Show HN: New platform for finding work - $2000 project minimum

http://www.codeyouridea.com/coders/

by anto210 • 15 years ago

195 111 15 years ago

e1ven• 15 years ago

Interesting platform. For larger projects, I'm less likely to use a eLance/vWorker type service, and more likely to seek people out via their github/twitter/blog directly..

What is the revenue model here? Do you let me search people, and then I pay you a monthly fee, or do you take a cut?

The former is worthwhile to me; By requiring that users pay $50/month to search the devs, it keeps out a lot of the rifraff.

The later doesn't offer enough utility to be worth a cut of the entire price.

anto21013• 15 years ago

We are thinking monthly fee. Your point on charging to search devs is exactly what we are going for. People won't sign up unless they are serious about building a project.

maxklein2• 15 years ago

Monthly fee is nonsense. Charge a project cut.

swanson• 15 years ago

There is a white border around your logo.

ultrasaurus• 15 years ago

I'm always considering building a site like this myself, there's not law of nature that dictates that freelance sites need to be races to the bottom.

The pricing is a little ambiguous, is it free (after the pre-launch period) for coders?

anto21013• 15 years ago

We are working on pricing on the coders side. We are thinking of doing at least 3 months free and figuring it out from there.

jdludlow• 15 years ago

there's not law of nature that dictates that freelance sites need to be races to the bottom

True, but setting a price floor doesn't automatically prevent the race from happening. $2000 for a 5 week project is still racing to the bottom.

Miller450• 15 years ago

Relevant: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2539892

maxklein2• 15 years ago

There is another variable - the project size. $2000 is not much if asked to recreate facebook.

kloncks2• 15 years ago

But it's enough of a barrier to keep out the really low projects.

Compared to people that ask you to program a Facebook clone in 5 days for $200, it's a lot better.

eli• 15 years ago

But it is high enough to rule out "do my Comp Sci homework project for me"

heffay• 15 years ago

I'd like to be able to select more than just one of the "looking for" options. Maybe I'm looking for freelance work in addition to a co-founder with an idea, for example

Rariel2• 15 years ago

I second this.

jijoy• 15 years ago

pls disable the django debug , if you are going for public launch

anto21013• 15 years ago

whoops - Thanks and fixed!

chris_j• 15 years ago

Comment on the website: The main text goes off the bottom of the visible window and is obscured by the footer. This is on Chrome on Linux with the DPI settings increased a bit.

plamenv• 15 years ago

I'd suggest concentrating on the quality of work you will (hopefully) be offering, not the min project price. If I'm a potential employer I'm not thinking "Oh, God, I'm so desperate to find someone that will charge me at least $2K!". Yet, the price is the first thing you throw at my face.

stevejalim2• 15 years ago

I'd rename the github field to something more flexible -- at least let it sound like a BitBucket address would be just as relevant.

Also, how about a field for a LinkedIn profile?

MatthewB2• 15 years ago

I like the idea. I am looking for a tech cofounder and hopefully this helps me find one. Thanks.

plusbryan2• 15 years ago

Design is really important to me when deciding where to take my business. I love the idea, but the web site could use some serious design love.

For instance: That block of text might be good for SEO, but no one will ever read it.

BasilAwad6• 15 years ago

the ampersands on the bottom of the page look weird.

anto21013• 15 years ago

agreed - fixing now.

plusbryan2• 15 years ago

Also - design for your target customer. If non-technical business owners are your customer, go with a design that makes them feel welcome. Terminal icon? Blocky font? That tells me this site is for developers.

dpcan• 15 years ago

Check out the home page: http://www.codeyouridea.com/ :o

I don't necessarily agree about the long text blob however, I had to read that to really understand what he was doing.

metachris2• 15 years ago

Which is the outcome of a bad design. It should make the information better comprehensible.

latortuga• 15 years ago

Other small nitpicks:

- The footer floats in the middle of the terms of service page, covering up text

- In the pricing pop up, "Why we charge for CodeYourIdea.com?" is not a real sentence. Eliminate the question mark or add a "do".

anto21013• 15 years ago

thanks! fixing now

anto21013• 15 years ago

Launch early, Launch often!

