Hey Brian, I wanted to introduce myself as I'm launching a grocery shopping venture and in need of a talented PHP (LAMP) developer who can work with the Zend framework, MySQL, and Google Maps and Facebook API. The site is on a Linux server, running on an Amazon EC2.
Our beta site is currently in QA but my relationship with my developer went sour so I'm looking to transition the project to another developer to help me finalize the site and launch the prototype. This venture is totally bootstrapped so I have no more than a $4K budget remaining to pay someone as a work-for-hire OR find myself a tech co-founder (strictly for equity) to help grow the business for the next 12 months. Over the last several months, I've gotten about 6 businesses to sign up and several other (larger) retailers have expressed interested so I'm starting to get the business idea validated…which is great news.
The beta site is currently in QA (and in production mode) and I would say it's about 80% complete but the front-end has issues and the jQuery was done rather poorly. As a comparison to the live beta site, here's the url to the design comps that were designed and provided to the developer (not quite the same). Based on discussions with other prospective developers, there seems be roughly 200 hours needed to get this prototype ready for launch.
Whenever you have a few minutes, I'd really appreciate your feedback. If you sign up as a 'biz owner/manager', add a location and create a coupon, you'll get a full understanding of the full UX/UI. I'd be happy to provide you with a spec requirements document if you'd like.
Thanks and hope to hear from you soon,
****,
I must confess, I think you're going to have quite a difficult time convincing any talented developer to work on a project at $20 an hour ($4k / 200 hrs). That's a tough sell, especially in the current frothy climate. I bill $XXX an hour, so I'm definitely outside your budget.
As I see it, you have three options, sorted by difficulty:
- Build a relationship with a developer that would be willing to work for sweat equity.
- Raise more capital in order to hire a senior-level developer.
- Hire a junior-level developer that has potential.
The first and second option are similar in that you have to convince someone to invest in your company. The same pitch you would have to give to a VC, you'd have to give to a developer. A developer's time is money, so giving that up incurs a huge opportunity cost (again, especially in this current climate where a decent developer can easily bill $150+).
I'm fully booked, so I'm not able to take on any new projects. I'm also no longer taking on PHP projects (preference is Python or Ruby). However, if you're still shopping around for a developer I would be happy to put you in touch with someone who might meet option #3 above. [...]
And another piece of advice: there are two huge red flags in your email. First, you had a relationship with a developer go sour. The question that comes to any developer in seeing that: was it the developer, or you? Often it's not the developer. The other one is the statement that you're 80% there. It's the last 20% that has a tendency to last forever.
Good luck,
- Brian D.
Thanks Brian for such a quick reply, I appreciate it,
I realize that offering $4k for 200 hrs in this economic climate is a joke as most developers are in high demand right now but I just wanted to be honest & disclose that upfront.
As for red flags, I honestly believe it wasnt me. I didn't speak with my developer by phone or in person for several months despite me calling & emailing him several times...so lack of communication was the real culprit (and will always result in disaster)
Anyways, thanks so much for your referral. I'll reach out to **** tomorrow.