
30 pounds in 30 days - TheFullStack
http://fullstack360.wordpress.com/2013/01/28/30-pounds-in-30-days/
======
netcan
"How long is a piece of string? It's impossible to answer that question. But,
if I _had_ to guess... in my experience, the string is 19 inches long."

This is the kind of thing a lot of consultants seem to post, including the
anecdotes of clients going with the cheap guys and the project failing. At the
end of the day, the OP's answer is no more convincing then the hypothetical
"outsource to Pakistan for 1/10th the cost." I think it's a consequence of
someone trying to "sell" to an inappropriate market. If you expect to pay $120
for a mattress, sitting you down and lecturing you on why you need a $1,200
mattress is unlikely to convince you. If you expect to pay $10 for a meal, a
$100 restaurant will not be getting your business. This post is the chef
hanging out with other chefs and restaurant people to have a chuckle at those
lame tourists who expect to pay $10 for a meal. The problem is that you are
dealing with people who don't go to restaurants. They're comparing eating out
to things they do know about like buying food in a shop.

The reality is that pricing development is tricky. Getting an "app" developed
if you know nothing about making software is tricky, even if you are willing
to pay _"well"_. A lot of projects fail. A lot of projects are not realistic
to begin with. Cost, development time, quality, the definition of MVP, exactly
how "bespoke" a project is, etc. all vary hugely. Quality is not always
correlated to price. You can pay $60k for your MVP and have that die too.
Developers will blame the clients and the clients will blame the developers.

~~~
brudgers
An experienced consultant - that is someone who is experienced in the
technical area as well as experienced consulting in that area can fairly
accurately estimate the amount of time a project will take. They can because
they know how they work and know how to lead the process to match their
workflow.

I've been in architecture for more than twenty years. I estimate how much and
what resources will be required all the time. Nobody has been developing iOS
apps that long, of course, and the iOS app industry doesn't go back to the
days of Vitruvius. Reading the article, I am reminded of stories about the
early days of building websites.

~~~
netcan
The issue is that if you are dealing with an inexperienced client, the project
you are quoting for and the project another consultant is quoting for is not
the same project, especially if it's an "MVP".

I like your comparison to website building during its early days. Gives us the
benefit of hindsight. One consultant was going to take a html page from a
previous project. Find and replace the client's colours in. Make 5 pages
(home, about us, product catalogue..) and then wait 6 months for his client to
fax over the "content."

Another consultant was going to use coldfusion to make a dynamically updating
copyright notice, & contact form and use templates to make the site "ecommerce
ready". He was going to hire a copywriter to work with the client. And (as an
optional extra), do CSS.

------
ajlburke
His quote does seem a bit high. In my experience (Rails and iOS developer) if
your back end is mostly RESTful resources and a simple data structure, and
your front end is standard iOS components like simple tableviews and a
NavigationController, you can get an MVP done in the $5k-$10k range in a week
or two.

HOWEVER: everybody has a different opinion of what is meant by "Minimum",
"Viable", and "Product". $5k gets you only bog-standard UI components and a
simple data model. Animations? Fancy graphics? Optimized performance? Search?
Custom UI? Graceful error handling?
Localization/Internationalization/Translation? Integrating with Facebook and
dealing with their constant poorly-documented changes to their API? These tend
to be little bullet points in the spec, but each on their own can take as much
work as the MVP does.

With modern tools it's pretty easy to build a basic version of an app quite
quickly. But it turns out that most people don't actually want a basic
version. Often they have to see the basic version first to realize that,
though.

So the question ends up being: how important is schedule/cost to you compared
with details/performance?

