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Put an end to GitHub graveyards – Find a sales partner for your project

3 points by lovedev ↗ HN
If you're a programmer like me, you probably have a github graveyard of your own filled with inspired projects you envisioned being "the next best thing" that will make you rich.

Somewhere along the line, you realized that the one-man (or one-woman) show is a steep uphill climb and your inspiration slowly fades.

If you: - Love to build but don't have time to sell - If you want to build products, sit back, and watch the money flow in - If you are about to take down your servers and add to your graveyard

My next project might interest you.

The idea is: Post your side projects. Connect with someone interested in selling. You build. They sell. Split the profits or do it for the love of the game. Get some traction for your side project by finding a seller willing to go out and sell your project. You can both make a good chunk of change on the side.

PUT AN END TO GITHUB GRAVEYARDS. GET PAID FOR YOUR WORK!

I'd love some feedback. If you're interested, I'll have an MVP up in a week or so. Let me know if you'd like to connect with me to help out, give feedback, or tell me what a stupid idea this is!

10 comments

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nnn1234
this is actualy a very interesting idea. Ghost engine and Salesory type outsourced selling but based on projects. If you get the incentive design right it could be huge. Also I volunteer to be your first user from the sales side.
lovedev
Woo! Our first seller! Appreciate the feedback. I'll be sure to post the app here in a few weeks and help you get connected with some great developers and projects!

I'm happy to hear about Ghost Engine and Salesory, since it seems to show some demand for the type of "outsourced" or "freelance" sales that this app would be tailored to.

The sales incentive design will definitely be a huge contributor to the success of this project. If you have any feedback on incentive designs that you know are successful or that you would like to see, please let me know!

pryelluw
Recruiting and managing sales people when you don't have sales experience is a challenge (same with devs). How do you plan to manage that?
lovedev
That's a good point and definitely a source of contention from both the sales and dev perspective and I'm definitely open to ideas about how to help with this, if you have any feedback.

The way I see it is from the sales perspective, you get access to great products that have sales potential. It gives a seller the ability to make extra cash on the side, while the dev is granted the luxury of being able to focus on what they do best. Build.

Several apps out there are hyper focused on building teams, businesses, and finding co-founders. This proves very difficult for the exact reasons you mentioned, among others.

The main focus of this app is getting the underground projects a chance at the lime light. Connecting dev and sales in a way that they can give their projects life (and make some money doing it). It's not attempting to "find the perfect cofounder" or "build the perfect team" but simply to connect the right people, with the right skill-sets to get projects off the ground (and make money doing it).

mars4rp
The idea is good. I am sending another project to graveyard. And all of the developers that are here having the same problem.

But in my experience nobody cares about our projects as much as we do.

lovedev
No! Our graveyards are too big as it is!

I'm half kidding, half serious. I found myself in your exact position several times before. Often times, the reality isn't that "nobody cares about our projects" but really that they haven't seen enough love from "other side".

As developers, we excel at building great products. We often think that a great product will sell itself, and that people will be excited to buy after just hearing about what we have to offer. I've definitely found myself in this frame of mind time and time again, I've found that this simply isn't the case. Even the greatest products in the world needs some love from the sales/marketing fronts, and without that, it's particularly difficult to "get people excited" about what you have to offer. Thinking that "nobody cares about our projects as much as we do" is something that I have found particularly destructive to my project success and progress (and often leads to a larger graveyard). Hopefully my app can help projects like ours get a chance at some traction and get people to care!

END THE GRAVEYARD! GIVE YOUR PROJECT A CHANCE AT THE LIME LIGHT!

Very pumped to get some developer feedback here as well, much appreciated! I'll post the app soon, let's get your graveyard back up and running!

mars4rp
Great, but if the problem is marketing, how do you market it? Loool
lovedev
One of the hardest parts! Marketing and sales are big time consumers that take away from my ability to build great products. And to be honest, my skill sets lie elsewhere.

I’m hoping that this app can help developers with the sales, and with a few successes and iterations on the idea, help with marketing too.

Initially I’d like the app to be very clean and focused, which is why it’s limited to connecting only dev and sales for now. So many other apps have too many options and are focused on “building teams” or finding “co-founders”. This app’s goal is simple:

Let’s get dev some help, and give sales some side hustle opportunities.

They both have incentive to help each other out, bring great projects to life, and make a few extra bucks while they’re at it.

lovedev
Got the MVP up and running today! Please give it a try and let me know how it goes! Any and all feedback is much appreciated!

www.githustle.com