

Ask HN: How do I find a local app developer? - scaminc

I’ve been working on a design for a more functional twitter over the last one year. I think I&#x27;ve nailed the design and feel like it has huge potential. I currently work as an SAP CRM functional consultant, so writing up the business requirements and project planning is a cake walk for me. What I lack is three things:
1. A good developer (I have started to talk to a Chinese developer who is asking for $5000 for IOS app) 2. A great UI&#x2F;UX designer ( I have a friend ready to do the work for $1000 but I’m kind of a perfectionist and don’t really see him do a good job) 3. And most importantly, TRUST in working with a person I don’t know in China with the probability of my intellectual property being stolen. I am a very trusting person in life. Not in business.<p>I could potentially safe guard the core functionality from the developer in China, and have another developer complete it. However, I do foresee some issues with integration of both modules. I’d rather have one developer to work on it from the start. Maybe even partner.<p>Even if this idea of mine is stupid, I’d still want to give it a shot. I was looking for places that I could meet like-minded people around LA, but haven’t found any lately.<p>What would you guys suggest?
======
aggieben
My friend, $5000 is _cheap_ for a good developer. It's practically bottom of
the barrel if you're talking about an app that has very much customization in
it at all. Pretty much the same goes for a good designer. A highly custom app,
done right, could actually cost quite a bit more than that.

I think your biggest problem here is your expectation of how much good skilled
work is going to cost you.

If all you need is to find people, then try local meetups: Android or iOS
meetups are going to be happening in almost any major metro area. Look for
non-technical meetups, too. In Dallas there's at least one startup happy hour
each month, and I'd be shocked if LA didn't have something like that. One good
source for this is meetup.com, but also...Google.

Once you find people, though, you need to be prepared to offer appropriate
compensation. If you don't have cash, then you might need to offer equity (or
a slice of whatever revenues you make) along with some cash. Almost nobody is
going to do anything for you without at least some cash, though.

~~~
scaminc
Thanks for the input.

Those are the costing I have right now. But as you know, quality does not come
cheap. I am prepared to compensate appropriately. As history is our testament,
working with anybody has a risk of having the intellectual property stolen.
From my perspective, I d rather work with someone who I know personally than
someone sitting 10000 miles away without any physical connection/control. Even
if I take the two module approach, I would still need someone here locally to
integrate it.

I did look at meetup.com and tried googling without luck. I am going to try
again now.

------
davismwfl
I am not local exactly but would be happy to talk and at least share some
experiences. We are a small firm that does this work and are in The US,
Florida and Colorado mainly.

We don't outsource anything but have taken over a ton of projects that started
offshore.

Prices are obviously more expensive here in the US but they don't have to be
excessive. If you want to chat my contact details are in my profile. If
nothing else I can share our experiences so you can compare notes around.

~~~
scaminc
Well, I'm not sure if you charge for consultation. But I do have one major
question.

My app idea is just like twitter (But better, At least I think so). The
developer in China has suggested that we build it on Parse. Good idea?

~~~
davismwfl
Sorry, I missed this response. If you want to chat about the app I am happy to
do so, no charge for that. My email is in my profile.

We don't work with Parse, but it seems like a viable solution. We generally
write native apps for each platform without translators, although we have some
shared libraries we generally use. This can be more expensive sometimes, but
in the end the reduced number of issues and the app capability is vastly
better being native. We have used xamarin a few times, but honestly we find a
lot of times a hybrid application (like LinkedIn or Facebook) works better
from our experience -- e.g. Native app with web services and html served from
the server.

