
Gigster (YC S15) Does The Dev Work To Turn Your Idea Into An App - rogerdickey
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/22/uber-for-developers/
======
exelius
Just because you hide a software consulting shop behind an app doesn't mean
you can change the fundamental difficulties with software consulting. I wish
Gigster luck, but ultimately this approach isn't much different from what many
offshore dev shops do today. I can get a quote in under an hour from a half
dozen places today; but it doesn't mean it will be accurate or what I want.

~~~
justonepost
This. Nothing has changed from going to upwork or freelancer or whatever,
except rather than many bidders to chose from you just have one.

~~~
joehilton
The thing that has potentially changed (if they can really pull it off) is the
ability to get a reliable quote for any particular project in a few minutes.
Any technical manager can duplicate the process of building out a project plan
and lining up the cheap resources to get it done (and recruiting from schools
or whatever), but being able to scope a project reliably, let alone estimate
its cost, basically on the fly is a real challenge. If they've actually solved
that, then this is awesome. If not, then it's probably just the same as paying
someone to use ODesk (or Upwork or whatever they call it now) for you.

~~~
exelius
If they can do that, then they have found a magic bullet for one of the
biggest problems in software development. I have a suspicion that's the real
problem they're trying to solve, so they're "doing things that don't scale" to
try to engineer a platform that solves for that problem. That's the only way
VCs would throw money at a business model like this.

I wish them luck, but I just think there are too many variables that getting a
large enough sample size would bankrupt them before they approach a workable
solution.

------
zschuessler
First, I'll say it's a cool idea and the website interface is well done on the
backend. It looks as if they have created a great means of managing a project.

Speaking with their support staff was concerning, however. I asked rudimentary
questions about how projects are handled that is not covered in their
documentation. The staff member I spoke with became increasingly curt and
bluntly asked if I wanted to proceed with a project or not, ignoring my
questions. I apologized and logged out. I won't be returning.

So take my experience as you will. Best of luck to the team.

~~~
levlandau
I am one of the cofounders and I'll be emailing you right away. This is
absolutely not the way we operate and I'm happy to jump on a phone call with
you to answer any questions you have! Very sorry about any issues you had in
our chat. Techcrunch is definitely stretching us (in a good way) and so
sometimes we mess up. Very sorry once again I'll be in touch!

------
albertyw
"If the project is behind schedule, Gigster just assigns more developers to it
or fires under-performing ones so it gets done on time." \- Somebody hasn't
read Mythical Man-Month.

~~~
levlandau
Hi! We don't assign more people blindly. But what do you propose we do if a
developer gets sick or has to travel? We are engineers ourselves and are
certainly careful to not just load up a bunch of devs on a project. We've done
that before and it was painful :) Thanks for the feedback!

~~~
markbnj
>> But what do you propose we do if a developer gets sick or has to travel?

I think that's sort of the point. You do whatever any other engineering team
does when faced with the same challenges. The question is what is Gigster
doing differently that allows you to achieve consistent on-time, on-budget
results? Because if you have that formula, you could probably make a lot more
money just consulting with existing dev shops on how to implement it.

~~~
msellout
Their FAQ answers your question. They are planning to simply eat any project
budget overrun, aiming for growth rather than profit.

    
    
        YOU SOUND TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.
        HOW CAN YOU DO IT THIS CHEAP?
    
        Agencies and development shops have a lot of overhead
        & are fundamentally lifestyle business, meaning that
        their focus is profits. Gigster is venture-backed so our
        focus is growth & customer satisfaction. We’d have a
        referral from you than your money. Profits come later
        when we are at scale.

~~~
markbnj
Translation: we're burning other people's money so we can underbid anyone and
build a customer book. Of course, at some point someone is going to want the
business to be profitable and then, hey presto, you're a dev shop like all the
other dev shops.

~~~
throwaway2215
I'm disappointed in YC for funding this; I think it's destructive to the
hacker economy/ecosystem. Excerpting a comment from a thread last year re:
Marc Andressen's complaints about startup burn rates that applies:

\---------

I find it very hard not to get angry at these posts...

...One of the biggest problems facing my company right now is dealing with all
of the venture-funded idiots coming after my customers, market and employees
without so much as a hint of a viable business model. They outspend us on
marketing 1000-to-1 and they offer to serve our clients essentially for free,
apparently just to be able to win a logo for the "traction" slide in their
deck in the hope that they will have enough proof points to get them their
next hit of venture money.

I know that nearly all of them are going to vaporize eventually, but in the
meantime they completely poison the well for all of us who are trying to do
what Andressen, Wilson and the rest pretend they want startups to be doing -
creating sustainable businesses in sustainable markets.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8369734](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8369734)

~~~
harryjo
haha. Amazon requires vendors to provide 1 year of free service if they want
to use Amazon's name in their bizdev.

