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New Startup Without An Inhouse Developer

2 points by Zevel ↗ HN
I am one of three co-founder of fansunite.com a startup based out of Vancouver B.C. We have already put 100k of our own money in to the site development and are now in the process of looking for investors to take it to the next level. Between the three of us we can turn a computer on and log into our email accounts, not much beyond that. We did however come up with what, in our opinion, is a great idea. The problem we face now is that we have had to out source all of our development and have recently had a falling out with the company that developed what you see today. A fully functional Beta site that is a shadow of what we believe it can be. I guess my question to the HN community is what would you recommend we do next? What we want is to find a coder who is willing to take a stake in the company as well as a small salary so that we have a member of the team who can actually make reality what we imagine. HN community what are your thoughts? We are at a cross road and need to make decisions pretty damn quick.

5 comments

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groundCode
Sounds like you need to find another company to outsource your dev to for the moment and work on getting an inhouse team in the medium term.
jaebrown
I agree, that another firm may be the best option in the short term. Hopefully, you had a change management clause or agreement set up in your contract, that keeps your current firm from completely ditching you without a proper hand-off. Because it will take you some time to hire a your own dev (This guy will probably be your CTO & co-Founder), you'll need your new firm to comprehend, apprehend and decipher everything your old says. One of you will need to participate in this dialogue and you have to require that your new firms does great documentation (to the point that all three of you understand).

This will not be inexpensive and finding an individual to hire will require more than a stake in your company in a small salary. You may want to consider a reasonable or slightly above stake and an average salary. You're asking a lot of any individual to come into a situation and repair it. At this point, you need this person more than they need you. There are a lot of executive decisions to be made but it goes with the territory of a startup.

You face two huge challenges outside of the dispute with your outsource firm. Hiring a capable individual that can do all that you are requesting now and in the future. Convincing a VC firm that this is not a huge problem.

Good Luck

Zevel
Thank you for the advice and insights.
dotcoma
Am I the only one who thinks you have (or will have) a problem with revenues, too? (But best of luck, of course!)
Zevel
The revenue stream has yet to be put in place and will never be seen by users in Canada or the U.S. for legal reasons. This beta site we are running now is a test of the market. Partnering with online sport bookies to place a link beside your fake bet on Fansunite that takes you to their site and will allow you to make the bet for real pays out commissions. Also a small monthly membership fee will be implemented and will allow you access to the top cappers on the site. For a sport bettor this information is invaluable. 90% of the site will remain free. You will be able to make picks and see all users information that are below a certain ranking. Essentially what we are trying to do is change the capping game all together. If you look around now you will see "pro" cappers making picks and posting them to their blogs and wordpress sites for bettors to follow. There is no transparency to what they are doing, a record is easily changes here and there, and they are able to charge huge money for that information. We are basically crowd sourcing the game of capping, making it a social experience and documenting the users entire history for everyone to see.