
Show HN: Rabbits – Send an email to get any grunt-work programming job completed - brandonhsiao
https://ilikerabbits.com
======
dyadic
"You should have it by 7:05 pm PST."

\-- From one of the examples.

I have uneasy feelings about this. I know that you're targeting grunt-jobs and
it's easily estimateable. But I also know that things happen and they can't
always be met.

If I'm going to send out a grunt-job then more often I care more about it
being done well than being on time. If you're targeting quick turnaround over
correctness then I imagine that I need to spend more time verifying the work,
exactly what I don't want to be doing.

~~~
siddboots
I had the same reaction to the examples. Even for "grunt-jobs", I would be
extremely sceptical of anyone who can give me an ETA after thinking about the
problem for less than five minutes.

------
xorcist
These things are hard. If you can describe a simple programming task in non-
ambiguous language, then that's your program right there.

It might be in pseudocode, but transcribing it into a "real" language is
trivial compared to describing the problem in the first place. If it's not,
there is probably a programming tool closer to your problem domain that makes
it easier.

The biggest business opportunity here is probably helping out with office
automation, because not all business minded people can code, not helping
professional programmers with boring grunt work.

~~~
netcan
These sorts of mediation services pop up often, so I understand where you;re
coming from. I don't know anything about this one, so I'm talking generally:

I see where you're coming from, but I don't think this service is really
trying to solve the (impossible) problem that you lay out. This is more about
hiring human labour in an efficient way than it is about making software. From
the homepage, I think this is the most interesting example:

    
    
       Ok, so I can 
      (1) scrape all the pages; 
      (2) grab the name, address, 
      and phone number of every listing; and 
      (3) put all the listings into a CSV 
      spreadsheet. 
      This will be <price redacted> 
      and take three hours. Is that ok?*
    

Programming is is a useful skill for this task. For the right person, it's 3
hours work. For the "wrong" person, it could be 3 weeks.

This type of exchange is a kind of economic fundamental. Economies are a long,
long way from efficiencies and one of the biggest elements limiting them is
what economists term "transaction costs." These are sometimes literal, like
paying an attorney to write a contract. More often, it's a general
communications difficulty.

Solving those communication problems produces. Programming-oriented-tasks is
not necessarily a bad place to explore.

~~~
mbesto
> _For the right person, it 's 3 hours work. For the "wrong" person, it could
> be 3 weeks._

> _How much do you charge? We never go over $300_

One of these things is not like the other.

~~~
netcan
I don't get it...

------
jordanb
The examples don't seem very plausible (except perhaps the python one). In the
case of website scraping, why not just pay Mechanical Turk? You apparently
just need the data so why try to order it as a script?

In the case of express.js, why would a programmer pay someone to follow a
tutorial? You can't use the outcome (a completely unstyled blank website) for
anything. The third example clarifies that building a themed website is out of
scope.

The python module is something I could maybe see somebody ordering, if they
were a student trying to get their homework done by someone else, or maybe a
programmer who isn't competent to do their job but needs to deliver some code
now and again and is probably being given very basic assignments.

~~~
rpedela
Mechanical Turk doesn't always produce great results for something like web
scraping. It really depends on the particular website and data that is being
scraped. Usually there is also significant setup involved so that MTurk
produces good results regardless of the task. If Rabbits really can do web
scraping cheap, fast, and well then it might be worth the money.

~~~
icinnamon
If you need to scrape, check out Kimono...
[https://www.kimonolabs.com/](https://www.kimonolabs.com/)

------
brandonhsiao
Hiya everyone, OP here. If you reached out to us in the last 14 hours, I'm
sorry to say we probably haven't gotten back to you. We didn't anticipate this
many responses-- we were expecting under 10 offers, and instead we got over
100-- and our management system is still really shoddy. For example, we're
still copy and pasting your email into our admin dashboard to get your signup
link.

We're working on fixing/scaling things, but in the meantime I didn't want to
insult everyone with an automated message, so hopefully this message can catch
you before that frustrated comment! Also, we do intend to get back to everyone
eventually.