------
nostrademons
It's pretty worrisome that they say "The Gigsters come from companies like
Google or Stripe that are looking for some extra projects." Google is pretty
strict about side projects done by its employees; its IP release claims
ownership over anything "along the lines of business of Google", which the
company has in the past interpreted as "anything tech-related". There's a
release process, but I really doubt they would grant approval for freelancing
for Gigster on the side.

All that means that if the article is accurate, then customers of this service
may find that Google owns their IP if they get big.

~~~
nadams
> Google is pretty strict about side projects done by its employees; its IP
> release claims ownership over anything

IANAL nor do I play one on TV but I don't know if I actually believe that is
legal - and if it is then it's a huge legal nightmare.

Take this project for example[1]. He worked on it before he was an employee of
Google and after - does that mean Google automatically gets copyright over the
project? What about after he leaves Google? What about if he never touched it
while working at Google - does Google still get automatic copyright over it?

[1] [https://github.com/snapframework/snap-
server/commit/5e4850d4...](https://github.com/snapframework/snap-
server/commit/5e4850d4cb74c75e706df509b90befc95263746a)

~~~
harryjo
Greg was not in CA, and snap is open source, so this example is a non-issue
and the author didn't care.

~~~
nadams
> snap is open source

But Google now lays claim over its copyright which gives them the right to
sell it or take it down completely. But thankfully - if you have an old
version - they can't retroactively change the license. However - that won't
stop Google from sending DMCA takedowns if it gets big enough.

> so this example is a non-issue

It's a huge issue - when people and companies don't even understand the terms
of the GPL [1] copyright and licenses could make a huge impact. Yes - someone
can fork it and call it pans and make all sorts of awesome changes - but
that's horrible for software development. Now there are 2 different versions
with different features - I would rather one project that completely works
than 2 similar projects that kind of works.

> the author didn't care

The other contributors did - and that's equally important. I would not want to
piss off the people who are contributing code to my project. Once other people
start contributing code - a good open source project should respect the
opinions and comments of the community.

[1]
[https://github.com/github/dmca/commit/85c03a289fe56c67636ed6...](https://github.com/github/dmca/commit/85c03a289fe56c67636ed6409011bc76964272a4)

------
garethsprice
Very interesting that a well-marketed agency/service biz got VC funding to the
tune of $2.5m. Service businesses are notoriously hard to scale and run on
thin margins, not usually of interest to SV investors chasing 10x'ers. What's
the secret sauce here that makes it more scalable than the traditional
agency/dev shop model?

~~~
markkanof
I was wondering the exact same thing. The reality of an agency model is that
to scale revenue you have to hire more worker bees. As part of that process
two things happen. One, logistics become more complicated because of the
additional communication overhead between people. Two, standards have to be
lowered for new hires, otherwise they will quickly run out of people to hire.
So even assuming that they currently have a few great product managers (and
project managers) that are able to ensure projects are completed on time and
to the customers satisfaction, the idea that all the skills involved could be
boiled down to a simple algorithm or toolkit (to allow for massive scaling)
seems all but impossible. I just don't believe that these folks have figured
something out that every other agency in the world has not.

~~~
TylerJay
> The reality of an agency model is that to scale revenue you have to hire
> more worker bees.

And the worst part is, it scales _linearly_ \ _cue groans\_. Funny how in
business, that's terrible (it's literally the worst it could possibly be to
have a potentially profitable business), but with algorithms, it's the holy
grail.

Interesting point BTW about reduction in quality of workers over time. (Like
the pretentious-but-true saying "A-players hire other A-players. B-players
hire C-players, and C-players hire losers") I've noticed the same trend though
in product-centered businesses where I've worked. Unfortunately, I feel like
the fact that the amount of work to be done _doesn 't_ scale linearly with
revenues actually _exacerbates_ the subsequent-employee-quality-decline-
problem because even if the new guys are less... good, the company is still
making more money so nobody except the coworkers and managers of these people
(who actually have to work with them on a daily basis) even cares.

It's probably not a problem at places like Google and Facebook, but it was
kinda heartbreaking to watch my super-talented and motivated dozen-person
startup team become something completely different because we were growing so
fast and were told to spend money and hire like crazy after taking an
investment round.

