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Show HN: New platform for finding work - $2000 project minimum
- e1ven 15y agoInteresting platform. For larger projects, I'm less likely to use a eLance/vWorker type service, and more likely to seek people out via their github/twitter/blog directly.. What is the revenue model here? Do you let me search people, and then I pay you a monthly fee, or do you take a cut? The former is worthwhile to me; By requiring that users pay $50/month to search the devs, it keeps out a lot of the rifraff. The later doesn't offer enough utility to be worth a cut of the entire price.
- anto210 15y agoWe are thinking monthly fee. Your point on charging to search devs is exactly what we are going for. People won't sign up unless they are serious about building a project.
- maxklein 15y agoMonthly fee is nonsense. Charge a project cut.
- Vivtek 15y agoI agree with this. A monthly fee only makes sense if I have an ongoing and steady need, but the presumption is that this is project work. Your charge needs to be project-based.
- MatthewB 15y agoAgreed. A monthly fee doesn't really make sense. If it takes any more than a month to find a dev, there's something wrong with your system. That means the most you'll ever make is 1 month worth of fees. Charge a flat fee...but wait until I find my tech cofounder:)
- jrwoodruff 15y agoDefinitely this. If I have a one-time project I need a programmer for, I'm not going to commit to a monthly fee.
- syllogism 15y agoThe problem with that is that you want to let them communicate freely to strike a deal, emailing each other details etc. Then they can just negotiate off-site and you're cut out.
- swanson 15y agoThere is a white border around your logo.
- ultrasaurus 15y agoI'm always considering building a site like this myself, there's not law of nature that dictates that freelance sites need to be races to the bottom. The pricing is a little ambiguous, is it free (after the pre-launch period) for coders?
- anto210 15y agoWe are working on pricing on the coders side. We are thinking of doing at least 3 months free and figuring it out from there.
- jdludlow 15y agothere's not law of nature that dictates that freelance sites need to be races to the bottom True, but setting a price floor doesn't automatically prevent the race from happening. $2000 for a 5 week project is still racing to the bottom.
- Miller450 15y agoRelevant: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2539892 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2539892
- maxklein 15y agoThere is another variable - the project size. $2000 is not much if asked to recreate facebook.
- heffay 15y agoI'd like to be able to select more than just one of the "looking for" options. Maybe I'm looking for freelance work in addition to a co-founder with an idea, for example
- Rariel 15y agoI second this.
- jijoy 15y agopls disable the django debug , if you are going for public launch
- anto210 15y agowhoops - Thanks and fixed!
- chris_j 15y agoComment on the website: The main text goes off the bottom of the visible window and is obscured by the footer. This is on Chrome on Linux with the DPI settings increased a bit.
- plamenv 15y agoI'd suggest concentrating on the quality of work you will (hopefully) be offering, not the min project price. If I'm a potential employer I'm not thinking "Oh, God, I'm so desperate to find someone that will charge me at least $2K!". Yet, the price is the first thing you throw at my face.
- stevejalim 15y agoI'd rename the github field to something more flexible -- at least let it sound like a BitBucket address would be just as relevant. Also, how about a field for a LinkedIn profile?
- MatthewB 15y agoI like the idea. I am looking for a tech cofounder and hopefully this helps me find one. Thanks.
- plusbryan 15y agoDesign is really important to me when deciding where to take my business. I love the idea, but the web site could use some serious design love. For instance: That block of text might be good for SEO, but no one will ever read it.
- BasilAwad 15y agothe ampersands on the bottom of the page look weird.
- anto210 15y agoagreed - fixing now.
- blackRust 15y agoOther tidbits: The '|' on the subhead needs more spacing b/w the two phrases, consider using some other form of visual separation. The big text fields with small font look weird (& small dropdowns, uneven design). The labels are also misaligned. Consider using something like: http://www.blueprintcss.org/ http://www.blueprintcss.org/ As mentioned before, needs serious design love but while doing so seriously consider your target marget and design appropriately. Coders generally don't like prose, keep text brief.
- gnaritas 15y agoJustified text looks weird, and I'm sure I'm not the only programmer that despises being called a coder. I am not a coder and I don't write codes. I'm a computer programmer or software engineer.
- mcav 15y agoI think it only looks weird here because the text looks dense and unapproachable. Too much text, too little visual breaks. Justification is only accentuating that problem.
