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Hi! We don't assign more people blindly. But what do you propose we do if a developer gets sick or has to travel? We are engineers ourselves and are certainly c

Hi! We don't assign more people blindly. But what do you propose we do if a developer gets sick or has to travel? We are engineers ourselves and are certainly careful to not just load up a bunch of devs on a project. We've done that before and it was painful :) Thanks for the feedback!

dragonwriter 11y ago
> But what do you propose we do if a developer gets sick or has to travel? There's a difference between "if a developer gets sick or has to travel" and "if a project is behind schedule". (Though if the first happens late in the project, the problems with trying to backfill with an developer with no prior connection to the project at the late date are similar to trying to stack on more staff when a project is already behind schedule, and pose similar risks of delaying rather than accelerate delivery even further than accepting the cost of the loss.)
jlarocco 11y ago
> But what do you propose we do if a developer gets sick or has to travel? I don't know what that means. Those both seem like silly reasons to add more devs to a project. Unless you're talking about long term sickness (like cancer) or travelling around the world for a few months, but that's not really the expected usages of those phrases.
markbnj 11y ago
>> But what do you propose we do if a developer gets sick or has to travel? I think that's sort of the point. You do whatever any other engineering team does when faced with the same challenges. The question is what is Gigster doing differently that allows you to achieve consistent on-time, on-budget results? Because if you have that formula, you could probably make a lot more money just consulting with existing dev shops on how to implement it.
- msellout 11y ago
  Their FAQ answers your question. They are planning to simply eat any project budget overrun, aiming for growth rather than profit. YOU SOUND TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. HOW CAN YOU DO IT THIS CHEAP? Agencies and development shops have a lot of overhead & are fundamentally lifestyle business, meaning that their focus is profits. Gigster is venture-backed so our focus is growth & customer satisfaction. We’d have a referral from you than your money. Profits come later when we are at scale.
  - EarthLaunch 11y ago
    Will this attract 'cheap' customers? As a potential customer I think I prefer the idea of a company that profits by the standard of doing my work, rather than a referral standard I have no control over.
  - ForHackernews 11y ago
    This actually sounds like a fantastic opportunity to have your development work subsidized by some rich VCs.
    - markbnj 11y ago
      Ha, exactly, except that too good to be true usually is. I have a hard time believing the "low ball high volume" strategy is going to lead to well-executed projects.
      - LoSboccacc 11y ago
        I think the actual strategy is push idea guys into sharing equities so they get both some money for the initial investment and make it big on equity with relatively low risk if the project succeeds. From another pov they are vc to idea guys, only instead of giving the money for equity they give the product for equity. With the difference that they also get paid for it!
        markbnj 11y ago
        That's the smartest take on it that I've heard.
        LoSboccacc 11y ago
        Thanks. I had an idea similar to this while working at a larger company. I wanted to start a tiger team to follow startup technically. Leveraging the employer name we could have vetted them to increase our success ratio and be sure both of the business idea as part of the vetting and of the technical side. Sadly this project would only have netted millions and the previous company wouldn't touch anything under billions. Go figure. They prefer to acquire company after they hit success for top dollar and run them on the ground instead of actually fostering innovation.
semerda 11y ago
> But what do you propose we do if a developer gets sick or has to travel? - don't run a skeleton crew dev team unless you are ready to handle the risks, - better project management upfront to cater for this risk - maybe allow customer to choose risk tolerance upfront like some fintech companies do and - include some internal reward mechanism for over delivery so you can better manage resources. There are prob a ton more but these are the 3 that popped into my head. Apps don't solve problems but good business models behind apps do. Sort that out 1st.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> But what do you propose we do if a developer gets sick or has to travel? There's a difference between "if a developer gets sick or has to travel" and "if a project is behind schedule". (Though if the first happens late in the project, the problems with trying to backfill with an developer with no prior connection to the project at the late date are similar to trying to stack on more staff when a project is already behind schedule, and pose similar risks of delaying rather than accelerate delivery even further than accepting the cost of the loss.)

jlarocco 11y ago

> But what do you propose we do if a developer gets sick or has to travel? I don't know what that means. Those both seem like silly reasons to add more devs to a project. Unless you're talking about long term sickness (like cancer) or travelling around the world for a few months, but that's not really the expected usages of those phrases.

markbnj 11y ago

>> But what do you propose we do if a developer gets sick or has to travel? I think that's sort of the point. You do whatever any other engineering team does when faced with the same challenges. The question is what is Gigster doing differently that allows you to achieve consistent on-time, on-budget results? Because if you have that formula, you could probably make a lot more money just consulting with existing dev shops on how to implement it.

msellout 11y ago
Their FAQ answers your question. They are planning to simply eat any project budget overrun, aiming for growth rather than profit. YOU SOUND TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. HOW CAN YOU DO IT THIS CHEAP? Agencies and development shops have a lot of overhead & are fundamentally lifestyle business, meaning that their focus is profits. Gigster is venture-backed so our focus is growth & customer satisfaction. We’d have a referral from you than your money. Profits come later when we are at scale.
- EarthLaunch 11y ago
  Will this attract 'cheap' customers? As a potential customer I think I prefer the idea of a company that profits by the standard of doing my work, rather than a referral standard I have no control over.
- ForHackernews 11y ago
  This actually sounds like a fantastic opportunity to have your development work subsidized by some rich VCs.
  - markbnj 11y ago
    Ha, exactly, except that too good to be true usually is. I have a hard time believing the "low ball high volume" strategy is going to lead to well-executed projects.
    - LoSboccacc 11y ago
      I think the actual strategy is push idea guys into sharing equities so they get both some money for the initial investment and make it big on equity with relatively low risk if the project succeeds. From another pov they are vc to idea guys, only instead of giving the money for equity they give the product for equity. With the difference that they also get paid for it!
      - markbnj 11y ago
        That's the smartest take on it that I've heard.
        LoSboccacc 11y ago
        Thanks. I had an idea similar to this while working at a larger company. I wanted to start a tiger team to follow startup technically. Leveraging the employer name we could have vetted them to increase our success ratio and be sure both of the business idea as part of the vetting and of the technical side. Sadly this project would only have netted millions and the previous company wouldn't touch anything under billions. Go figure. They prefer to acquire company after they hit success for top dollar and run them on the ground instead of actually fostering innovation.

semerda 11y ago

> But what do you propose we do if a developer gets sick or has to travel? - don't run a skeleton crew dev team unless you are ready to handle the risks, - better project management upfront to cater for this risk - maybe allow customer to choose risk tolerance upfront like some fintech companies do and - include some internal reward mechanism for over delivery so you can better manage resources. There are prob a ton more but these are the 3 that popped into my head. Apps don't solve problems but good business models behind apps do. Sort that out 1st.