

Show HN: New platform for finding work - $2000 project minimum - anto210
http://www.codeyouridea.com/coders/

======
run4yourlives
I'm a little confused at the pricing.

Why would I require access to a constant stream of developers to code my
projects? Is the supply that bad? Am I running developers out of town?

To me, it seems that you would use a service like this to establish working
relationships and then _continue to use those same working relationships_ in
the future. In this model, it seems rather silly to pay you a monthly fee, and
if I find a coder quickly you're not making much off of me.

The interesting issue is that websites like this are doing the exact same
thing that professional recruiters do - playing matchmaker. The problem I have
is that if you look at the recruiters that are really good, one of the first
things that comes to light is that they our outstanding at building
relationships. It's not so much about being selective as it is about
understanding need and fit.

My concern is that the very thing that makes the process work well is
completely absent on the web. It's hard to assess personality and fit without
meeting a person and/or working with them in person.

I wish you the best of luck but I'm not sure if this is a technical problem at
all.

------
plusbryan
Design is really important to me when deciding where to take my business. I
love the idea, but the web site could use some serious design love.

For instance: That block of text might be good for SEO, but no one will ever
read it.

~~~
latortuga
Other small nitpicks:

\- The footer floats in the middle of the terms of service page, covering up
text

\- In the pricing pop up, "Why we charge for CodeYourIdea.com?" is not a real
sentence. Eliminate the question mark or add a "do".

~~~
anto210
thanks! fixing now

------
dstein
It's good that at least someone is trying to address this. There are no decent
freelance/telecommuter oriented job sites. The ones out there are generally
geared toward the "let's outsource to India" style gigs -- I really can't
compete with Indonesian teenagers for $10/hr PHP work. I have a feeling there
is a huge swath of untapped talent out there being ignored by companies who
are still in the 20th century and demand on-site employees.

~~~
micheljansen
I think you won't find many Indonesian kids in India coding PHP. Indonisia is
quite a different country from India, and not particularly known for it's
booming IT outsourcing opportunities :P

~~~
dstein
I did not mean that literally Indonesian teenagers are in India finding PHP
jobs. I meant that people in many poor countries (Indonesia, India,
Philippines etc) must be competing for these minimum wage programming jobs.

~~~
micheljansen
I was just pointing out a mildly embarrassing factual error in your argument
(but one that is made frequently); your points remain valid of course :)

------
inkaudio
This is a great idea, It's hard for people with little tech experience to find
a good hacker/coder and it's hards to find clients with a sufficient budget
for a project. So here is my biz dev advice..

1) Your concept of screening coders for talent is important, only accept
people who can get things done.

2.) Only charge developers a monthly fee. The collective fees should be enough
to cover the cost of an ongoing marketing campaign to attract the right
businesses and entrepreneurs.

3.) Educate businesses and single entrepreneurs about the cost of projects,
and cost of talent and explain trade offs for paying less. Experienced coders
may cost more, but they have the experience can work faster, less learning on
job....coders who charge less may be less experience, in different time zone,
not so fluent in native language, etc. Provide rough estimates based on info
on past projects. i.e. Angry brids cost about $150,000 to create.
([http://www.develop-online.net/news/37242/Angry-Birds-cost-
Ro...](http://www.develop-online.net/news/37242/Angry-Birds-cost-
Rovio-100k-has-made-50m_) )

4.) The education is important and it provides prescreen of potential clients,
only accept projects that fall within reasonable guidelines.

5.) Do not charge businesses a monthly fee. as mentioned by MatthewB "If it
takes any more than a month to find a dev, there's something wrong with your
system." Once developer has been found, charge business/entrepreneur fee per
projects because you're providing technical screening service.

Note: So the idea is to take some elements of successful services like elance,
etc and raise the bar. setting up useful guidelines and an effective marketing
campaign will not be easy.

