I don't know how I feel about this project. It feels like their product is a middleman, and sort of (maybe unintentionally) reinforces the idea that people "own" ideas...
When I think about it, it's probably not actually different from just having an open collective that takes on ideas and builds them for clients for free, but this is a distinctively less personal feel... but 10% is (in my opinion) a pretty hefty amount of revenue to share for just hosting.
If I'm understanding correctly, 10% revenue sharing for the simple value proposition of connecting you to people who want to build you app and hosting your app seems like too much.
Maybe I'm just not open minded enough for this to seem like a great idea to me yet
I think there are a lot of practical problems with Assembly's model, but it feels to me like an imperfect glimpse into what will someday be a really valuable model. I love the idea of being able to contribute to a project with minimal barriers to entry, and get an automatic stake in its success in return.
Hi @semiel. This is our vision and we're hopefully iterating towards a more perfect solution. We've thought intensely about the details but in reality, we're still learning from the community and constantly finding opportunities to improve. My email is matt@assembly.com if you ever want to share specific thoughts - they are helpful.
Yeah, and this is the bit that makes me think that I'm thinking about it wrong. It actually seems like a win-win-win-win for everyone involved (idea submitters, contributors, assembly, and the end user), but I can't shake that sinking feeling.
Yes I am wary of using it being based in a different country. To fully understand the legal implication will be more work than the help I am going to get on the project.
I think it would be much more useful to have a meetup-style site to find people locally to work with, then let them organise between themselves if they want to start a company etc.
On the other hand for a pure opensource, no profit, MIT-licence kind of thing Assembly would be OK. The problem is Assembly wouldn't make money out of that model.
It maybe something that GitHub or Apache could promote though.
I couldn't agree more based off a recent experience with Formspree (an Assembly project). Currently their emails are running really slow, with tools showing an 11 minute delay between initiation and the email being sent.
Want to let them know? They've turned off issues on the GitHub repository, they have no Twitter account, and you have to register for Assembly even to raise a bug.
Hi, I'm one of the creators of Brace Forms. I am really happy with the way formspree is working on assembly.
Want to send feedback? There's a form at the bottom of formspree.io and we've got people in the community that are now responding to those customer service inquiries.
Several have asked about the 10m delays. We switched email providers so we could improve our email deliverability and spam filtering. But the new provider is throttling us while they get a sense of our email traffic. I've been told that it should be back to normal soon. These are growing pains.
Frankly I'm pleasantly surprised to see the project gaining momentum. The alternative would have been to shut it down.
The great thing about a Twitter account or using GitHub issues is that (ideally) you only have to answer a question once. You tweet out that you're aware of the issue and that you're working on it, or I browse for it in the GitHub issues and see it's already been raised and there's a pull waiting to resolve it.
The fact that Brace/Formspree allocate so many points to customer service inquiries on Assembly sounds like you're being inundated with questions that could be managed in a more open fashion?
We're always looking at ways we can create more value for the community then the platform fee necessary to run it. Products on assembly benefit from administration of accounting, finances, legal, many operating costs (hosting) pre-profit, as well providing trust layer (with revenue) so that contributors on products know that if there is any success it will be fairly distributed to everyone.
Most importantly there already is a community of other engineers, designers, and even creatives interested in helping with marketing/distribution.
FWIW - other marketplaces often charge 30% or more (e.g. heroku, apple).
These are good points, especially the comparison with the other marketplaces, along with more informed breakdown of what you guys offer.
I think the idea is novel (at least it is to me, I haven't seen another effort like it yet other than the open collective idea I mentioned earlier), and I think it's really interesting.
Maybe I can try and describe the nagging feeling better:
tldr - It feels like Assembly makes it easier for startups to be a machine with people-shaped cogs. I might also be completely wrong, and that is actually the better way to go (or the path that people will be happy to travel once they discover assembly)
It feels like assembly is deconstructing the startup model (which is probably good and bad, maybe mostly good):
- (+/- technical) founder => person with idea
- initial dev team => contributors
- VC => Assembly (w/ revenue share instead of equity)
But I think that something gets lost in that deconstruction. The founders become "just" people with ideas, and not people who grew, nurtured and fostered a company/entity. I realize they are the core team, but learning all the accounting, finances, legal, and operating costs bits are kind of valuable to a budding founder. I may even go as far as to say that a person with an idea != a founder specifically because of the transformation that happens from having to deal with all that administration (otherwise known as running a company).
Similarly for the dev team, they're invested... but I don't think they're as invested as they could be, or as part of the living breathing entity (figuratively) that is the company -- it's almost like being a freelancer/contract worker (more the disenfranchisement that might occur, I think, less the health benefits/other usual problems)
And while the marketplace itself (Assembly) takes on quite a fair bit of risk in hosting the sites and providing all those services for free... I can't help but feel like the profit they may make comes at the cost of stunting the growth of a founder and her/his development team.
