Sort of offtopic, but has any non technical person launched a startup / business without a technical cofounder?
The company I work for gets people asking for quotes to build their "next big idea", where the person isn't technical but has industry experience behind them.. this has turned out pretty well for some people.
I go to a school with a highly ranked computer science program, and it's not too uncommon for nontechnical "entrepreneurs" to post openings for developer positions for some vague startup idea. Usually, these openings don't come with much (if any) pay, equity, or a co-founder credit. Needless to say, these people don't get a lot of applicants. I'm sure there have been a few that have actually taken off, but I can't name any.
I run http://builtFromIdeas.com, where I build apps, generally for non-tech entrepreneurs, for $5,000. I've had a few clients "succeed" without continued input from me. I consider success a lifestyle business, where income each month was at least enough to move onto the next venture. With a well-built app and enough knowledge of your vertical and marketing, it's definitely do-able. At this writing none of them are millionaires.
why does it say
> NDA included!
NDA's are terrible. They stifle creative thought, put yourself up for lawsuits and someone, has had the "genius" idea before.
I happen to agree with you. But some of my customers don't, and I'm not going to turn down a customer based on a principle that doesn't hurt my business. By getting it out of the way, we can move onto actually doing cool things together.
It happens all the time. I have been involved in such businesses, and there are public examples[1].
Entrepreneurs who don't code do not need technical co-founders. There are plenty of talented firms and solo developers with product management chops who will collaborate with you to build a product. The entrepreneur pays a fair rate and the service provider delivers a solid foundation on which to pursue the business.
Many if not most of the folks looking to jump into bed with a technical co-founder they have no existing relationship with are doing so because they don't have adequate capital. Undercapitalization is one of the top reasons new businesses fail, so most equity-only/deferred comp. technical co-founder opportunities are unattractive from the start.
I wouldn't like to be a solo founder because it's too much work and stress for one person. I've had this idea for a mobile app (it's a social network game - littlequest.me) for about 2 years now but still haven't done it because I don't have the right co-founder. Mostly because my network is too dispersed I think.
I do have a couple friends with no experience with building mobile apps interested though. Do you think I should team up with them or hire a professional? I really don't like the idea of doing a business by myself though.
Always enjoy reading your posts 7Figures. I'm in this exact situation, and decided to go the agency route for the same reasons Alex did for Groove. It's hard in some occupations to have technical friends in your circle, creating some distance between the people who have the domain expertise and the people with the skills to execute on ideas. It's nice to see alternatives. It's worth mentioning also that developing Groove with the agency costed $300k.
I'm sure a could read a bunch to find out your answer, but it wasn't quickly enough obvious to me (as a programmer) how you ensure the scope of work is actually equal to $3500 of my time.
Agreed. An example scope of a prototype would be very valuable to see if it's worth the time signing up. Additionally, I'm guessing that rudimentary design skills would be required because there's a helluva difference between a functional bootstrap proto vs designing a product with specific design goals in mind.
I agree with this - I think both parties would greatly benefit from being able to see a "standard" prototype. Over time, I'm sure a that few spec templates could be developed that would cover 80% percent of use cases. It sounds like a scalable model to me.
As a university student, this is really pretty great. I will have the opportunity to work on reasonably sized projects, earn some extra cash, and probably build a pretty sweet portfolio. I even think it would be cool to form student orgs around this - have upperclassmen train underclassmen in the art of full stack web-dev, and then have let two underclassmen jump into one of these projects with the guidance of an experienced dev. Finally, split the profits. If any of the founders are reading this, would you be open to something like this?
Upon creating my account I received an account id of around 1050~. Looks like little is done to obscure the numbers. Perhaps they hope sufficient hype will solve the problem?
> As part of our screening, we'll help clients flesh out their idea into a clear list of requirements.
At market rate for an experienced contract product manager or developer with product management chops, the process of defining functional requirements for a new product will usually entail more than $3,500 worth of work.
Interesting idea but so far poor start. We need more information, less errors. I would like a video on main page explaining what you are doing here and why anyone should use you. Outline strengths of your idea and give much more details please.
The next few hours will be probably a turning point if this idea will work for you or not. So be quick and fix all the issues!
It's nice that the dollar figures are all upfront on this page, but it seems a bit strange to say "Get a working, launchable prototype for $3,500" when the client actually pays $3570. It seems that you're putting half of your fee on the client side and the other half on the programmer side, but in doing so the client's seeing a mixed message that could be off putting.
In UK, prices are always inclusive of VAT. Going back to the U.S. pricing model after that is annoying to say the least. A price discrepancy leaves room for dispute unless you add "fine print" for "hidden fees", both of which are frowned upon to the extent that many products market themselves as having no "hidden fees". Consumers never benefit from any of it, only companies do.