To be honest, though, most people who come to me wanting a simple iOS app are
better off with a mobile-optimized webapp instead. Much quicker to build,
already cross-platform, and no deployment delays while waiting for App Store
approval. Mobile apps might not be as sexy as a native app, but saving lots of
money is also pretty sexy.

~~~
zavulon
> His quote does seem a bit high. In my experience (Rails and iOS developer)
> ..., you can get an MVP done in the $5k-$10k range in a week or two.

That's because your experience is limited to development only. There's a lot
more steps involved in making a successful app or a site. Brand identity,
architecture, UX design (mockups/wireframes), and UI design are all steps that
have to be done BEFORE development even starts. The cost of that can be 20-30K
by itself.

There's also the cost of QA on different platforms, system analysis,
professional copy, etc. So yeah, his quote is actually on a low end.

Too many people seem to think that they can get away with hiring a developer
only.. then they wonder why their app/site doesn't do as well as they wanted
it to.

Source: I run a web/mobile development agency.

~~~
ajlburke
Sure - although the amount of upfront work required varies with your
definition of "Minimum" and "Viable".

I've done full-cycle apps with branding, architecture, UX, QA, promotion, etc.
and yes they _start_ at $30k - but they're finished polished products, while
the discussion here seems to be about MVPs.

As I said above, the biggest conflicts I see between developers and clients
are over the meanings of "Minimum" "Viable" and "Product".

------
benjaminwootton
Two developers working for 3 months feels more like 1.0 than MVP territory to
me.

$60k _is_ a lot of investment simply to test a concept, and would be a luxury
out of the price range of most small businesses, let alone individual
entrepreneurial subject matter experts who want to build a product - even
really committed ones with money to spend.

Assuming you actually want to win the business, why not pitch a much smaller
project to help them tease out some mockups and build 1 or 2 of the main
application flows to MVP level?

This wins you the smaller engagement now with the likelihood of the bigger
piece of work once the customer has been away and shown the concept to
customers.

This is why I don't really like these $2k and $5k MVP packages that people are
pitching on HN lately. Your iterations should start with mockups rather than
an MVP.

~~~
kranner
> Four weeks and $6,000? Sure, why not. IF I was shooting for a contract.
> Therein lies the key. I didn’t care what happened after each of those
> meetings. My plate is pretty full right now. My hunch is that the people who
> quoted much lower estimates and timeframes were shooting for the development
> work.

Apparently, OP is not particularly interested in getting the job. The point of
this post isn't entirely clear to me.

~~~
mbesto
> _OP is not particularly interested in getting the job_

It depends on _what_ job you're referring to. A job that pays and keeps your
profit margin and revenues consistent, or a job that could potentially end up
costing you way more than you thought?

He's pointing out that many clients come to him with completely unrealistic
views on developing, and yet are asking an expert (him) to advise him on how
to properly develop something.

------
brudgers
_"Every group I worked with in the past six months spent several orders of
magnitude more than that [$60,000] on their iOS products"_

$6,000,000. $60,000,000. But only if you act now. This is a limited time
offer. Operators are standing by.

    
    
       Offer not valid in all areas. Certain
       restrictions apply. Shipping and handl-
       ing not included. Void where prohibited.
       Results may not be typical.

~~~
PanMan
Exactly. While I'm sure there are apps that cost > 6 million (How much has
Path spend sofar?), the "several orders of magnitude" seems highly overstated
for an MVP.

~~~
loceng
It all depends on how honest of a person you are, and if you're willing to
take advantage of someone who might not know or perhaps not care how much they
are spending. If you have a bigger budget, sure you can do a lot more
experimentation - pay others to do experimentation and thinking for you, that
is - but if you are good at building relationships to feel out honest people,
have some direction yourself and are good at communicating it, then you can
come out on the lower end of costs.

------
eloisant
"Unfortunately, the developer used Phone Gap and when they needed to access
more complicated native API’s in an upgrade, the developer couldn’t get past
that barrier with the PhoneGap SDK"

The guy was not a good PhoneGap developer, you can write plugins to access any
native API you need.

~~~
steverb
Funny part is, THAT guy got the MVP done on time and under budget. It was only
when they went for the next that the developer ran into trouble.

