

Show HN: Bootstrap your startup with high end gigs - whather
http://grouptalent.com/welcome/startups
Hey guys, we just launched a platform to match top startups with high end projects. We're focused on supporting startups that would rather take on a short term consulting gig than raising a round of funding. We'd love some feedback. Thanks!
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marcamillion
So, I read the title and it looks AWESOME. Perfect! I thought. Just what I
needed. A platform that obviates the need for me to seek funding.

Just to be taken through the application to be told on the last screen that
they will be prioritizing startups that have gone through incubator programs.

That's very annoying and misleading.

Had I known that, I wouldn't have spent the time it took to fill out the 4
pages of application.

You guys should have been more upfront with that.

Other than that, this looks very promising - but you need to clearly
articulate who you are looking for. Is it 'premium accelerated' startups? Or
TRULY bootstrapped startups?

Not to poo poo on anyone's parade, but if you go through a startup accelerator
that can be hardly considered 'bootstrapping'.

Edit: Also, do you guys pair up people? For instance, I am a single founder
and I can do all the development - but I am not a designer. Can you guys
supply a designer for me to work with?

Edit 2: Kudos on not adding (YC class number) to the title. I prolly wouldn't
have clicked it, to be honest.

~~~
whather
Thanks for the feedback marcamillion!

The wording on the last page of the wizard is old and should be changed. We
are focused on accepting talented startup teams and knowing a team went
through an incubator program does help vet them. We're not only accepting
startups who are funded by an incubator program.

Our target market startup is one who was a finalist in a distinguished
incubator program (top 50 or so). They've built a good product as a team,
didn't quite make it in, but now need some bootstrapping cash to keep them
going before raising a round of funding (if they choose to do so).

Oh, and our vision of the product is to allow team building within the site. A
project is posted and they want 2 developers and 1 designer. If you're a
developer, you could fill a developer slot and invite another dev/designer in
your network or have us recommend one.

~~~
astrofinch
Wow, this could be pretty awesome as a way for potential cofounders to find
each other and work on a project together to see if they jive with each other.

~~~
whather
Totally. It could even turn into a startup pre-incubator where your team can
be vetted by working on a couple short-term gigs together (all while making
money).

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marcamillion
One more thought...going through the application process it seems like you
guys might be going for an hourly rate.

As a single founder, I would much rather flat-rate projects. I don't have the
time, nor interest, in tracking time.

I know what I want to make every month, based on the scope of the project I
can generally tell how long that will take. So I can budget my monthly income
that way.

So I hope that if you are going the hourly way, at least you have an
alternative to bid on projects individually.

~~~
whather
The feedback we've been getting from employers is that they're much more
comfortable paying on an hourly basis. They're worried about a team abandoning
a project half way through, etc.

We're exploring different ways to charge for projects as we move forward.

~~~
aik
That's interesting. Isn't one of your primary benefits (from the employer
point of view) the fact that you are a premium supplier of great talent?
"Great talent" including "reliable"? If not, what separates you from any other
freelancer website?

~~~
whather
Yes, and that's the primary reason we chose startups as a source of talent.
They're a highly skilled, self-sufficient "swat team" that already have proven
team fit.

Nonetheless, renting a startup or (team for that matter) is still a new
concept for employers and they are used to paying an hourly rate for
consulting gigs. If we start to see way more demand for flat-rate project from
startups, we'll move in that direction.

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flexterra
This is really cool, but is 2 days too late.

Last Sunday my co-founder and I published a page
[<http://bootstrap.getblimp.com>] to get gigs in order to bootstrap our
startup. So far we got a few good leads for jobs we can do on weekends without
taking time off the startup.

~~~
whather
Awesome, nice looking site too. We feature both full-time and part-time
projects, so feel free to fill out a startup profile anyways if you need work
after your current gig.

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christeso
Services work for startups? Services is a distraction to startups. Also, if I
wanted to go that route, I could get my own services work or use an agency. Am
I missing something here, guys?

~~~
whather
True, but raising money is also a big distraction and can kill a startup. It
really depends on the startup team and the route they want to go, whether
raise money or bootstrap. Plus, you don't have to take a full-time project.
You can choose to work 2-3 days a week or even weekends.

Going through an agency is fine, but they usually don't cater to team gigs and
they take a pretty big percentage of your rate.

~~~
christeso
I ran an interactive services agency that tried to bootstrap products with
services. It doesn't work. The time consumption of doing services is far too
great a commitment to adequately perform the duties required to make your
startup a success.

Comparing fund raising time commitment to ongoing contract work is not apples
to apples. Fund raising takes time, but it's time spent on your startup. Also,
it's a one or two time thing, not the unending time suck that is services.

There's a reason there are innumerable posts about the failures of
bootstrapping products with services.

On the flip side, as a client I would be quite weary of hiring a startup team
to do a project. If the startup takes off (even a bit) then be damn sure that
startup team is out like the gout! There's not much incentive to complete the
gig.

Not trying to be negative here, but I see a lot of holes in this business.

~~~
superkinz
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.

------
cmer
This is genius. Great idea! We took contract work to pay for an employee at my
last startup and it worked out pretty well (until they stopped paying). He
would work for them ~2 days a week, and that would cover his salary for the
whole week. Basically, we got a free employee 3 days a week + his input and
expertise.