Will need to do 10,000 apps to make $1.4M in revenue. Pretty tough business. If I were CEO I would raise your 4% fee and charge more than $3,500 per app.
I have a feeling their numbers are soft for a reason. 5000 is a solid investment, 3500, thats a small portion of dayjobs income i could drop to get a sideproject trialed. 4% is also very minor, where 5+ would likely look a little too middleman-y for my liking.
Limit the size of the project, limit the size of the investment, limit the cost.
Going forward I expect they will have to do some form of tiering once they see the type of work is in demand, and which type of work is achievable by their developers (which all is still unknown at this point) Example tiers: 500-1000 = quick site, 3500 = mvp, 5000-10000 = soft launch
> Automatic payments without any hassle.
We'll drop money into your bank account on a rolling basis.
What does this mean exactly? My prototype will be connected up to your Stripe account and then you'll transfer the money my app makes to me through periodical bank transfers?
No, I believe it means the programmer gets automatically paid when milestones are marked as done. They are referring to the 3.5k being paid for the job. Any revenue the app gets has nothing to do with them.
Assuming this is 2-3 weeks of work, I hope there are a lot of strict controls in place concerning requirements to stave off the "wait, this should be simple" chronic under-estimators, but I've been in plenty of spots where quickly getting a project like this would have meant a lot. Hope it works out for this site.
As someone who is a member of both of this site's target audiences, I'd be curious to actually see some live samples of products that were developed on a $3,500 budget. I think that would help give "idea people" a realistic expectation for what the scope of their project should be in it's first iteration, and it would set some expectation for the developers as to what they should be able to produce on a $3,500 budget.
Another thing I'd like to see Betatype providing is some sort of franchised coaching and guidance to both the product owner and the developer on how to best set themselves and the other party up for success.
> Another thing I'd like to see Betatype providing is some sort of franchised coaching and guidance to both the product owner and the developer on how to best set themselves and the other party up for success.
Coaching and guidance isn't a substitute for experience. You can learn about the product lifecycle by reading a book or taking a class, but that doesn't mean you know how to manage it in the real world. Frankly, the number of good developers who can also credibly wear the hat of product manager is much, much smaller than the number of good developers.
Right, I agree with what you've said completely. The reason I introduced the concept of "coaching and guidance" here is because I believe it would be required on both sides for eligible parties at the $3,500 price point. I really wouldn't expect "good developers who can also credibly wear the hat of a product manager" to be picking up $3,500 contracts on a site like this, however, I could see it being a stepping stone for mid-level developers who are entry-level consultants.
To all the people dismissing the site based on low potential earnings for the developer.
From a quick look on elance. There are currently 10,344 "Web Developers" with a listed hourly rate. The cutoffs for 50/75/90 percentiles are $15, $25 & $40 per hour. Obviously dance doesn't represent the top earning developers. Elance covers the low end, mostly.
The hourly rate of developers ranges a lot. So does the hourly output. Silicon Valley veterans expect $100-$200 per hour. On a worldwide scale, that's high end free lancing. Jobs usually come by way of personal introductions and relationships.
I totally agree that few are going to turn down a job at Google to build $3500 prototypes.
The gigs you can get as a freelancer for a SV company are not something that most elance developers can compete for. You can't cold call your way into them and you can't get them through a website. Part of the reason is skillet, some of it is cultural. The ability to relate to the person hiring, sell yourself and a whole bunch of other soft reasons play a role too. They can't get to the high end.
A lot of the startups in this space seem to be trying to crack the middle end, which IMO is underdeveloped. My guess is that's the $25-$60 per hour range. This is (as mentioned elsewhere on this thread) rational in the context of average developer salaries in some parts of the world. BTW, $50 per hour X 20-40 hours per week will buy you a great lifestyle.
Also, a freelancer on his 26th $3500 prototype may get pretty good at it. They'll be using suitable tools have methods for coxing ideas out of clients. It is it's own skillet.
Coaching and guidance can, however, support new users on both sides of the table during their initial attempts and providing (or purchasing) contracted services. You only gain that experience by having the opportunity to practice. Likewise, Betatype won't keep lasting customers if the experience working with the community of developers is dissatisfying or contentious.
Neat idea. Initial thought is that I have trouble seeing this be profitable, given how little Betatype is taking. Betatype itself is only getting $140 / project and for this is promising to "help clients flesh out their idea into a clear list of requirements." That alone could take many hours of back and forth.
Agree. One strategy would be to do the upfront project analysis at a loss until they get the hang of it and identify the patterns, then create automated tools that product owners can work with to get the same work done. Or maybe they already have automated tools.
