I had an idea for a software application and hired a programmer from one of the freelance programming websites. Towards the end he bailed. I even gave him extra money because the project ran over the time he said it would take. I ended up with useless software. He had excellent reviews, and was established on the freelance website
I know what I want the software to do but it seems I almost need to know programming to convey it or a wireframe or something. I had written down what I wanted it to do. But even the basic function ended up broken
Along the way as problems presented themselves i had to brainstorm solutions for the problems. As an example there could be two things named the same thing, this caused the software to crash. I would have thought the programmer would have already thought of this being a potential problem based on how I explained it would function. He then fixed it but in my mind this should have been a non issue from the get go.
So in essence my question is how do I explain what I want and should a programmer be asking me any questions ? Or do I have to have everything spelled out even if I am not a programmer because its seemed like I need to know programming to explain how I want the software to function. And where / how do I find a good one ?
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Software Engineer here. You don’t need to know programming to explain how you want the software to function—BUT knowing programming does help in terms of scoping work.
P.S. I’d be down to take on paid side work if it sounds cool enough.
you need a good product manager (or at least a project manager). A good product manager can get the best out of a dev.
It takes many, many, years to get good at managing devs. If you are managing your own project, I recommend taking some courses.
I’m a software engineer, hit me up I’m looking for a side project
Hey man, not the OP, but I’d be keen to have a chat I’d you’re open to it? I may need an extra set of hands for a project we have coming up
Proper engagement, paid etc
Shoot me a dm!
I can help. What tech stack are you working on and what do you need from my side?
What’s your rate?
not OP but I am a web dev as well, and my rate is $3k/month. I can share more details if needed
Freelance sites are often for cheap-skates. The good reviews are often because they solved a lot of really simple problems. Like “I need a powerBI script” or something.
You get what you pay for. You probably do want to pay for it and get an NDA to protect your idea too, at least in the early stages.
It can be hard to find a programmer co-founder as an entrepreneur, because, all us programmers have heard about a billion pitches by non-technical entrepreneurs, and they’re usually a really bad idea or not lucrative enough to bother.
Like no, you’re not going to make a successful, breakthrough social media company anymore. Ship has sailed bro.
Like no, I won’t accept 100 dollars for 40 hours of work that YOU OWN afterwards when I’m making 60+ an hour at my day job.
In any case, I don’t have a lot of advice for you there other than you should try to befriend some programmers. You can keep trying some others on those freelance sites but you might want to contact the higher $ ones with lots of feedback because they’ll take it more seriously.
Thank you for the advice. This isn’t a billion dollar idea more niche specific. I have no dreams of lambos and all that but I am hoping to make 150k or more per year. It really depends on the number of subscribers and the monthly subscription cost the market is willing to pay for the service.
It’s likely your fault as you didn’t communicate properly or know what you’re actually asking for. Happy to try and lend a hand
Yo! I’m not going to code for you, im too busy. But I can give offer you some advice for free. Hit me up if you are interested.
A word of advice
If you’re going to outsource a programming project, then you have got to divorce yourself from what you think the coding should be like. Infact don’t try to say what should be done and what should not be done.
All you should have is a barebone blueprint. I want this to do that…simple.
Your coder is the guy who brainstorms the solution. If you don’t have coding skills, you shouldn’t be conceptualizing.
That’s the problem you’re having.
You don’t need a programmer you need a technical cofounder
Ideally that person should be experienced at creating startups and go from “0 to 1”
If you pick another programmer you will just get taken for a ride again
You need a technical cofounder who shares your vision and will create whatever it is you want either short term demo that will be scrapped later and remade (MVP) or something that will last a little longer (or a lot longer)
What’s to stop the technical cofounder from doing all the work, getting sick of the inequality in effort then usurp the whole idea?
That seems to happen a lot when one person is a programmer and one person isn’t because the programmer is the only one who can really execute the idea
In many startups, the early work can be heavily tilted towards the business side. You have to figure out what you’re building before you want to actually start building. This means talking to customers, building a landing page, ad campaign, etc. Some companies may need more early technical development, but you’ve got problems if the business-side cofounder isn’t doing this.
There’s more to just making it. There’s knowing what to make (Product or Research), and designing what to make (UI/UX) and then selling or pushing what you make. You got the 3 H’s (hacker, hustler, hipster) and each would bring unique skills. 99% of programmers cannot design or sell worth a cent.
