Ask HN: How do I find a team of 10-15 developers a project to work on?
Along the way we have evolved from a team that was primarily located in Orlando, FL to a team that became distributed across the US. We have pretty much become a ready made, distributed development team for a companies that need one.
The issue is we just can't seem to capitalize on the fact that we are a team of senior devs ready to go, what ends up happening is one or two of us find a decent contract and slowly we pick up the other developers. When we run across a really skilled developer that “gets it” they usually gravitate towards us and become part of the team so with every contract we seem to grow.
We have built some large high volume apps for IBM, Marriott and a host of other companies and we have amassed a lot of business knowledge in the travel, conference platforms, higher education, k-12 and e-reader technologies. We have guys with a lot of experience mobile, Javascript based web apps and a host of back ends. Before this comes off sounding like a sales pitch, I would like to get to the point which is that we are a group of developers in high demand markets, as well we posses high demand skill sets, but we just cant seem to parlay this into something more than just contract work.
My question is how would you parlay what is supposed to be the greatest assets in this market, “developers” into a lucrative arrangement, for all parties involved, that most importantly the team members enjoy? How would you go about getting a team of 10-15 developers / QA / dev ops / and a hands on CTO into a project that they are passionate about, that supports them and has more skin to it than just a contract or job. I don't even know how, I would go about marketing such an arrangement to someone with the idea and the capital, or find and existing company that needs such a team.
33 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 70.0 ms ] threadHaven't checked them out in a few years (not sure what to make of their expired SSL cert), but I thought the model was interesting nonetheless.
(If you do, please post it here! Would love to see it, you guys sound cool).
If you are interested in the bios of the team here are the profiles of some of the main guys:
Myself: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kentonsmeltzer
Hung Chen: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/hung-chen/20/51/827
Brian Posey: https://www.linkedin.com/in/btposey
Mike Dunn: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/mike-dunn/2/606/76
Tom Marra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tmarra
Roy Bowen: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/roy-bowen/2b/11a/328
Robert Allison: https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=16189839&authType=N...
Robin Jacques: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/robin-jacques/3/b47/50b
Robert Marsicano: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marsaware
There are a few more guys but that is a pretty good cut across many of the guys that have worked together off and on for a while.
Just talking to people on your networks raises the chances of spotting a place / an idea how to find a one.
It sounds to me as if you are missing the key ingredient to the mix, you need marketing and business management/development of some sort. My bet is the team as a whole has a good sized network to pull from, you just may lack the experience and knowledge of using it to get deal flow.
Not that you asked, but for 10-15 guys, you need significant project flow to keep everyone employed and happy at fair wages. It will equate to a bare minimum of $140k or so per month in revenue, personally, I'd be more comfortable near $200-210k as a minimum target for the whole team. If you assume you take minimum agreements of $30k or so, you need roughly 5-7 new deals a month to keep cash flow moving or work towards getting larger deals but those generally take time. Additionally you have to see how the mix of your team fits projects to see how that would work, e.g. you may have to support a devops (just an example) person for a few months when there is little devops work coming through.
If you want to chat I am in Central Florida too, happy to met up or chat via email etc. We may have some complementary skills that would benefit both our teams.
davismwfl lists his email in his profile and gave you an open invitation to talk with him and especially soak up the knowledge that he has gained from starting two consulting companies. In an instance like that, you want to be the one contacting him, sussing out his schedule, giving him a few options for when you could possibly meet, and following up with him consistently when you get radio silence.
This is not meant to be an attack on your approach, but I read your response as extremely passive (easy to talk me into lunch, probably twist Hung's arm), and an aggressive approach where you actively engage an interested party is what will lead you to succeed in that role.
I understand that taking on that role might not be your forte, so you might be reluctant in fully embracing it. How I would approach it is by attacking the problem head on so you don't have to bring in a business development person who is a complete unknown within your group, and just trusting them to get the job done. Go to local meetup groups, and maybe even meetups within a 2+ hour radius. Troll craigslist for potential clients nationwide. Maybe even line up a couple projects with a freelancing website just to get the ball rolling -- projects that make economic sense (being able to complete a project with 2-5 of your man-hours for 500-1000 dollars).
I think what impresses non-technologists the most is if you have a full and utter grasp of their business, not just their product offerings. You can show great prescience if you can thoroughly research their products and say things like "I bet your customers have said that they wish they had x feature", or "Have you considered y alternate method to monetizing your core product?". Chances are, all the ideas you toss out they will have thought of, but it will show that you're in the business of helping them get to business solutions and not just build them some cool software. This will make them feel like you're on their team, and greatly increase the chance of landing a contract.