Working on it now - thanks for the feedback!

gridspy• 15 years ago

I just read the entire block of text. I found it informative. If I was in the market for new work it would have converted me.

euccastro• 15 years ago

If I was in either side of this business, I'd gladly lose those who won't bother to read the block of text.

BasilAwad6• 15 years ago

You know, having coders or designers submit 30 second videos describing their skills and previous projects is an easy way to differentiate from other freelancing sites. Let non-paying visiters to the site see that as well. I would feel like I was getting a much higher quality batch of bid responses if I was able to see 30 sec videos of developers communicating their skills and previous projects competently in a not reading-off-the-screen way.

Maybe you could get the people asking for bids to submit 30 second videos of themselves too?

BrandonM3• 15 years ago

I hate the movement toward video vetting processes. It invites discrimination into an area where it otherwise wouldn't exist. Communication skills are important, but for freelance work most communication will be via email, with occasional phone/Skype conversations.

BasilAwad6• 15 years ago

As in racial discrimination? Yeah, I'm sure it will for some. But it's still really useful. For example, I'm sure the videos play a big role in YC applications, although probably not as a first criteria.

Plus it's not like the developers would be talking about something obscure, they would be talking about their core competencies.

BasilAwad6• 15 years ago

Plus if there is an exchange of at least $2,000 dollars I would like to at least see your face.

bloggergirl2• 15 years ago

Videos just make people who speak English as a second language feel uncertain. And an unattractive or sloppy-looking person may lose a job... even if they're uber-qualified.

I'd say skip the video-thing altogether (unless you want to make it an optional addition to a profile) and jump straight to portfolios.

Portfolios are all that matter. Anyone worth hiring will have a good portfolio.

BenSS• 15 years ago

I want to agree the portfolio is all that matters, but in my experience it's not the first priority for the people hiring. There's a huge pool of people who CAN do the work, and many people hiring can't easily make the determination of quality anyway. Communication goes a long way.

kloncks2• 15 years ago

Curious question. How long have you been developing this?

anto21013• 15 years ago

The site - about 3 weeks. The two landing pages up right now? About a day. Working on the design fixes now!

dstein2• 15 years ago

It's good that at least someone is trying to address this. There are no decent freelance/telecommuter oriented job sites. The ones out there are generally geared toward the "let's outsource to India" style gigs -- I really can't compete with Indonesian teenagers for $10/hr PHP work. I have a feeling there is a huge swath of untapped talent out there being ignored by companies who are still in the 20th century and demand on-site employees.

bloggergirl2• 15 years ago

I agree! A major opportunity seems to exist in developing a remote work/telecommuting-specific job board. A good one. Like TheLadders for remote/contract/freelance only.

micheljansen2• 15 years ago

I think you won't find many Indonesian kids in India coding PHP. Indonisia is quite a different country from India, and not particularly known for it's booming IT outsourcing opportunities :P

dstein2• 15 years ago

I did not mean that literally Indonesian teenagers are in India finding PHP jobs. I meant that people in many poor countries (Indonesia, India, Philippines etc) must be competing for these minimum wage programming jobs.

ohashi• 15 years ago

I started an outsourcing company in Indonesia... not sure if it was any more or less fraught with problems honestly. Certainly are quite a few people doing outsourcing there though, no idea what the threshold for booming is.

M1573RMU74710N• 15 years ago

FWIW, I don't think they were saying that Indonesia is part of India or that the two are related.

I could see how one might make the leap logically, but it's not what was being implied. The "India" was part of a descriptive label, and "Indonesia" was clearly a country just picked at random for illustrative purposes.