~~~
dragonwriter
> And the worst part is, it scales linearly

Assuming optimum talent and project selection, it should scale sublinearly.
The _N+1_ th worker bee will be less productive than the _N_ th, and the _N+1_
th project will have a be willing to pay less than the _N_ th in terms of
$/unit output.

~~~
chillacy
I think it's even more bleak than that, because adding the N+1th worker bee
adds N new communication paths, unless you start segmenting people into org
trees, which at that point you now have to maintain managers and middle
managers.

Roughly
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%E2%80%99_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooks%E2%80%99_law)

------
Shenglong
Can anyone related to this explain to me why Yahoo Weather is listed under
their "success stories"? As the PM on the project, I can say without a doubt
this was not done externally. It was built through the sweat and tears of the
wonderful engineers and designers on the team.

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/fie0qrk7ecpphib/weather.jpg?dl=0](https://www.dropbox.com/s/fie0qrk7ecpphib/weather.jpg?dl=0)

This just seems like blatant lying to me.

~~~
levlandau
One of the main developers of the Yahoo weather app is a gigster (developer on
the platform). The statement is that it was built by "one of our gigsters" and
is intended to showcase the quality of work developers on Gigster have done.
Had that developer been on Odesk or TapFame they would have listed Yahoo
Weather as part of their portfolio. In this case they actually do list it as
part of their portfolio. Definitely do not intend to take away from your hard
work and appreciate you for it. Happy to do better in making this clearer but
it's a bit unfair to imply that we cant showcase the work of developers on our
platform as an indicator of developer quality.

~~~
sfrechtling
Sorry, I agree with the OP. I interpreted the "Success Stories" page,
especially when it is sub-titled "Our prior work speaks for itself" as
referring to the work performed through Gigstar. There is a difference between
allowing somebody to claim work they performed versus assigning that claim to
the body that employs them after the fact. This example, just because of the
lack of clarity, presents itself as the latter which is a little unfair in
itself.

------
727374
First, brilliant idea.

Second, 10-minute guaranteed quote? Would you share with me this amazing
estimate technology? I've been at it for 10+ years, having helped build a
popular website from the ground up and can't estimate the dev time of project
with that kind of conviction given 10 hours.

~~~
rogerdickey
Haha thanks! Submit a sample project if you want to see how it works.

~~~
boomshucka
I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic... It is pretty absurd to think you are
going to get your head around the requirements for a project and come up with
a good estimate in 10 minutes. It suggests naivety or dishonesty. You choose.

~~~
727374
Half sarcastic, maybe. But, genuinely curious about how they are managing the
risk around scoping/estimation. Perhaps using overly conservative estimates or
else assuming that on average their estimates will be close. Or maybe those
Google/MIT engineers are magical.

~~~
msellout
I'm pretty sure they're planning to throw VC money at the problem until it
goes away ("it" being either the problem or the money).

~~~
jqm
I don't think estimating will be that much of a problem if the right formula
is used. Is this straightforward and the team a has done stuff like this
before (most cases)... apply the component formula and add the markup. Is it
hairy with lots of unknowns? 1.2 million dollars.

~~~
boomshucka
No disrespect meant, but no one with any real software development experience
would suggest that a quick formula can be used to estimate the cost/time to
develop a given project. Very experienced people spend lots of time up front
trying to estimate cost/time and are usually not very close.

~~~
jqm
Agreed. Re-read my comment?

~~~
boomshucka
"Is this straightforward" can't be figured in 10 minutes for the vast majority
of projects. And if you are outsourcing to devs, "has the team done stuff like
this" is going to take some time too. 10 minutes simply isn't enough time.
Would you have the same thought about 1 minute? 5 minutes? At what point do
you say "no, that isn't enough time?". I'll take a few hours as enough time
for some reasonably small but not trivial number of projects as a %.

