
Tell HN: I’d like to sponsor your passion project - trevyn
As part of a New Year’s resolution to provide more value to the universe, I’d like to sponsor you to work on your passion project full-time.<p>- $700 USD&#x2F;week<p>- Expectation is to work on your project full-time, without any other employment or work-for-hire obligations<p>- Anywhere in the world is OK<p>- You retain all IP, ownership, etc.<p>- Can be open source or closed<p>Interested? Tell me a bit about yourself, your project, and your long-term goals. Email in profile, or post here.
======
LorenzoLlamas
A few thoughts:

1\. This sounds and smells like 'bait'. The reason it isn't being upvoted is
because people question the motive of the OP who hasn't explained why he wants
to toss out $2500/month to someone else who retains all IP. Thus, naturally,
people think the OP is just trying to get ideas for his own project(s). Or
that he's just insane.

2\. There are marketplaces for this kind of stuff already. Kickstarter,
IndieGogo, etc. Leave us alone, quit trying to get HN points (why anyone cares
about these, I'll never know) and go spend your own time hunting in those
marketplaces and throw your money there.

~~~
trevyn
Lorenzo, thanks for bringing up these points. I'm not 100% sure what my
motivations are either, but I want to do _something_. This amount of money is
very little to me, so I'm not actually expecting anything in return.

In fact, I feel like this desire for tit-for-tat returns and legal frameworks
for ownership and remuneration are some of the problem -- they destroy our
innate generosity and humanity.

I'm fascinated by the gap between smart people who can execute and traditional
systems of funding and employment. Some people get lost in that transition,
and half the time it's because they have to tweak their project to meet these
expectations of return. This makes the project "not theirs" in a way, and
kills some intrinsic motivation.

And motivation is everything.

~~~
sail
Can you imagine yourself ever wanting anything more?

------
minimaxir
While this is a generous offer, a $36k salary equivalent for _full-time
programming work_ , with no other job for external income, isn't feasible.

~~~
tshtf
Not in the United States, and especially not in the SF Bay Area...

But it's more than acceptable in many parts of the world.

~~~
trevyn
It's actually above US individual (not household) median income, so it's
perfectly possible to live on this amount.

And yes, I wouldn't expect someone with a family in the Bay Area to be
interested.

~~~
dllthomas
_" And yes, I wouldn't expect someone with a family in the Bay Area to be
interested."_

At least, a family to support. A family supporting them, maybe...

------
sarciszewski
What do you mean by this?

    
    
        - Expectation is to work on your project full-time, without any other employment
          or work-for-hire obligations
    

Anyway, I'd like to nominate
[https://twitter.com/joepie91](https://twitter.com/joepie91) for this.

His previous attempt: [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-year-long-open-
source...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-year-long-open-source-
sabbatical#/)