~~~
joshontheweb
Only charge developers a monthly fee? Last I checked it is hard to find
developers and not hard for developers to find work. I doubt many developers
would pay to be listed, I know I wouldn't.

~~~
inkaudio
Sure there are many developers who won't need the service, but there also
plenty of developers who wouldn't mind having a service to filter out the
silly and bogus request. It's not about finding any kind of work, it's about
finding the right work at the right pay. The goal is to match quality jobs
with talented developers.

------
michaelpinto
I hate to say it but $2,000 sounds a bit cheap. I'm assuming that most people
who want to "code an idea" aren't looking for a WordPress install but
something that's a bit more grand and may require doing a spec. If a coder is
$50 an hour $2,000 is just 40 hours (i.e. one week): In my experience you'll
spend at least that doing bug fixes and QA (even on a small project).

Maybe you should even set the minimum at $5k? If you're not willing to spend
$5k on your idea then it can't be a very good idea if you know what I mean.
And I say this as a designer who isn't a coder...

~~~
anto210
We debated this number at length... We don't usually do projects for less than
5k, but every once in a while there is something small and quick that is worth
it. We figured start low and if we need to raise the bar we will. Thanks for
the feedback.

~~~
18pfsmt
Maybe projects could be classified as $2K, $5k, $10k, +?

------
BasilAwad
You know, having coders or designers submit 30 second videos describing their
skills and previous projects is an easy way to differentiate from other
freelancing sites. Let non-paying visiters to the site see that as well. I
would feel like I was getting a much higher quality batch of bid responses if
I was able to see 30 sec videos of developers communicating their skills and
previous projects competently in a not reading-off-the-screen way.

Maybe you could get the people asking for bids to submit 30 second videos of
themselves too?

~~~
BrandonM
I hate the movement toward video vetting processes. It invites discrimination
into an area where it otherwise wouldn't exist. Communication skills are
important, but for freelance work most communication will be via email, with
occasional phone/Skype conversations.

~~~
BasilAwad
As in racial discrimination? Yeah, I'm sure it will for some. But it's still
really useful. For example, I'm sure the videos play a big role in YC
applications, although probably not as a first criteria.

Plus it's not like the developers would be talking about something obscure,
they would be talking about their core competencies.

~~~
BrandonM
Not just racial discrimination, but also discrimination based on one's manner
of speaking, confidence, or charisma. Some people don't have English as a
first language, undersell their abilities, or aren't comfortable on camera;
does that mean they should not get a gig for which they are otherwise
qualified? These are exactly the qualities that a video judges.

~~~
cabalamat
If I was using this service, I wouldn't be looking for film star charisma, but
I would want good communication skills. If someone isn't a good communicator,
I'd feel unhappy either hiring them for remote work, or doing remote work for
them; there would be too many possibilities for misunderstanding.

~~~
grokcode
There is often a big difference in competency level between written and verbal
communication. If most project communication happens through email, how
someone communicates on video isn't a good signal for how well they will
communicate.

------
winterchil
I love this idea but it feels like these types of sites have become overly
popular and I've noticed some problems. For context, I'm an entrepreneur with
a budget, mock-ups, some angel interest, and I'm having a tough time finding
senior development talent (mobile app & camera experience, some web talent).
Anyway, if you solve some of these problems I'd get interested in a hurry.

-there's no upside in describing my project to an unknown community, If I describe it blandly nobody thinks it's interesting, if I describe it in detail I've given away our secret sauce.

-black box effect; it's unclear when/if I'll hear from the match-maker service.

-qualifications; while I value other people doing the pre-screens on developers I won't be comfortable unless they pass screens from technical people I know/trust but I seem overly picky and slow to decide if I have multiple interviews with all potential candidates.

For what it's worth, I think if you put more information about yourselves and
your qualifications for screening devs it would help soothe these concerns.

------
d0m
I'd suggest using DEBUG = False in the production environment. (Django debug
view gives a lot of private informations..)