Just since we're on HN, if you have any thoughts to share feel free to reach
out to me directly - bh at slimetree dot com

~~~
kayge

      >For example, we're still copy and pasting your email into our admin dashboard to get your signup link.

Sounds like you need a grunt-work programming job completed! Sorry, couldn't
resist... :) Good luck with your product, and congrats on launching!

------
larrys
The idea is good but they need to have both an "about" page, contact info, and
remove the privacy on their whois. [1] If they aren't willing to disclose who
they are I would have a problem with hiring them. [2] There is no reason for
the business that they are in that they can't act like a business.

[1] Use a business address, a po box, a relatives address or anything
"legitimate". Cloaking in this case is just a turnoff.

[2] I hire people to do things that I could use this for.

~~~
adventured
I don't quite get the thinking behind not revealing that information for a
commercial service. It's really not ok, regardless of if it's an mvp product,
there are still _minimum_ requirements.

Two days of effort would get you to a basic presentation polish (privacy
policy, terms, about, and more elaboration on the financial / payment side of
things), along with a PO Box.

~~~
larrys
Many registrars have sold people on using whois privacy to "protect yourself
against hackers and spammers". [1]

Many end users either buy this argument or simply parrot what they see others
doing (or not doing).

There are legitimate reasons for privacy but as a general rule if you are a
business it's a big mistake.

On this page [1] it states that you will also "protect yourself from
telemarketer". Well I am here to tell you (I also run a registrar that doesn't
even offer privacy btw) that with thousands of domains under management we get
perhaps 1 or 2 phone calls per week. And if we were to use a google voice
number that wouldn't even be an issue. (Yes, thousands of domains ...)

[1] [https://www.name.com/whois-privacy](https://www.name.com/whois-privacy)

~~~
reustle
> Many registrars have sold people on using whois privacy to "protect yourself
> against hackers and spammers".

I simply don't want to put my home address on the internet, and have no office
address to use.

~~~
xorcist
Why? What is the threat model here? It's not like some serial killer is known
to use random whois data. Your home address might already be "on the
internet", in the form of the phone book.

I don't know if it seems alien to you, but it's an honest question. The first
thing I did when I got Internet access was to put my contact info in my finger
banner. When I got web access I put up a "home page" with my contact info.
It's been there since, and I think it's a feature that people can contact me
if they want.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I had an eBay transaction go very wrong. Foolishly I used my real email and
domain for communication, with a very WHOISable home address.

When the physical threats started I had to get the police involved.

There's also the issue of pseudonymity. If I work on a lot of different
projects, I don't necessarily want everyone to know about everything I'm doing
with everyone else.

This doesn't mean I ignore NDAs and share sekrit stuff - I most certainly
don't. But I've freelanced in the past, and some employers have strange and
unrealistic expectations about how much exclusivity they're buying.

This isn't hypothetical. In the past I've been told "You absolutely can't work
for anyone else if you freelance casually for us."

Really? How about "no"?

 _Also_ it's better for free speech. I can express opinions freely with online
privacy. I don't necessarily want those opinions to be associated with - say -
a startup I'm creating.

Generally, contact info is a problem. It's actually mandatory for UK companies
to include a business registration number and an office address. (I'm not sure
how many UK devs know that.)

Problem is, when you can incorporate in Delaware or Kiev, physical contact
details start to become meaningless anyway.

My rule now is that contact is easy if there's a networking, customer care, or
community-building benefit. But privacy is a fine thing too.

Being able to pick and choose is best of all.

~~~
xorcist
All of these are examples of the need of multiple on-line identities. You
wouldn't use your main email for two projects or two employers that you don't
want to know each other. Surely someone you freelance for has your address
already?

Your primary address probably has traces of your real identity all over the
Internet, including orders from eBay and others, so an adversary could dox you
in an instant anyway. Especially if you use it for work related things. So why
not make it easy to contact you?

------
Animats
I once tried "freelancer.com" on a simple job - I had a small Python program
which would standardize WHOIS data from a domain registrar, with modules for
about two registrars. I needed modules written for each of about a hundred
registrars; they all have different formats. Three people crashed and burned
on that. Nobody ever delivered.

~~~
adaml_623
Did you ask them to deliver all 100 in one go? Or did you try and find a dev
who could do 5 and then ask for more?

