
Ask HN: I will pay you $2000 and code the MVP for your side-project - esquire_900
Premise 1: Investors&#x2F;Incubators over-estimate their ability to pick good ideas&#x2F;startups.<p>Premise 2: Software by a lone developer is not pragmatically different from software by a big A-team. It’s the market fit and marketing &#x2F; sales that makes or breaks the project.<p>Premise 3: Most freelancers will not build and&#x2F;or follow-through with their ideas, because they are not sure it will sell.<p>Premise 4: HackerNews has a decent number of people who know how the world works, and how a little glue would make it better.<p>Based on these premises I present The Proposition 2.0 (following version 1.0 [1]):<p>I’ll pay you $500 for your “real-life problem that needs a software fix” idea and market validation &#x2F; research. I will build the MVP and give you another $1500 to bring us our first paying customer(s). We split the resulting product 80-20 as co-founders.<p>[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=5037694 [2] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.simonnouwens.com&#x2F;hn
======
tptacek
This doesn't make much sense. A 20% royalty is an absurdly high price to pay
for an idea, for which you'd do all the execution; meanwhile, if you expect
them to do substantial work as a "co-founder", 20% is absurdly too low.

~~~
cma
The idea is probably to get a lot of pitches and then select the idea, no
matter what it is, from whichever applicant has the most wealthy accredited
investors as family.

------
jl2718
I love building. I’d do an MVP for much less equity if I’d actually get it.
But I won’t. One of my MVPs turned into a $500M acquisition. Got $0.

This is normal in Silicon Valley. So many unicorns hiding skeletons of
enthusiastic side-project coders.

I’d say don’t do it, but... to be honest, I never could have hyped my own
prototype the way they did. I didn’t have the rich kid VC connections that
they did. And I needed my day job. So really I lost nothing. At least I got
the story.

~~~
whitepoplar
Are you able to mention the company, either publicly or privately?

~~~
UweSchmidt
Whatever happened was probably entirely legal and probably ethical as well.

You can be a cofounder, and have ownership even if there is a lack of
contracts and paperwork, and that likely would have come up during that $500M
acquisition. I can't find it, but there was a Ycombinator - backed startup
whose sale was blocked by a founder who went AWOL early.

If he was an employee, or did otherwise hand over / accept compensation for
his work, well, that's just business as usual: employees generating wealth for
owners.

The lesson is to have clarity of what you want out of a certain work, and then
have some kind of contract, before you start working.

------
iratewizard
This seems like a doubly losing proposition. If you created my idea and I only
get to keep 20%, I wouldn't assist you very much in maintaining the business.
If I were to partner with someone, I would resent shelling out 20% to an
absent partner. Ideas aren't worth a fifth, and a fifth isn't a suitable
carrot/stick.

~~~
esquire_900
Thanks for your comment. I think 20% is a fair price for idea/validation/first
sell and direct access to a customer space. If it's going to be a $100m
company in 2 years then yes, 20% is going to hurt, but honestly I don't expect
that.

~~~
pytyper2
Maybe not hurt if it was not dilutable, the initial 20% holder could be issued
more shares to keep their percentage at 20%. By the time 3 or 4 rounds are
raised the initial 80% owner might only retain 20% after dilution. So in the
end you have to look at the cap table after future rounds, the fact that
during a period of history (probably before there is any real cash to
distribute) the split was 80/20 won't matter.

~~~
pytyper2
But more importantly, if I build the product and get the first customer what
do I need you for? 2k is chicken shit. Unless the idea is a throwaway,
something I'm not passionate about, I'd just build it myself.

~~~
emiliobumachar
Suppose you have more seemingly good ideas then you could possibly build
yourself.

------
vincnetas
How did the first[1] offer went?

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5037694](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5037694)

~~~
avinium
If he/she is back with the same pitch, it probably went well enough to try
again.

~~~
hjk05
Or maybe it didn’t go well enough, and that’s the reason for a second attempt.
You can’t say either way which is what makes the question worth asking and a
potential answer extremely interesting. Though an actual answer, not just a
deference to speculation.

------
browda
Premise 5: My expectation is that you don't have anything close to what I
would expect -- especially for an 80% share -- so why should I waste my time
with you?

