Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

swombat.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 114 posts

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

#101

Post by dvo »

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…

Out of curiosity, why do you specialize in developing MVPs for people with ideas, and how did you get into that type of work as a primary focus? Do you find that the work is more interesting than doing consulting jobs for more established businesses? Assuming you've found plenty of projects that meet your rules, do you have opportunities to become a co-founder, and have you considered them seriously?

I've done consulting, startups, and free work on side projects. At this point, if I find people and projects that meet my requirements, I'd probably prefer to become a co-founder and make a real go of it. I don't think I've ever taken a small amount of equity as compensation for substantial unpaid development work. Under those circumstances, equity is not tasty. I'd rather do well-paid consulting work or find a great team and go all in.

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

#102

Post by Swizec »

bbwharris wrote: post #86
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…

Having done this type of consulting myself, I could never work around the maintenance issue. You likely setup the entire system so if something goes wrong, whether its you're fault or not, you're on the line. It's all about reputation. And if you tarnish that by leaving a paid client behind when their server catches on fire, it will be remembered negatively. It's hard to do this type of contract work continuously. Yo…

In my opinion the correct response to maintenance requests is "Here is my daily rate".

The other correct response is "We can agree on a monthly retainer of X days for maintenance."

I try to avoid fixed cost projects, especially in early stages when specs are likely to be very fluid.

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

#103

Post by Swizec »

dvo wrote: post #101
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…

Out of curiosity, why do you specialize in developing MVPs for people with ideas, and how did you get into that type of work as a primary focus? Do you find that the work is more interesting than doing consulting jobs for more established businesses? Assuming you've found plenty of projects that meet your rules, do you have opportunities to become a co-founder, and have you considered them seriously? I've done consul…

I actually also fix MVPs when they start breaking :)

Honestly, I just find working with startups and small companies in general to be more interesting, even though there is usually slightly less money involved. I got into this type of work by hanging around Hacker News and writing blogposts aimed at a hackerpreneur auidence.

It's amazing how many great projects you can attract if your writing is half decent and you have a good idea once in a blue moon.

As for jumping full in, yeah I'd love to eventually, but I've learned to be cautious and cover my bases first. Maybe when I have money saved up so I don't have to earn anything for months on end. Being young has its disadvantages.

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

#104

Post by rgbrenner »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #35
jrogers65 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

Yeah, pretty sure I take offense at the idea that my skills are equivalent to 6 months of crash education by a novice.

you're too easily offended. He only needs to learn enough to implement one idea: his own.

Are you saying you are only capable of implementing one idea? Then maybe you should work on that, instead of taking offense at other people learning something new.

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

#105

Post by ucee054 »

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…

Also who gives a fuck about money above 50k GBP?

Someone with 2 children in private school.

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

#106

Post by freework »

jrogers65 wrote: post #51
RossM wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. You're absolutely right that this isn't scalable, but if you're just looking to validate your idea why shouldn't an app made by someone with a few months of experience suffice? Once you've proven there's value in the idea with the prototype, I imagine it'd be a lot…

Yes and no. The problem is that most of the time the train of thought goes something like: * we already have a working product * we might aswell just add the features and visual polish we need and then launch as soon as possible * we have too much work to do to rewrite it * we can't refactor effectively because automated tests are mostly missing This results in the project becoming increasingly burdened with technica…

I just got off a short contract where this exact thing happened. The company had a MVP they were using that was made by the founders. They were obviously young and inexperienced. The code was awful to say the least. I told them straight up it would be best to just throw all this code away and start again from scratch. Its best to do it now while the company is young, rather than much later. They were neck deep in technical debt.

They claimed it would take "a really long time" to rewrite everything. I can understand a junior developer thinking that (it apparently took them 2 years to create the code they were using at that point). But using good engineering practices, building a site that did what they needed could have been done within a few weeks using Django and MySQL. Its really hard to make this point stick when you're dealing with developers in that "sophomore zone" of programming ability.

Needless to say, they told me "no way jose". I ended it with them right then and there. I can't tell you how many times I've seen that happen.

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

#107

Post by aaronblohowiak »

caseysoftware wrote: post #97
jrogers65 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

Acknowledging that most people won't be a very useful developer at that stage, I always propose a different approach.. I tell the person to sketch out the how a user moves through the app, what they can do where, and how it should work. I even tell them to sketch out something basic with powerpoint. If they make it through those stages, it does two things: First, it demonstrates that they're relatively serious about…

First thing I tell people who ask "how would I get started?" 1) talk to people you think might want to use what you have in mind and see what they think and 2) build it on paper, because no matter who ends up building it, your ability to clearly express what you want in a very literal way is going to be key to getting what you want.