~~~
dhimes
Do this. I have even hired multiple devs for the same project, picking the
best to move forward with for follow-on work. I also always put something in
the job description that they have to reply with in the subject so that I can
tell they actually read the description: Maybe the answer to a simple math
question or the like (What is 60 - 21? Please put the answer in the subject
like of your reply).

------
corbinpage
I would love a way to join the "supply side" of this company aka pickup some
quick scraping/scripting tasks for cash.

~~~
mbrutsch
I suspect they'd get more applications for suppliers than requests for work.

~~~
otoburb
Once corporate business analysts, business intelligence or banking teams
realize that the definition of "simple, grunt-like programming task" could
probably include Excel munging (e.g. VBA macros), I'm sure request volume will
hockey-stick.

Might need another example on their website, since the current ones are _very_
developer-centric, which may not reflect their true positioning intent for the
service.

~~~
jordanb
I'm friends with a business analyst at a bank. They use their Bangalore office
to do data or excel munging tasks all the time. But it's an offshore office
staffed by company employees. There's no way he'd be able to send his data
tasks to an outside party. And even if he could, he wouldn't be able to get
the bank to pay for it.

~~~
peteretep

        > And even if he could, he wouldn't be able to get the
        > bank to pay for it.
    

You're thinking about this wrong. Bangalore office is busy today with
"strategic projects". No-one bats an eyelid when you expense $150 of
programming help on your corporate card. Big companies have people use
unofficial resource channels to get stuff done all the time.

~~~
raghava
> Bangalore office is busy today with "strategic projects".

Interesting. I would really like to know more about those 'strategic
projects'.

~~~
peteretep
They're any projects scheduled by someone more senior than you.

~~~
webbrahmin
Good one :)

------
sergiotapia
So I have something you guys may be able to help with. I own SmiteCamp[0] and
we're having trouble with our server status checker for months now because I
just can't seem to find what IP address the game launcher pings to check if
the server is up.

I'm sure a complete novice with Wireshark or similar could find this out
instantly, but I'm a complete newbie when it comes to things of that nature.

Is this something you guys could help me with?

Deliverables would just be a simple IP (or collection of IP's) so I can just
ping it using Ruby in our Rails app.

\---

[0] - [http://www.smitecamp.com](http://www.smitecamp.com)

~~~
jedberg
I went to your site but I can't figure out how to download your game (it's a
game right?). The "tips for new players" is lorem ipsum so I assume you're
still building it?

Regardless, if you can run the game on a Mac or Linux box, just open a shell
and run this 'sudo tcpdump'. You'll see a bunch of background traffic and then
you should see the connections to your hosts.

~~~
sergiotapia
I've tried that before and there's just so much traffic popping up that I
can't make heads or tails of it. As for the game, we're just a fansite for a
game we enjoy playing. Think:

Wowhead.com -> World of Warcraft.

SmiteCamp -> Smite

~~~
jedberg
Ah I got ya. Sounds like the other guys have you covered!

------
designml
This looks like its good for a quick prototype for inexperienced devs (or non
technical people or people who want to experiment). Depending on what work you
can do, college students may ask you to do their homework.

~~~
totoroisalive
And that is OK.

------
weixiyen
Someone should make Magic for complicated tasks and more long-term projects.

This will solve 3 of the biggest problems with freelancer sites

1) Not knowing who to choose for the job, I'd rather a good matchmaker just
get me someone who can do my task

2) Lack of instant communication, clients get uneasy when programmers don't
respond.

3) Negotiating a price point takes too long because of the infrequency of
interaction

~~~
rattray
Have you looked into Toptal.com ?

My experiences with them have been great on all these metrics. I've worked
with them as a dev and referred a few happy friends. Email's in my profile if
you'd like to hear more.

~~~
emilburzo
I wanted to interview with them (as a developer), but was turned off by their
'expectations' page, it sounded way too controlling/strict.

How are they in that regard, and overall?

~~~
mgkimsal
I did interview, and found the tests far too difficult and not remotely like
anything I've ever hit in 20 years of doing software development. Everything
was rather computer-science-algorithmicy, and there was no ability to ask for
clarification on aspects of the puzzle-questions that seemed ambiguous. Couple
that with somewhat short time lines, and it was frustrating.

In my 20 years, I've never _not_ been able to ask a client or PM or end user
for clarification on what they mean, but what I took from toptal is that
you'll be expected to work under those conditions.