~~~
esquire_900
What do you expect from me?

------
bruceb
Sounds good. Though part of being a cofounder is more than MVP, is there any
vesting provision? Also not 100% clear who gets the 80%

~~~
darrenf
On the link from [2] it says:

> _We split the resulting product 80-20 (me-you) as co-founders._

I found it confusing that there was no [2] in the body of the post, only the
footnote list.

------
digitaltrees
There is a lot to running a business beyond the first MVP and customer. Being
a cofounder is as intense if not more intense than being married. I would
almost flip it around so you take a 20% passive stake with an priority to a
dividend or a royalty on revenue so that you aren’t expected to manage
multiple companies as a “founder”.

I am assuming that you are trying to get multiple ideas off the ground.

~~~
esquire_900
Multiple ideas - maybe, totally depends on what comes up. Though it would
change the intention of the deal, flipping around the deal wouldn't be
something I'd say no to right away. It's a proposition after all, not a ridged
set of rules we have to follow :)

Got anything in mind?

~~~
digitaltrees
I have a list of 40 ideas that I don’t have time to build. Ideas are easy.
MVPs seem easy in theory, iteration to find product market fit; that is hard.
Execution and building a team after product market fit is harder. That’s where
most the work is.

All of this is why a brand new founder seems like a novice when they are very
secretive about an idea or want an NDA; ideas are easy. In reality, executing
on an idea depends on domain expertise, which most developers, investors,
random people you tell your don’t have, and know they don’t have. And most
people know following through on an idea is a lot of work — they aren’t that
interested in the hassle.

Paul Graham used to give ideas to founders for free.

I would suggest spending more time developing an analytical framework to
identify problems. Don’t think in terms of “ideas”. Think I terms of a problem
faced by an actual customer or user.

My favorite framework comes from Aaron Harris. He says you should find a
customer that has their hair on fire because a prototype fire extinguisher
would solve a very serious problem for them. They wont care how basic, ugly,
broken, or unreliable your fire extinguisher is and won’t care what price
youre asking; they want to put out the fire.

~~~
zzzcpan
Maybe the OP is trying to find problems, ideas that fit his unique skills and
expertise to execute, and wants a little bit of help to validate.

------
azhenley
So you'll pay $500 for an idea you like, pay $1500 after first customer, and
then pay a 20% royalty after that. Seems like a potentially good deal.

Can you elaborate a bit more about what type of projects you are looking for?
Any specific markets?

~~~
craftinator
The idea is that for 20% you do all of the marketing/business side of things,
as I understand it.

~~~
ChristianGeek
For 80%.

------
xutopia
I like how some people are complaining that he'll take 80%... for what amounts
to just giving you an idea and the first client.

Usually we hear the opposite side on HN. "Why would VCs own so much if all
they offer is money when we (programmers) do all the work".

I think people should take him up on it.

~~~
avinium
Giving up 80% for "an idea" is fine.

Giving up 80% for the first customer? That's a big ask.

Someone noteworthy said that 50% of building a business is going from 0 to 1
customer. The other half is going from 1 to many customers.

That being said, this person is assuming a lot of risk that the partner is
flaky and doesn't follow through, that financing won't be available, etc etc.

In reality, I suspect they're probably building out a 4-6 week MVP, getting a
couple of customers, then selling the business as a "turnkey startup" for
~$50k (of which they get 80%/$40k). Not a bad proposition.

~~~
statictype
_Giving up 80% for the first customer? That 's a big ask._

The customer only exists if the idea is turned into an actual product. Until
then he's just a person who wishes his problem could be solved.

------
hmexx
For a second I thought I was reading through my post history when this came
up!

~~~
esquire_900
Thanks again for inspiring this in the first place :)

~~~
erikig
I'm a big fan of both efforts. Ideas are a dime a dozen (if that) and I like
the unconventional and challenging approach that you both took. I'm rifling
through my idea notepad to pitch my hat into the ring :)

------
twiss
Out of curiosity, what was the outcome of The HN Proposition 1.0?