If I could put it in a sentence, I might say that this system makes it easier to treat people as cogs.
On the flip side, this could be a completely inane over-reaction, I may be on the wrong side of a trend that is about to be huge, and streamline startup culture in a big way.
> These are good points, especially the comparison with the other marketplaces, along with more informed breakdown of what you guys offer. I think the idea is novel (at least it is to me, I haven't seen another effort like it yet other than the open collective idea I mentioned earlier), and I think it's really interesting.
Thanks!
> If I could put it in a sentence, I might say that this system makes it easier to treat people as cogs.
I appreciate the candid feedback but this is the opposite of what Assembly is about; cogs don't make great products with care and attention.
The internet is best at bringing people together to create something bigger then what any one person could do alone. Open Source and Wikipedia are examples of what can be created this way. I believe this is the case because of an open collaborative model - where people that love what they do can do so with their peers. They are free to create and innovate how they want, on what they want, and where they want to - ultimately leading to our best work.
Assembly is trying to give people working alone on passion products the boost of an entire team of diverse skills and engaged partners - only there because they care about what they do - while at the same time ensuring all those participating can be fairly rewarded with any success that they create.
I'm tempting to do this, I have a almost-finished app but need help to end and release, however, look like doing this is giving away too much, and I have not see how pull-back from assembly if later in the road I need it.
The best thing I can suggest is get involved with one of the existing community products first. See how the community helps each other and determine if there is value for your product. This is the path that founders have done in the past before eventually migrating their side products to the Assembly community. You can always email us if you have specific questions about the process.
I don't want my comment to discourage you from exploring what Assembly has to offer.
They could very well take projects in varying stages of completion and provide services, and maybe the costs can be worked out or something.
Reaching out to them and asking how they handle your use case (someone with like 80% of a project done who really wants help for a final push + release), should be education for both parties.
The idea is really good. They add additional services that can be really valuable in order to make you lighter during the product's take off.
If still doesn't fit what you are looking for, StartupHub has a similar concept without taking revenue or acting as a middleman. Just focusing on the crowdsourcing and collab side (like the iWeekends).
Is this service basically for SAAS type projects that could potentially have a future revenue stream? Or is it also intended for regular open source standalone projects? I've got some stuff in the pipeline where I've been trying to find a way to get more exposure, so I can get people testing it giving me an idea of future development priorities. But I don't see any type of revenue stream, unless I sell support for the projects.
Somehow get the assembly newsletter once in a while and I have to say it's a great newsletter. Not because I am so interested in what assembly does but rather because the subject line is so compelling to click on. Almost like it's not a newsletter but a real email. I don't know whether it is the lowcaps which does the trick or the wording but it's nailing it.
I find most of the projects to require mostly Ruby/Rails/JavaScript stack.I guess its high time to learn Ruby/Rails. I am a java developer.Was hardly able to find any project here.
This is perfect timing for me. I have a project which is online and has users, yet is languishing because I just don't have time. (http://think200.com - Test-driven app monitoring.)
I've been considering open-sourcing it and just hoping for the best. So this is a good alternative to investigate first.
The app's about 85% done. I'm very open to how development can progress on this. That being said, I won't be offended if think200 doesn't fit Assembly's model.
My experience with it a few months ago had this exact issue - there is no standardisation of bounties whatsoever.
Initial work developing the API (10 hours of work, say) would be valued at 5000 credits but then after launch someone tweaking the color of a button might get set at 2000 credits.
Perhaps there needs to be a review process for tasks that go through a list of per-project moderators? Both for reducing cruft, keeping focus on the currently-important stuff, and to normalise bounties across the project's lifetime.
Alternatively, the bounties could be semi-invisible, instead with tasks assigned to various levels of difficulty and importance...
Should you ever find your side project un-savable - for a variety of reasons (commitment issue, personal, emotional, what-not), then you can always take your project to SideProjectors and let others take over. :)
I am interested in viewing, but a heads up: the site shows zero entries, even after enabling all first-party scripts and XHR requests. Not sure if third-party scripts are essential, but if they are, consider not depending on them.
When I think about it, it's probably not actually different from just having an open collective that takes on ideas and builds them for clients for free, but this is a distinctively less personal feel... but 10% is (in my opinion) a pretty hefty amount of revenue to share for just hosting.
If I'm understanding correctly, 10% revenue sharing for the simple value proposition of connecting you to people who want to build you app and hosting your app seems like too much.
Maybe I'm just not open minded enough for this to seem like a great idea to me yet