- BasilAwad 15y agoYou know, having coders or designers submit 30 second videos describing their skills and previous projects is an easy way to differentiate from other freelancing sites. Let non-paying visiters to the site see that as well. I would feel like I was getting a much higher quality batch of bid responses if I was able to see 30 sec videos of developers communicating their skills and previous projects competently in a not reading-off-the-screen way. Maybe you could get the people asking for bids to submit 30 second videos of themselves too?
- BrandonM 15y agoI hate the movement toward video vetting processes. It invites discrimination into an area where it otherwise wouldn't exist. Communication skills are important, but for freelance work most communication will be via email, with occasional phone/Skype conversations.
- BasilAwad 15y agoAs in racial discrimination? Yeah, I'm sure it will for some. But it's still really useful. For example, I'm sure the videos play a big role in YC applications, although probably not as a first criteria. Plus it's not like the developers would be talking about something obscure, they would be talking about their core competencies.
- BrandonM 15y agoNot just racial discrimination, but also discrimination based on one's manner of speaking, confidence, or charisma. Some people don't have English as a first language, undersell their abilities, or aren't comfortable on camera; does that mean they should not get a gig for which they are otherwise qualified? These are exactly the qualities that a video judges.
- cabalamat 15y agoIf I was using this service, I wouldn't be looking for film star charisma, but I would want good communication skills. If someone isn't a good communicator, I'd feel unhappy either hiring them for remote work, or doing remote work for them; there would be too many possibilities for misunderstanding.
- kloncks 15y agoCurious question. How long have you been developing this?
- anto210 15y agoThe site - about 3 weeks. The two landing pages up right now? About a day. Working on the design fixes now!
- dstein 15y agoIt's good that at least someone is trying to address this. There are no decent freelance/telecommuter oriented job sites. The ones out there are generally geared toward the "let's outsource to India" style gigs -- I really can't compete with Indonesian teenagers for $10/hr PHP work. I have a feeling there is a huge swath of untapped talent out there being ignored by companies who are still in the 20th century and demand on-site employees.
- bloggergirl 15y agoI agree! A major opportunity seems to exist in developing a remote work/telecommuting-specific job board. A good one. Like TheLadders for remote/contract/freelance only.
- micheljansen 15y agoI think you won't find many Indonesian kids in India coding PHP. Indonisia is quite a different country from India, and not particularly known for it's booming IT outsourcing opportunities :P
- dstein 15y agoI did not mean that literally Indonesian teenagers are in India finding PHP jobs. I meant that people in many poor countries (Indonesia, India, Philippines etc) must be competing for these minimum wage programming jobs.
- micheljansen 15y agoI was just pointing out a mildly embarrassing factual error in your argument (but one that is made frequently); your points remain valid of course :)
- ohashi 15y agoI started an outsourcing company in Indonesia... not sure if it was any more or less fraught with problems honestly. Certainly are quite a few people doing outsourcing there though, no idea what the threshold for booming is.
- newman314 15y agoRenders funny under Firefox 4.
- michaelpinto 15y agoI hate to say it but $2,000 sounds a bit cheap. I'm assuming that most people who want to "code an idea" aren't looking for a WordPress install but something that's a bit more grand and may require doing a spec. If a coder is $50 an hour $2,000 is just 40 hours (i.e. one week): In my experience you'll spend at least that doing bug fixes and QA (even on a small project). Maybe you should even set the minimum at $5k? If you're not willing to spend $5k on your idea then it can't be a very good idea if you know what I mean. And I say this as a designer who isn't a coder...
- anto210 15y agoWe debated this number at length... We don't usually do projects for less than 5k, but every once in a while there is something small and quick that is worth it. We figured start low and if we need to raise the bar we will. Thanks for the feedback.
- 18pfsmt 15y agoMaybe projects could be classified as $2K, $5k, $10k, +?
- michaelpinto 15y agoBut maybe you don't want more of "every so often" type clients — you should market for the clients you want to get. Do another site for $2k jobs and define what those are (and they won't be "code an idea" -- more like "make me a thingie")...
- smokey_the_bear 15y ago5k seems cheap too. You might just want to ask for more. In my experience, software projects always work best when the buyer considers the work to be plain expensive, and the developer feels well paid. Actually, that goes for all sorts of projects.