~~~
trevyn
What it says -- you shouldn't be getting paid to work on other projects. This
is mostly to keep your head clear and focused. I and a lot of my friends are
so burnt out after a day at work that side projects basically never happen. I
want to remove this burn-out for someone.

~~~
sarciszewski
Okay, that makes sense :)

I stand by my recommendation. Few people do more for open source than Sven.
(Bonus: I don't think he's usually employed.)

------
henpa
Hi trevyn, I'm a 37 year old sysadm/developer from Brazil and I have lived in
the US before for a few years (when I was 12). Me and my wife we own a music
school here in Sao Paulo (she manages it), and we have lots of students and
teachers studying and working with us. We've a model that is working well and
the teachers that works with us are very happy. I have an idea for a project
that could also help other freelancer teachers here in Brazil, but also from
other parts of the world too. Basically it's a website/app that teachers
(mostly freelance teachers such as language teachers, yoga, dancing, voice,
musical instruments, personal trainers, crafts, etc) can use to help them
manage their classes and students' schedule, payments, etc and also to list
all their classes available on a ebay-kinda site, plus a possibility to offer
live or recorded video content, etc. Teachers usually have a hard time keeping
track of all this info, and most of them don't like to charge their students
personally, so I think they would like a tool such as this. Kind of a myspace
for teachers + youtube + ebay + airbnb.. ;-) I have lots of other ideas and
I'm in the process of building a tool to help me build all these ideas... Let
me know if I qualify! :-) BTW, happy new year!!!! henpahn@henpa.com

------
lkiernan
This is a cool idea. You have my respect.

Are you offering any guarantees? Can anybody be worried about relying on this
income only to be dropped like many NY resolutions in March?

Is your "value to the universe" linked to your own generosity, or the projects
available?

------
kiraken
Hello! I appreciate your desire to help people work on their projects! Well
i'm a 20 year old freelance web developer. I have This idea i'm passionate
about but can't afford to stop work for it. Its inspired from my desire to do
good. I want to build first a work news aggregator website, then slowely add
features to it like "resume builder", "Tax calculator" and all work relevant
tools to help people build a career. Going to be free and open source. Anyways
This Is me telling You about my passion more than a sales pitch. If You invest
in me i'd be more than greatful. But even a feedback would be more than
welcomed

------
johnnydoebk
It's really cool to get compensation for work on your own project. And
$700/week is a lot in the country I'm living in, it's enough for hiring 2-4
good software developers (I know a few groups of people who do work for YC
companies).

But I would feel very uncomfortable knowing that the person who pays me
doesn't get something valuable back and doesn't really need what I'm working
on (but rather "provides more value to the universe"). That is probably just
me, though.

------
szatkus
> \- Expectation is to work on your project full-time, without any other
> employment or work-for-hire obligations

That's not for me, but I like the idea.

$700/week is a lot in some countries, so I wish you to make our universe a
better place :)

------
ratsimihah
It's an awesome idea, if only you'd let the person keep a part-time job and
make this opportunity a part-time job as well, maybe that'd be more realistic?

------
i336_
This would be an awesome break for me, but I'm dealing with a bunch of health
issues right now so I'll have to pass.

I'm wondering what would happen if this got posted to /r/technology though. My
initial thought was the epic vote count for something like this, but then I
realized it might be outright banned.

The reason I thought it would be interesting was the variety of responses it
would attract.

IMO this isn't something someone should take any initiative with; if OP wants
to do this, it would be for him to do himself. I was just wondering.

~~~
trevyn
Thanks for this pointer -- I'm pretty sure I did get soft-banned on HN; this
post doesn't appear on the front page even though it briefly did and is well
under the points/time threshold for doing so. Since HN is a recruiting tool
for YC, I can see how something even vaguely resembling a job post would be
stepping on their toes.

~~~
minimaxir
Self-posts have an inherent penalty.

~~~
i336_
Huh, TIL.

------
danieltillett
If you are serious and not just fishing for leads can I suggest a lottery to
allocate the money. Just put all the applicants into a pool and have someone
else publically choose the winner.

~~~
atmosx
hm, he could use the blockchain to add transparency ... and turn the whole
damn thing into a kind of open-initiative for other financially stable (or
millionaires) to do the same thing.

On the other hand at least some sort of technical screening must take place in
order to make sure that a candidate is at least _technically_ able to deliver
a sort of MVP.

~~~
danieltillett
Good suggestion on the transparency.

In regards the technical screening this can occur post the lottery draw. If
the winner is not technically capable of being able to deliver a product then
just draw again. This will avoid a lot of work for the OP.

My only other suggestion here is that entrants have to answer some sort of
technical quiz or some other human only hurdle so that you don't get a million
entries from someone with a script.

------
tuyguntn
How many applicants and for how long you are going to support?

------
chadkruse
This is a fantastic idea @trevyn, love it! Reminds me a bit of the Awesome
Foundation [0], a community of independent chapters around the world that give
$1k to interesting people and projects with absolutely no strings attached. No
tax breaks, no catches, some people just want to sponsor cool stuff. Good on
you!

[0] [http://www.awesomefoundation.org/](http://www.awesomefoundation.org/)

------
eecks
I'll do it for 280 dollars a week but I'll only work weekends and 2 evenings a
week. The reason is that I don't want to quit my job. If you're interested
then I will send you my ideas.

------
dllthomas
I might be interested if I weren't already being paid quite a bit more to work
on something I'm deeply interested in.

I've been spending a part of that "quite a bit more" paying people to work on
Snowdrift.coop, if you'd like to join me in that.

Regardless, props on your decision! :)

------
simonmarriott
Hi Trevyn, I sent you an e-mail under simon@mooffgames.com about what we do
and our situation. I'm looking for support from someone who believes in what
we do.

------
haidrali
Hi trevyn, great initiative from you. I have email you about myself and my
project. cheers

------
apryldelancey
What an awesome gesture, thank you for your generosity and best of luck. Happy
New Year!