You can use slicing pie model https://slicingpie.com/learn-slicing-pie-model/ to turn everything into a “slice” and calculate fair market value. Time, relationships, money even ideas all have fair market value. You can have real time calculation of equity. In most primitive way you have time based vesting but more advanced tracking like slicing pie has no fixed equity chunks. If someone was lazy and did nothing and got fired, the treatment of their “slices” would be different than if someone walked away for either bad or good reasons. When the startup gets funding, slicing pie model ends and you can accurately price and hire. People’s “slices” (equity) is paid off then and you move into salaries and normal compensation.
The builder can try to “usurp” the whole idea but then they would need another person to do the selling and the designing. The sales guy can walk away too and so can the designer. The risk is the same.
With any product you have 2 parallel streams going on -
- Product Development
- Customer Development
Product Development doesn’t just involve “building it”, there is also tons of UI / UX work, and the most important job of a Product Owner of figuring out what features to prioritize and what is the go to market strategy.
Then there is Customer Development, where you actively talk to customers to figure out their pain points and try to deeply understand the problem, and how you could potentially solve it.
There is also marketing and sales, which is related to Customer Development but is it’s own thing.
The idea is that everyone contributes to all these parts of the company, while the technical founder manages how to build it, and with what quality requirements. But the other founders are involved in every other part of the company.
Rarely is what you ask for in the beginning what you will need in the end.
Eventually, it will need to be changed to increase traffic or as you find out you need more things.If its just you and them, they should be able to do it for you without the need to write out complex requirements, just send an email, they’ll implement, you look, point out what you want changed, they change it and the process continues.
I’m a software dev. Let me know if you still need help
You may want to consider a no-code solution like Bubble (web) or Adalo (mobile + web) for an MVP. Gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of costs and bug-hunting and could help you launch much faster and more efficiently than traditional dev. Ping me if this sounds interesting, I’m a product design engineer with loads of experience launching MVPs via these platforms
Steal a guy from a small company like me lol. Guys who work with huge teams rarely know wtf they are doing. Meanwhile, I work with a team of 4 other dudes, we all do the work of like 30 guys no problem. We get paid accordingly though.
Likewise, I’d ask: how do you find a serious entrepreneur?
I’m an Embedded Software Engineer. Few years back I’ve been approached by a wannabe entrepreneur, with a great plan to build a product. Everything started with a discussion on LinkedIn, then some Zoom, then a word document, 9-10 pages long, containing a set of system requirements. The guy had worked in the same field as myself (automotive) and he knew at least how to write down such requirements. That was a big plus. Nonetheless, that was the only input.
I’ve spent a lot of time to setup a complete project structure, laid down proper software requirements, created some initial design documents, set up Bitbucket/JIRA/Confluence ecosystem, created first demo software, prepared the deliverables and then…he said that plans are changed indefinitely as he got a nice offer from a big company and he’ll get back into full time employment 😐 That was it. He did pay something for my work, but an infinitesimal value, compared to what I’ve done.
Now, you’d say that I was naive not to charge per hour, but bear in mind that I wasn’t a freelancer and I wanted to literally join in as a “partner” on the embedded software side with a hope to achieve something greater on the long run. I basically ended up doing some 4-5 weeks of evening/weekend work, almost for free. That work was done on my spare time.
Since then, I’ve stayed away of such “promises” 🤭
Run the business yourself then 👀👀
I’m a software engineer now entrepreneur.
I noticed this issue right away when I first started, many freelancers still think “9-5” and I don’t think they really understand how to do business.
They lack communication skills and don’t really know how to ask the right questions. I know because I struggled with this myself.
A good engineer should be able to troubleshoot all the problems themselves, the whole experience should feel like a “white glove” service.
My biggest advice is to network with other engineers that either run an agency/firm delivering “dev as a service”. Shop around a bit before you make any final decisions.
A place to find them is here on Reddit or Twitter, also LinkedIn is growing so I think that’s another great place. I’m personally on all 3.
The white glove service is what I expected, what I got was riding shotgun in a car with 3 wheels and the check engine light is on. I really have no network and not even sure how to get one started since I work full time and I really have nothing to bring to the table in a networking group other than my ideas.
I will look for the dev as a service. Thank you
That’s kind of the hard part about this stuff. Your best best is to spend as little money as possible to get an MVP that you can demo to customers and investors, and either get capital from revenue for a better product or capital from investors.