~~~
rhizome
It's a nice bit of sophistry the writer uses to blame the developer rather
than the company. If your MVP becomes something you want to build upon, a
"VP," then you get some staff or something and get serious. It's not the MVP
dev's job to be the future source of code. They did their job, the company
just tried to be lazy about it.

~~~
anthonyb
The point of an MVP though, is to start small and build your VP incrementally.

If you can't do that it's not an MVP - it's a prototype.

~~~
rhizome
As the legend goes, an MVP is not even a prototype, but an ad or a landing
page that describes an idea to see if people respond and/or comment on it in a
usable way. The prototype form of an MVP can certainly be thrown out in favor
of a new codebase, and at any rate prototypes as a generic industrial concept
are routinely built by independents, contractors and small firms before the
manufacturing decisions have been made, before going to a larger concern to
build the product as refined from the prototype. That is, prototypes are
commonly used to generate funding for the actual product. Therefore I don't
think being an MVP coder who can't or won't move on to the final building
stage is anything to be ashamed of, and not anything to blame like this
consultant does. Not only that, but a lot of product-stage coders are terrible
at greenfielding.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenfield_project>

~~~
anthonyb
How is an ad a minimum viable product? That's insane. You can't sell it - it's
a marketing exercise, not a product. As a mechanism to get pre-orders, or
gauge demand, maybe, but it's still not a product.

The point is that for something to be a fully-fledged product, it has to have
certain features. They're expensive, so an MVP skips a lot of them in favor of
getting a product up quickly. _But_ you still have to add those features in
later. They're usually not optional.

Hence, an MVP that you can't add those features to to is not an MVP - it's a
prototype _. You will get beaten in the market when someone else adds whatever
your product is missing.

_ \- if it will (or should) be thrown away at the end of development, it's a
prototype. MVPs are not thrown away. Though from looking at wikipedia, even
they confuse the two.

------
GFischer
I live in Uruguay, and I can definitely believe it can be made for a lot less
than U$ 60.000 (for comparison, that's 3 years of my salary).

I actually have a quote from a local company called XSeed (
<http://www.xseed.com.uy/> ) for an app for both Android and iOs, and it comes
out for a third of the amount.

Yes, you can be burned if you don't know the locals, like the guys with the
Egyptians, or the Pakistanis. That's why many companies here in Uruguay get
the jobs - the ones that are responsible cost twice or three times as much as
the cheap Egyptian, Indian, etc.. companies, but they deliver, while being
vastly cheaper than US or European counterparts. The really good ones can
charge very close to US prices (go globalization :) ).

~~~
peterkelly
> I can definitely believe it can be made for a lot less than U$ 60.000

How can you make that judgement without knowing what was actually involved in
the projects?

~~~
GFischer
You're right, I should have clarified that it's based on the article's premise
of "two qualified engineers working full time ... and take about three months"

"At 12 weeks, that comes out to about $60,000"

That's what I'm talking about. I know that I can get two competent engineers
working three months for far less, for example the company above.

