

Ask HN: How do i determine how much software development will cost? - poof

I'm starting a business to create a software/hardware product and i need to estimate how much the software will cost to develop. I dont have any experience coding to know how to determine this and no idea where to get this information. Any ideas?
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thaumaturgy
You might try shopping your idea around some place where programmers
congregate -- like, ohhh, HN? -- and get feedback on the specifics.

Don't worry about anyone stealing your idea. Anyone good enough to pull it off
is already too busy with other projects.

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poof
I'm trying to build a product like autodesk's flame but a bit different. They
sell this for $300k/unit, so i'm wondering how much it actually cost them to
make it.

[http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?siteID=123112&...](http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?siteID=123112&id=14405979)

Edit: To elaborate, flame is pretty much like an adobe after effects +
premiere hybrid.

~~~
thaumaturgy
Whoof. I support any effort that competes with AutoDesk -- they're an abysmal
company that go out of their way to encourage people to compete with them --
but you're picking quite an ambitious project here.

If you want to produce a closed-source product, your programmers will be
somewhat limited in the various open source projects that they can use as an
effective foundation for this.

I'd say, purely from a software development standpoint, to produce a version
1.0 of something that might have a chance of competing with Flame, you're
gonna need: a good UI guy, a brilliant 3D hacker, a pretty sharp math guy
(fortunately they're cheap these days :-), a good programmer, and an
experienced project manager with some respectable coding chops just to keep
the project moving along. So, say a minimum of $250k combined yearly salaries.
If you're a strong businessman, and if you get the right team together, you
_might_ be able to get a beta released in 12 months.

That estimate is high or low depending on how much higher or lower your goals
are in terms of a first release, but it should be kind of ballpark.

~~~
poof
Thanks for the estimate. I figured it would take a team of 50 programmers @
$100k/yr salary 2 years to complete it (which is how long i want to give it),
which would equal a total cost of $10m, which i imagine would be reasonable
considering it wouldnt take much to recoup.

Seriously, it would only take like 5 people to write a program like flame from
scratch?

~~~
scorpioxy
Well, you can do it with only 1. But it would him/her several years and a LOT
of effort. I think parent was saying that to get a "functional" team, a
minimum of 5 would be needed.

Even with the 5 people, I think the estimate of 1 year is a bit extreme.
Unless you get brilliant programmers that can work together really well, I'd
imagine they would need more time than that.

I don't know what the product is, but to be able to compete with a mature
product(even a bad one) takes a lot of time and energy. It all depends on what
you want version 1.0 to do.

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warwick
It's extremely difficult to estimate the amount of work a software project is
going to take. If you're working with an experienced developer, and have a
good specification of the software you're building, they will probably be able
to give you a ballpark estimate.

No matter how good the ballpark estimate is, it won't be right on, either in
terms of time or money. Every piece of software you build is, by it's nature,
unique. If it wasn't, you'd just license the existing software.

~~~
poof
I'm not working with a developer at the moment, im just in the planning
stages. If i were to look for a developer to consult me on this, what sort of
qualifications would i look for?

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dstainer
I think the main question would be do you currently have access to any
resources that you plan on using to create this software? Do they have any
experience in this field, or is this going to be a learning experience for
them, just like it would be for you.

Estimation is very hard, my suggestion would be to try and find what is the
minimum viable product that you want to produce, because in all likelihood you
aren't going to be able to duplicate every feature that Autodesk has, and find
some developers who have worked on this type of work to give you some idea of
time. Even then figure that their estimates are going to be off and add some
buffer. But still somewhat of a crap shoot because stuff always pops up.

Derek

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scorpioxy
For a big application like that, I would hire someone to write up a draft spec
so that programmers can have an idea of how much effort it would take.

Writing a draft spec wouldn't cost you that much(a few k perhaps) and you
would have to do it anyway. I think of it as a feasibility study.

~~~
poof
Where and whom do i look for to write a draft spec?

~~~
scorpioxy
If you don't know any freelancer local to your area, perhaps post here asking
for help and contract it out for the person you "click" with.(most probably
this person will be your next project manager)

I would say that you need an experienced programmer or a project manager
type(with good programming skills). Someone who understands how to write code
but is experienced enough to communicate with anybody else on a higher level.

I wouldn't personally recommend any of the project bidding sites out there for
this project(although I've used them personally as seller and buyer before).

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Mesmoria
No experience, no knowledge. Sounds like a perfect plan.

Clearly it will cost more than the retail price. One would think at least x10.
So therefore $3M

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tjpick
maybe COCOMO II or COSYSMO to give you an effort estimate. They're meant to be
calibrated to your environment though.

Or a book like this: DeMarco, Tom. Controlling Software Projects: Management,
Measurement and Estimation. ISBN 0-13-171711-1.