It certainly weeds people out, and the whole "we'd rather weed good people out
than let bad people in" mentality is probably understandable, it just rather
felt like a "one size fits all approach".

Interestingly, looking at their site now, I read "we do not tolerate sub-par
work or poor communication for any reason." Except, of course, when taking
their entrance tests - no communication for clarification there. FWIW, tests
were from codility.com

~~~
rattray
I also found the codility bit off-putting, though I think that company may
have improved their product since you used it.

Otherwise, I've always found Toptal personal; even the next algo interview (a
Skype-based one) was pleasant and friendly. Just one person's limited
experience, though =)

~~~
mgkimsal
I might have found them personal had they actually been personal with me, but
(apparently) utter failure on the codility tests earns a "no thank you" email
and that's it.

I'll amend that - I had about a 5 minute conversation with someone pleasant at
the very start who set up the web test.

Again, I get the idea of trying to weed people out, and this probably just
comes across as sour grapes as I didn't make the cut. The tests just felt
rather too abstract and nothing like any work I've done across multiple
industries, company sizes and teams. I guess to someone who's (recently?)
taken computer science courses, it's a walk in the park, and having never
taken CS classes, I'm out of the running.

------
icinnamon
I emailed them a task to test it out, no response so far. Curious how
"involved" of a task they're willing to do.

It seems from their site speed is the top priority, which makes sense given
the context of "I just need ___ built/working ASAP".

~~~
malditojavi
I sent a request too. Not answer yet ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

~~~
malditojavi
24 hours later, never heard back. Great idea + bad execution = 1 lost
potential client.

------
frik
How does it work? Do you use AI techniques in combination with US based human
knowledge workers/students? Or do you outsource the task to Mechanical Turk /
Asia based outsourcing company?

Do you work together with a recruiting company? One can imagine that work
seeking programmer have to deliver "homework exercises" that could be
anonymised tasks of your site.

------
paolomaffei
Would be interested to see the actual prices for the examples

------
ntalbott
Love this: like 99designs for code. Bet you'll get a lot of pushback on this
"devaluing coding" just like 99designs has for design, which just means you're
on the right track. Of course it doesn't; it just commoditizes basic coding
skills, and more importantly makes the accessible to a wider set of people.

I especially liked the example that was scraping data off a bunch of pages and
returning a spreadsheet/csv of the results; that's a great example of
something a smart business person that thinks algorithmically can identify,
but can't/won't implement themselves. I actually wonder if it would work well
to target this service specifically at algorithmically minded business folks.

Hope this works well for you - great idea, and looks well executed so far.

~~~
wingerlang
This doesn't seem like 99designs does it? As far as I understand, 99designs
pins 100s of designers against each others making many logos of which to
choose from, which means that most of them works for free.

This website is one team making what the client asks for, there's no
competition.

Unless that's what's happening behind the scenes.

~~~
ForHackernews
> Unless that's what's happening behind the scenes.

I think something like that is what's happening behind the scenes. Maybe not
the competition/spec work aspect, but certainly they're going to be
outsourcing to loads of the cheapest workers they can find.

------
jameshart
Calling a task-oriented service 'Rabbit' seems worrying. Either you're unaware
of the existence of TaskRabbit, in which case you haven't done basic market
research and don't understand enough about this market to participate, or you
know about TaskRabbit but don't understand the concept of trademark, in which
case you may be fuzzy about other aspects of intellectual property - which is
a red flag when you will be dealing in code, too.

~~~
coderdude
Because they have "rabbit" in the name, everything they're doing is called
into question? Ridiculous.

~~~
TylerE
Try launching an online auction site called "The Bay" and see how long it
takes for you to get sued. My guess is hours.

~~~
danielsamuels
Possibly the worst comparison you could have made.

~~~
TylerE
Umm. How exactly? The original comparison n was Rabbits vs Taskrabbit.

------
dEnigma
According to the Qualys Lab SSL Test[1] there are some problems with your
https configuration (mainly POODLE vulnerability)

[1][https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=ilikerabbits....](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=ilikerabbits.com)

------
mtimjones
Remember, you get what you pay for.

