
Show HN: Hire.Bid – marketplace for on-demand work - Punisher
https://hire.bid
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dave_sullivan
"Patent pending" isn't something that should be on a freelancer job board. The
idea of patenting anything about this is approximately as rediculous as Amazon
patenting one click checkout. Cool otherwise.

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orthoganol
I can understand why a profit seeking venture wants to get a patent if they
can (even though I viscerally disagree with high level, low-effort software
patents), but to advertise it on the footer, while sharing to the tech
community that cares about these issues, is just plain bad judgment.

I mean also, given it's the glorious chicken-egg problem, with only 1
developer within 50 miles of my SF zipcode for the major web categories I
searched, idk if they think an investor will hook at "They have a patent!"
while ignoring this lack of engagement?

~~~
cookiecaper
On the contrary, patents are one of the only things _besides_ engagement that
may be valuable about a typical startup. The technology/software that powers
any given startup is usually easy enough to replicate (excepting massive
cutting-edge projects like SpaceX/Tesla).

Most companies would prefer to copy your features into their own product for
~$1M of engineering time over the course of a year or so (3-5 full-time guys
assigned), rather than pay tens of millions for an outside version that would
have to be integrated, and wait for an acquisition to go through (itself
probably costing close to $1M just in professional fees).

Startups therefore only get bought if they have a userbase that the acquiring
company may be interested in, _or_ if they have a good patent portfolio/other
interesting intellectual property. Patents are exclusive government-backed
monopolies over systems, techniques, or processes ("inventions") that can be
used to force competitors out of business (ideal but rare, because competitors
usually have their own relevant patents that need to be licensed). More often,
patents are useful leverage to get competitors to agree to a mutually-
beneficial cross-licensing deal. Thus, a startup with 0 users may be a good
buy if they have patent(s) relevant to the problem space.

Entrepreneurs should apply for patents because _entrepreneurs need ammo_. Big
companies are not going to buy your company and transfer millions of dollars
because they think you're a nice guy. There are a lot of nice guys out there,
but there aren't a lot of guys with a patent that a big player needs. If you
want to be taken seriously, you need to get some chips before you show up to
the table!

Disclaimer: IHNIWITA (I Have No Idea What I'm Talking About). Not a lawyer or
an investor.

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avip
Ok here's some constructive feedback:

1\. Open dev console. You're trying to load non-existing fonts. You are trying
to serve stripe js from your own server instead of their cdn.

2\. Drop the buggy reg process and go with "standard" auth providers -
google/github.

3\. Take a note from upwork - let me hire and be hired with same login.

4\. Once registered as "want to hire" I got 404.

EDIT: 5. Get a designer to give you professional feedback on the look and
feel.

~~~
jeffmould
In reading the Medium blog post ([https://medium.com/startup-foundation-
stories/about-my-11-ye...](https://medium.com/startup-foundation-
stories/about-my-11-year-old-startup-that-hasn-t-launched-yet-c6d3f41e40eb))
from 2016, I am curious as to why he scraped the design he had hired a firm
for and went back to this design. His reasoning in that blog post is that it
was buggy and "didn't look like a product that had been worked on for so
long". The screenshots from that blog post show a much more polished product
(at least to me) than this revision so I am just curious the reasoning behind
the change.

~~~
neilsandhu2
Hey. The good screenshots from the medium post of the schedule etc. are
largely still in the product. The home page was not great. I'm making some
slight revisions to the new home page as we speak, but agree I can make some
more improvements.

Here is the product I was delivered:
[https://www.chopdawgdev.com/brandon/hirebid-
dev/index](https://www.chopdawgdev.com/brandon/hirebid-dev/index)

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mirekrusin
Interesting idea about reverting it. I wonder how/if it could work in context
of remote work - with focus on hire-via-calendar availability. My feeling is
that it could work very well with getting things done in budget and making
developers happy salary wise at the same time if done properly.

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mgkimsal
I seem to remember marketplaces and systems from 10 years ago that would let
service professionals - mostly consultants, it seemed - sell blocks of their
time. I'm seeing 'mytime.com' today as something similar. Always interesting
to see new takes on previous ideas, but it doesn't seem as revolutionary as
the OP's medium posts seemed to make it out to be. (or maybe I'm missing
something)

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dna_polymerase
The UI needs work, to me it looks like a "Under Construction" page at first.

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Jaruzel
If it's also aimed at 'remote work' as it says on the main page - why is it
restricted to US only, and why does it need a ZIP code?

~~~
brockwhittaker
Because handling payments for outside of the US has all sorts of legal and
logistical obstacles.

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zerr
As with handling payments inside the US... Let the client decide.

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kojeovo
I like the idea but the UI really needs work. Wouldn't be included to use it
based on how it looks tbh.

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martinald
Yes absolutely. Especially when it is aimed at elites.

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pyvpx
I floated a similar idea (dubbed quickgig) and quickly realized it isn't very
feasible for the vast majority of work that could be characterized as on-
demand. better to break it down into specialities first and foremost.

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padthai
The marketplace allows to work for $0.00/hour. You can slave this guy for
free:

[https://hire.bid/profile/elycheikh](https://hire.bid/profile/elycheikh)

~~~
neilsandhu2
Well. Every professional has total control over accepting or rejecting a bid.
And the hirer would have to cover the stripe fees, so not sure if that guy
will really accept your low bid.

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Drahflow
I usually try leave work-time flexible in contracts. Would be cool to have "up
to X hours/week" as availability option.

~~~
neilsandhu2
That is a concept I've thought about for a future iteration. A little more
flexibility in time blocks etc.

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goodoldboys
Great idea. I signed up but I'm unable to save my profile photo, FYI

~~~
_jtrig
I've had this same problem on many websites lately and it's because they
require Flash. Soundcloud and Glassdoor to name a couple.

Sad state of the current web.

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discombobulate
Good domain name.

