Gigster (YC S15) Does The Dev Work To Turn Your Idea Into An App • Hacker News Board

Re: Gigster (YC S15) Does The Dev Work To Turn Your Idea Into An App

#81

Post by exelius » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 9:12 PM UTC

shenanigoat wrote: post #76

What's up with Techcrunch? Is this article an advertisement? It seems like an advertorial, though a lot of TC seems like that these days. Is this the writer's friends company?

Every article about every startup you read is an advertisement. I'm not even joking; you pay a PR firm to seed articles at news sites. The writer is probably friends with the PR person who feeds them stories and likely a placement fee that gets shared with TC. If you think any positive story you read about any company isn't paid for, then you haven't been involved with media in any way.

Re: Gigster (YC S15) Does The Dev Work To Turn Your Idea Into An App

#82

Post by angersock » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 9:15 PM UTC

rogerdickey wrote: post #18

albertyw wrote: post #6

"If the project is behind schedule, Gigster just assigns more developers to it or fires under-performing ones so it gets done on time." - Somebody hasn't read Mythical Man-Month.

It's not linear but the math works out - managed right, and up to a point, projects get faster with more people. The management part is hard but that's where our platform comes in.

9 mothers don't produce a baby in 1 month.

Re: Gigster (YC S15) Does The Dev Work To Turn Your Idea Into An App

#83

Post by eonw » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 9:24 PM UTC

garethsprice wrote: post #74

Very interesting that a well-marketed agency/service biz got VC funding to the tune of $2.5m. Service businesses are notoriously hard to scale and run on thin margins, not usually of interest to SV investors chasing 10x'ers. What's the secret sauce here that makes it more scalable than the traditional agency/dev shop model?

maybe investors get discounts on services?

Re: Gigster (YC S15) Does The Dev Work To Turn Your Idea Into An App

#84

Post by markkanof » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 9:26 PM UTC

garethsprice wrote: post #74

Very interesting that a well-marketed agency/service biz got VC funding to the tune of $2.5m. Service businesses are notoriously hard to scale and run on thin margins, not usually of interest to SV investors chasing 10x'ers. What's the secret sauce here that makes it more scalable than the traditional agency/dev shop model?

I was wondering the exact same thing. The reality of an agency model is that to scale revenue you have to hire more worker bees. As part of that process two things happen. One, logistics become more complicated because of the additional communication overhead between people. Two, standards have to be lowered for new hires, otherwise they will quickly run out of people to hire. So even assuming that they currently have a few great product managers (and project managers) that are able to ensure projects are completed on time and to the customers satisfaction, the idea that all the skills involved could be boiled down to a simple algorithm or toolkit (to allow for massive scaling) seems all but impossible. I just don't believe that these folks have figured something out that every other agency in the world has not.

Re: Gigster (YC S15) Does The Dev Work To Turn Your Idea Into An App

#85

Post by bdcravens » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 9:35 PM UTC

Am I the only one that reduced the article's credibility the moment I saw the poster from Hackers used as the lead-in image?

Re: Gigster (YC S15) Does The Dev Work To Turn Your Idea Into An App

#86

Post by woah » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 9:38 PM UTC

zschuessler wrote: post #38

First, I'll say it's a cool idea and the website interface is well done on the backend. It looks as if they have created a great means of managing a project. Speaking with their support staff was concerning, however. I asked rudimentary questions about how projects are handled that is not covered in their documentation. The staff member I spoke with became increasingly curt and bluntly asked if I wanted to proceed wi…

Curious: what did you ask?

Re: Gigster (YC S15) Does The Dev Work To Turn Your Idea Into An App

#87

Post by ryandrake » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 9:39 PM UTC

This would be great for porting already-done and well-defined stuff to oddball platforms that you don't have in-house experience with and are not comfortable vetting talent in that particular platform. "We're primarily an iOS company, here's our existing app, here's what it looks like, how every interface behaves, the backend services it hits, etc. Now just do exactly this, but on Windows Phone." I don't know if I'd have the guts to use it for "I've got nothing but an idea--make me an app from nothing!"

Re: Gigster (YC S15) Does The Dev Work To Turn Your Idea Into An App

#88

Post by WalterSear » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 9:39 PM UTC

rogerdickey wrote: post #36

cool-RR wrote: post #15

Not really seeing how this is anything more than a fancy outsourcing company. Yes, they can say "We're different because we have the best developers," but really, lots of outsourcing companies say that.

A few other differences - you don't interface with developers, price is guaranteed, costs are lower because dev talent isn't in house (no holding cost).

That's a ridiculously trite response.

Re: Gigster (YC S15) Does The Dev Work To Turn Your Idea Into An App

#89

Post by 727374 » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 9:41 PM UTC

boomshucka wrote: post #67

rogerdickey wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha thanks! Submit a sample project if you want to see how it works.

I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic... It is pretty absurd to think you are going to get your head around the requirements for a project and come up with a good estimate in 10 minutes. It suggests naivety or dishonesty. You choose.

Half sarcastic, maybe. But, genuinely curious about how they are managing the risk around scoping/estimation. Perhaps using overly conservative estimates or else assuming that on average their estimates will be close. Or maybe those Google/MIT engineers are magical.

Re: Gigster (YC S15) Does The Dev Work To Turn Your Idea Into An App

#90

Post by vadym909 » Wed, Jul 22, 2015, 9:42 PM UTC

Its so hard to believe that the end goal is to be a curated oDesk- which essentially makes it even worse than a online labor marketplace- a services business of which there are 100,000+ in the world. What would be the differentiator?

The idea isn't new and there have been startups like GroupTalent, Crew and TopTal that have tried/are trying this and many others in various different verticals.

I'm wondering if the A list angels and VCs are privy to some deeper plan about what this intends to become long-term.