Ask HN: Another job board? Need feedback on the idea
So It's not ready yet, but I'm creating a new job board for developers. I'm looking to get feedback on idea itself....
So my hypothesis is that as a dev, I'd love to do some gigs on the side. But I'm not really in the mood to search for them, apply to 1000s of them and do all back and forth.
I literally want small jobs, that I can knock out in a day or two, and get paid $100-$1k.
Another extension to this idea I've thought about is, to have an expert dev on call.
Got stuck in your day to day work? Call in expert. The expert does screen share, fixes the problem hopefully. But it could be like a service that companies could subscribe for monthly N hours. (SQL expert, Wordpress, React, etc)
Which one do you think has more potential?
18 comments
[ 14.0 ms ] story [ 2403 ms ] threadi think i like the expert one better. in theory, because it is _much_ more focussed.
like, the problem space is just so well-defined, or should be.
kind of like how Fivvr started, and Amazon, Tesla, etc. just offer one well-defined thing, then try to be successful with it. then expand over time.
actually, i'd prob try to take well-defined to a new level - maybe looking for other examples and see how they gained traction, etc. if you don't have a big marketing budget, it might be a grind, but i think it could legit work, if only because i would have gladly paid for programming or other tech help -- and have -- at various points in my career.
a few times it's been really hairy situations with open-source stuff, but i have even paid for a _suggested_ fix -- just like going to the doctor. :-D
so, maybe instead of, "hire a programming expert for 1 hour", it might be "hire a python expert for one hour", then slowly expand outwards.
basically, a StackOverflow, but paid in real dollars instead of 'just' karma.
It looks like a job board for freelancers and consulting instead of permanent job positions.
The other way round is probably als true. Got an algorithm design problem where you're stuck? Call a computer scientist.
FWIW, you might want to read this book before proceeding: http://momtestbook.com/
Best of luck!
The challenge is how to ensure someone really is an expert. Barrier to entry needs to be high otherwise it will attract wannabes. But then how do u get enough experts ?
Just never got to it :) May be I should. U wanna partner up ?
I was thinking of manually filtering people and then having a point system. Also really hone on skills.. i.e. you can't be just a frontend developer, you have to be react expert, a sub-specialist. So you can select up to 3 stacks. i.e You are an expert in postgresql, bash scripting, aws RDS. Or Typescript and Reactjs, Or D3js and CSS.
Like any given developer would know many things, we want only the thing you're MOST expert in.
We could allow even smaller chunks of times for stuff like webpack, npm, composer, rack... errors.
There are two sides right, experts and users. I think it'd be best to target b2b companies. As they can only pay and will pay to attract true experts. Otherwise, why would I pay out of pocket until I'm really desperate. Companies would pay to keep productivity up.
I was thinking of targeting startups who don't have a budget to hire a top devs in many skills and their dev is wearing many hats. Usually they are struggling in space of Devops, DB admin, maze of AWS, or some weird library like mapping library that usual fullstack dev normally won't be good at.
1. Startups (5-50)
2. Regular offices (excel, salesforce,...)
3. Bootcamps/Universities (kind of virtual tutoring. hired by institutions, not students, they wouldn't pay enough)
4. General Open Market of Everything Expert (would be hard to get started...)
5. Scientist looking for coding help (probly wont have money like students...)