~~~
rhizome
Do those engineers work in English?

~~~
GFischer
Most of them do. Not many have top-level English, though (speaking generally,
not of that particular company).

------
wiremine
This reminds me a lot of the discussions I was having 12 or 13 years ago about
developing a website. "You want me to pay how much for a website?!?!? My
cousin can do that for 1/10th of that you're quoting."

Today, the difference between the plain-old website market and the mobile
market is that few people on the demand side of the mobile market have any
frame of reference or experience. How many people have bought a mobile app,
compared to the number of people who have built a reasonably sized website? My
guess the difference is a few orders of magnitude, maybe more.

Beyond that, I think it is also the sign of an immature supply side. If you
wanted a blog 12/13 years ago, you had to pay someone to make it. Now you get
one for free with blogger or wordpress. If you want a decent ecomm solution,
you don't have to role your own.

Eventually both sides will figure it out: the supply side will add niche/task
specific tools [1], and the demand side will gain the experience sorting
through the options. [2]

[1] We see this this with a few of the dumb "hey, add your RSS feed" options
for mobile apps.

[2] Also, equally likely in my mind: the raw horsepower of mobile hardware
will make skinny clients more of an option, disrupting the app economy in
general.

------
mmsimanga
Seems most comments are nitpicking some of the amounts and references he uses
to make some of his points. This is what I read into it as a developer who has
been in similar types of meetings:

1\. Charge what you are worth not what the person who has the App idea wants
to pay you which in some cases is next to nothing. 2\. Pay no attention to
people saying, "but my friend says can do it in 3 days". Tell the truth and if
they can't accept the truth move on. There is no point in explaining to
someone that the most sustainable way to lose weight and keep it off is years
of eating well and exercise.

------
peterkelly
What is an app?

The problem with this discussion is that you could be talking about anything
from a simple program that displays some content (e.g. for marketing
purposes), to some basic social interaction, right up to a full-scale word
processor or 3D modelling program.

The amount of time and effort required to build a product can differ by orders
of magnitude depending on what that product is. So it's senseless to talk
about "$X is an reasonable/unreasonable price to build an app" without any
context about what it is you want built.

------
DanielShir
This reminds me of a conversation I had back when I was freelancing.

It was along the lines of:

Client - "Aren't you afraid that Pakistani/Indian developers would undercut
you and everyone would go there for their apps?"

Me - "If everyone were going to outsource there, I'd have more work fixing
that stuff up, not less"

~~~
GFischer
While there probably are bad developers in Pakistan, India, Egypt or Uruguay,
I'm sure there's a huge cost asymmetry which should work out in those
countries' favor, and by that I mean good developers over there (and here in
Uruguay) that are earning a fraction of what an equivalent U.S. developer is
making.

What they need is somebody that can filter the good ones from the chaff (knows
the locals), AND has contacts and good standing among the buyers, AND has the
project management skills to make the outsourced team deliver.

~~~
InvisibleCities
>good developers over there (and here in Uruguay) that are earning a fraction
of what an equivalent U.S. developer is making.

As it turns out, people from India/Pakistan/Uruguay who are smart enough to
build complex software systems are also smart enough to go on glassdoor,
realize they are being fucked, and then come over here (or start charging
higher rates). The only ones who keep charging 1/10th the cost are the ones
who have to.

