Why Developers Don't Want to Work on Your Idea (2011) • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by swombat » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 4:02 PM UTC

kami8845 wrote: post #64

Swizec wrote: post #55

As a guy specialising on developing MVPs for people with ideas, here is the general list of rules I use before taking on a project: 1. Are you willing to pay my normal rate? 2. If so, can you convince me the market is there and you know how to address it. 3. Can you convince me _you_ are the guy who's going to be able to bring it all together? I know that after rule 1 I shouldn't care, but with so many potential proj…

You're ignoring a powerful aspect here: Founders are cash-poor, but equity-rich (almost infinitely so). I don't know whether you have enough money to cover your costs (I assume so, you sound quite successful), but I think it would be interesting to seek out promising founders and take a little bit of equity, instead of another "bunch of money"(tm). That increase in money is not going to significantly change your life…

Only newbie founders are equity rich.

Smart, experienced founders would rather spend money than equity on anything other than a top quality cofounder.

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

#72

Post by Swizec » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 4:11 PM UTC

kami8845 wrote: post #64

Swizec wrote: post #55

As a guy specialising on developing MVPs for people with ideas, here is the general list of rules I use before taking on a project: 1. Are you willing to pay my normal rate? 2. If so, can you convince me the market is there and you know how to address it. 3. Can you convince me _you_ are the guy who's going to be able to bring it all together? I know that after rule 1 I shouldn't care, but with so many potential proj…

You're ignoring a powerful aspect here: Founders are cash-poor, but equity-rich (almost infinitely so). I don't know whether you have enough money to cover your costs (I assume so, you sound quite successful), but I think it would be interesting to seek out promising founders and take a little bit of equity, instead of another "bunch of money"(tm). That increase in money is not going to significantly change your life…

This is where my other rule comes in: "I am either a freelancer or a cofounder".

To be your cofounder you must also convince me that this project is something I want to spend the next several years of my life on and it must be great enough to convince me to drop other projects and start working on this full time. I don't believe in part-time cofounders, that way lies burnout and failed projects.

And despite all that, equity still isn't tasty so I will need to earn at least some of my normal rate anyway.

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

#73

Post by Swizec » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 4:13 PM UTC

lprubin wrote: post #70

Swizec wrote: post #55

As a guy specialising on developing MVPs for people with ideas, here is the general list of rules I use before taking on a project: 1. Are you willing to pay my normal rate? 2. If so, can you convince me the market is there and you know how to address it. 3. Can you convince me _you_ are the guy who's going to be able to bring it all together? I know that after rule 1 I shouldn't care, but with so many potential proj…

The other reason to choose projects that appear to have a decent chance of success is that the longer the project goes, the more work you'll have without having to go through the hassle of finding a new client, vetting their idea, doing the contract back and forth, doing the negotiating, and establishing a good working relationship. There is also the excellent resume and street cred of working on a successful startup…

Yes, that too. Funding out of pocket only goes so far, eventually there needs to be some sort of traction by either making sales or being able to attract investment. Without that, I might be out of a client sooner rather than later.

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

#74

Post by badatmath » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 4:15 PM UTC

benjamincburns wrote: post #67

badatmath wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Novice with 7 months of learning here. Quit my strategy consulting job to focus full time on learning to code, and am currently working on this project, built in Rails, on Heroku (it's all in Japanese, but the concept is similar to Hacker News/Reddit) http://www.daidake.com Is this a bad idea? Would like to hear your thoughts. I have to admit I do feel like I'm in a little bit over my head, in that once/if I start ge…

I don't think it's a terribly bad idea. As someone said above, doing at least some of the technical legwork yourself will buy you a ton of credibility with experienced programmers when you go to hire. It often becomes somewhat insulting to developers when he/she has to argue schedule with someone with no experience. Often the client thinks it should X should take Y long, and you're telling them that X might not even…

> you're either stupid or you really do believe in your business.

haha, I'll refrain from trying to answer that for now ;) You're right in that by far the most challenging part of the learning so far was the first day, and trying to get rails working on a Windows PC. For a person with no technical background, it takes a huge amount of persistence or stupidity to get past that stage.

I actually learned to program so that I'd be in the position to build my own MVCs. The idea came to me as I was learning.