- darklighter3 15y agoPricing is hard and often the only way to find out what is the 'right' price is to experiment and adjust.
- jrwoodruff 15y agoSo the text says you are 'a team of developers and designers who want to spend more time doing what we love,' but this appears to only be for developers. Are you targeting designers as well, or only coders?
- anto210 15y agoI think we will break that out in the future. We wanted to simplify for launch, but I think its a good point. Please sign up! Just mention in the comments you are a designer.
- wmblaettler 15y agoI found a small typo in the "Why We Are Doing This?" paragraph, "and have respect for the work we have [to] do."
- evanjacobs 15y agoI really like the idea and I think there is a great need from both developers and customers for this service. Have you thought at all about how to drive the demand side of this marketplace?
- jasonkester 15y agoWhy the monthly pricing? Job boards and freelance sites are traditionally pay-per-post for a reason. Unless you know something that the rest don't, you might want to stick to conventional wisdom here. Just charge $100 to post a project.
- rokhayakebe 15y agoI want a site that charges people to bid. This way you are sure to only bid if you are confident.
- mtogo 15y agoPlease don't use "GitHub page". Github is not the only code hosting site out there and many people (like myself) don't use it.
- inkaudio 15y agoThis is a great idea, It's hard for people with little tech experience to find a good hacker/coder and it's hards to find clients with a sufficient budget for a project. So here is my biz dev advice.. 1) Your concept of screening coders for talent is important, only accept people who can get things done. 2.) Only charge developers a monthly fee. The collective fees should be enough to cover the cost of an ongoing marketing campaign to attract the right businesses and entrepreneurs. 3.) Educate businesses and single entrepreneurs about the cost of projects, and cost of talent and explain trade offs for paying less. Experienced coders may cost more, but they have the experience can work faster, less learning on job....coders who charge less may be less experience, in different time zone, not so fluent in native language, etc. Provide rough estimates based on info on past projects. i.e. Angry brids cost about $150,000 to create. (http://www.develop-online.net/news/37242/Angry-Birds-cost-Rovio-100k-has-made-50m_ http://www.develop-online.net/news/37242/Angry-Birds-cost-Ro... ) 4.) The education is important and it provides prescreen of potential clients, only accept projects that fall within reasonable guidelines. 5.) Do not charge businesses a monthly fee. as mentioned by MatthewB "If it takes any more than a month to find a dev, there's something wrong with your system." Once developer has been found, charge business/entrepreneur fee per projects because you're providing technical screening service. Note: So the idea is to take some elements of successful services like elance, etc and raise the bar. setting up useful guidelines and an effective marketing campaign will not be easy.
- anto210 15y agoThanks for the feedback - very helpful!
- inkaudio 15y agoNo problem, I hope it does well. Keep in mind design is part of marketing so take heed to the comments about improving the designs.
- joshontheweb 15y agoOnly charge developers a monthly fee? Last I checked it is hard to find developers and not hard for developers to find work. I doubt many developers would pay to be listed, I know I wouldn't.
- romansanchez 15y agoMake sure you validate your text fields.
- izak30 15y agoBroken, I got a Django debug page on appspot, contact me and I can give you details
- d0m 15y agoMultiValueDictKeyError at /submit/programmer, then: global name 'phone' is not defined (I think you're trying to fix this right now.. right?)
- metachris 15y agoNameError at /submit/programmer global name 'phone' is not defined Request Method: POST Request URL: http://ecl-data-collection.appspot.com/submit/programmer Django Version: 1.2.5 Exception Type: NameError Exception Value: global name 'phone' is not defined Exception Location: /base/data/home/apps/ecl-data-collection/1.350367717383270314/views.py in submit_programmer, line 28 Python Executable: /base/ Python Version: 2.5.2 Python Path: ['/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python25.zip', '/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/third_party/django-1.2', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/plat-linux2', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/lib-tk', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/lib-dynload', '/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/1', '/base/data/home/apps/ecl-data-collection/1.350367717383270314/'] Server time: Thu, 12 May 2011 17:32:17 +0000
- run4yourlives 15y agoSend him an email dude.
- anto210 15y agoyep sorry about that - we broke the form and had to turn debug back on - thanks for point it out!