~~~
ricardobeat
Moving to the US is not the smartest move if you have a much lower cost of
living in your home country. Trying to charge the same as a local US
developer, without considering familiarity, proximity, language, etc. isn't
smart either.

~~~
GFischer
Uruguay has a decent standard of living, so most of us don't want to move out,
unless forced to by economic conditions.

It is extremely stressful to move to a foreign country where you won't speak
the language correctly, you don't family and friends and the social and
psychological safety net you're used to, and you don't know the local customs,
AND you'll be a second-class person even if you do somehow manage to get legal
papers (which are a huge source of stress in and of themselves).

That's why most people that do are either young people (more adaptable) or
families under economic hardship.

In my case, my girlfriend won't consider moving to the U.S., and I won't
consider moving without legal papers, which means a H1B visa for me, or moving
to Canada and starting the long citizenship process.

That's why many smart people will accept lower wages in order to stay with
their families and friends and environment.

I know firsthand what it means to emigrate, one of my brothers is living in
the United Arab Emirates and tries to convince me to emigrate very often (I'd
instantly double or triple my salary, plus the UAE are much cheaper than
Uruguay), and I have family in Austria and Canada. All three countries are
great (I like Austria the most, but I don't speak much German), but all of
them represent all the challenges outlined above.

------
jiggy2011
Software dev pricing is weird since it is so easy to _grossly_ undercut
yourself or overprice yourself by an entire order of magnitude.

I can certainly sympathise with people who have sent reasonable estimates and
have received somewhat borderline insulting responses like "Wow, I could buy a
used car for that!" or "That's nearly what my plumber charges!".

However in a certain sense I can't help but feel the industry has brought this
upon itself. I remember ~2000 when websites were a new thing.

There were contractors around who would happily go in and quote very large
sums of money for really very small amounts of (often very poor quality) work.
Since the market had not really had a chance to self-adjust it's prices yet
people would often just accept these costs without understanding what they
were buying.

I remember a popular tactic being for designers to literally rip the HTML for
a competitors website, switch the logos around and come back with a $10,000
bill.

So naturally the smart teenagers with a lot of free time to learn saw an
opportunity to rebuild these websites better for the price of a few pizzas.
This taught the market that costs could be _significantly_ lower and also that
the correlation between price and quality was very loose.

These kids also figured out the value of sharing code and ideas with each
other, leading to a sort of open source renaissance.

Now that those teenagers have grown up and have to feed their families during
a global recession those in developing nations are basically pulling the same
trick on them that they had pulled back in the day.

You also have the added problem that there a sort of "iceberg" going on here.
For example one can build an impressively featured website in around an hour
simply by uploading one of the popular CMS and shopping cart systems to a
shared webhost and copy pasting some content.

Of course, once you do such a thing you will get the familiar "this is great
_buy_ wouldn't it be ever greater if this drop down menu just sort of did
_this_? I mean this entire thing took you an hour , so that change should take
like 10 seconds right?" , "Well actually, I will need to develop a custom
module to do X and then interface with Y so it's probably 4-8 hours
depending.."

At that point it might be hard to convince a customer that you are not somehow
trying to pull a fast one..

------
pjungwir
This article (and the comments here) remind me of something I read in
_Managing the Professional Service Firm_ by David Maister: whether you're
hiring a lawyer, a car mechanic, or anything in between, you usually have
little ability to asset their technical merits, so you have to choose based on
other factors. That could be price, but it can also be things like reputation,
responsiveness, patience & clarity in answering your questions, etc. Realize
it's the same way when someone is thinking of hiring you. The article & these
comments mostly focus on technical questions, and indeed if the tech is bad
enough you have project failure. But if you're talking with technically un-
savvy clients, you should help them realize you have more to offer than just a
lower risk of botched tech, certainly more than just "better code."
Particularly as a sole contractor, you can offer them a more personal
relationship with wise guidance that they aren't going to get by hiring their
cousin or the cheapest programmer they can find on elance.com.

------
VLM
I'm most surprised the MVP effort can be so consistently estimated. It might
be that the pool of "apps" is extremely shallow, so they're just
reimplemention #1231 of "XYZ" therefore estimation is simple based on
extensive past experience reimplenting #1230, #1229, etc. "fart app #2935315"
takes just as long to MVP as doggcatcher or evernote?

Also a major problem I've experienced is trying to force what I consider the
technical requirements for a MVP past the non-technical people barrier, I
didn't see that in the discussion, maybe it was assumed. For example, in my
opinion, at least some minimal backup strategy is part of the MVP, whereas the
non-technical types just reply "well, if THE hard drive crashes, we'll just
sue the hosting provider, my buddy is a lawyer so he'll work cheap" or "if it
blows up, you'll just work 36 hours straight on salary to fix it, right, so
don't waste money/time preventing it from blowing up or adding debugging code
or monitoring code, just work on features for the PR checkboxes".

------
tudorizer
These type of clients smell like deja vu to me and the post is a good light
education for these kind of clients.

For people who get shocked at 60K for a full stack solution: go with the devs
from [insert any outsourcing country here] or with the friend and keep a
journal of how things went. I'd be damn curious to read it... (even though I
already know the outcome).

~~~
GFischer
Ok, when I start development of my app here in Uruguay I will :) .

My guess is that we will find the normal troubles of any other development
project.

It's kind of cheating though, since I'll be here to supervise and collaborate,
and that eases most of the communication problems.