~~~
IdahoEv
I've built or managed the teams that built over 50 software projects, ranging
from small up to about half a million dollars.

With all that experience, my estimate process is now extremely honed. It takes
me, quite consistently, 4 to 8 hours for a typical web startup MVP. And that's
assuming I can build the product completely with technologies my team has used
before.

------
cool-RR
Not really seeing how this is anything more than a fancy outsourcing company.
Yes, they can say "We're different because we have the best developers," but
really, lots of outsourcing companies say that.

~~~
rogerdickey
A few other differences - you don't interface with developers, price is
guaranteed, costs are lower because dev talent isn't in house (no holding
cost).

~~~
fweespeech
Have you ever worked at an outsourcing company?

That is literally how it works at many of them, just fyi. I'd strongly,
strongly recommend you hire someone who does PM for one of those companies if
you are as oblivious to how they work as that statement just made it appear.

> A few other differences - you don't interface with developers,

Yeah, plenty of them just want you to talk to the PM. The only time I was ever
brought into meetings was when it was a very, very large customer [e.g. Bigger
than Zynga] and the contract was 7 figures.

> price is guaranteed,

Prices are often fixed in outsourcing contracts at a per-project price with a
list of deliverables and features.

> costs are lower because dev talent isn't in house (no holding cost).

I've worked with outsourcing companies where they paid per-project or per-hour
a specific project [usually projects under $20k] as their sole model.

I worked with 2-3 at a time and just kept the apprised of my availability, one
usually was the bread and butter while the other two handed me small projects
[usually 80 hours or less].

------
chollida1
Interesting I just tried signing up for a project. Under platforms they only
have web or phone base platforms.

Am I the only one who doesn't develop for a mobile or web platform anymore:(

Just give me a couple of statisticians who can program so I can update my
backtester!!!

Interesting idea, its easy to dismiss it but as someone who initially said meh
to Uber and AirBnB when I first heard about them, I've learned that my initial
gut reaction to most apps is pretty useless.

~~~
carrotleads
Keen to know why you had a "Meh" response to Uber or AirBnB...

I am assuming you don't have the same response now and if so what changed..
Did your knowledge of the product change(like, you thought AirBnB was renting
Air mattresses earlier) or did the traction the product received change your
thinking...

------
shenanigoat
What's up with Techcrunch? Is this article an advertisement? It seems like an
advertorial, though a lot of TC seems like that these days. Is this the
writer's friends company?

~~~
exelius
Every article about every startup you read is an advertisement. I'm not even
joking; you pay a PR firm to seed articles at news sites. The writer is
probably friends with the PR person who feeds them stories and likely a
placement fee that gets shared with TC. If you think any positive story you
read about any company isn't paid for, then you haven't been involved with
media in any way.

------
dharma1
A lot of doubt here in the comments but I think this is a real problem that
people pay money for every day to get a worse result from Odesk etc.

Quality, strict timescales, integrated product management for clients - cash
flow positive early on, maybe equity options for Gigster(s) - sounds like it
could work if the execution is water tight.

Only worry I can think of is it's hard to make a clean product out of it when
every job is vastly different and can get messy/out of scope.

------
thomk
This is amazing marketing for an outsourcing shop. You don't get to meet the
developers so who knows what "top 5%" really means and there's clearly not any
competition. The price you get is the price you get.

------
ryandrake
This would be great for porting already-done and well-defined stuff to oddball
platforms that you don't have in-house experience with and are not comfortable
vetting talent in that particular platform. "We're primarily an iOS company,
here's our existing app, here's what it looks like, how every interface
behaves, the backend services it hits, etc. Now just do exactly this, but on
Windows Phone." I don't know if I'd have the guts to use it for "I've got
nothing but an idea--make me an app from nothing!"

~~~
s73v3r
No, but I bet plenty of "ideas" people would be ecstatic about it. Maybe less
thrilled that they can't pay in percentage of profit, but happy nonetheless.

------
vadym909
Its so hard to believe that the end goal is to be a curated oDesk- which
essentially makes it even worse than a online labor marketplace- a services
business of which there are 100,000+ in the world. What would be the
differentiator?

The idea isn't new and there have been startups like GroupTalent, Crew and
TopTal that have tried/are trying this and many others in various different
verticals.

I'm wondering if the A list angels and VCs are privy to some deeper plan about
what this intends to become long-term.

