superkinz

Totally agree, super annoying. I will highlight and re-highlight a paragraph over and over as I read through it. I'm not sure why I do it, maybe it's my impulse to go faster that I can satisfy by moving my cursor rather than reading more rapidly.

Yikes, ok we'll take a look at that. Seems like we've got a lot of testing to do on this. Thanks for the heads up.

Wasn't a joke, just a miscommunication internally. =)

Thanks for calling it out early.

I feel like I should be paying you guys for helping us out so much. =)

Thanks for finding that, fix being deployed right now!

Thanks for pointing that out. We switched over to Middleman from Wordpress and we're slowly building it out custom as we go. We get in a little work here and there in our spare time, but I think you've pointed out that we've got a ways to go before it works well all around.

Thanks for the heads up!

Hey guys, I just want to clear up some confusion that we didn't see coming - The infographic was meant to represent the developers using GroupTalent back in July. I think folks got a little confused when we started drawing comparisons to the industry as a whole.

Sorry about that! We've removed the misleading parts to avoid any further confusion. Thanks!

That's strange, I'll take a look at that tonight when my wife lets me wrestle the iPad out of her hands.

I think she thinks it's hers... =)

Agreed. Thanks again for sharing the story, I think it's super helpful to other folks to see where things break so they can either avoid common pitfalls, or avoid the topic altogether!

Maybe, but when you're being offered such a large chunk of equity I think folks tend to think of it more like a partnership. I mean 60% and 40% are relatively equal and generally on par with the kind of split many serial entrepreneurs think there ought to exist, whether you agree with that or not.

Well finding technically skilled people who are available and willing to work on your project isn't exactly easy. He may have embraced that a little sooner than other entrepreneurs and decided to go for something juicy enough that he could make headway.

Exactly, the existing team really needs to be able to carry that person for the first six months before they start becoming really productive.

Shameless self promotion: we've got a bunch of python projects on GroupTalent right now you might be interested in.

It's a pretty looking website, you hired a good designer to help you skin it Kirill. Nice.

What's the main difference between you and dribbble? They let you people message designers about projects too, no?

Good luck!

I'm a founder of GroupTalent, so we've seen a lot on this specific topic...

I'd say the two biggest challenges for hackers who want to take projects is lead-generation and sales. They sound simple, but they aren't and you'll waste a lot of time talking to a lot of tire-kickers.

For lead-gen, that just means finding work. Where do you start? There's a few ways to go, you can network with friends, college alumni, startup circles. You could contact incubator companies and ask if they need any extra help, etc. I have to mention GroupTalent too because this is one of the biggest problems we solve.

When it comes to sales, you don't land projects just because you've got "software developer" in your job title. It still comes down to convincing them that you're not going to botch the project, and that's based on what you've done before. They want to see examples of your work, including anything at hackathons (those are good examples of how quickly you can crank out prototypes). The closer it is to what they've done the better because buyers don't buy you, they buy the thing you'd be building them. It's easier to visualize success with you if they see something close.

On the question of whether to work by yourself or as a team, I'd say go as a team. I've seen first hand that not only will you be happier working with a friend, but the idea of getting a package is a big perk for clients. Speed is often a big deal for them, and 2 is faster than one.

Also, clients gravitate towards hackers who can build web apps, not as much static sites. Anybody can code up css/html, but can you build functioning prototypes? Push that as your core skill-set and you'll have a better chance at finding gigs.

Most developers and designers hate spending half their time shmoozing, networking, meeting and dealing with people who just want to meet for the free advice. It just sort of comes with the territory. In the end, success will come from getting access to the right clients, and traditionally that has meant knowing the right people. This is one of the reasons we're building what we are.

Lastly, don't take projects you aren't interested in. When you're building your own product, and working on the side, it needs to be interesting enough that you can power through the finish and earn the paycheck regardless of what's happening with your company.

Oh – and one more thing, payment can be a huge hassle. Make sure to establish payment terms before starting or you might get burned. I know folks who just don't get paid. We make project owners pay up front for teams, we hold it in escrow, and pay out on a per sprint basis. If you want to do something similar on your own without an escrow-like service, you might do half up front before a sprint starts, and then half after each sprint. But seriously, break it down into sprints that deliver functionality costing no more than $5k. More sprints at lower cost is better, it's easier to get them to pay for $3k + $4k +$5k know what I mean? It's progressive cost increase for progressive emotional commitment. Otherwise things have a tendency to go unchecked, and then people change their minds, and it's wasted work, and oh should we pay for that or not, etc etc.

If you have any questions, tweet me @superkinz

This argument goes equally well for the war on drugs. Possibly even immigration.

Boo ben.