------
seivan
For most iOS applications you don't necessarily need a designer and two
developers. Trim the fat.

One developer is more than enough for most iOS applications that doesn't cross
into games and physics.

You also don't need an "Mobile UX, UI, iOS designer expert" either. Just get a
good developer that can do both, instead of mixing science with snake oil.

In the end, one guy to be the product owner, develop and design will be
leaner, and far more better than involving more people.

Less is more.

~~~
robmcm
Less that can do more in less time is normally more expensive. Seperating out
areas into design, front end and back end development also splits your risk.

~~~
bguthrie
Not necessarily. Yes, the comparative advantage of roles playing to their
strengths can net you a lot of short-term gains, but you run a tremendous risk
of getting stuck if one person quits or get hit by a bus, for example.
Knowledge sharing via cross pollination of roles is a good risk mitigation
strategy.

~~~
robmcm
Yes but if you had it split into three experts for each area the chance of
they all getting hit by a bus?

Also I think if you hire an expert in field x, there is a lot higher chance
that their coding style and practice will be easier for another expert in
field x to pick up. Ever seen a developers photoshop files :p

------
tylerc230
It's so true. I've been a freelance iOS developer for a year now and half of
my contracts have been fixing amateur looking code of large consulting firms.
Is this endemic of iOS work or all software development? My theory is that
consulting firms have trouble hiring senior engineers because working for a
consulting firm isn't "sexy".

~~~
tudorizer
define "sexy" here

~~~
tylerc230
High profile companies outside of tech circles.

------
unstoppable
60k might be a bit much... we can often get a mostly functional app off the
ground for 30k. It just depends on specs.

Web MVPs (landing page with a signup form) can be done easily from anywhere
between $200-1000. Yes, I realize there's stuff like unbounce, but even with
those, they still take a couple hours to set up and properly split test. If
you've never done this before, you can easily burn through that very quickly,
and even if you have done this before, and you're valuing your time as any
good founder should, then you're burning through that value allotment very
quickly.

As for the foreign quotes, I've taken over plenty of jobs where it was started
by a foreign firm for a tenth of the cost of what US firms charge... quality
is usually terrible, and the reason I took over is because they couldn't get
it finished. It's occasionally been so bad that we had to scrap their entire
project within 6 months.

------
bdreadz
I've had a lot of these types of meetings. Everyone has an app idea. I'm
always ears though because ideas have come to me that are very interesting.
The noise to signal ratio though is pretty terrible.

It's always interesting to have them reference apps and designs that they
think their app should end up looking like. Very quickly a general breakdown
of things in regards to the app they are looking to build can follow. Even
taking the approach of outsourcing and painting a picture of how that works.

A lot of times I've gone the route with at least doing the mockups of the
pages with a little on how the UI will work. It's something that I know I'm
selling that will be of value to them even if they choose not to have us
continue on with the development and to just really boil down the idea and
even more importantly what kinda of money and time it's going to take to
develop the idea.

------
beering
When we needed native Android and iOS versions of our app, we contracted it
out to a couple Indian developers. We figured that the development was pretty
straightforward - it was essentially a port of our mobile webpage that had
some performance issues, so we had all the server-side endpoints and a working
example to copy from.

Was their work output buggy? Sure. But they got it done at a reasonable speed
and cheaply, and they fixed the bugs as we noticed them (and we were paying
them to...). For us, being cash-strapped and needing apps just to say we have
them, it was pretty OK. I think it worked for us because we didn't expect a
perfect, polished app, and the requirements were well specified from the get-
go.

------
andybak
In software there is a correlation between spending money and getting good
quality work done. However - it's only a correlation.

Yes - some people get their nephew to build a modern, well coded, SEO-friendly
and accessible, ajax-driven, e-commerce site for $800 but they probably just
got lucky. A lot of nephews get out of their depth and never deliver.

And yes - some people spend a couple of million on the project with the same
specs and get given a piece of crap in return. But on the whole - like good
whiskey - the price tag is a good indicator of quality and a good way to
reduce risk.

So - like many areas of enquiry - anecdotes aren't incredibly useful. If
anyone has got any tips on finding the magic nephew, however, I'm all ears.

