

Ask HN: Presell Rails development to pay for Rails devolopment course? - piratebroadcast

Hi all,<p>I&#x27;ve been accepted into a Dev Bootcamp type-of training course and begin in August. During the course all students are to build their own fully functional web app. The course is rather expensive and I will be having a tough time paying for it and rent and food while in the class, so I am curious if you guys think that preselling the development of an MVP would be a good idea? I would have the help of multiple instructors and could guarantee the successful completion of said project.<p>Just throwing this idea out there for feedback- Very well may not do it.
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chc
Do you have a lot of experience with contract development and just not with
Rails or are you still a bit green? Because there's a big difference between
"I'll build a fully functional web app" and "I can guarantee a paying client
that I'll build _their_ fully functional web app _to their satisfaction_." It
is easy to be overconfident and get in over your head when you haven't yet
learned what you can and can't do in what timeframe. I've seen a lot of
inexperienced developers get into that — heck, I've seen it from some
developers who should know better. And I do think it's good to test your
boundaries — but when there's money involved like that, it's not fun.

Also, if you're not experienced, it's hard to see how you could offer a
sufficiently credible guarantee that would justify rates significantly above
minimum wage. I mean, random dudes on oDesk are already considered pretty
risky and are not paid well — and you can actually look at their history and
see that they have successfully completed contracts before. If you can't
credibly promise a lot of value, you might be better off just taking another
job.

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piratebroadcast
I have lots of experience delivering website and iOS apps, just new to Rails.

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trapexit
Yes. Definitely pre-sell. Not only does this fund your development efforts, it
is the ultimate validation that you have actually come up with a product that
people want to buy. There's a big difference between people saying they would
buy something--and actually pulling out a credit card.

Offer your "charter members" 10% or 20% off for life in exchange for a 3 or 6
month prepay. Reverse the risk by guaranteeing their money back if they don't
love it.

If you can't get clients to pre-pay, then your offer is not compelling enough.

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poppysan
I think he means dev services, not necessarily a product. It's still a good
idea, but you must be one hell of a salesman or have some folks who truly
believe in you.

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trapexit
Oh, yeah, I misunderstood. I thought he was taking a course on how to build
web apps in Rails so he could create his own product, not work for other
people.

Pre-selling a contract software development service when you haven't yet
learned how to do it is going to be a lot more of a challenge.

Much easier (and much more lucrative) to pre-sell a product and then pay
someone else to build it.

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japhyr
I doubt your instructors would be happy to know they are helping you build
something that you will get paid for. Sounds like a conflict of interest.

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piratebroadcast
I am paying them over 10k so I feel like I should be able to build whatever I
please.

