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Why Developers Don't Want to Work on Your Idea (2011)

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Re: Why Developers Don't Want to Work on Your Idea (2011)

#21

Post by mgkimsal »

cs02rm0 wrote: post #14
StavrosK wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, 350 was the low end. When recruiting, we couldn't get any decent people for under 400 (and I mean decent; 350 got us a Web front end developer who didn't know CSS). 400-450 did get us amazingly knowledgeable people, though, so that extra 50 was a small price to pay.

And if you want a reasonable back end developer then, well, even 450 is low end for a Java developer where I am a couple of hours outside London.

Comparison for 'startups' isn't as appropriate, because most startup operations won't be using Java (at least not as a primary platform).

Re: Why Developers Don't Want to Work on Your Idea (2011)

#23

Post by flurdy »

marklit wrote: post #5

Lots of contracts in London are paying £350 a day. £350 / day * 48 working weeks of the year * 5 days a week = £84,000 / year. £55,498.64 in your pocket after tax. Compare this to ~5 - 10 years of working for peanuts in a startup hoping for an exit. Keep your eye on the clients who agree to short payment terms, forget the dreamers.

48 weeks * 5 days a week is really best case scenario.

You have included 4 weeks of holiday, but not sickness, training courses, conferences, company admin, next contract sales and worst of all bench time between contracts.

My calculation are you are down to 45 weeks after 5 weeks holiday and UK bank holidays. Add 5 days for illness, 7 days for courses and conferences, 1 day a month for admin, 3 days every 6 months for sales, and suddenly you are down to 39 weeks. Add at best 2 weeks of bench time as lining up new contracts perfectly is tricky and you are down to 37 weeks.

£350 * 5 * 37 = 64,750 before tax.

Then it is the whole consideration of whether you are within IR35, which basically taxes you more than a normal employee, and is very difficult to not be within if freelancing on longer contracts in the UK.

Then accounting, insurance, hardware costs etc.

You would have to be on some real long term contracts without benchtime, no illness, no training and no expenses to get towards you numbers.

Working in Shoreditch myself I know most of the decent developers with 10 experience around here are earning a lot more than a contract guy would make on £350 per day.

Re: Why Developers Don't Want to Work on Your Idea (2011)

#24

Post by kami8845 »

mgkimsal wrote: post #15
kami8845 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

blah blah blah. Same contracting comparison that gets thrown into seemingly every thread. As an employee you get work guaranteed, as a freelancer you have to work for every hour of work twice (once to get it, once to actually do it). You also have to do your own taxes, basically run your own business, but with only the shitty parts of it (no potential for growth, bureaucracy, scheduling, negotiating your pay all the…

"meet interesting people and learn lots of new stuff. Freelancing is almost never that." Not my experience. Freelancing is what you make of it. To get some experience you may do some boring stuff early on, but if you've got no or little experience your 'startup' will likely fail. 90% of the freelancing work I've done over the last few years has generally been 'learning new stuff' and 'meeting interesting people' in s…

Yes, I agree that freelancing can be fascinating work. I mainly wrote from my own perspective (and since HN was once called "Startup News", I imagine also from that of others), where I do not have the right credentials or connections to get very amazing freelance work. I'm 20 and without a degree. If anything I could maybe get slave-trade $20/hr Odesk work or something, but not considerably better.

Now, since (good) employers often manage to look past a lack of credentials and connections, I was able to get a great job at a YC startup (run by entrepreneurs with past successes/exits). They're taking a chance on me, which almost never happens with freelance work (especially not if there's a dude with 10 years experience competing with you).

And also I would argue that is much easier and quicker to find a good startup (just go down the list of YC companies) than to find amazing freelance work.

Re: Why Developers Don't Want to Work on Your Idea (2011)

#25

Post by jrogers65 »

chrisbennet wrote: post #19

"You'd be crazy to have me work on this for a few months for 50% equity when you could just spend 6-12 months yourself learning to code and doing it yourself and have 100% equity. Of course, if you don't think it is worth spending a few months of your own time why should I take a chance on it?"

6-12 months learning how to code? Good luck building a business on top of software written by a junior-level programmer. Even better luck expanding and scaling it if/when the time comes.

It takes years to reach a reasonable level of competence in software development and on the order of a decade to master it.

The problem with taking people's word on how much work they do when they are involved in marketing and the soft sides of business is that they have a disproportionaly (as compared to tech specialists) large amount of experience in marketing, negotiation and soft skills. Hence, they market themselves and over inflate how important their contribution is. In my experience.

Re: Why Developers Don't Want to Work on Your Idea (2011)

#27

Post by lifeisstillgood »

Maybe I am doing something wrong but I have never been approached by such an idea guy - the last closest was running an insurance brokerage and just got fed up with poor delivery from his current devs yet had a laundry lost of features needed in his site

Maybe if you are getting approached by morons a lot you might want to review where you are hanging out - just there mus be some reason

Re: Why Developers Don't Want to Work on Your Idea (2011)

#29

Post by analog »

kami8845 wrote: post #9
marklit wrote: post #5

Lots of contracts in London are paying £350 a day. £350 / day * 48 working weeks of the year * 5 days a week = £84,000 / year. £55,498.64 in your pocket after tax. Compare this to ~5 - 10 years of working for peanuts in a startup hoping for an exit. Keep your eye on the clients who agree to short payment terms, forget the dreamers.

blah blah blah. Same contracting comparison that gets thrown into seemingly every thread. As an employee you get work guaranteed, as a freelancer you have to work for every hour of work twice (once to get it, once to actually do it). You also have to do your own taxes, basically run your own business, but with only the shitty parts of it (no potential for growth, bureaucracy, scheduling, negotiating your pay all the…

Contracting isn't freelancing though. In my experience contract gigs are pretty easy to find, and you don't have to work that hard to get them. Send off a CV to a few agencies, wait, that's it.

If you're a consultant, spending time establishing thought leadership etc etc then yeah, but you'd be crazy to work for 350 per day in that case.

Re: Why Developers Don't Want to Work on Your Idea (2011)

#30

Post by kristiandupont »

kami8845 wrote: post #9
marklit wrote: post #5

Lots of contracts in London are paying £350 a day. £350 / day * 48 working weeks of the year * 5 days a week = £84,000 / year. £55,498.64 in your pocket after tax. Compare this to ~5 - 10 years of working for peanuts in a startup hoping for an exit. Keep your eye on the clients who agree to short payment terms, forget the dreamers.

blah blah blah. Same contracting comparison that gets thrown into seemingly every thread. As an employee you get work guaranteed, as a freelancer you have to work for every hour of work twice (once to get it, once to actually do it). You also have to do your own taxes, basically run your own business, but with only the shitty parts of it (no potential for growth, bureaucracy, scheduling, negotiating your pay all the…

>as a freelancer you have to work for every hour of work twice

This has not been my experience. I've been doing this for years and I don't think I've ever spent more than two weeks looking for a gig. Even during the current crisis the market is great for developers (here in Denmark at least).

These projects have typically lasted three or four months. That makes me enough money to live off for the rest of the year which I have then spent travelling and working on my own projects.

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