~~~
onemorepassword
I have no tips on finding the magic nephew, but I can point you to plenty of
software shops that will gladly burn a couple of million for you and give you
a piece of crap in return. And maybe worst of all: they're not even
deliberately trying to screw you.

The magic nephew may be rare, but my 25 years worth of anecdotal evidence
suggests the latter example is quite common. And it's this experience that
makes people very wary of spending a lot of money on software development.

------
timjahn
Amen brother.

To me, the key is right here: "My hunch is that the people who quoted much
lower estimates and timeframes were shooting for the development work."

Firms/individuals/groups that quote dirt cheap prices are probably either a)
desperate for the work (which makes ya wonder why) and/or b) not caring about
the work they do at all (therefore producing a sub par final product).

A big mission of my new startup matchist (<http://matchist.com/talent>) is to
filter out these clients for freelance developers, so they only deal with
those who aren't looking for 30 lbs in 30 days.

We're not 100% there yet but we're working damn hard at it.

------
MatthewPhillips
Fast, good and cheap. Pick any two.

~~~
julien_c
Or one.

~~~
venus
Or none. That's the thing - that "pick two" saying actually applies only to
competent practitioners. Actually getting two is the best case scenario!

I have seen projects where the implementers happily go way over time, way over
budget, and fail to deliver anything at all.

------
desireco42
Excellent metaphor, I like how this post explained simply difficult problem.

I can expand on it that I also ran into, like most of us, on similar
comparisons and while I don't think it is wrong to seek help overseas,
especially in places like India/Pakistan, I think that it is completely wrong
to have clueless person seek help and then when they get burned, come back
running to me and tell me about those bad, bad, people over there.

So again, excellent metaphor.

------
mbesto
From the Project management triangle:

 _Like any human undertaking, projects need to be performed and delivered
under certain constraints. Traditionally, these constraints have been listed
as "scope," "time," and "cost"._ [1]

It's amazing how often I need to reiterate this to clients and potential
clients.

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management_triangle>

------
darkarmani
Thinking about the title, I just kept thinking of Christian Bale losing 60
pounds in 4 months. If that took him 4 months, I don't know how you'd lose 30
pounds in 30 days (well in a health way).
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machinist#Production>

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startupstella
We deal with educating clients on the cost of apps and MVPS all the time at
matchist. We get clients who have been burned and understand the value of not
outsourcing overseas, yet I think there is still sticker shock at the costs
associated with building exactly what you want. What do you think is the
solution to this?

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kamelot
This article really got my goat on so many levels.

Nice response here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5129675>

Full disclosure: I am an investor in the response posted to the OP.

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shwetanka
Response to OP: <http://blog.launchyard.com/response-to-30-pounds-in-30-days>

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arvcpl
Funny, I have a completely opposite experience :)

It really depends on people, not about location. Talent can be EVERYWHERE, as
well as not so talented ones :)

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gtirloni
1 pound every day.. that sure ain't a very healthy diet. Go easy, bro.

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logn
I make $48/hr at my fulltime job. I take an odd freelance job here and there
and charge the same rate to my clients. Sure, I could charge more but I don't
have a huge portfolio. So, he charges $125/hr and has 3 examples of clients
whose previous devs failed. Must mean he's correct.

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cma
This is ridiculous, the Simpson-Bowles commission didn't come up with a
recommendation:

"The Commission shall vote on the approval of a final report containing a set
of recommendations to achieve the objectives set forth in the Charter no later
than December 1, 2010. The issuance of a final report of the Commission shall
require the approval of not less than 14 of the 18 members of the Commission."

They never had that vote.

[http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-
bowle...](http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/the-bowles-
simpson-commission-did-not-issue-a-report)

