

Design love, anyone? - papkol

Hi All,<p>I’ve been following Hacker News for a while, but never really posted in here before. I was hoping I could get some startup advice from you guys.<p>We are a bootstrapped startup operating out of New Delhi, India. Okay, I’ll be honest. We’re three folks under thirty who love eating ramen and spend most of their time building a web application for a global audience.<p>We want to change the rules of the game in the sourcing advisory market by bringing the entire process online and harnessing the power of social influence. We are ready with the concept and a prototype application, spending around three months full-time. We have so far built the core application engine (capable of requirement and evidence-based technology recommendations for say a healthcare provider operating in France with a project budget of $500k) and a CMS to handle the data.<p>Here’s the challenge for us though - we are fairly confident with the technology part, know our concept will ruffle a few feathers, but we can’t seem to find the right balance on UI design. We need help on getting progressive UI and graphic design, but we are in the ramen mode and don’t have enough monies to buy our way through to the design Gods. We want to be ready for TC Disrupt when it happens next (possibly Dec'10) but can’t seem to solve this problem as none of the local design firms are up to the task.<p>What should we do? Any suggestions or pointers in the right direction would be immensely appreciated. Would you know of any design groups or startups who may want to collaborate with overseas startups?<p>The Three Ramens
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michael_dorfman
Wait a second:

 _We want to change the rules of the game in the sourcing advisory market_

OK.

 _Would you know of any design groups or startups who may want to collaborate
with overseas startups?_

Damn, if we only knew someone in the sourcing advisory market. They could
answer your question, no doubt.

Seriously: the irony is killing me.

~~~
papkol
my bad :D

sourcing advisors are sort of like management consultants who help businesses
with decisions on what to buy and from whom (they charge a grand buck for
doing this too)

~~~
michael_dorfman
Yes, I know that.

You are asking us for help with a decision on what to buy and from whom,
without offering us a grand buck.

Presumably, this is what you meant when you said you wanted to _change the
rules of the game_.

Seriously: if your target audience are sourcing advisors, certainly you are
close enough to several of them to be able to get some advice from them on
your problem.

The fact that you turned to HN for help in finding a firm to outsource your
designing to, instead of to them, is puzzling.

~~~
papkol
we are indeed trying to change the rules of the game - the idea is to draft in
the concept of social proof, say someone similar using and recommending a
particular piece of technology or service. having worked as a sourcing advisor
these last 5 years (focused entirely on big and bulky enterprise software
though), i feel the status quo is closer to a guru-speak model than true
evidence-based research.