It's like if I told you I got a scroll written in "India Ink" while in Michigan...I'm not saying Michigan is in India.

newman314• 15 years ago

Renders funny under Firefox 4.

michaelpinto2• 15 years ago

I hate to say it but $2,000 sounds a bit cheap. I'm assuming that most people who want to "code an idea" aren't looking for a WordPress install but something that's a bit more grand and may require doing a spec. If a coder is $50 an hour $2,000 is just 40 hours (i.e. one week): In my experience you'll spend at least that doing bug fixes and QA (even on a small project).

Maybe you should even set the minimum at $5k? If you're not willing to spend $5k on your idea then it can't be a very good idea if you know what I mean. And I say this as a designer who isn't a coder...

anto21013• 15 years ago

We debated this number at length... We don't usually do projects for less than 5k, but every once in a while there is something small and quick that is worth it. We figured start low and if we need to raise the bar we will. Thanks for the feedback.

18pfsmt• 15 years ago

Maybe projects could be classified as $2K, $5k, $10k, +?

michaelpinto2• 15 years ago

But maybe you don't want more of "every so often" type clients — you should market for the clients you want to get. Do another site for $2k jobs and define what those are (and they won't be "code an idea" -- more like "make me a thingie")...

smokey_the_bear• 15 years ago

5k seems cheap too. You might just want to ask for more.

In my experience, software projects always work best when the buyer considers the work to be plain expensive, and the developer feels well paid. Actually, that goes for all sorts of projects.

darklighter3• 15 years ago

Pricing is hard and often the only way to find out what is the 'right' price is to experiment and adjust.

jrwoodruff2• 15 years ago

So the text says you are 'a team of developers and designers who want to spend more time doing what we love,' but this appears to only be for developers. Are you targeting designers as well, or only coders?

anto21013• 15 years ago

I think we will break that out in the future. We wanted to simplify for launch, but I think its a good point.

Please sign up! Just mention in the comments you are a designer.

wmblaettler• 15 years ago

I found a small typo in the "Why We Are Doing This?" paragraph, "and have respect for the work we have [to] do."

evanjacobs• 15 years ago

I really like the idea and I think there is a great need from both developers and customers for this service. Have you thought at all about how to drive the demand side of this marketplace?

jasonkester• 15 years ago

Why the monthly pricing? Job boards and freelance sites are traditionally pay-per-post for a reason. Unless you know something that the rest don't, you might want to stick to conventional wisdom here.

Just charge $100 to post a project.

rokhayakebe• 15 years ago

I want a site that charges people to bid. This way you are sure to only bid if you are confident.

mtogo• 15 years ago

Please don't use "GitHub page". Github is not the only code hosting site out there and many people (like myself) don't use it.

anto21013• 15 years ago

K - will rename to portfolio!

Sudarshan• 15 years ago

I think something implying: "Online Code Repository" would be better. Portfolio may mean, you want to look at the outputs while you want to check out the "code" or attitude here...

inkaudio4• 15 years ago

This is a great idea, It's hard for people with little tech experience to find a good hacker/coder and it's hards to find clients with a sufficient budget for a project. So here is my biz dev advice..

1) Your concept of screening coders for talent is important, only accept people who can get things done.

2.) Only charge developers a monthly fee. The collective fees should be enough to cover the cost of an ongoing marketing campaign to attract the right businesses and entrepreneurs.

3.) Educate businesses and single entrepreneurs about the cost of projects, and cost of talent and explain trade offs for paying less. Experienced coders may cost more, but they have the experience can work faster, less learning on job....coders who charge less may be less experience, in different time zone, not so fluent in native language, etc. Provide rough estimates based on info on past projects. i.e. Angry brids cost about $150,000 to create. (http://www.develop-online.net/news/37242/Angry-Birds-cost-Ro... )

4.) The education is important and it provides prescreen of potential clients, only accept projects that fall within reasonable guidelines.