Check out the fine print for what you're giving away here.

~~~
foxhedgehog
I don't see anything in the fine print about release of data, are you seeing
something different?

~~~
coderdude
I feel like both of you are arguing for the same point.

------
evertonfuller
I gave this a try and first delivery was good. Sent another job and was
promised delivery the other night, but haven't heard anything since and they
don't reply to emails.

------
ing33k
is the pricing negotiable ?

------
timepiece
More commoditization for the profession.

You can't blame the capitalist for trying to make a buck here.

According to them, pricing might be a bit imbalanced in favor of the
programmers and then they would love to see a bigger piece of the pie taken
from us and transferred to them the brokers and a small chunk back to clients.

~~~
nmyk
Something I don't think a lot of people realize is that "programmer" is a
working class profession. The ability to code is a commodity.

By working class, I mean "not the capitalist class." There is still a big
difference between programming and say, boilermaking. But in 2015, tech
companies are the factories of last century. (We even call them software
shops!)

There is a spectrum of quality of course, and a lot of people take a lot of
pride in their craft, especially when they do it well, noting the beauty of
good code, etc. but at the end of the day, most people who make chairs, for
example, are not the highly-paid turtlenecked Danish guy whose work is
basically art that you can sit on...most people who make chairs work in
factories and churn them out on an assembly line. So it is with programming.

To your point, it certainly is in the interest of those who hire programmers
to pay them as little as possible, given the nature of the economic system we
find ourselves in. Consider also the trend of startups paying sub-market
salaries and compensating with equity. The startup route certainly looks like
a way to do programming while freeing yourself from the will of The Man (I'm
being tongue-in-cheek here, but you understand the vibe, I hope), but when you
get right down to it, it's more of the same. Instead of corporate execs, you
have investors. Instead of middle management, you have founders. The
programmer is still just the programmer.

~~~
timepiece
Yeah, programmers/coders/hackers/developers are "proletarians" and not
bourgeoisie since they trade their labor for monetary compensation.

I don't know from where in my reply did you get this notion that I was
implying that we developers are/should be classified as capitalists.

Anyway, what's important is for you to distinguish between the concepts of
labor as a commodity and the commoditization of labor.

These marketplaces start out as facilitators in the market to bring more
efficiency and vibrancy, increase overall transaction volume and value but
over time they tend to get parasitical and feed off every "host" they could
infect.

So, basically my comment was a protest and critique of this specific business
model of marketplaces and not to debate whether programmers have to join ranks
with the bourgeoisie or not.

But if you wanna debate capitalist societies, technological unemployment and
the alarmingly increasing income inequality and the overhoarding behavior of
resources by and with the aid of the bankers worldwide, that's a whole new
thread to engage in.

~~~
nmyk
You're right, I misunderstood.

Could you explain what you mean when you say these marketplaces tend to get
parasitical? I'm not sure I understand what that process entails.

~~~
timepiece
What I mean by "marketplaces" is the likes of TaskRabbit, Fiverr, 99designs,
Freelancer, Uber, Airbnb, ..etc.

I think you get the picture by now.

~~~
nmyk
Ah. Yeah, I agree with you that the more efficiently people can be hired for
grunt work and nothing more, the less valuable the work will be. If you need
something difficult, you still hire a full time person, but now if you need
something easy you can get it much more cheaply, which shifts the overall
distribution of the value of X-type-of-work lower.

But one might make the point that all this means is we were paying too much
for grunt work before these marketplaces showed up...

~~~
timepiece
Yeah, you could argue that competition is good for the end consumer and I must
concede but you have to look at the bigger picture that we keep exchanging
labor for more and more shrinking "real" wages and these recent technological
developments would accelerate this trend even further and make their
implications more pronounced in society.

Wage slavery, the illusion of labor and career derived self worthiness, the
quasi monopoly of labor and the pursuit of monetary gain as the principal
ideals providing meaning to life in this age, and finally holding our whole
lives hostage to increasingly harsh labor conditions just for the capitalists
to increase their wealth and consolidate their power over us, all of these
notions must be re-opened to discussion in society given that capitalism is
entering a new soul-crushing phase that is gonna leave many victims in the
world that sadly would have been saved if not for our complicity in one way or
another to demand and fight for our rights and our fair share in resources on
this planet.