I don't have a lot of money, so I figured the only way to win over a good developer was with credibility (an actual product that at least somewhat works and has some traction).

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

#75

Post by gesman » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 4:15 PM UTC

The client who tries to give his own clueless estimate of complexity of the job - automatically gets into no-reply/spam list:

"...and i think it's not that complicated"

"...it shouldn't take more than ... to complete"

"...Joe Blow said it's simple and let's assume that"

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

#76

Post by badatmath » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 4:17 PM UTC

jrogers65 wrote: post #68

badatmath wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. Really appreciate the feedback. It's so tempting to keep build quick and sloppy, but I know I need to be more diligent with testing and documenting. I'm setting a relatively low target number of users to acquire just to make sure this idea has a chance, before bringing on a developer. Very broad question, but how does one find an experienced developer? I live in New York, but have zero tech connections.

> It's so tempting to keep build quick and sloppy That's normal when you're starting out. The only reason more experienced developers do not give into this impulse is because they've learned of the consequences through painful experience. I would recommend looking at the people who contribute to Rails, Ruby and related projects on Github. The core developers will be far too expensive but people who throw some code ou…

Thanks for the info. Very helpful. Will check out those sources!

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

#77

Post by badatmath » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 4:21 PM UTC

Swizec wrote: post #72

kami8845 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're ignoring a powerful aspect here: Founders are cash-poor, but equity-rich (almost infinitely so). I don't know whether you have enough money to cover your costs (I assume so, you sound quite successful), but I think it would be interesting to seek out promising founders and take a little bit of equity, instead of another "bunch of money"(tm). That increase in money is not going to significantly change your life…

This is where my other rule comes in: "I am either a freelancer or a cofounder". To be your cofounder you must also convince me that this project is something I want to spend the next several years of my life on and it must be great enough to convince me to drop other projects and start working on this full time. I don't believe in part-time cofounders, that way lies burnout and failed projects. And despite all that,…

Would you ever consider being a cofounder before the MVC is built?

I guess you're saying that you'll only build MVCs for cash, but then will consider joining as a cofounder afterward if the project looks promising and you can work out a fair equity agreement?

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

#78

Post by invalidOrTaken » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 4:38 PM UTC

badatmath wrote: post #76

jrogers65 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's so tempting to keep build quick and sloppy That's normal when you're starting out. The only reason more experienced developers do not give into this impulse is because they've learned of the consequences through painful experience. I would recommend looking at the people who contribute to Rails, Ruby and related projects on Github. The core developers will be far too expensive but people who throw some code ou…

Thanks for the info. Very helpful. Will check out those sources!

Re: where to find experienced developers with no tech connections, that's not really a problem. Here's why: It's similar to a man asking, "Hey, know any models I can date?"

Actually, beautiful women are hardly rare. But it's the qualifier that's important: "models I can date??"

Good developers might be rare, but they're not hard to find. They are, however, hard to woo. You know the drill on how to woo them, it's just inconvenient/hard/expensive. But at least it's pretty well laid out.

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

#79

Post by Swizec » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 4:54 PM UTC

badatmath wrote: post #77

Swizec wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where my other rule comes in: "I am either a freelancer or a cofounder". To be your cofounder you must also convince me that this project is something I want to spend the next several years of my life on and it must be great enough to convince me to drop other projects and start working on this full time. I don't believe in part-time cofounders, that way lies burnout and failed projects. And despite all that,…

Would you ever consider being a cofounder before the MVC is built? I guess you're saying that you'll only build MVCs for cash, but then will consider joining as a cofounder afterward if the project looks promising and you can work out a fair equity agreement?

I guess it depends. I usually have enough of my own pre-MVP projects that would love some attention and often some that are MVP's and would also require attention.

But building a MVP together before jumping into a full blown partnership is also rather important in terms of finding whether there's a general fit in working together, you're actually able to deliver on the non-technical aspects of the project and so on ... MVP's are also incredibly good at confirming assumptions about the market.

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

#80

Post by pknerd » Sat, Jan 19, 2013, 5:00 PM UTC

So true! Almost every week an entrepreneur contacts me and wants me to come his Next Big Idea and that on equity basis. I usually ask: If it's such an awesome idea then why doesn't he get funding and pay to developers. Usually they have no answer.