5.) Do not charge businesses a monthly fee. as mentioned by MatthewB "If it takes any more than a month to find a dev, there's something wrong with your system." Once developer has been found, charge business/entrepreneur fee per projects because you're providing technical screening service.

Note: So the idea is to take some elements of successful services like elance, etc and raise the bar. setting up useful guidelines and an effective marketing campaign will not be easy.

anto21013• 15 years ago

Thanks for the feedback - very helpful!

inkaudio4• 15 years ago

No problem, I hope it does well. Keep in mind design is part of marketing so take heed to the comments about improving the designs.

joshontheweb• 15 years ago

Only charge developers a monthly fee? Last I checked it is hard to find developers and not hard for developers to find work. I doubt many developers would pay to be listed, I know I wouldn't.

inkaudio4• 15 years ago

Sure there are many developers who won't need the service, but there also plenty of developers who wouldn't mind having a service to filter out the silly and bogus request. It's not about finding any kind of work, it's about finding the right work at the right pay. The goal is to match quality jobs with talented developers.

stevejalim2• 15 years ago

> "Only charge developers a monthly fee"

I'd check US employment law first -- here in the UK, I had my first proper startup attempt holed by discovering UK employment legislation that stipulates you can't charge a worker for finding them work - you can only charge the person who ends up hiring them. There are nuances and exceptions to this, such as when someone's contracting via a corp/company etc, but it definitely applies to individuals freelancing, etc. Hope that helps.

inkaudio4• 15 years ago

That's interesting, there are number of website that have success doing this, Elance, Sortfolio, to name a few. It may be just the way the service is structured, i.e. it's just a listing where employers can find you.

romansanchez• 15 years ago

Make sure you validate your text fields.

izak30• 15 years ago

Broken, I got a Django debug page on appspot, contact me and I can give you details

d0m3• 15 years ago

MultiValueDictKeyError at /submit/programmer, then:

global name 'phone' is not defined

(I think you're trying to fix this right now.. right?)

anto21013• 15 years ago

Yep - we broke the form - had to turn debug back on - fixed now! (debug is off)

biot• 15 years ago

For $2000 maybe you can hire someone to setup a staging environment? :)

d0m3• 15 years ago

I was down-voted for reporting a bug? wow.

metachris2• 15 years ago

    NameError at /submit/programmer
    global name 'phone' is not defined
    Request Method:	POST
    Request URL:	http://ecl-data-collection.appspot.com/submit/programmer
    Django Version:	1.2.5
    Exception Type:	NameError
    Exception Value:	
    global name 'phone' is not defined
    Exception Location:	/base/data/home/apps/ecl-data-collection/1.350367717383270314/views.py in submit_programmer, line 28
    Python Executable:	/base/
    Python Version:	2.5.2
    Python Path:	['/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python25.zip', '/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/third_party/django-1.2', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/plat-linux2', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/lib-tk', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/lib-dynload', '/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/1', '/base/data/home/apps/ecl-data-collection/1.350367717383270314/']
    Server time:	Thu, 12 May 2011 17:32:17 +0000

run4yourlives2• 15 years ago

Send him an email dude.

anto21013• 15 years ago

yep sorry about that - we broke the form and had to turn debug back on - thanks for point it out!

run4yourlives2• 15 years ago

I'm a little confused at the pricing.

Why would I require access to a constant stream of developers to code my projects? Is the supply that bad? Am I running developers out of town?

To me, it seems that you would use a service like this to establish working relationships and then continue to use those same working relationships in the future. In this model, it seems rather silly to pay you a monthly fee, and if I find a coder quickly you're not making much off of me.

The interesting issue is that websites like this are doing the exact same thing that professional recruiters do - playing matchmaker. The problem I have is that if you look at the recruiters that are really good, one of the first things that comes to light is that they our outstanding at building relationships. It's not so much about being selective as it is about understanding need and fit.

