarify - I don't want someone to make whole webpage for me. I just want to do the classical split between backend (I'll do that) and frontend. That's like how it is done in most of the companies.

Re: Ask HN: Where to find co-developers for side projects?

#3

Post by Liberator »

trinifar wrote: post #2

It sounds like you are looking for a friend to code with. Try your local area. Otherwise everyone has their own projects. No one will read what you wrote above and think "Wow, he sounds like a good leader with a solid plan." I could go on and on with suggestions.

I don't think I need to be a good leader for this. What I'm looking for, is a place with bored programmers, where I could present what I want to do and maybe there will be someone who says "this looks fun" and join me. Or is nobody doing software just for fun anymore?. It's a specific topic and I don't want to bother my friends with it, I need someone who will be 100% interested in it.

Re: Ask HN: Where to find co-developers for side projects?

#4

Post by lsiunsuex »

trinifar wrote: post #2

It sounds like you are looking for a friend to code with. Try your local area. Otherwise everyone has their own projects. No one will read what you wrote above and think "Wow, he sounds like a good leader with a solid plan." I could go on and on with suggestions.

Or a mentor. I would be willing to mentor someone, but I don't have the time to do it for them.

Re: Ask HN: Where to find co-developers for side projects?

#5

Post by Cerium »

Forums and IRC channels specific to the domain you would like to work in. I have not done any myself, but I see people teaming up to make domain specific applications quite often.

For example, I am part of a tea channel on IRC. There are two people who have teamed up to make a tea journal app for Android.

Re: Ask HN: Where to find co-developers for side projects?

#8

Post by Frizi »

If you need a frontend developer to realize your idea, become one or change the idea. There are many people who like to code just for fun, but they have plenty of ideas already. In the end time is the most limiting factor for many of us. You have to pick what are you using that time for very carefully.

Re: Ask HN: Where to find co-developers for side projects?

#9

Post by hluska »

Liberator wrote: post #3
trinifar wrote: post #2

It sounds like you are looking for a friend to code with. Try your local area. Otherwise everyone has their own projects. No one will read what you wrote above and think "Wow, he sounds like a good leader with a solid plan." I could go on and on with suggestions.

I don't think I need to be a good leader for this. What I'm looking for, is a place with bored programmers, where I could present what I want to do and maybe there will be someone who says "this looks fun" and join me. Or is nobody doing software just for fun anymore?. It's a specific topic and I don't want to bother my friends with it, I need someone who will be 100% interested in it.

> I don't think I need to be a good leader for this.

> It's a specific topic and I don't want to bother my friends with it, I need someone who will be 100% interested in it.

These two things are mutually exclusive. The kinds of people who you want to work with tend to have ideas of their own, or a multitude of other offers to choose from.

Since your job is to get people excited enough about your idea to build it for free, you need to have some good sales skills. And, if you want to keep them engaged and productive, you'll need to be an amazing leader.

If you pull this off, I suspect that you'll learn as much about leadership as you do about code. Good luck!!

Re: Ask HN: Where to find co-developers for side projects?

#10

Post by treve »

Frizi wrote: post #8

If you need a frontend developer to realize your idea, become one or change the idea. There are many people who like to code just for fun, but they have plenty of ideas already. In the end time is the most limiting factor for many of us. You have to pick what are you using that time for very carefully.

Kinda want to echo this. There's _so many_ projects that I could participate in, yours would have to be a pretty unique one for me to be interested.

But that being said, it's not impossible. The people I've done 'fun, not for profit' projects with tend to be with friends, but I can see myself getting interested if your project has something that scratches a real itch for me ;)

You could also consider finding 'hack nights' in your city. You might find people there looking for projects.

Or you can decide to pay for work.

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