However, my bigger concern is that working out the requirements is being done by someone other than the developer that's going to be working on the project. If you're trying to get something done on a budget, fewer people in the mix is better.
Furthermore, the conversation about product requirements needs to be a two way discussion. Developers are often in a unique position to guide a product owner into what's easy to implement and provides the biggest "bang for your buck." Their early insight can radically shape the product and is not based on what the customer thinks they need, but what the customer communicates their goals are. This is where a consultant can provide serious ROI to a product owner.
It seems like the fear is that allowing the developer to have direct communication with the client could result in people circumventing the 4% commission. But unless they come up with an excellent workaround, it might be hard for the site to catch on without allowing that communication.
Sure there is, limit to what time they spend working on getting projects ready, if they don't meet a certain standard, drop them and give quick 5 second tips to get them back in the queue. If they don't produce a reasonable spec in enough attempts just drop them as a user.
Even the AP had a work around for scaling this further, run at a loss for some time while you identify patterns of failure, produce resources for the user to solve their own problems.
For $140 I could easily spend 10-20 minutes looking at a rough spec and tell you if it is workable for 3500, I'd even be able to put in a few slash points on which features would likely need to be cut.
For some perspective, $3500 @ $50/hour = 70 hours. In other words, 1-3 weeks of dev time.
The types of developers you want creating your prototypes are those that can justify charging $200+ per hour because they have past business/user experience to truly understand what you want to achieve from your project as opposed to what you've specified.
The number 50 was for illustrative purposes. Not sure why that's so funny. Ok 100/hour and 35 hours look at that. If you can get the projects done in a tenth the time suddenly you're getting a lot more than that figure.
Also as another has pointed out, justifying 200/hour and beating the competition is very difficult in a world wide market. Those in sv may be able to push that high but I can assure you there is many many developers with the same skill set living in much cheaper economic climates where 50/hour is considered much higher than 200/hour is in sv.
I suspect this is what they have in mind long term, for starters i'm guessing they are just going to filter both jobs and developers to a realistic starting point.
For example, trashbin and "i want an ebay clone" elance style requests, and filter out the developers who claim to be able to do it for $500 in 12 days.
That alone would cut down most of the crap you see on sites like elance.
As for their fears (dsrguru posted) about people going out of band to work around 4% for a measly $140 I don't see how that would really come into it as a reason for doing the filtering. $140 is nothing to a developer for a guaranteed payment on completion, its also against the interests of the buyer as they may end up with subpar quality and an angry developer chasing them down for work they didn't really do to a reliable standard.
Sure, there will likely be a few who try to work around it, but really they aren't the target market user to begin with (the i want ebay for 500$!!? types)
149 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 223 ms ] threadThe company I work for gets people asking for quotes to build their "next big idea", where the person isn't technical but has industry experience behind them.. this has turned out pretty well for some people.
Entrepreneurs who don't code do not need technical co-founders. There are plenty of talented firms and solo developers with product management chops who will collaborate with you to build a product. The entrepreneur pays a fair rate and the service provider delivers a solid foundation on which to pursue the business.
Many if not most of the folks looking to jump into bed with a technical co-founder they have no existing relationship with are doing so because they don't have adequate capital. Undercapitalization is one of the top reasons new businesses fail, so most equity-only/deferred comp. technical co-founder opportunities are unattractive from the start.
[1] http://www.groovehq.com/blog/technical-co-founder
I wouldn't like to be a solo founder because it's too much work and stress for one person. I've had this idea for a mobile app (it's a social network game - littlequest.me) for about 2 years now but still haven't done it because I don't have the right co-founder. Mostly because my network is too dispersed I think.
I do have a couple friends with no experience with building mobile apps interested though. Do you think I should team up with them or hire a professional? I really don't like the idea of doing a business by myself though.
As a university student, this is really pretty great. I will have the opportunity to work on reasonably sized projects, earn some extra cash, and probably build a pretty sweet portfolio. I even think it would be cool to form student orgs around this - have upperclassmen train underclassmen in the art of full stack web-dev, and then have let two underclassmen jump into one of these projects with the guidance of an experienced dev. Finally, split the profits. If any of the founders are reading this, would you be open to something like this?
We're a site that pairs contract programmers with clients. Specifically, we're a marketplace where clients buy prototypes for $2,500.
http://betatype.io/whypost
Looking forward to this.
At market rate for an experienced contract product manager or developer with product management chops, the process of defining functional requirements for a new product will usually entail more than $3,500 worth of work.
To be fair, I think the idea would work for different platforms, but perhaps be explicit on the front page.
There's a strong feeling that they're cheating or deliberately misleading when they don't do that.
