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The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

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Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#111

Post by ihunter2839 »

nooron wrote: post #44

I started a company that was asked to write a proposal to make what became the app that failed last night. I declined because it was outside of our core skillset. You can read my prior comments or look at my profile to validate this. If you want my perspective as someone who started a Democratic software company, you should keep reading. This app emerged from a mandate to make the caucus more accessible and transpare…

Can you comment on whether the proposal was part of the the SBIR / STTR program? Just curious as to the scope of companies that were participants in the proposal process.

As an aside - these instances of underfunded and underdeveloped services, specifically in the political sphere, are really painful reminders of the flip side to the idealistic technocratic future that I think a lot of folks around here assume to be an inevitability.

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#112

Post by Benjammer »

nooron wrote: post #44

I started a company that was asked to write a proposal to make what became the app that failed last night. I declined because it was outside of our core skillset. You can read my prior comments or look at my profile to validate this. If you want my perspective as someone who started a Democratic software company, you should keep reading. This app emerged from a mandate to make the caucus more accessible and transpare…

Why is any sort of "Democratic software company" even remotely necessary? Why can't they pay for white-labeled solutions? Or pay an established consulting agency to build things?

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#113

Post by pastor_elm »

war1025 wrote: post #59
nooron wrote: post #44

I started a company that was asked to write a proposal to make what became the app that failed last night. I declined because it was outside of our core skillset. You can read my prior comments or look at my profile to validate this. If you want my perspective as someone who started a Democratic software company, you should keep reading. This app emerged from a mandate to make the caucus more accessible and transpare…

I don't know whether I heard correctly or if the number was accurate, but I heard someone throw out $60k as the amount paid for the app development this morning on the radio. That sounds like a lot of money to a lay-person, but assuming $100/hr, which seems like at least a reasonable ballpark rate, that breaks down to 600 man-hours, or 15 man-weeks. That is a very tight deadline to turn out a critical app like this.…

A simple RESTful mobile-friendly web page could have handled this easy. What were these people thinking?

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#114

Post by tptacek »

wenbin wrote: post #110
war1025 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know whether I heard correctly or if the number was accurate, but I heard someone throw out $60k as the amount paid for the app development this morning on the radio. That sounds like a lot of money to a lay-person, but assuming $100/hr, which seems like at least a reasonable ballpark rate, that breaks down to 600 man-hours, or 15 man-weeks. That is a very tight deadline to turn out a critical app like this.…

The two founders of Instagram spent $65k (out of $500k they raised) to launch the very first version of Instagram in 2010 [1]. [1] https://lnns.co/8zhgtOF0YCo

Because they weren't seriously paying themselves. Nobody builds an Iowa Caucus app in the hopes of selling to a big tech company for billions of dollars.

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#115

Post by corporateslave5 »

3uclid wrote: post #107
sct202 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CTO is a former Googler SWE.

Nice -- they market the company as "made by former Google and Apple engineers", but built the product with...an intern? Lmao.

Haha! Guaranteed that was the pitch somewhere

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#116

Post by stormbrew »

wenbin wrote: post #110
war1025 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know whether I heard correctly or if the number was accurate, but I heard someone throw out $60k as the amount paid for the app development this morning on the radio. That sounds like a lot of money to a lay-person, but assuming $100/hr, which seems like at least a reasonable ballpark rate, that breaks down to 600 man-hours, or 15 man-weeks. That is a very tight deadline to turn out a critical app like this.…

The two founders of Instagram spent $65k (out of $500k they raised) to launch the very first version of Instagram in 2010 [1]. [1] https://lnns.co/8zhgtOF0YCo

How many unpaid hours did they put in? How much stock did they give to people who also put unpaid hours in? Never mind that they could launch, fix, release, fix release, etc...

A venture with a long development tail after release is absurdly different from this. They had to get it right the first (and only) time, and no one is anticipating even a one in a million chance of getting rich off it.

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#117

Post by steve76 »

robomartin wrote: post #95
nooron wrote: post #44

I started a company that was asked to write a proposal to make what became the app that failed last night. I declined because it was outside of our core skillset. You can read my prior comments or look at my profile to validate this. If you want my perspective as someone who started a Democratic software company, you should keep reading. This app emerged from a mandate to make the caucus more accessible and transpare…

Please educate me on something. I fail to understand why "making custom software for " is something anyone would want to do in the context of owning and growing a real business. This seems fraught with all kinds of issues. First of all (and it seems I've been using this word a lot lately) this turns software development into a religion rather than a business with solid business strategy. The equivalent in other busin…

Check out job shop production system. There's talent there. Usually it's one guy who left the corporate world. Work a few days, when you need it, and then don't. Build what you want to see built. Only work for owners who share your vision. Work when it's in your interest. Don't work when it isn't.

I've found with big projects, it always comes down to the crunch. Hundreds of details that the mind just overlooks which your customers don't.

So products always get customized, and job shops always tend to have a product under the surface.

--- --- ---

Don't fret about this, devs. ACA got laughed at during launch. Now medical services are fundamentally transformed on their way to incremental development. This is how things get built. I saw it in the 80s, the decade they laughed at us, and then the 90s they loved us and everyone cashed in big.

I want to see production in the waiting room, and a mobile healthcare imaging pulling up at the curb. I'm waiting for the Today show to start talking TypeScript.

Oh boy, could I make our market sing.

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#118

Post by marrone12 »

oblib wrote: post #6

I think the author's take on this is a bit heavy with hyperbole, but there's no doubt Iowa was a mess last night. My son was there working as volunteer, and so was his ex-girlfriend, who's still a close family friend. I was chatting with them both throughout the evening and into the wee hours this morning. They worked different locations in the Des Moines metro area and the results they reported to me were pretty clo…

In what way is a sql db a poor choice for this? You do know that there are tens of thousands of businesses that run strictly on postgres/mysql with more throughput than that?

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#119

Post by flukus »

war1025 wrote: post #59
nooron wrote: post #44

I started a company that was asked to write a proposal to make what became the app that failed last night. I declined because it was outside of our core skillset. You can read my prior comments or look at my profile to validate this. If you want my perspective as someone who started a Democratic software company, you should keep reading. This app emerged from a mandate to make the caucus more accessible and transpare…

I don't know whether I heard correctly or if the number was accurate, but I heard someone throw out $60k as the amount paid for the app development this morning on the radio. That sounds like a lot of money to a lay-person, but assuming $100/hr, which seems like at least a reasonable ballpark rate, that breaks down to 600 man-hours, or 15 man-weeks. That is a very tight deadline to turn out a critical app like this.…

I guess the question is why does it have to be an app? If you've got a tight budget and deadline why add all that complexity when some cgi scripts will do and may even be overkill? It looks like it's just running a webview or something anyway.

Re: The Shadow Inc. app that failed in Iowa last night

#120

Post by war1025 »

pastor_elm wrote: post #113
war1025 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know whether I heard correctly or if the number was accurate, but I heard someone throw out $60k as the amount paid for the app development this morning on the radio. That sounds like a lot of money to a lay-person, but assuming $100/hr, which seems like at least a reasonable ballpark rate, that breaks down to 600 man-hours, or 15 man-weeks. That is a very tight deadline to turn out a critical app like this.…

A simple RESTful mobile-friendly web page could have handled this easy. What were these people thinking?

I think that realization is something that comes with experience, and I'm guessing these people had very little real experience.
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