

Ask HN: Is this a scalable idea? - faramarz

I'm just trying to continue a conversation I had with a colleague..<p>Imagine putting together a team of designers and developers, engineers and an overall team of technical gurus. This team is pretty much capable of building anything in a decent amount of time. (for conversation sake, only web/mobile apps)<p>Now imagine this team puts up a website asking the people of the world to submit ideas, or things they want built. A Request for Product, if we have to give it a name.<p>For example;
I'm frustrated with all the accounting software thats available to me. I want simple and easy way of tracking expenses.. and I want my app to process my taxes on a day-by-day basis. I don't want to build it. I don't care for that. I just have a need for such an app as a user.<p>I would goto this site and say this is my frustration and put the idea up for vote. If it hits a certain threshold in votes and interests, the team (company) takes over and dedicates labour and money to build the product.<p>When the product is built
A) it can be open-sourced and released for anyone to use<p>B) spin into a company of its own with for-profit focus<p>All the while you are achieving market fit through the feedback, free marketing, and a high-conversion on everything you build. Only the most popular ideas get built minimizing the failure rate.<p>Does this seam feasible?
Is it a small business or can it scale?
Ideas to make this better?<p>I'm not taking ownership of anything discussed here, so you're welcome to chime in freely and put it to good use.<p>Cheers
======
8plot
I've had similar conversations with colleagues. I love the idea and hope to
someday try it.

One method I like is to use a simple agile/scrum type project where the
product backlog is crowdsourced.

------
rglullis
What you are describing is not too different from micropledge, a company that
was one of the first to be funded by YC. The largest differences I see is that
you want to have your group of technical people defined a priori, while
micropledge was more of a buyer/seller market.

Finding out what happened to them is left as an exercise to the reader.

~~~
faramarz
Yea.. it's too bad they could have done a lot more with at the time. Looks
like all the projects are abandoned.. the earliest activity I can find is from
23 months ago.

------
Roridge
You don't need to assemble the team.

You can build a web site as a one or two person company, and the idea with
enough traction you out source each part to oDesk or similar (as your team of
technical people).

------
apsurd
Your model makes the assumption that "people of the world submit ideas" and
"vote". Gaining a userbase, even nonpaying, is at minimum - half the battle.

------
lauken
Here is an example of an attempt. <http://www.cambrianhouse.com/>

~~~
faramarz
It looks like they surveyed the crowd, got acquired and the ideas are all on
the back burner.

I'm picturing a more robust system where all the process is transparent and
inclusive for the same people who voted/requested them.

Thanks for the link, worth the look!

------
keefe
elance.com? After you assemble your star team, why not carefully select
profitable projects instead? The team probably costs you $50K-$100K per month.
It seems that a more typical consulting or product business would be more
profitable.

