

Ask HN: contribute to an idea: teams of unemployed programmers into startups - andrewstuart

The underlying thought is this: at any given time there are many unemployed programmers, at all levels from graduate to highly experienced.  These people have alot of underused coding time.<p>Is there a way to form these folks into startups/teams?<p>Almost like some sort of "startup in a box" in which developers can join a team, and everyone agrees to a predefined set of rules on equity.<p>The core idea being that everyone on the team is contributing their time at no charge.<p>Maybe it would at some level be a bit like online games where people come along and add themselves into a team.<p>A key part of this is that there is no employer, no recruiter, no ycombinator, no techstars making decisions about who can join a team.  It is up to the team members themselves somehow.<p>Developers would browse the teams, see who is in them, the technologies being used, and perhaps even some overview of the software idea being built out by the team.  They would choose which teams to join.<p>Maybe there could be some way that developers could perhaps do some practical coding tasks that actually contribute to the project and therefore prove to the team members that they should be a team member.<p>There's lots of open questions about this sort of thing, how it could be made to work, if at all.<p>What's in it for the programmers - that would have to be clear - maybe it's gaining commercial experience working with technologies that they are interested in - maybe it's some sort of equity after certain conditions have been met.<p>I'm wondering if anyone else thinks this (currently not fully thought out) idea has any merit?<p>Startups forming spontaneously from unemployed programmers who choose to donate their time, no permission required from anyone - could it work?<p>I don't want anything from this at all - I've just spent alot of time wondering about all those unemployed programmers and how they could be doing something with that time.<p>Can anyone else suggest any ideas on how it might be made to work?  I'm looking for comments/ideas that might turn such an idea into something that actually works to get unemployed programmers programming instead of sitting around waiting for an employer to give them a job.
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anthuswilliams
This describes an open-source project. Since these developers are looking to
make money from the project, their goal is to seek widespread adoption (just
as a startup would), and then market themselves as (extremely) highly-paid
consultants charging top dollar for their expertise in the system they
designed.

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andrewstuart
The intended outcome is not open source projects but commercial
products/services, companies owned by the developers.

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andrewhodel
I would say then use the same scenario with a bounty system. instead of paying
with dollars, offer % of equity for reaching a goal on work done.

this solves the issue of people arguing about fairness of ownership. with a
bounty for equity you agreed to your share for your work beforehand.

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SeanOC
If there was a massive pool of unemployed programmers sitting around, this
could be a pretty good idea. Unfortunately I think you have a rather oddly
skewed picture of the current state of the job market. Right now there is a
huge talent crush for programmers. If somebody has the skill and ambition to
be a useful team member in this kind of setup, they are unemployed because
they choose to be at this point. You're going to have a very difficult time
attracting anything other than leeches and "business guys" looking for
free/cheap labor. Think about this: from the perspective of a recently
unemployed programmer, why do I want to join your project instead of signing
on with one of the dozens of startups currently hiring or just starting
something on my own?

All of that being said everything goes through cycles and there probably will
come a time in the not too distant future where something like this could do
very well. If you can overcome the adoption challenges of today, you'd have
something very powerful when the next tech recession comes.

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andrewstuart
>>>"Think about this: from the perspective of a recently unemployed
programmer, why do I want to join your project instead of signing on with one
of the dozens of startups currently hiring or just starting something on my
own?"

Because a project like this would allow a developer to join a team and
starting coding. They would not have to go through a recruiter/employer to get
the gig. If you are willing to code, then you get to write code.
Recruiters/employers and salary are the biggest barriers to working on a
commercial software project.

~~~
nostrademons
It's trivially easy to quit your job and start coding for yourself. I've done
it myself. This whole website is pretty much dedicated to that.

The hard part is getting people to pay you money for it, which is what defines
"commercial software project". And in my experience, it's harder to get
customers to pay you money than employers. Why would a team of previously
unemployed be able to sell their services or their code to customers when they
can't sell it to employers? And if they do manage to sell it to customers -
what distinguishes them from a startup?

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woid
Unemployed programmers? Where do you see them?

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andrewstuart
Repeating this reply to anther comment:

I can say for sure that there are very large numbers of unemployed programmers
because my day job is as a recruiter - I spend all day receiving resumes from
programmers and talking to them about whether or not they are currently
employed. Even in my own city there are large numbers of programmers looking
for work. Expand that around the world and there's many many more.

Actually the reason I have been thinking about this idea is because I'm
acutely aware and reminded daily of how much programming talent is not active
due to unemployment.

Many people struggle to get work even though they might be willing and highly
talented, for a wide variety of reasons. Consider for example if you are
Delphi programmer who wants to make the shift into programming with some more
recent technology. It is very hard for such people to get a job because
employers are reluctant to take the chance. The Delphi programmer may in fact
be incredibly talented and may easily be able to switch technologies, but
getting an employer to give them that chance might take 12 months. There are
lots of other valid reasons why there are many potentially talented
programmers who can't find a job.

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wdewind
I think you'd be pretty much incorrect that there are programmers sitting
around unemployed who are capable of scraping together and making a successful
software project, especially considering that when people who are
unquestionably at the top of the industry do it they too fail more often than
not.

I think what you should do is make a site where employers can post a
guaranteed test for hire situation. For instance, an employer would post a
job, you would apply to it by signing up for the job. You'd have to do a test
project for free, but the catch would be that as long as you could meet
certain requirements you'd be guaranteed a job.

I'm not sure if this would work, but it would certainly put the theory that
there are a ton of capable programmers sitting around to a test. It's pretty
risk free for the employer as long as they are careful with designing the test
(and they could even design the test to get something useful out of it to
offset their risk).

Just my .02

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znt
Problem is people can always cheat when you put a test online. So maybe
instead of a guaranteed job the applicant can earn a guaranteed phone / face
to face interview.

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andrewhodel
1\. define a problem 2\. propose a fix 3\. create a list of tasks which
realize the fix 4\. random people interested in the solution accomplish the
tasks 5\. problem is fixed, code is released as open source and now anyone can
benefit

that is the basics of an open source project, to turn this into a profit
generating machine I would suggest a third party which owns the created
code/project

with open source the code is given to those who it can help, this option lets
a third party sell it

management company gets x% and the rest is split among the devs.

as for deciding % per dev, it should be decided by the impartial 3rd party
which is the company doing nothing more then selling the product.

now someone start the 3rd party company, define the % you want for management
and then define the market for your services and meet competition of others
who do it for less or do it better

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tejaswiy
One of Seth Godin / Scott Adams had a posted that's related to this. The way I
look at it is there are people all over the world with diverse skill sets
tapping into the internet. There needs to be some sort of collaboration engine
where units of work can be posted and exchanged, something similar to
<http://www.builditwith.me/>, but on a much grander scale. I can't really
think of a way to make this work, but yes, this is a great raw idea and
absolutely begs for some more brain cycles to be put into it.

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chx1975
I dunno, really. Someone mentioned open source projects. For example, there is
a huge shortage of talented Drupal developers. So you are a Delphi programmer?
PHP is easy to learn and the Drupal community is superb helpful to those who
want to contribute. So come, contribute, everyone is welcome, you do that as a
dayjob (8+ hrs a day) you will be known in less than a year that's for sure
and get a job.

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jessor
I thought about something like this, but not tied to programmers.

Unemployed people have talents like everybode else and someone should come up
with an idea or program to collect, develop and channel those. I can't speak
for other countries, but here in germany I see a lot of stuff that could be
done if one could mobilize them.

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hdx
Looking for work would be my full time job if I was unemployed.