~~~
georgemcbay

      > What would be the differentiator?
    

Pitching themselves as "Uber for $X"

------
boomzilla
So, a consulting shop with some MIT, Google buzzword thrown around?

~~~
k__
Well, if they get the processes right, this could be a good place to work.

I mean, the biggest problem in consulting isn't the coding, it is to work out
what the customer wants.

If they give you a spec and you're just bound to that spec, it could be a good
thing.

Code the stuff, get your money, don't care about the rest.

They have to meddle with the customers, if some misunderstandings happened.

~~~
exelius
Misunderstandings always happen. Meddling with the customers is the entire
problem with this type of work. If you don't meddle with them then they are
unhappy and refuse to pay their bills and you end up in litigation up to your
eyeballs. But meddling with them is expensive and time-consuming. Pick your
poison.

------
wslh
How is Gigster different from the zillions of outsourcing companies?

------
quadrature
The irony is that YC would never invest in a startup that had its technical
side outsourced through a service like this. But I can definitely see the
market potential. Good luck guys.

------
jasimq
This is not really a platform. It's a consulting shop, with money to buy TC
space

------
ismail
From the gigster faq "Profits come later when we are at scale"

From the faq.

1\. This is dangerous if there is no clear plan on what competitive advantage
scale gets you.

\- Is it network effects? \- Is there some other benefit that i am missing?
Would it drive down the marginal costs of the project once you have an
existing library or ways to optimize the process?

2\. I have a theory, running at a loss, free or with no bus model only makes
sense in a few cases:

\- strong network effects (fb, twitter etc) \- High LTV for customer, together
with low churn. \- Proxy for demand/supply. For e.g Solving a customers
problem on one side. This may be low cost or even free, eventually you bring
in the other side of the market \- The scale gives you access to data that no-
one else can get. This allows you to be much more efficient / cross subsidise
etc.

~~~
cjbarber
it's a marketplace

marketplaces have strong network effects

------
jwatte
So it's like pivotal labs, or any other contract shop? Why would anyone fund
this?

This sets off my "peak tech" sensor like nothing before it!

------
cjbarber
Wow, this looks pretty awesome if they are able to uphold the talent bar.

Would be good to get more info of how much you can make as a developer and how
much projects are likely to cost, though.

~~~
levlandau
Hi! A good developer can expect to make $10K - $20K per month on Gigster :)
The developer also can expect to do no sales or management work on the
project. You just write code on interesting projects and get paid :) Much like
Uber hands drivers rides and they just have to accept them.

~~~
ForHackernews
> Much like Uber hands drivers rides and they just have to accept them.

So much like Uber, can we assume that "$10-$20k/month" is a mythical number[0]
that could only be achieved by working 100+ hours per week and virtually no
developers will actually make that much?

[0]
[http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/10/uber...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/10/uber_driver_salary_the_ride_sharing_company_says_its_drivers_make_great.html)

~~~
quadrature
I believe theres no bidding, so gigster only accepts gigs that can pay the dev
reasonably. Correct me if i'm wrong.

~~~
levlandau
This is correct. We price out the gigs ahead of time and match them with
developers who like the price.

~~~
fuzzywalrus
Sounds like this will have a perpetual race to the bottom as inevitably
there'll be developers asking high prices and not being paired with the work,
and those asking less with more pairings.

------
boomshucka
Difficult to see any good developers wanting to be on the supply side of this
thing. So, you end up with a bunch of bad developers for hire.

~~~
rogerdickey
Gigster was actually designed from the freelancer's perspective first - no
bidding, no interfacing with customers all specs are in a standard format,
reliable/regular payments, etc. I don't know of a better place to freelance.

~~~
boomshucka
I'm really struggling to believe "elite" people from MIT or google are going
to be working at a rate where they can make 10-20k per month. It just doesn't
really make sense given their other options.

~~~
mlitchard
Exactly. Given the choice between inventing the future and writing the next
myface-for-hamsters, which would you do?

~~~
lfowles
"Phone it in" so you don't feel bad about spending time with family/hobbies?

------
zo1
What about "small" projects? Or projects that are "changes" to an existing
solution/project/deployment? Finishing touches to existing project?

