

You have an idea. You need a website. Now what? - IceCreamYou
http://www.isaacsukin.com/news/2012/04/21/you-have-idea-you-need-website-now-what

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mukaiji
_sigh_ , recurring email of a cs student at a major university that offers an
MBA program.

Hi [tango],

I'm [zebra] and I am a student at the [bravo] business school. I found you
through [school-directory] and I am contacting you because I have a promising
opportunity in the [social|shopping|vanity-business] space, already receiving
attention from potential investors. Not being technical myself, I could use
some help from an [awesome|master-hacker|wizard] technical guy in order to
build a [platform|app|buzz-word-flavor-of-the-week]. I was wondering if you'd
be interested to chat over coffee sometime this week.

best, [zebra]

~~~
IceCreamYou
This is pretty much the flavor of many unsolicited emails CS students get.
Hence, Whartonite Seeks Code Monkey:
<http://whartoniteseekscodemonkey.tumblr.com/>

However, a lot of the people I talk to are through referrals, and they tend to
be significantly more qualified. I've found that the distinction usually comes
down to whether the founder considers "technology" to be the industry (e.g. I
want to be the million-and-first person to create a friend-finding activity-
discovering advertising-supported geolocation app) or whether technology is
viewed as enabling advancements in other industries (e.g. I want to build
Kickstarter for student loans).

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gatlin
People come to me a lot with ambitious ideas and ask me if I can help out.
Very often I'll find that "help out" means "build the entire product" because
while they have ideas, they can't build them. If I press about payment,
they'll offer me a spot as co-founder which is perplexing because they risk
nothing. Typically these ideas are incomplete, too, and I'm expected to be on
call for any changes and modifications. I used to do this a lot.

Sometimes it's my friends, sometimes it's semi-random solicitation. In all
cases, though, my ability to program is seen as a magic bullet. In a casual
conversation they'll start throwing dates around and ask me if they're cool.
Or, I'll get a large email with specifications and instructions presupposing
that I'm already on board. If I say that the idea is interesting, time and
again this seems to mean "I'm 100% committed."

I never know what to do. I would love to found a startup doing something truly
useful and I used to feel bad for not pitching in for my friends. As time has
gone on I've realized I was giving away my time too cheaply. I can't
contribute something meaningful to the world if I'm constantly running around
in poorly-thought-out circles for other people. Sometimes I feel selfish.

~~~
IceCreamYou
I know exactly what you're talking about.

I say No a lot. It's not fun to say No, but I just try to be honest. When you
get to have these conversations a lot you gain useful insights... there are a
lot of ways to help people other than building their product for them.

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drewcrawford
> If you have to hire someone, you're looking at a few hundred dollars minimum
> in most cases

Find me any business that became successful immediately after a non-technical
founder paid a technical contractor less than $500.

~~~
IceCreamYou
Cases where you can get away with paying a technical contractor $300-500 are
pretty limited, but they tend to be businesses with small ambition where just
having a web presence is the important factor, not implementing any
specialized functionality. A student-run startup company selling eco-friendly
water bottles, for example, can probably get someone to install and set up a
basic landing page with a simple payment gateway for under $500.

------
benigeri
Tell me about it. I'm a CS major at Stanford University, and I've been asked
to co-found or become the CTO of a startup 3 times this week. And that is only
counting the phone calls and meetings, emails are another story.

