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Tell HN: I will build a functioning prototype of your idea in 1 week for $500

43 points by adelevie ↗ HN
I'm a Rails developer (2+ years experience), and I'm trying to do something fun.

This could be your minimum viable product. This could be what you link to in incubator applications (DreamIt's deadline is July 8!). Don't expect anything too fancy--just a web application that closely matches your basic vision.

Examples of things I can build:

-Integrations with 3rd party APIs (eg Twitter, Facebook etc.)

-Real-time web apps (eg, if a certain person tweets, send a push notification to users)

-An application that sends custom emails

-A/B tests

-A basic search engine, content management system, blog, or social network

-A back-end for a mobile app (not the mobile application itself)

-A Simple Bayes classification system

Be creative!

What I want from you:

-A phone call explaining your vision

-Mockups, sketches and descriptions of your idea

-Any graphics and copy text you want me to include

-Seven days of patience

-$500 (US)

What you get from me:

-A Ruby on Rails web application with a MySQL or Sqlite database

-Very basic design. If you want something pretty, buy a design from themeforest or 99designs and I'll be glad integrate it (No PSDs, just HTML and CSS)

-Hosting on Heroku (free tier only)

-Full ownership of the code (upon completion and full payment)

Leave questions or ideas in the comments below, or feel free to email me: [my HN username]@gmail.com. I hope to get started in the next 1-2 days.

18 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 37.8 ms ] thread
deweyusa
I will too, but I do hardware, specifically RISC processors like PIC and AVR. I program in C, and will put your project in an enclosure.
a3camero
Intriguing post. Is there a back story to this?

Good luck!

adelevie
Not really. PG says that just seeing if people will pay you for a certain product is the best validation of it. I want to see if people will pay for a simple MVP.
a3camero
They will. Prototypes of web sites with rudimentary systems for logging in and changing things can be sold. You can also sell for considerably more than $500. Aim for $3k or more.

Many people would love to get a working but not very good version of their site live so they can start raising funds from other people to develop the full service. It's far more convincing when you have a draft than just an idea. People will pay for that.

adelevie
Well if you can refer anyone willing to pay that, let me know :)
a3camero
Ha! Nah, I need the business instead :).

It's hard to find paying clients, especially when you're just starting out but it can't hurt to attend a conference or two. Follow up with some of those people and start meeting people who need websites... There are a million posts about marketing yourself by far more qualified people, but you might be on to the right track for building up work. A lot of my work is by word of mouth from people I've built other projects for.

$500 is a good deal though for decent work. I'll actually keep you in mind if something comes up and I'm too busy!

wanderful
Great marketing strategy for getting your career rolling.
abbasmehdi
Hey, without disclosing names, come back and tell us how many emails you got from this posting in a few days, yeah? :)
gopi
I think probably you should increase the price to $1000 :)
bigohms
Responded. Can you give us a sense of your timing in responding to the inquiries?
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
[dead] adelevie
Just finished responding to all the inquiries. Could you email me saying which one of you is "bigohms"?
calbear81
I'm emailing you at gmail tonight re: a cooking/recipe related site.
theblueadept111
I'm looking for someone that can make me something like a simple version of facebook, but the thing is that instead of linking people to their friends, it would link them to their enemies. An anti-social network. I think if it even gets half the users of faceboook, it will be a huge success.

"Keep your fiends close but your enemies closer." That should be the tagline, and it should be black.... dark colors. Red or white fonts, maybe a little animation of flames, like in hell. (Because who doesn't want their enemies to burn in hell.. amiright?)

But the key thing, ok this is mint... is that people will have to pay to sign up. So money will be rolling in as it grows. And you would get paid as the money comes in, rather than getting screwed with just $500 up front. I would cut you in, is what I'm saying, and you'd cash out l8er.

Let's talk.

adelevie
Pretty convincing value proposition.