Exception Location: /base/data/home/apps/ecl-data-
collection/1.350367717383270314/views.py in submit_programmer, line 28 Python
Executable: /base/ Python Version: 2.5.2 Python Path:
['/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python25.zip',
'/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/third_party/django-1.2',
'/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/',
'/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/plat-linux2',
'/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/lib-tk',
'/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/lib-dynload',
'/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/1', '/base/data/home/apps/ecl-data-
collection/1.350367717383270314/']

~~~
lacker
Plus, when DEBUG = True, Django leaks memory.

------
stevejalim
I'd rename the github field to something more flexible -- at least let it
sound like a BitBucket address would be just as relevant.

Also, how about a field for a LinkedIn profile?

------
e1ven
Interesting platform. For larger projects, I'm less likely to use a
eLance/vWorker type service, and more likely to seek people out via their
github/twitter/blog directly..

What is the revenue model here? Do you let me search people, and then I pay
you a monthly fee, or do you take a cut?

The former is worthwhile to me; By requiring that users pay $50/month to
search the devs, it keeps out a lot of the rifraff.

The later doesn't offer enough utility to be worth a cut of the entire price.

~~~
anto210
We are thinking monthly fee. Your point on charging to search devs is exactly
what we are going for. People won't sign up unless they are serious about
building a project.

~~~
maxklein
Monthly fee is nonsense. Charge a project cut.

~~~
Vivtek
I agree with this. A monthly fee only makes sense if I have an ongoing and
steady need, but the presumption is that this is project work. Your charge
needs to be project-based.

------
heffay
I'd like to be able to select more than just one of the "looking for" options.
Maybe I'm looking for freelance work in addition to a co-founder with an idea,
for example

~~~
Rariel
I second this.

------
timedoctor
Definitely agree with the problem that this site is trying to solve.

For most large projects it is impossible to spec out the idea accurately and
what the client wants changes as the person starts to code. So I think that in
many cases an hourly rate makes more sense for the coder and the project
creator.

For medium sized projects around $2-10k maybe 20k, then project based work
makes sense. Larger than this and a fixed fee is dangerous for the coder. Plus
managing the timing of when the coder is paid is difficult.

And yes in most cases if the coder is great, a genuine coder will want an
ongoing relationship with the employer.

Also I think it is possible to achieve the same result as your site by using
vworker for example but only picking coders with VERY good feedback (the top
200 coders on the web site for example).

Another potential problem is how to you weed out all of the bad coders? If you
get 10,000 applications from India, how will you know which guys are good and
which are not good? That's probably the most important thing you can do for
the employers.

Having said all of that, there definitely is a need, so good luck!

------
deyan
I was not sure about the purpose of the website. On the one hand, it
apparently wants to help people with projects find great coders. Great. On the
other hand, it appears that it is also aiming to help you find (technical)
cofounders. I don't think these are very related so I was a bit confused as to
what the actual goal is.

Any thoughts?

------
Miller450
Relevant: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2539892>

------
jasonkester
Why the monthly pricing? Job boards and freelance sites are traditionally pay-
per-post for a reason. Unless you know something that the rest don't, you
might want to stick to conventional wisdom here.

Just charge $100 to post a project.

~~~
rokhayakebe
I want a site that charges people to bid. This way you are sure to only bid if
you are confident.

------
gexla
$2000 can be a great price or a very bad price. A project which has a budget
of $250 is great if it only requires an hour of my time. A budget of $2000 is
horrible if it requires 200 hours of my time.

------
kloncks
Curious question. How long have you been developing this?

~~~
anto210
The site - about 3 weeks. The two landing pages up right now? About a day.
Working on the design fixes now!

------
mtogo
Please don't use "GitHub page". Github is not the only code hosting site out
there and many people (like myself) don't use it.

~~~
anto210
K - will rename to portfolio!

~~~
Sudarshan
I think something implying: "Online Code Repository" would be better.
Portfolio may mean, you want to look at the outputs while you want to check
out the "code" or attitude here...

------
plamenv
I'd suggest concentrating on the quality of work you will (hopefully) be
offering, not the min project price. If I'm a potential employer I'm not
thinking "Oh, God, I'm so desperate to find someone that will charge me at
least $2K!". Yet, the price is the first thing you throw at my face.

------
mikle
Firefox 4 on windows - The blob of text doesn't have a margin to right, making
it stick to the scroll bar and hard to read.

Great idea, I might even try out, but first I need to get a portfolio going.
Damn all those closed source projects and non participation in
StackOverflow...

------
maxklein
There is another variable - the project size. $2000 is not much if asked to
recreate facebook.

