

Review my Idea: Building Prototypes as a Business in Silicon Valley - yankoff

Basically, I want to help entrepreneurs to build very first versions of their products, quickly validate their ideas before they found serious tech-cofounders and get funded.<p><i>Why would entrepreneurs be interested in it</i><p>- it's cheap and quick;<p>- I'm in SF and can meet in-person within the Bay Area;<p>- they can get things done and get first working versions without a team.<p><i>Why would I do that</i><p>As an interesting alternative to remote/free-lance job. Help to network and gain new experience. I can't consider getting a real job because of the F-1 status.<p>Tools: Ruby on Rails, jQuery, mysql/mongo.<p>Any ideas on will this work? 
Any similar services in the Bay Area?
And the main question: How to estimate the price of the work?
======
hippo33
With so many non-technical entrepreneurs looking to start web businesses, I
think there's A LOT of demand. Like everything else, you might need to spend
some time trying to find your market, but I think you'll find it quite
quickly. As an aside, email me offline: hello [at] launchbit [dot] com. (My
website LaunchBit helps new web entrepreneurs do their customer development
and vet their markets first before writing any code. As a result, many of my
users are non-technical and may be interested in speaking with you after they
are done vetting their markets.)

There are a lot of freelancers in the Bay Area that do this already. But, that
said, my best guess is that the demand currently is greater than the supply.
There are also some shops that take equity in exchange for their help. (e.g.
Originate Labs)

The range of these freelancers/shops is tremendous. I've heard people quote
between $30/hr - $200/hr for both frontend and backend work. Like bradleyjoyce
mentioned, I think it's more of a factor of how much work you're looking to
find and how quickly. You can start out lower and raise your prices with
future customers.

------
nostrademons
The job of the entrepreneur _is_ to build prototypes and quickly validate
their ideas. That's what they get the big equity stake for. Once they can get
funded, they can hire other people to productionize it.

Why would you do this instead of starting the company yourself? Lack of ideas?

I can think of a number of people that would interested in a service like this
(search HN for "How do I find a technical cofounder?" or "I just need a
programmer") However, from your perspective you're sorta getting a raw deal
because you're doing most of the work involved in getting a company off the
ground yet have little of the upside. And from their perspective, there will
be knowledge transfer issues (if it catches on, you're the only one who knows
how the software works), trust issues (how do they know you won't just steal
their idea and run with it, like Zuckerburg?), and possibly money issues (idea
guys who can't code themselves and don't know any technical cofounders tend
not to have a huge amount of money to throw around).

~~~
yankoff
_Why would you do this instead of starting the company yourself? Lack of
ideas?_

I have enough ideas and always do side-projects. But I still have to earn the
living. Just looking for a more interesting way to do that.

~~~
lien
entrepreneurs don't have $$ to hire you and most of the time they'd rather do
everything themselves anyway. you should look into contracting at a startup.
it allows you to work as much as you want, or as little as you want

------
robmallery
Hi Yankoff, This discussion came up on a Google Alert for "Originate Labs" and
I'm in charge of Corp Dev for both our San Mateo and Los Angeles offices.

What you are looking to do is what we do at Originate every day and we use
primarily RoR in addition to mobile development. If you're interested in
chatting about employment with Originate now or in the future (maybe when you
get your OPT), we can certainly help you develop your entrepreneurial
aspirations within the confines of a stable incubator type company.

My email is rob.mallery (at) Originatelabs (dot) com if you want to send a
resume or your contact info.

Cheers!

Rob Mallery Dir of Corp Dev Originate Labs

------
bradleyjoyce
This is called custom software development, and thousands of development shops
around the world do this... in fact it's how I make my living.

Is there some particular angle you're taking that makes it non-standard?

Entrepreneur needs X... you charge Y per hour and estimate it will take Z
hours, but charge for however many it actually takes.

~~~
yankoff
Thanks for the response. Yes, there's no any particular angle I guess. Maybe
only it's more focused on unfunded startups on very early stage. I'm a bit
confused with how to estimate Y for now.

~~~
bradleyjoyce
my view on rates is that it depends heavily on (1) how well referred you were
to the potential client (2) the level/quality of your portfolio (3) scarcity
of similar services in your area.

my very first gig I charged $35/hr... now I charge almost 4x that.

------
rguzman
I'm doing this already. Let's chat via email (my email is in my profile).

