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Hiya everyone, OP here. If you reached out to us in the last 14 hours, I'm sorry to say we probably haven't gotten back to you. We didn't anticipate this many responses-- we were expecting under 10 offers, and instead we got over 100-- and our management system is still really shoddy. For example, we're still copy and pasting your email into our admin dashboard to get your signup link.

We're working on fixing/scaling things, but in the meantime I didn't want to insult everyone with an automated message, so hopefully this message can catch you before that frustrated comment! Also, we do intend to get back to everyone eventually.

Just since we're on HN, if you have any thoughts to share feel free to reach out to me directly - [redacted]

Sounds like a well-defined task, so we've got you covered :) Send us an email and mention you're from HN in the subject line, and I'll take care of you myself.

Hahaha, really? In the US it's slang for "boss."

Sorry to ask what are probably silly questions, but: how do I, uh, find these people? Like where do they gather? Should I look up local businesses in my area, call them, and talk about their problems?

Thanks for the advice. I'd like to take your suggestion to radically raise rates to prevent this from happening again. What do you suggest I do to get in touch with/market to/work for clients willing to pay that much?

Wow, that is awesome. Wait, that actually sounds like a solution to my biggest problem right now.

Thanks for the heads up. If you hadn't told me I would never have even thought of it that way.

It doesn't cost that much actually; once I find a permanent place and buy groceries etc. I can live off maybe $600-$700/month. The issue is really just that I need money last-minute.

Oh I mean, it's totally worth it to include terms on your website. But must it be in the signup form?

I sit down with each person and agree on a specific list of features they want before I get started. I say explicitly on the site that the $2,345 is only for one iteration.

Hm, I was considering going from "$2,345 for 3 weeks" to "$2,345 per week, up to 3 weeks." But the fee right now isn't as low as it seems; I was planning on taking projects in parallel.

Thanks for all the helpful advice! Totally didn't expect so much feedback.

Question for the more experienced people here: if I changed it to "$2,345 per week, and it'll take 1-3 weeks" instead of "$2,345 for up to 3 weeks," would I lose anyone I shouldn't be losing?

Thanks :) Is anyone still playing that?

3 weeks is just to buy me some runway. I was hoping to work on multiple projects in parallel.

All right, thanks to everyone for the advice. 1/4 upfront it is. It does make my life easier.

As someone who isn't used to taking upfront payments, my question is, are people actually willing to do that?

Hehe, you got me. That actually is where I first got the idea.

Hm, I'm hearing that a lot. Is $2,345 really that little? I've been living near the poverty line by choice, and $2,345 lasts me about two months.

In either case, I guess it would turn off half the visitors if I just changed the price right now.

I considered both when I first got started. Django was just too hard for me. When I read code using a framework I've never seen before, usually I can still kind of tell what it does. It might be my own stupidity, but when I read Django code I have no clue what it does.

I did consider Flask, which is much more similar to web.py, but eventually chose web.py because I was a fan of Aaron Swartz' work at the time.

To be honest, I said 3 weeks just to be safe (the old rule of doubling what you think you need). The plan was also to work on multiple projects in parallel.

You're right though, I am just starting off, and already feel a bit guilty asking for anything north of $5k.

Interesting, what happened that made you lose money? Were you pouring more time into the projects than you were getting paid for?

The latter.

Yeah, we didn't figure that out until after. :(

Thanks for the feedback! Those three are just the options we chose to start off with, since (a) we weren't sure what users wanted to give and (b) those were the easiest to abstract. We're trying to negotiate with several vendors right now.

I have to say, that's probably partly because you actually have a good product. Added to my bookmarks. I've been looking for something like this for years. Thanks for making it!

What's your product? And how'd you find the 3 people?

I'm checking out the book and it looks great! Going to try it out with something.

Other than that, good suggestions.

How would that happen? Like my server saves your searches and quickly registers them before you?

Wouldn't I have to have a load of money for that to be viable on my part?

The entitlement is for the user to feel! That's what the bear is for. He's angry that someone took his domain name.

Also, the funny thing is that now that it's on HN, it is no longer "faster," as the footer proclaims. :(