Edit: [http://www.simonnouwens.com/hn/index.php/2019/03/31/init-
com...](http://www.simonnouwens.com/hn/index.php/2019/03/31/init-commit/)
answers the question

~~~
symkat
"The idea gained some traction, and hmexx received over 250 emails, which were
filtered down to 5 picks. Out of those 5, three were discontinued (1 after
market research, 2 after failure to deliver MVP). The 2 ideas that were put
online appear to be [http://parametrek.com](http://parametrek.com) (an
experimental product search) and
[http://www.textrep.com](http://www.textrep.com) (an open-house notification
system). Both projects as well as the experiment ended up floating somewhere
on the software-graveyard, which is a shame, as the idea is great and the
premises are (mostly) correct. Besides that the proposition generated a lot of
community interest, which ended up being unused by the project." \--
[http://www.simonnouwens.com/hn/index.php/2019/03/31/init-
com...](http://www.simonnouwens.com/hn/index.php/2019/03/31/init-commit/)

~~~
dfc
I point people to the flashlight search on paranetrek all the time. I had no
clue about the backstory.

If you want a new flashlight check out
[http://flashlights.parametrek.com/](http://flashlights.parametrek.com/)

~~~
parametrek
Everything he wrote about that was wrong.

I was never accepted into the original Proposition. I did not get any money or
advice. But my elevator pitch was good enough to convince me to go through
with it anyway. And I'm hardly "floating in the software graveyard."

But I am glad you enjoy my site ^_^

~~~
esquire_900
Rectified this on my website, and apologies to parametrek for getting it wrong
(and suggesting the project failed). Only found some sparse information
online, and failed to do my homework properly after that. It's a pity hmexx
didn't share too much of the results, would have been an interesting piece of
information.

Sorry parametrek, didn't intend to bash your work - you obviously did better
in the side-project business then I did so far :)

------
ryanmarsh
Shit I’ll pay you $10k and only keep 10%. Finding real life problems that
(truly) require a (tenable) software fix are getting harder and harder to
find.

~~~
so_tired
I will take it ;)

Are u a FE coder by any chance? Or a marketing/growth guy. I am in
backend/algo so any mobile/browser-related dependency becomes a blocker for
me. Sigh.

B2C, paid product, well differentiated, plenty of demand.

Drop me a line at sdjhsdfjkhkjsdf@maildrop.cc (disposable, 24hrs, messages may
be read by others)

~~~
ryanmarsh
Full stack. I’ve forgotten more frameworks than most care to ever learn.

~~~
so_tired
Hey. Sounds great. I didnt see any incoming messages, so maybe it was deleted.

Please re-send contact details to D-56dm11pzbsa@maildrop.cc (this is a secure
alias. Other people will not be able to see messages. )

------
savrajsingh
Just to clarify who gets the bigger share of equity?

------
patrickxie
This is perfect idea. Here's usecase.

At our startup, our main cashflow is reselling on Amazon. The current business
model we are using shares a lot of similarity with other Amazon sellers. There
are a lot of workflows that are cookie cutter across other sellers/companies
that can be automated/improved with custom tools.

There's demand for what we need (automation tools, api tools to request
specific materials from Amazon), we will even pay and be the first customer
ourselves.

If we can get equity for you to build this tool, this is a no brainer idea!

You can reach out to me in my profile, love to setup a call to discuss a bit
more on this.

~~~
ganeshkrishnan
What do you resell on Amazon and what kind of automation tools are you looking
for?

We run a startup that helps brands to automate their ecommerce and we are
focusing on Amazon. The challenge here is that for automation/AI we need a
sizeable data and it's hard to get revenue with bad forecasts.