Although this approach is a little bit distracting, it can be much less
distracting that raising capital and dealing with bad investors. I would
recommend it to any early stage startup.

~~~
whather
Thanks cmer! Yeah, investment can be super distracting. We spent around 5
months talking to investors for our last startup back in '08, when we could
have been bootstrapping on a gig.

Just curious, how did you find your last contacting job? Did you work as a
team or just allocate 1 person to do it?

~~~
cmer
Basically, there was one guy I wanted to hire but I simply couldn't afford it
at the time. I found the contract through someone I knew. That new employee
was the only person working on that contract. The rest of the team never
touched the project. I only had to do some minor management work on it, talk
to client, etc.

We didn't charge a whole lot but it was enough to cover most of his salary.
We're not in California and salaries are lower here.

------
aymeric
How do you source your gigs?

Having quality clients is as important as having quality developers.

~~~
whather
Most of the gigs we've gathered thus far have been through industry
connections and relationships through previous agencies (many from the
northwest). We manually evaluate and screen every employer/project submitted,
as we know it's a pain in the ass to sift through crappy projects.

~~~
aymeric
This strategy will work for the first few projects but how will you attract
more quality gigs to feed the army of startups that will knock at your door
:)?

You are faced with the same challenge a normal web dev shop faces: how do I
get more quality gigs? Except that you have to get enough gigs for a lot of
teams or you will end up serving the same teams over and over again.

I sincerely wish you success as I am interested by your concept (although I am
based in Australia and my startup is not part of any premium incubator).

~~~
whather
Totally agree. As of right now, our business in its current state isn't hugely
scalable. We're high touch on both sides of the table. As we begin to scale,
we'll have to make sure we maintain both talented startup teams and high
quality projects. Because talent is in such high demand, it makes more sense
to limit the signup of talented startups first and cater to the demand from
employers. Then, slowly grow the startup pool.

Oh and one for my co-founders has connections in Australia if you're
interested.

------
skilesare
Very, Very interesting concept. This is very much what I've been thinking of
doing with my new company rivvir.com. Thanks for verifying the business model!

Seriously though, my focus was on doing something like this to cultivate the
Houston Startup scene(there isn't much of one yet but there seems to be
simmering pot and few really good start ups.) Blog posts here:

<http://www.rivvir.com/blog/>

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jdconley
We did this at my first startup and it worked really well. However, it's also
really useful to be able to just pimp out one of your teammates. For instance,
on our team, one of the guys had much more serious of a resume than the rest
and could easily bill at $150/hr. That supported 2 of us full time and himself
part time... Adding individual contracts would be great as well for that
purpose.

~~~
whather
Yeah definitely. We allow you to post your startup with any number of your
founders. You can post a startup with only a single founder. And some of the
smaller projects could easily be pumped out with a single talented dev.

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medinism
I love the idea of getting gigs without having to go get them myself. Can
single person devs shops apply too?

~~~
whather
yeah we currently don't restrict startup team size. Past project experience
plays a big role in vetting the team (in your case, a team of 1).

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fookyong
Serious question:

As a client, why would I want to hire a team that I _know_ is focused on
something else? I don't want my project to be treated as a means to an end for
the startup to achieve their dream.

How are you going to address this kind of apprehension?

~~~
drewcrawford
> As a client, why would I want to hire a team that I know is focused on
> something else?

 _Everyone_ is focused on something else. If not a side project or a startup,
an SO or a hobby.

By definition, if you are paying someone money, they are focused on something
else.

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Peter_V
Many great bootstrapped startup do this, but who has the time to solicit new
projects. This solves a huge problem. Nice work guys.

~~~
whather
Thanks Peter! Yeah we had this problem while working on our last startup. It's
hard to find quality short-term gigs that pay you market rate, and that you
can work on as a team. ODesk and elance weren't worth our time.

------
whather
Hey guys, we just launched a platform to match top startups with high end
projects. We're focused on supporting startups that would rather take on a
short term consulting gig than raising a round of funding. We'd love some
feedback. Thanks!

------
hnwh
What if we went through an incubator, but it didn't work out (company
dissolved)?

~~~
whather
Assuming you guys are still together, then your team is still vetted. An
incubator isn't required though, just helps us gauge talent. You should still
apply.

------
yceteoph
Will it handle teams out of the US?

~~~
chexton
+1 on this question...I can't see why they wouldn't allow it though.

~~~
whather
We are currently focused on startups in the states but definitely sign up if
your team is talented. We do get approached with quality gigs both in the
states and overseas.

~~~
marcamillion
I think the real question is, does the startup have to be registered in the
US?

For instance, I live in Jamaica, but my startup is registered in Delaware
(with a full blown US presence - bank account and all).

Would I 'qualify' given that I could be considered remote (i.e. use Skype and
communicate via email)?

I can understand why you would want the Projects to be US-based (quite
frankly, that's what I am looking for), but I don't see why the team would
have to be US-based.

~~~
whather
A concern employers have with teams outside the US is the time-zone mismatch.
Because Jamaica doesn't have this issue, and your company is registered in
Delaware, definitely sign up.

~~~
marcamillion
Done.

My company name is in my profile.

Let's see what happens.