~~~
kloncks
But it's enough of a barrier to keep out the really low projects.

Compared to people that ask you to program a Facebook clone in 5 days for
$200, it's a lot better.

------
ultrasaurus
I'm always considering building a site like this myself, there's not law of
nature that dictates that freelance sites need to be races to the bottom.

The pricing is a little ambiguous, is it free (after the pre-launch period)
for coders?

~~~
jdludlow
_there's not law of nature that dictates that freelance sites need to be races
to the bottom_

True, but setting a price floor doesn't automatically prevent the race from
happening. $2000 for a 5 week project is still racing to the bottom.

------
jrwoodruff
So the text says you are 'a team of developers and designers who want to spend
more time doing what we love,' but this appears to only be for developers. Are
you targeting designers as well, or only coders?

~~~
anto210
I think we will break that out in the future. We wanted to simplify for
launch, but I think its a good point.

Please sign up! Just mention in the comments you are a designer.

------
evanjacobs
I really like the idea and I think there is a great need from both developers
and customers for this service. Have you thought at all about how to drive the
demand side of this marketplace?

------
chris_j
Comment on the website: The main text goes off the bottom of the visible
window and is obscured by the footer. This is on Chrome on Linux with the DPI
settings increased a bit.

------
d0m
MultiValueDictKeyError at /submit/programmer, then:

global name 'phone' is not defined

(I think you're trying to fix this right now.. right?)

~~~
anto210
Yep - we broke the form - had to turn debug back on - fixed now! (debug is
off)

~~~
biot
For $2000 maybe you can hire someone to setup a staging environment? :)

------
wmblaettler
I found a small typo in the "Why We Are Doing This?" paragraph, "and have
respect for the work we have [to] do."

------
Rariel
"We will not share your idea with anyone else, but we cannot guarantee that we
will not work on something very similar."

That makes me almost 100% unlikely to use your site. I know that you're CYA
here, but I would need to cover mine too...It seems a little stupid to tell
you an idea if you say in big bold letters that although you might not share
it, you may steal it or "work on something very similar."

------
djerry
It will be looking good if you change the logo type and mark. Also please add
an input field for Linkedin.

------
MatthewB
I like the idea. I am looking for a tech cofounder and hopefully this helps me
find one. Thanks.

------
izak30
Broken, I got a Django debug page on appspot, contact me and I can give you
details

------
joshaidan
eHarmony for programmers and employers, nice! :)

------
romansanchez
Make sure you validate your text fields.

------
newman314
Renders funny under Firefox 4.

------
swanson
There is a white border around your logo.

------
jijoy
pls disable the django debug , if you are going for public launch

~~~
anto210
whoops - Thanks and fixed!

------
metachris

        NameError at /submit/programmer
        global name 'phone' is not defined
        Request Method:	POST
        Request URL:	http://ecl-data-collection.appspot.com/submit/programmer
        Django Version:	1.2.5
        Exception Type:	NameError
        Exception Value:	
        global name 'phone' is not defined
        Exception Location:	/base/data/home/apps/ecl-data-collection/1.350367717383270314/views.py in submit_programmer, line 28
        Python Executable:	/base/
        Python Version:	2.5.2
        Python Path:	['/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python25.zip', '/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/third_party/django-1.2', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/plat-linux2', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/lib-tk', '/base/python_runtime/python_dist/lib/python2.5/lib-dynload', '/base/python_runtime/python_lib/versions/1', '/base/data/home/apps/ecl-data-collection/1.350367717383270314/']
        Server time:	Thu, 12 May 2011 17:32:17 +0000

~~~
run4yourlives
Send him an email dude.