We have been on this for 2 years and our forecasting is improving along with
revenues. You can drop me an email if you would like to chat further.

~~~
patrickxie
Hi Ganesh, I couldn't find a direct email from your profile.

We resell name brands on Amazon, we work with brands to resell their products
on Amazon. One of the most often request is MAP violator takedowns, we need a
way to monitor brand's listings on Amazon to find people who violate MAP
pricing.

Another request is sales opportunity. Like what listings could use
improvement, and what listings can use more adspend. With Amazon, you can
reverse engineer a lot of this stuff, it's presenting it to the brand in a
seamless manner that's the hard part. I'd be happy to discuss more. You can
get my email in my profile.

~~~
ganeshkrishnan
Indeed we can use "reverse engineer" or ML models to get more ideas. I wrote
about using Deep Learning to predict sales here:
[https://towardsdatascience.com/predicting-amazon-sales-
using...](https://towardsdatascience.com/predicting-amazon-sales-using-deep-
learning-10aa2b237af5)

We work with sellers in a slightly different way: We are more focused on best
geography and time to sell a product. In essence we predict how much you will
sell in future and in what locations. I will drop you an email and we can talk
further.

------
tnckb
Further information here:
[http://www.simonnouwens.com/hn/index.php/2019/03/31/init-
com...](http://www.simonnouwens.com/hn/index.php/2019/03/31/init-commit/)

After reading that, I'm interested. Emailed you.

Also, to the person who asked about who gets bigger share of equity: as
mentioned in the link above, it looks like you get 80%, the OP gets 20%.

Nevermind: It's OP 80%, you 20%.

------
gesman
Short version:

I'll buy 80% of your idea for $500.

In case first customer(s) will ever come - i'll give you another $1,500.

Not clear: if no customer(s) will ever come after X days - who owns the idea?

~~~
esquire_900
Thanks for your point. There are a lot of details which need to be discussed
but depend on the idea, clients, product type, implementation etc. Ownership
and exact targets being one of them.

------
dvt
This proposition's assumption is that there's something _special_ about ideas.
Reminds me of the kind of person that might make you sign an NDA before
telling you a "cool idea I had last night." It's no secret that YC -- like
basically all incubators -- invests in _people_ , not _ideas_. Teams will
sometimes fumble for years before they find product-market fit.

There are no shortcuts.

~~~
elpakal
Great point. I give the author of this post props for trying this and it has
been an entertaining proposition. But to me premise 2 is admitting there will
be massive shortcuts taken here. There is now way one person could build a
product that would scale as well as a product made by an entire team. You
might be able to get it about 90% there, but the last 10% is the hardest IMHO.

In my experience this kind of rationale is what leads to MVPs being spun out
quickly using hybrid tools which have a hard time scaling. Sure it kinda looks
like the real deal, but the product will limit the growth potential of your
company.

~~~
zzzcpan
There are plenty of products/services built by a single person that only hired
more people once they were able to afford it and needed it. This is especially
common when access to VC funding is pretty much non-existent and you can't
just hire a bunch of people.

------
nithin001
I posted a similar proposition [https://webuild.tools](https://webuild.tools)
(build the software for free and retain the client as the first customer) I
have time/interest to build side projects and built many too. But nothing
takes off as it is never backed a solid business need. And I am no where close
to solving this problem.

~~~
esquire_900
Similar indeed, though I'd hope to bump into someone that is willing/able to
sell it to their direct environment. Doing a free build/first customer deal
seems too risky to me indeed (over-optimizing on what this single person
needs). I suspect "premise 2" has to do with this.

I'm interested in hearing a bit more about your experience if you have some
time. What kind of projects have you done so far? Nothing that ended up moving
the needle a little? Even after further marketing/promotional efforts?

~~~
nithin001
Thanks for asking. It's usually web apps built around some kind of networking
needs. I built one where people could ask for recommendations from friends.
Another one was a hybrid app where users can set a single status for
themselves. Now I am working on an amazon reseller site that has curated
products. I built another one where users can post their SaaS apps (kind of
app store for web products). It usually dies within a few weeks because I am
lost on how to promote/market these apps. And this goes on a loop. So I was
looking for people with a proper business case. While I learn a lot building
these apps, I figured it will be more useful if I can build it with some
purpose.