Consequently, if you find this part to be difficult (extracting the core business that someone is in from their product offerings) then it becomes more and more difficult to pitch technology solutions, since you're basically missing the whole point of their company and just attacking their pain points from the outside->in. Whoever is in the role of gathering contracts should be able to direct all of your technological forces into a business solutions package, instead of a technological solutions package.
One of the things I do is troll Craigslist off and on. We have a contract right now valued around $90k from a single phone call to a poorly written craigslist ad that I reached out to. Not bad for literally about 30 minutes of a phone call and 90 minutes of discussions and negotiations.
No one will represent you the way you can if you are willing to learn some skills, but sometimes you need the outside help. However, a little mentoring/guidance can go a long way if you are willing.
In the end work will not find you guys until you have a niche and decent reputation, and even then people who say they never look for clients I think are not being totally honest. I met with one successful and smart guy who runs a consultancy and he swears he never looks for work it "just finds him". Well, that is sort of true but not really the whole truth or being totally honest. Specifically in his case, he does a lot of tech training, writing and is involved in a specific tech scene. So in the end he is doing a ton of marketing and talking about his team and their abilities, he's just not out cold calling or using a lot of traditional marketing.
Also, consulting can enter into feast or famine mode unless you designate someone to keep deal flow moving. This isn't optional and can't be something you do half hearted. It takes dedication, but it doesn't have to be sole sucking shit work, it should be fun and be a lot about pre-sales and pre-qualification of clients. It can even be something that is a shared duty but it has to be dedicated time every week.
One of the things that we have been caught up in before is a continuous sales cycle where the client has no intention of actually committing to picking up our services but rather is seeing how much pre-consulting work they can get out of us. This has only happened a couple of times in our history but when it does it is costly to whoever is working the sale as it's not really a salaried deal with us. So we get a little gun shy about extensive pre-sales. As well we are trying to move away from a contracting / consulting service and into something that we have some ownership of.
Developers many (maybe most) times get to wrapped up in the details of the project and forget to close the deal first, leading the clients to "take advantage" of you. We have all done it and still do it from time to time. It is smart to use a pre-qualification interview of a few questions. You don't do it in the "interview" style, but you get some qualifying questions in so you can frame the project to see if it is even a decent match before you put too much time into it. Budget and timeframe are the two critical keys to get out in the open early, which generally prevents a huge portion of wasted time on both sides. Not only that, it has let me refer leads to other shops/developers that might be a better fit and then I will get a referral fee. Likewise, I happily pay referral fees to others who send clients my way.
I have few things in mind, but not sure how plausible it would be for your team!
But in all seriousness, with the team you have, it sounds like you need a full time business development person. Ideally that would be you but maybe this is not part of your skill set. To feed those mouths you need revenue and getting work through the door is a full time job.
A bizdev person can be expensive but the idea is that they pay for themselves (easier said than done). Rather than hiring a full time bizdev, you could instead try to build a network of bizdev people around you. They could receive a bonus if x% for any lead that turns into a contact (again, easier said than done).
Other thing that might work is to get into contact with recruiters (I know, I'm out of a limb). You can let them know that you have a team of devs ready to go that they can fall back on in case of emergencies or what ever.
I know it's not out of the realm of possibility on HN and I do like that HN is not adverse to shameless promotion but my first and foremost interest is in the opinions of the group on how to parlay this into what the team wants. As we just keep circling this subject, one of our big contracts is winding down again so the subject has once again come to the forefront. All of us have no doubt that we will replace the contract but no one is thrilled about the idea. There is a deep desire to have some ownership or at least some long term interest in a codebase.
Other thing that might work is to get into contact with recruiters (I know, I'm out of a limb). You can let them know that you have a team of devs ready to go that they can fall back on in case of emergencies or what ever.
This has been the majority of our leads, we have about 4 recruiters that when they see a pattern of hiring by a company tend to recommend getting in contact with us, they of course take their margin of the top of the team but it is less than standard recruiting arrangements. One of the things about us is that money is equally split among the team. None of us take a cut off the top.
That's interesting. So, there is actually no money to grow the business? I.e. profit that can be reinvested for growth? This might actually be the root cause of your problem (although it's difficult to tell).
In the states, most of bizdev is about selling a product. Companies like IBM do swap deals: AT&T outsources it IT work, in return IBM buys stuff from ATT (cellphone, network, phone services, etc).
So, the parent poster should troll on Linkedin and look for the bizdev folks who work for Indian offshoring companies, and network with them, and see where it leads to.
Why?
Your pitch is basically: you (the startup) have funding and product market fit, but don't have a strong tech team. It's gonna take you 3-6 months to build one. We can get you one today. You pay us market + equity.