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

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

#181

Post by exelius »

harpc29 wrote: post #139
exelius wrote: post #71

Just because you hide a software consulting shop behind an app doesn't mean you can change the fundamental difficulties with software consulting. I wish Gigster luck, but ultimately this approach isn't much different from what many offshore dev shops do today. I can get a quote in under an hour from a half dozen places today; but it doesn't mean it will be accurate or what I want.

Wait, isn't Roger Dickey an investor in Toptal? I certainly read or heard this somewhere. That would be pretty odd (and unethical) if he is an investor in Toptal creating what seems to be a direct competitor. It's actually on his LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerdickey "Investments: Docker, Toptal, Addepar, Classdojo, OpenGov, Wanelo, Vulcun, iCracked, Facebook (2nd market)"

Actually I don't think these guys are really a competitor to Toptal. They're a competitor to the guys that Toptal was trying to under-cut by allowing you to bypass the overhead of a more full-featured development shop (project managers, etc).

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

#182

Post by joehilton »

exelius wrote: post #181
harpc29 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, isn't Roger Dickey an investor in Toptal? I certainly read or heard this somewhere. That would be pretty odd (and unethical) if he is an investor in Toptal creating what seems to be a direct competitor. It's actually on his LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rogerdickey "Investments: Docker, Toptal, Addepar, Classdojo, OpenGov, Wanelo, Vulcun, iCracked, Facebook (2nd market)"

Actually I don't think these guys are really a competitor to Toptal. They're a competitor to the guys that Toptal was trying to under-cut by allowing you to bypass the overhead of a more full-featured development shop (project managers, etc).

I agree that they're not a competitor, but they are highly complementary. It could be that the sourcing that makes this model possible is taken straight from Toptal (and if so, great way to capitalize).

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

#183

Post by joehilton »

justonepost wrote: post #80
exelius wrote: post #71

Just because you hide a software consulting shop behind an app doesn't mean you can change the fundamental difficulties with software consulting. I wish Gigster luck, but ultimately this approach isn't much different from what many offshore dev shops do today. I can get a quote in under an hour from a half dozen places today; but it doesn't mean it will be accurate or what I want.

This. Nothing has changed from going to upwork or freelancer or whatever, except rather than many bidders to chose from you just have one.

The thing that has potentially changed (if they can really pull it off) is the ability to get a reliable quote for any particular project in a few minutes. Any technical manager can duplicate the process of building out a project plan and lining up the cheap resources to get it done (and recruiting from schools or whatever), but being able to scope a project reliably, let alone estimate its cost, basically on the fly is a real challenge. If they've actually solved that, then this is awesome. If not, then it's probably just the same as paying someone to use ODesk (or Upwork or whatever they call it now) for you.

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

#184

Post by jqm »

boomshucka wrote: post #180
jqm wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think estimating will be that much of a problem if the right formula is used. Is this straightforward and the team a has done stuff like this before (most cases)... apply the component formula and add the markup. Is it hairy with lots of unknowns? 1.2 million dollars.

No disrespect meant, but no one with any real software development experience would suggest that a quick formula can be used to estimate the cost/time to develop a given project. Very experienced people spend lots of time up front trying to estimate cost/time and are usually not very close.

Agreed. Re-read my comment?

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

#185

Post by boomshucka »

jqm wrote: post #184
boomshucka wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No disrespect meant, but no one with any real software development experience would suggest that a quick formula can be used to estimate the cost/time to develop a given project. Very experienced people spend lots of time up front trying to estimate cost/time and are usually not very close.

Agreed. Re-read my comment?

"Is this straightforward" can't be figured in 10 minutes for the vast majority of projects. And if you are outsourcing to devs, "has the team done stuff like this" is going to take some time too. 10 minutes simply isn't enough time. Would you have the same thought about 1 minute? 5 minutes? At what point do you say "no, that isn't enough time?". I'll take a few hours as enough time for some reasonably small but not trivial number of projects as a %.

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

#186

Post by exelius »

joehilton wrote: post #183
justonepost wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Nothing has changed from going to upwork or freelancer or whatever, except rather than many bidders to chose from you just have one.

The thing that has potentially changed (if they can really pull it off) is the ability to get a reliable quote for any particular project in a few minutes. Any technical manager can duplicate the process of building out a project plan and lining up the cheap resources to get it done (and recruiting from schools or whatever), but being able to scope a project reliably, let alone estimate its cost, basically on the fly…

If they can do that, then they have found a magic bullet for one of the biggest problems in software development. I have a suspicion that's the real problem they're trying to solve, so they're "doing things that don't scale" to try to engineer a platform that solves for that problem. That's the only way VCs would throw money at a business model like this.

I wish them luck, but I just think there are too many variables that getting a large enough sample size would bankrupt them before they approach a workable solution.

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

#187

Post by ffumarola »

rogerdickey wrote: post #21
727374 wrote: post #13

First, brilliant idea. Second, 10-minute guaranteed quote? Would you share with me this amazing estimate technology? I've been at it for 10+ years, having helped build a popular website from the ground up and can't estimate the dev time of project with that kind of conviction given 10 hours.

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

I tried. Radio silence.

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

#188

Post by Hengjie »

So going to https://app.trygigster.com/new

Gives me Heroku's application error message. I guess they should have used their own Gigsters:

Application Error An error occurred in the application and your page could not be served. Please try again in a few moments.

If you are the application owner, check your logs for details.

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

#189

Post by IdahoEv »

boomshucka wrote: post #185
jqm wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Re-read my comment?

"Is this straightforward" can't be figured in 10 minutes for the vast majority of projects. And if you are outsourcing to devs, "has the team done stuff like this" is going to take some time too. 10 minutes simply isn't enough time. Would you have the same thought about 1 minute? 5 minutes? At what point do you say "no, that isn't enough time?". I'll take a few hours as enough time for some reasonably small but not t…

I've built or managed the teams that built over 50 software projects, ranging from small up to about half a million dollars.

With all that experience, my estimate process is now extremely honed. It takes me, quite consistently, 4 to 8 hours for a typical web startup MVP. And that's assuming I can build the product completely with technologies my team has used before.

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

#190

Post by IdahoEv »

What I really want to see is Gigster's contract. What terms do they make their clients sign?

To do any kind of fixed-price work, you need absolutely ironclad protection against scope creep. Said protection against scope creep usually must start with an extremely detailed specification - the kind of thing that takes weeks to develop, not a 10-minute phone call.

I would imagine Gigster's terms looks something like: • Client gets no input beyond the 10-minute phone call • Interpretation of the specifications given in that phone call is 100% up to Gigster • Any revision of specifications whatsoever results in a change order

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