~~~
patrickxie
can you drop your contact info in your profile so that we can contact you? We
do amazon reselling, interested in learning more about the reseller site you
are working on. Also have tools that we are looking to build ourselves (we
will pay for), that other sellers like us are interested in paying to use as
well.

------
peterburkimsher
Premise 1: I agree, many investors have more money than sense.

Premise 2: I completely agree; in fact I think that solo side projects are
coded more efficiently than commercial software.

Premise 3: I disagree. I code most of my side projects, because I have too
much free time. I just don't follow through on the documentation/uploading
part. This may be because of market fit, or copyright worries, or because I
like coding more than writing up. Nevertheless I do still add projects to Show
HN, especially when trying to apply for jobs.

Premise 4: Yes, I agree, Hacker News is a wonderful community.

I'm not a marketer, so I can't provide your market validation/research.
Rather, I'm a maker like you! But I have no shortage of ideas that I'll talk
about for free. For example, my most recent script (27 March) was a rewrite of
VideoSubFinder that runs in 5 minutes instead of 2 hours. It's all part of my
Pingtype Chinese learning project, which still hasn't taken off, but I keep
building on it because it teaches me so much better than textbooks.

------
oDot
I run SwiftMVP.com -- We once tried offering half-price if people give up the
white label and credit us. Apparently, $5000 are not the issue.

~~~
esquire_900
That's a cool project! Mind sharing how you get your customers?

------
crawfordcomeaux
My idea is to build a digital giving economy. You get to keep 100% of
everything given to you through the site. If successful, you can retire
comfortably with little money while being held by the giving community and go
forward in a life of service, if you so choose.

As the site produces no money, you can keep 100% of all revenue.

------
mrfusion
I’m currently pondering how strange it is that I would take either side of
this deal.

I have half baked ideas I’d love someone to take and run with and me collect a
bit of that.

And I’d love to hear profitable ideas in industries I’m not familiar with and
put some code together.

Yet I don’t have an idea I’d want to build into a business myself. Weird.

~~~
esquire_900
That's a great point, and something I've pondered over the last 2 days (I got
the same impression).

Any idea why? Perhaps the hidden expectation that a collaboration like this
magically will eliminate all my/your own barriers?

~~~
mrfusion
I think the social proof aspect is a big part of it.

------
muzani
Here's the math: If OP can speed up the rate of hitting acquisition and/or
increase valuation by >= 5 times, it's a good deal. Say if it would take you
20 years to do something, and this cuts it down to 4 years, it's a good deal.

------
simonebrunozzi
This proposition probably needs further refinement, but I like it because it
will explore an area where there's little historical data or real world
examples.

I think that the first few dozens of "pitches" will give a much clearer sense
of what kind of ideas you can attract, and also what's the friction in the
interaction between the "producer" and the "idea person".

Keep going. And please, if you can, share more once you've been through this
for a while. Very curious to see where this will go.

------
modzu
half the comments here think you're offering to do the mvp, the market
research, and find the first customer, all for 2k+80%.

when i read it it looks like you're offering to do the mvp but you're buying
the idea, market validation and first customer for 20%.

which is it?? the first option makes sense, but its not how i read it. if
thats what you mean you should clarify.

if in fact you are just offering the mvp, you are _terribly undervaluing_ the
work involved in validating the idea. the 80-20 split is backwards.

------
rexpop
This is a bad great idea!

With a little tweaking of the numbers, I think I would gladly accept a similar
offer if it came from a trusted friend.

------
tluyben2
I like this idea; I had a company based on this premise (we took 20, owner
took 80 and we did the dev and seed invest); I would like to go back to that
now that I have a much larger network of investors and business development
partners. I am looking for cofounding full stack devs to join me as I am now
much more on the business side.