- run4yourlives 15y agoI'm a little confused at the pricing. Why would I require access to a constant stream of developers to code my projects? Is the supply that bad? Am I running developers out of town? To me, it seems that you would use a service like this to establish working relationships and then continue to use those same working relationships in the future. In this model, it seems rather silly to pay you a monthly fee, and if I find a coder quickly you're not making much off of me. The interesting issue is that websites like this are doing the exact same thing that professional recruiters do - playing matchmaker. The problem I have is that if you look at the recruiters that are really good, one of the first things that comes to light is that they our outstanding at building relationships. It's not so much about being selective as it is about understanding need and fit. My concern is that the very thing that makes the process work well is completely absent on the web. It's hard to assess personality and fit without meeting a person and/or working with them in person. I wish you the best of luck but I'm not sure if this is a technical problem at all.
- d0m 15y agoI'd suggest using DEBUG = False in the production environment. (Django debug view gives a lot of private informations..) Exception Location: /base/data/home/apps/ecl-data-collection/1.350367717383270314/views.py in submit_programmer, line 28 Python Executable: /base/ Python Version: 2.5.2 Python Path: ['/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python25.zip', '/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/third_party/django-1.2', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/plat-linux2', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/lib-tk', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/lib-dynload', '/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/1', '/base/data/home/apps/ecl-data-collection/1.350367717383270314/']
- lacker 15y agoPlus, when DEBUG = True, Django leaks memory.
- mikle 15y agoFirefox 4 on windows - The blob of text doesn't have a margin to right, making it stick to the scroll bar and hard to read. Great idea, I might even try out, but first I need to get a portfolio going. Damn all those closed source projects and non participation in StackOverflow...
- deyan 15y agoI was not sure about the purpose of the website. On the one hand, it apparently wants to help people with projects find great coders. Great. On the other hand, it appears that it is also aiming to help you find (technical) cofounders. I don't think these are very related so I was a bit confused as to what the actual goal is. Any thoughts?
- winterchil 15y agoI love this idea but it feels like these types of sites have become overly popular and I've noticed some problems. For context, I'm an entrepreneur with a budget, mock-ups, some angel interest, and I'm having a tough time finding senior development talent (mobile app & camera experience, some web talent). Anyway, if you solve some of these problems I'd get interested in a hurry. -there's no upside in describing my project to an unknown community, If I describe it blandly nobody thinks it's interesting, if I describe it in detail I've given away our secret sauce. -black box effect; it's unclear when/if I'll hear from the match-maker service. -qualifications; while I value other people doing the pre-screens on developers I won't be comfortable unless they pass screens from technical people I know/trust but I seem overly picky and slow to decide if I have multiple interviews with all potential candidates. For what it's worth, I think if you put more information about yourselves and your qualifications for screening devs it would help soothe these concerns.
- joshaidan 15y agoeHarmony for programmers and employers, nice! :)
- gexla 15y ago$2000 can be a great price or a very bad price. A project which has a budget of $250 is great if it only requires an hour of my time. A budget of $2000 is horrible if it requires 200 hours of my time.
- Rariel 15y ago"We will not share your idea with anyone else, but we cannot guarantee that we will not work on something very similar." That makes me almost 100% unlikely to use your site. I know that you're CYA here, but I would need to cover mine too...It seems a little stupid to tell you an idea if you say in big bold letters that although you might not share it, you may steal it or "work on something very similar."
- timedoctor 15y agoDefinitely agree with the problem that this site is trying to solve. For most large projects it is impossible to spec out the idea accurately and what the client wants changes as the person starts to code. So I think that in many cases an hourly rate makes more sense for the coder and the project creator. For medium sized projects around $2-10k maybe 20k, then project based work makes sense. Larger than this and a fixed fee is dangerous for the coder. Plus managing the timing of when the coder is paid is difficult. And yes in most cases if the coder is great, a genuine coder will want an ongoing relationship with the employer. Also I think it is possible to achieve the same result as your site by using vworker for example but only picking coders with VERY good feedback (the top 200 coders on the web site for example). Another potential problem is how to you weed out all of the bad coders? If you get 10,000 applications from India, how will you know which guys are good and which are not good? That's probably the most important thing you can do for the employers. Having said all of that, there definitely is a need, so good luck!
- djerry 15y agoIt will be looking good if you change the logo type and mark. Also please add an input field for Linkedin.