UX-design as a service would be great, at least from a developer's
perspective. This is something I've never been able to do, and pretty much
forces me to go elsewhere if I want a project completed.

~~~
rogerdickey
These are ok provided the budget is $1k+. Otherwise it's probably not worth it
for you given that we have to get in & learn the code. We do UX design too!

~~~
zo1
Thanks for the info!

------
Gepsens
2 years ago, I was in NY trying to create a platform to match great open
source devs and startups in need who also love good software
(github/crowdfunding/great search engine).

I'm impressed you guys are doing it...

What does it take to actually work as a freelancer for Gigster ?

~~~
rogerdickey
You can apply here -
[https://app.trygigster.com/gigster](https://app.trygigster.com/gigster)

~~~
nlauer
This page is totally broken after you apply - nothing shows up under the
Dashboard

------
up_and_up
`Your Skills` section needs review:

Rails but no Ruby

MySQL but no Postgres

Docker but no chef nor puppet

etc.

Might be good to sort by either type of technology or alphabetical etc.

~~~
levlandau
Thanks for the Feedback!

------
frakkingcylons
As a consultant/freelance engineer, this might be useful. It always takes way
too much of my time trying to wrangle the non-product details from clients. My
solution so far is to have a partner deal with that so I can focus on the
software.

------
dajohnson89
It would tough for someone to make $10,000 coding something that's worth a few
million, and not receive any equity. I'm not saying there aren't people
willing to do that, I'm just saying it must suck to find that out.

~~~
levlandau
We actually plan to give _all_ Gigster developers equity or options on
projects!

~~~
_pius
So you ask clients to give Gigster equity?

Also, would love to hear more about your pricing generally.

~~~
levlandau
Hi! Not all clients, just a select few. We collect data on all the projects we
do and infer prices automatically :) Generally you can expect a Gigster
project to be way cheaper (we've seen 10X in some cases) than what an agency
would charge and often times cheaper or on par with similarly curated services
like toptal but with the added convenience you get from having a product
manager like an agency would provide.

~~~
dragonwriter
If only a select few clients, not all clients, provide equity, how can you
give " _all_ Gigster developers equity or options on projects!"

------
IdahoEv
What I really want to see is Gigster's _contract_. What terms do they make
their clients sign?

To do any kind of fixed-price work, you need absolutely ironclad protection
against scope creep. Said protection against scope creep usually must start
with an extremely detailed specification - the kind of thing that takes weeks
to develop, not a 10-minute phone call.

I would imagine Gigster's terms looks something like: • Client gets no input
beyond the 10-minute phone call • Interpretation of the specifications given
in that phone call is 100% up to Gigster • Any revision of specifications
whatsoever results in a change order

------
smelendez
I tried to create an account (to look for work), but the submit button didn't
work.

It scrolled me back to the top of the screen and didn't send any data to the
server, but didn't display any errors.

------
merb
No Scala, PostgreSQL on Gigster. :(

~~~
quadrature
Relax, they literally only just started this endeavour :P.

------
spectrum1234
No bad. Now I just need a company to do the same for growth hacking / full
stack marketing. This is only half the puzzle, and the easier half.

~~~
KateKendall
We do this at CloudPeeps! It's like Crew or a Gigster but for marketing,
content and community talent -
[https://cloudpeeps.com](https://cloudpeeps.com)

------
Hengjie
So going to [https://app.trygigster.com/new](https://app.trygigster.com/new)

Gives me Heroku's application error message. I guess they should have used
their own Gigsters:

Application Error An error occurred in the application and your page could not
be served. Please try again in a few moments.

If you are the application owner, check your logs for details.

------
rebelidealist
The actual development is a minor part of a product's success. A good
consulting firm has the experience to craft your idea into a product that
highlights its most compelling features and minimize its usage friction. A
experienced firm can also reduce time to market by eliminating features that
are not necessary or finding alternative ways to develop them.

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LoSboccacc
Who owns the project source after initial development? Who actually manage
deployment in production (and ultimately pays for the vms)?

------
bdcravens
Am I the only one that reduced the article's credibility the moment I saw the
poster from Hackers used as the lead-in image?

------
polskibus
How does Gigster differ from a typical software house that hires its workforce
to others?

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TulliusCicero
So is this platform part-time work-friendly? Or just for devs who are wholly
freelance?