~~~
esquire_900
Care to explain? :) What kind of business did you have? Did it work out? And
what's the problem in doing it again?

~~~
tluyben2
The problem was that programming comes before marketing & business. I mean
there is an idea and a plan ofcourse and you try to validate that as much as
you can, but basically, after that, the programming/development phase kicks
in, which was what we did for our %. When the business
person/inventor/cofounder(s) after that said; 'oh we tried to market but
failed, ah well, shame' then you are stuck with 20% of nothing while you did
the work already. Now that I have far more business and legal sense, I don't
think there is much of an issue doing it again.

------
ykevinator
Anyone in the u.s. doing this? I'd be willing to give up 50% equity and no
cash for what I think is an awesome idea.

------
soulchild37
> HackerNews has a decent number of people who know how the world works, and
> how a little glue would make it better.

Wait what

------
alicoche
! I have a couple Ideas both a wedding subcontractor platform...and
mindfullness reminder app.

As for the wedding platform , I even have the people who would be available to
signup as sub-contractors.

Venues could signup we get a percentage for advertisement we handle all
payment processing, hmu if you are interested working together.

~~~
esquire_900
Sounds like something that might have potential! (the subcontractor idea, the
mindfulness reminder is something you can't really monetize and most likely
exists already)

Any experience in the wedding subcontractor field? I'd love to discuss some
idea's if you like (email in profile)!

------
gesman
I had this idea to build social network where people could share photos with
friends.

Where I can pick up my $500?

~~~
esquire_900
Let's use ad's and stuff! It's going to be huuuuge!

~~~
thrill
Only pictures of people when drunk - we'll call it FacedLook.

~~~
rayascott
Call it Sh*tFaced.

------
thinkingemote
Let me propose a hypothetical? business arrangement where my startup selects
and screens applicants and their ideas to you / your team. How would we
arrange the split funding in this case with a similar spirit?

------
evermint
We are working on an exchange and wallet solution that provides an insurance
feature similar to US FDIC.

Evermint Exchange [https://evermint.com](https://evermint.com)
hakim@evermint.com

------
karmakaze
How do you 'split' a product if it's a SaaS?

Who pays/manages the platform?

------
dustfinger
Hi Simon, I sent you an email with the subject the same as the title of this
thread. I am concerned that it will be filtered into your spam box, so kindly
check for an email from me. Thanks!

------
bfrog
I feel like these sort of mvp type ideas work great for software only, as soon
as you involve a physical device how do you go about avoiding capital risk? I
don't think you can!

------
johnwheeler
What language(s) do you prefer using? How about databases? I’d be interested
in starting a dialogue with you. My email is jwheeler726 at googles email
service.

------
travismay1
I sent you an email, hopefully we can talk. I find this intriguing and would
like your opinion on whether or not my idea has legs. Thanks for posting.

------
Razengan
Idea: A platform for general discussion that takes what's best about HN,
Reddit and even 4chan/5ch etc. while eliminating most of their flaws.

------
harinik
We have a call center on the cloud , which we are planning to sell , if you
are interested reach out to me harini at contactcentral dot io

------
gus_massa
Why are you using a different account than in the version [1]?

Edit: Now I understand. Version 1 was made by another user.

------
boltzmannbrain
1\. I like the alternative to the status quo for "starting a company". Even
more so b/c you're addressing the unmet implicit desire to finish side
projects.

2\. Premise 1 is agreeable. P2 doesn't hold past the initial VC demo, let
alone MVP stage. P3: probably approximately correct. P4: I would agree.

3\. Skimming the comments here and seeing mixed/confused feedback, I assume
those taking this more seriously are keeping silent.

------
mrfusion
Ok I’ve got an idea for you involving vending machines. Email me if you want
to hear more.

------
azhenley
How many projects are you looking to do? One at a time?

------
polony
How do we contact you for a proposal?

~~~
esquire_900
hn at simonnouwens dot nl

------
fxfan
Can you clarify how much equity you want. 80% sounds too high sorry but its
not very clear.

~~~
tluyben2
Seems much confusion about this; 80% would be a weird deal so I assumed 20%.

