

Ask HN: How do I find a small (inexpensive) design/programming firm? - djsamson

I am a non-technical entrepreneur who has a startup idea for employee scheduling software. My plan is to have the creation of the minimum viable product outsourced. I'm not attempting to find a programmer who will work for free in exchange for equity, but all of the programming firms I've talked to said they don't take projects that cost less than $8k.<p>This is out of my price range, but it is discouraging because I was much more comfortable hiring someone with the same geographic location as me (Syracuse, NY).  I was wondering how I could go about having this product built on a budget? I'm not trying to build anything flashy or intricate. Just a basic design with the main features that solve the problem I've identified. My plan is to have the person I hire build my basic MVP, then I would establish a customer base and then go back for more improvements/features/attractiveness to the front-end.<p>Thank you for your input
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tferris
Try Freelancer.com (or any other market place with lots of participants).

Freelancer.com is good for your use case because:

\- Many users from all over the world bidding in an auction for your project
=> usually you get very competitive prices and no negotiation hassle

\- Nice payment options with milestones and ratings => give you a good control
over the project development and progress and at the same time force you to
think about specification and what should be done at which milestone

\- Granular categories: you can get really anything from embedded C++ devs
over Ruby to copy writer who write a book for you

Only drawback (but this drawback is with all agencies or contractors): after
work is done you are in some dependency to your contractor and introducing the
work to a new contractor costs time and money. So, you have to look that the
chosen guy has a fair after work policy and doesn't demand day rates beyond
1,000$

To solve (somehow) this problem the pros usually choose two contractors for
each critical tasks and let both know that there's another one doing exactly
the same. This leads to better competitive prices after the project is
finished but has to be keepen through the entire project and doubles the cost.

~~~
clueless123
Just a bit of free advice on Freelancer (or any other market place with lots
of participants).

You will get what you pay for.

~~~
tferris
Not really helpful. As everywhere you can be lucky getting really talented and
fair contractors or unlucky with mediocre people. But you have more people to
select from and better control mechanisms.

Western devs and contractors usually do not like such market places because of
the high competition and low prices.

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ohashi
Considering you're asking them to build the whole product 8k seems fairly
cheap. Run some of the numbers:

Let's say it takes 1 month to build an MVP with 2 people at a small firm.

Programmer + (Programmer OR Designer) = 2 people

40hrs/week working on this to get it out the door.

2 (people) * 40 hrs * 4 (weeks)* X (hourly rate) = 8k

320 work hours * X = 8k

X = $25/hr

That's a pretty cheap rate in my mind. Of course you can play with the numbers
and expectations.

You could always try a startup weekend or something to build an MVP with a
team.

~~~
pbreit
I suspect the OP is looking for something more like 1 person for 1-2 weeks.
Which is not unreasonable, IMO.

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thejerz
I don't know what your budget is, but $8,000 is not a lot. I've managed dozens
of software projects and I would never trust ANYONE who says they'll build
ANYTHING for $8,000. Very, very few successful websites, rails sites, iPhone
apps, or desktop apps were ever made for $8,000. Even for a simple MVP. Hiring
quality people costs money. Hiring lower quality people leads to problems.

Based on the information you provide, unless you have min. $50,000 to invest I
would recommend a technical co-founder or a seed investor.

------
fourmii
You should look through the HN monthly Freenlance/Seeking Freelancers post.

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7gramroxg
Take a look at <http://facingworlds.co.uk> its free to post a job and you dont
have to sign up, its good for finding programmers/designers.

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petervandijck
Do you have written down what the software will do? If not, do that first.

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bharad
Try asking <insert closest university> students.

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yashchandra
"Just a basic design with the main features that solve the problem I've
identified". Can you elaborate on this ?

~~~
djsamson
I'm not sure which programming language would be used to create this but this
is basically what I need for my MVP:

A decent looking landing/about page. After a customer (an employer) purchases
a monthly account they receive a log in. Once logged in they can input their
employee names which will be saved. Then from there on they can log in at any
point and add hours to every employee for each date.

This will translate into an online spread sheet which employees (who will also
have a log in) can view once logged in. They will be able to mark shifts they
have that they want to trade with other employees. And they will also be able
to mark on the spread sheet when they want time off.

Is it realistic to think this isn't an expensive project? I'm a student and I
don't have a tech co-founder.

~~~
michael_fine
The basic application logic of that, in my opinion, shouldn't take more than a
week, and from then on it depends on how much effort you want to spend on
design and polish.