~~~
rogerdickey
Absolutely. Most developers are part time :)

~~~
TulliusCicero
Part-time remote work that pays decently^? Ok, now you got my attention. Good
luck!

^ I hope?

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free2rhyme214
This is pretty cool. So far Codementor is the best but maybe I should look at
this.

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bayonetz
I'm very interested! I was just about to start the slog of navigating
ODesk/Elance to get something built but already feel more trusting towards
your approach. We shall see...

BTW, portfolio doesn't seem to work: trygigster.com/portfolio errors out

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peterjancelis
I keep reading Gangster.

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jamesjyu
I lol'ed at "a silicon valley product manager on every project"

~~~
rogerdickey
It's true! SV has a great brand for PM's. Customers love knowing they are
working with great talent, especially with all the noise out there.

~~~
ForHackernews
Maybe you should hire a sarcasm-identifier on TaskRabbit?

~~~
TylerJay
I don't understand either, do you (or someone) mind explaining? Are SV Product
Managers considered to be bad?

~~~
DavidHm
I am going to assume that the sarcasm refers to the absurd arrogance in
implying that only and all product managers in silicon valley, california, usa
are good.

Overall, I really like the idea, but the language of the site and of the
people answering on this thread is really ringing alarm bells in my head.

------
colinmegill
Yawn.

------
pliny
>Dickey runs me through the process. “Say you want to build an Uber for pizza
delivery. You get [a Gigster sales engineer] who’ll ask about the details.
‘How do you want to handle delivery?’ ‘Are you going to use your own fleet or
a fleet service?’ Does it have to show exactly how long until the delivery?’
They figure out figure the budget and work schedule, and you pay with Stripe.
On the backend we assemble a team for you , algorithms and people. 1 PM< 1 or
more eng, and a uX UI designer. Team get started and you get weekly updates.
PM is the single pout 0iof onset they take full responsibility. after 4-8
milestones and then it’s finsih and we handle maitnaencae for life. – bug fie.
fi people want upgrades or additions, we price those out al a caret. IF you
want to add a pizao f the day feature we say we can do that for 1k, how does
that sound. All on-demand.

Did the writer have a stroke? How did this even happen?

~~~
nbarAKL
I saw someone on Twitter mentioned that it was a draft version. Once updated,
that's in a quote section and doesn't sound the same. I thought I was going
crazy.

------
curiousjorge
> "Just go to Gigster’s site, instant message with a _sales engineer_ , tell
> them what you want built, and in 10 minutes you get a guaranteed quote "

My BS detector is off the charts. This has clearly worked well for lot of
startups that went bust because the sales sold something that didn't exist and
couldn't be delivered. First you are talking with the wrong person if they are
not intimately involved with your vision. They will gladly sell you the moon
and earth if it means a commission check.

I build MVPs but it takes a good week or two just to wrap head around their
vision and develop a plan to turn it into reality. 10 minutes isn't enough
time and guaranteeing the cost means cutting corners, A LOT of them. _You can
't do this in 10 minutes if you are looking for quality._ In fact I'd argue
that without taking the time to chat and do some careful mine sweeping to look
for potential pitfalls or scope creeps, you are most likely talking to a snake
oils salesman, and this excerpt from that article shows this.

If they did poach the top talent in SV, why in the hell are these people
working for a fixed cost? Guaranteed quote means guaranteed overtime, there's
no way someone talented would put up with unpaid overtime, or is there a major
"disruption" going on here.

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WorldWideWayne
This sounds kind of like ZipTask, which also (used to?) assigns a project
manager who then pulls from a pool of freelancers.
[https://www.ziptask.com/](https://www.ziptask.com/)

------
needhelpplz
Hey! Can you describe your project in greater detail or link me to a spec?
I’ll be in touch soon. We’re running behind due to the Techcrunch launch :) 2
minutes ago

YLXAWJHC i want a youporn clone 2 minutes ago

YLXAWJHC hello? a minute ago

YLXAWJHC I need this done ASAP a minute ago

YLXAWJHC can you agree to equity share? a minute ago

YLXAWJHC once I market it it will be HUGE a minute ago

DEBO we take equity on some projects :) However we dont really discount the
projects that much a few seconds ago

DEBO for them what's your budget here? a few seconds ago

YLXAWJHC well 1k to start a few seconds ago

