

Ask YC: To Hack or Not to Hack? - iamdave

I got a phone call this past week from a good pal of mine.<p>He and an associate of his are looking to have a website built.  A directory of sorts for local businesses.  Due to a confidentiality agreement that's about as much as I can say, but it's going to be a massive project.<p>My team of 4 is excited about it, and rightfully they should it looks like it could be a great challenge for all of us, both in production and infrastructure demands.<p>After performing a project analysis, it became quickly evident that this is going to be a very expensive deal for him.  This isn't just a glorified business card website "this is our company, call this number and buy our stuff" situation, and I somewhat fear he and his partner's commitment to this idea may be less than great once they see the costs and responsibilities on their end.  This is completely unfounded, but from the rhetoric and context they explained what they wanted, I don't think they completely understand the magnitude of what they're asking for in terms of actually putting together such a website.<p>We have a ball park estimate produced, as well as a few slides detailing some of the avenues we plan to take in making this site happen that will be presented this coming Monday.  All of this said, after alerting him of the possibility that prices will be high, and he may need to seek support from outside investors, would it be wise to continue with this project?  As I said my speculation that this project may be over their pay range is completely unfounded, but not unlikely.<p>(It kind of brings this image to mind: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/38/80500328_2cf369deb4_o.jpg)
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michael_dorfman
If he can pay (and can demonstrate to your satisfaction his ability to pay),
what's the downside with going forward? If he can't, he can't, and that's
that.

What's the problem?

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iamdave
There's no downside. For what it's worth, this is the first project brought to
us by an outside source, and retrospectively our first "big huge" project. So
maybe it's just that thought that's making me extraneously skeptical about it.