I think it's worth mentioning that Kyle's consideration of his user base's interests was a top priority, and ultimately the reason we decided to collaborate. He's a class act all the way, and I hope some of you fellas will take him out to drinks. Dibbs on the first round!

Old news.

The point isn't to educate HN users about why SOPA sucks, it's to throw a roadblock in front of people and say "rather than spending the usual 10 minutes reading posts, pick up your phone and call your representative and complain"

It's about forcing people to get off their lazy butts and make a phone call. And as much as we complain, I bet 99% of people here haven't made that call yet.

I suppose that depends on what you mean by heavy sprint. 3-months long is excessive and burnt me out, but 1 month is not so bad. I totally disagree that it should be a once in a lifetime of a company type event to do a month long sprint. Many companies have a couple of major events a year that present an opportunity to make a big splash. You either take advantage of them, or let others pass you by.

It can kill morale depending on how it's treated, and how the company culture rewards. Just because you choose to meet a goal as a team that requires more than average number of hours put in for 4 weeks does not mean everybody is being dragged along. What does upset the folks doing the heavy lifting is when requirements get added at the last minute with "oh, can we please please just have this one more thing? It would be so awesome" from upper management. That's pure bullshit, and tends to rip apart morale above anything else.

How am I supposed to read this? This makes no sense. Figure out the point you want to make with the graph, and make sure it conveys that quickly and easily.

You're focusing on full time only sites as opposed to freelance?

Yeah. Walmart created their own innovation labs, and the gift suggestions is a result of that.

Interesting thought. I've seen IOUs between developers and designers go bad sometimes though. Different people quantify things differently. I gave a dev friend three hours of tutorial on photoshop, and later he complained about me asking him for the time back, even though that was the whole point – so I could learn some programming. Then it became an issue of "tracking hours too closely" and we never really connected again.

I'm not saying it can't work, but it does get hairy with "social debt" and how different people interpret that. "My time as a developer is worth $150 an hour, and yours is worth $75 an hour, so the time I put in is worth twice yours." I heard one dev tell a designer that once.

You're not adding value to the community by asking people to fill out your google form. If you want people to do this, put it up as a public poll for everybody to take, and see the results of.

This needs to be an iPad app ASAP. When can we get it?

I love it. I'm musically challenged but feel like I can actually make reasonably not-horrible music. And it's like a video game. Love it!

Give me a robot that lets me fight other robots. And can I control this from my iPad rather than a second iPhone?

You'll be fine. You may find out that after a while you hate the type of design you do but you'll probably still love designing - it's why we got into it.

I graduated 6 years ago back when they hardly taught any web/UI work. I started out in print and at first loved it, but quickly grew to hate it. I learned enough about myself that it was clear that it was time to move on. Then I finally accidentally landed a job at a startup and found what I really loved - UX/UI. Then did that really well, and now I'm on to product design and business.

Long story short, you're pretty likely to have an evolving set of interests and that will allow you to get really good at a number of facets. You should still be doing 60 hours a week or more if you want to be making big leaps forward. Once you get burnt out on working your ass off doing that one thing, you'll find something else really interesting and inspiring. Then go chase that.

There are always new things to learn, so make sure you've got supporting network to chat about your challenges with so that you know you're not alone. A lot of times, there are little things you can do to keep your zeal for life even though what you're hammering on may not be as interesting as it used to be. But when it becomes downright depressing to go to work every day for 1-2 weeks, you better quit.

Startups can't always go straight after fundraising. When my team an I were iterating on product for the first 4 months, we had to pay the bills. My two cofounders both have kids, and one has a mortgage. I have a mortgage too. Tell me exactly which VC is going to give a team with a crazy idea a bunch of money? How many checks like that have you seen written to such early stage non-serial entrepreneurs?

So you know what we did? We all spent 3-4 days a week on contracting gigs, and the other 3-4 days a week working on our product together. Aside from the fact that we really didn't see eachother for half the week (which sucked because communication broke down), the contracting worked great. I set up expectations with my client and did some amazing work for them, and in the same week we made great progress on product.

Is it ideal? No. But does it keep the lights on and the health insurance paid and food on the counter? Yes. Assuming that everybody who decides to start a company has $50k saved up in their account is ludicrous.

And you know what? If we could have worked on the same project when we were bootstrapping rather than different ones, our communication and camaraderie would have been a lot better.

I completely agree that if you have a good deal of runway through savings or venture capital, staying heads down and avoiding distractions is the right move. But Christeso, that's not what this product is for. It's for all the other guys who need to hustle and scrape together enough money to keep going.

Would have been better if they attributed the change to getting squeezed by Hollywood. At least people could sympathize rather than make Netflix into a villain. I suspect the change came in large part due to payment terms on all accounts as opposed to accounts consuming media.