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

#108

Post by dtkuhn »

Swizec wrote: post #103
dvo wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, why do you specialize in developing MVPs for people with ideas, and how did you get into that type of work as a primary focus? Do you find that the work is more interesting than doing consulting jobs for more established businesses? Assuming you've found plenty of projects that meet your rules, do you have opportunities to become a co-founder, and have you considered them seriously? I've done consul…

I actually also fix MVPs when they start breaking :) Honestly, I just find working with startups and small companies in general to be more interesting, even though there is usually slightly less money involved. I got into this type of work by hanging around Hacker News and writing blogposts aimed at a hackerpreneur auidence. It's amazing how many great projects you can attract if your writing is half decent and you h…

I'm curious as to why the conversation about compensation for work done for "non-technical" upstarts is almost always framed as a binary "payment in equity vs cash" issue. Seems like there would be a huge market for MVP development by developers with a hybrid compensation model. (Maybe this is already common?)

For instance, a developer could quote Price X to non-technical co-founders to develop a simple, proof-of-concept MVP with an agreement to would receive Equity Y upon completion if the developer either (1) stays on for Period P or (2) helps the founders successfully land a more suitable, long-term developer to take over the project. The parties could even agree that Equity Y would be larger (e.g. 2Y) if the developer stays on.

Benefits to the non-technical co-founders would be (a) a proof-of-concept (or failure), (b) alignment of incentives with a developer to try hard, and (c) access to an insider to help find a permanent developer upon completion of the MVP if the MVP developer wants to exit (e.g. for a better opportunity).

The benefit to the developer would be (i) guaranteed fees, (ii) potential for equity (even if he exists) and (iii) flexibility.

More, a subsequent developer would have the chance to deal with someone who speaks his own language in the negotiation with the non-technical cofounders, and could avoid and annoying and/or exhausting translation of technical details.

An obvious objection may just be that non-technical co-founders never have money to pay for an MVP. I am far from an expert, but I would think that some do.

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

#109

Post by rwaliany »

I thought I’d weigh in my opinion as a developer-entrepreneur who has worked with various business and technical co-founders.

I wrote a post covering 'Business Product Responsibilities' with a graph here: http://simplyryan.com/2013/01/19/business-product-responsibi....

I have found that I don't want to work with non-technical founders because they often don't take ownership of their responsibilities.

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

#110

Post by Swizec »

dtkuhn wrote: post #108
Swizec wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually also fix MVPs when they start breaking :) Honestly, I just find working with startups and small companies in general to be more interesting, even though there is usually slightly less money involved. I got into this type of work by hanging around Hacker News and writing blogposts aimed at a hackerpreneur auidence. It's amazing how many great projects you can attract if your writing is half decent and you h…

I'm curious as to why the conversation about compensation for work done for "non-technical" upstarts is almost always framed as a binary "payment in equity vs cash" issue. Seems like there would be a huge market for MVP development by developers with a hybrid compensation model. (Maybe this is already common?) For instance, a developer could quote Price X to non-technical co-founders to develop a simple, proof-of-con…

What you're describing is called vesting and is hopefully used by anybody doling out equity of their company.

The options for a developer in today's marketplace are such:

1. Technical founders who can offer equity only

2. Technical founders who can offer equity and money

3. Technical founders who can offer money only.

4. Non-technical founders who can offer equity only.

5. Non-technical founders who can offer equity and money.

6. Non-technical founders who can offer money only.

In either type of founder, the best option for a developer is equity+money, if they can afford a full-time commitment.

If the founder can only offer equity, this raises the stakes significantly and is a problem. Especially if the founder has overlapping skills with the developer. But the overlap of skills also breeds a certain camaraderie that is not to be ignored.

If the founder can only offer money, that makes it a clean [probably ongoing] contracting job with the flexibility to work on separate projects and whatnot.

The real problem with equity+money is that you are roped in full-time and tied down for an extended period of time. The reason I personally got into freelancing instead of having a normal job is that it gives me the freedom to change projects frequently - every couple of months. I advance quicker as a developer, grow my network quicker and my life is more interesting.

Knowing that I will spend the next 2 years working on a specific project is a very big commitment indeed and I want to be damn sure it's something I am extremely passionate about. (hint: this is usually reserved for my own ideas)

Perhaps it's just a sign of the times that I am happy taking on clients with no more than a few months' commitment and be certain that my bandwidth will always be filled to the brim for the foreseeable future anyway. In fact I am strongly thinking about expanding myself into a small team just to keep up with demand.

PS: there's also likely a bunch of legal and tax hassle in having my consulting company or myself be part owner of a bunch of other companies.

Post reply on HN