My concern is that the very thing that makes the process work well is completely absent on the web. It's hard to assess personality and fit without meeting a person and/or working with them in person.

I wish you the best of luck but I'm not sure if this is a technical problem at all.

d0m3• 15 years ago

I'd suggest using DEBUG = False in the production environment. (Django debug view gives a lot of private informations..)

Exception Location: /base/data/home/apps/ecl-data-collection/1.350367717383270314/views.py in submit_programmer, line 28 Python Executable: /base/ Python Version: 2.5.2 Python Path: ['/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python25.zip', '/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/third_party/django-1.2', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/plat-linux2', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/lib-tk', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/lib-dynload', '/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/1', '/base/data/home/apps/ecl-data-collection/1.350367717383270314/']

lacker• 15 years ago

Plus, when DEBUG = True, Django leaks memory.

mikle• 15 years ago

Firefox 4 on windows - The blob of text doesn't have a margin to right, making it stick to the scroll bar and hard to read.

Great idea, I might even try out, but first I need to get a portfolio going. Damn all those closed source projects and non participation in StackOverflow...

deyan• 15 years ago

I was not sure about the purpose of the website. On the one hand, it apparently wants to help people with projects find great coders. Great. On the other hand, it appears that it is also aiming to help you find (technical) cofounders. I don't think these are very related so I was a bit confused as to what the actual goal is.

Any thoughts?

winterchil• 15 years ago

I love this idea but it feels like these types of sites have become overly popular and I've noticed some problems. For context, I'm an entrepreneur with a budget, mock-ups, some angel interest, and I'm having a tough time finding senior development talent (mobile app & camera experience, some web talent). Anyway, if you solve some of these problems I'd get interested in a hurry.

-there's no upside in describing my project to an unknown community, If I describe it blandly nobody thinks it's interesting, if I describe it in detail I've given away our secret sauce.

-black box effect; it's unclear when/if I'll hear from the match-maker service.

-qualifications; while I value other people doing the pre-screens on developers I won't be comfortable unless they pass screens from technical people I know/trust but I seem overly picky and slow to decide if I have multiple interviews with all potential candidates.

For what it's worth, I think if you put more information about yourselves and your qualifications for screening devs it would help soothe these concerns.

joshaidan• 15 years ago

eHarmony for programmers and employers, nice! :)

gexla• 15 years ago

$2000 can be a great price or a very bad price. A project which has a budget of $250 is great if it only requires an hour of my time. A budget of $2000 is horrible if it requires 200 hours of my time.

Rariel2• 15 years ago

"We will not share your idea with anyone else, but we cannot guarantee that we will not work on something very similar."

That makes me almost 100% unlikely to use your site. I know that you're CYA here, but I would need to cover mine too...It seems a little stupid to tell you an idea if you say in big bold letters that although you might not share it, you may steal it or "work on something very similar."

timedoctor• 15 years ago

Definitely agree with the problem that this site is trying to solve.

For most large projects it is impossible to spec out the idea accurately and what the client wants changes as the person starts to code. So I think that in many cases an hourly rate makes more sense for the coder and the project creator.

For medium sized projects around $2-10k maybe 20k, then project based work makes sense. Larger than this and a fixed fee is dangerous for the coder. Plus managing the timing of when the coder is paid is difficult.

And yes in most cases if the coder is great, a genuine coder will want an ongoing relationship with the employer.

Also I think it is possible to achieve the same result as your site by using vworker for example but only picking coders with VERY good feedback (the top 200 coders on the web site for example).

Another potential problem is how to you weed out all of the bad coders? If you get 10,000 applications from India, how will you know which guys are good and which are not good? That's probably the most important thing you can do for the employers.

Having said all of that, there definitely is a need, so good luck!

djerry• 15 years ago

It will be looking good if you change the logo type and mark. Also please add an input field for Linkedin.

Show HN: New platform for finding work - $2000 project minimum

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