Limit the size of the project, limit the size of the investment, limit the cost.
Going forward I expect they will have to do some form of tiering once they see the type of work is in demand, and which type of work is achievable by their developers (which all is still unknown at this point) Example tiers: 500-1000 = quick site, 3500 = mvp, 5000-10000 = soft launch
What does this mean exactly? My prototype will be connected up to your Stripe account and then you'll transfer the money my app makes to me through periodical bank transfers?
Another thing I'd like to see Betatype providing is some sort of franchised coaching and guidance to both the product owner and the developer on how to best set themselves and the other party up for success.
Coaching and guidance isn't a substitute for experience. You can learn about the product lifecycle by reading a book or taking a class, but that doesn't mean you know how to manage it in the real world. Frankly, the number of good developers who can also credibly wear the hat of product manager is much, much smaller than the number of good developers.
If they have a way to make this happen, then it's an amazing product. If not, then there will be a lot of disappointment on both sides.
From a quick look on elance. There are currently 10,344 "Web Developers" with a listed hourly rate. The cutoffs for 50/75/90 percentiles are $15, $25 & $40 per hour. Obviously dance doesn't represent the top earning developers. Elance covers the low end, mostly.
The hourly rate of developers ranges a lot. So does the hourly output. Silicon Valley veterans expect $100-$200 per hour. On a worldwide scale, that's high end free lancing. Jobs usually come by way of personal introductions and relationships.
I totally agree that few are going to turn down a job at Google to build $3500 prototypes.
The gigs you can get as a freelancer for a SV company are not something that most elance developers can compete for. You can't cold call your way into them and you can't get them through a website. Part of the reason is skillet, some of it is cultural. The ability to relate to the person hiring, sell yourself and a whole bunch of other soft reasons play a role too. They can't get to the high end.
A lot of the startups in this space seem to be trying to crack the middle end, which IMO is underdeveloped. My guess is that's the $25-$60 per hour range. This is (as mentioned elsewhere on this thread) rational in the context of average developer salaries in some parts of the world. BTW, $50 per hour X 20-40 hours per week will buy you a great lifestyle.
Also, a freelancer on his 26th $3500 prototype may get pretty good at it. They'll be using suitable tools have methods for coxing ideas out of clients. It is it's own skillet.
However, my bigger concern is that working out the requirements is being done by someone other than the developer that's going to be working on the project. If you're trying to get something done on a budget, fewer people in the mix is better.
Furthermore, the conversation about product requirements needs to be a two way discussion. Developers are often in a unique position to guide a product owner into what's easy to implement and provides the biggest "bang for your buck." Their early insight can radically shape the product and is not based on what the customer thinks they need, but what the customer communicates their goals are. This is where a consultant can provide serious ROI to a product owner.
So many things can go sideways, and at a 4% take on $3,500 projects, as loosely defined as that is, there is no way this can scale.
Sure there is, limit to what time they spend working on getting projects ready, if they don't meet a certain standard, drop them and give quick 5 second tips to get them back in the queue. If they don't produce a reasonable spec in enough attempts just drop them as a user.
Even the AP had a work around for scaling this further, run at a loss for some time while you identify patterns of failure, produce resources for the user to solve their own problems.
For $140 I could easily spend 10-20 minutes looking at a rough spec and tell you if it is workable for 3500, I'd even be able to put in a few slash points on which features would likely need to be cut.
For some perspective, $3500 @ $50/hour = 70 hours. In other words, 1-3 weeks of dev time.
The types of developers you want creating your prototypes are those that can justify charging $200+ per hour because they have past business/user experience to truly understand what you want to achieve from your project as opposed to what you've specified.
Also as another has pointed out, justifying 200/hour and beating the competition is very difficult in a world wide market. Those in sv may be able to push that high but I can assure you there is many many developers with the same skill set living in much cheaper economic climates where 50/hour is considered much higher than 200/hour is in sv.
Since the developer's location is becoming irrelevant I guess that's a reality for developers in general.
For example, trashbin and "i want an ebay clone" elance style requests, and filter out the developers who claim to be able to do it for $500 in 12 days.
That alone would cut down most of the crap you see on sites like elance.
As for their fears (dsrguru posted) about people going out of band to work around 4% for a measly $140 I don't see how that would really come into it as a reason for doing the filtering. $140 is nothing to a developer for a guaranteed payment on completion, its also against the interests of the buyer as they may end up with subpar quality and an angry developer chasing them down for work they didn't really do to a reliable standard.
Sure, there will likely be a few who try to work around it, but really they aren't the target market user to begin with (the i want ebay for 500$!!? types)
My biggest concern, like others have mentioned, is that it seems unscalable with the cut that the company keeps.