4 ms·

Correct me if I'm wrong...but shouldn't you also include the time you spent in your "final cost"? For example, if my time is worth $100 per hour and I spend 10

Correct me if I'm wrong...but shouldn't you also include the time you spent in your "final cost"? For example, if my time is worth $100 per hour and I spend 10 hours, sure, my debit card shows that I spent $100...but add in my time and now it's around $1100. I could have used that time to work on other things, to generate even more value for my startup, and effectively break even when the company I hired to create an explainer video delivers.

cyberferret 11y ago
You are right. If I added in my normal consulting rate, the cost would have been the same as the original quotes I got. But for me, I valued the learning experience of doing something I had never done before. To be honest, it was a good change from the core development work on the app, or the social media marketing I had been doing. I am pretty much a one man show here, so am used to doing everything myself now. In a sense, I still think that the added skills I am learning adds value to my startup. Once I started earning serious income and hire others, then I will have to strive to become better at delegating work that is not my core speciality, but until then, I just have fun learning. :)
- TrevorJ 11y ago
  I admire your philosophy on this. It's impressive work for 48 hours starting from scratch. I'm also glad you recognise that 2,000 for a video like this is a reasonable rate. A lot of times people don't realize just how much goes into that sort of work.
brudgers 11y ago
It takes time to select, communicate with, and manage an outside company. It creates a dependency on that company's schedule and the schedules of all the other companys that the outside company also works for. Those costs tend to be non-trivial even in cases where there is a long term established relationship. To put it in perspective, it may take a couple of weeks of calendar time just to get to a signed agreement. Never mind a few more weeks to get a final product [if it all]. That's a big break in cognitive flow for a small project that can be knocked out in a few hours.
pc86 11y ago
Only if you actually would have billed that time out (you wouldn't have).

cyberferret 11y ago

You are right. If I added in my normal consulting rate, the cost would have been the same as the original quotes I got. But for me, I valued the learning experience of doing something I had never done before. To be honest, it was a good change from the core development work on the app, or the social media marketing I had been doing. I am pretty much a one man show here, so am used to doing everything myself now. In a sense, I still think that the added skills I am learning adds value to my startup. Once I started earning serious income and hire others, then I will have to strive to become better at delegating work that is not my core speciality, but until then, I just have fun learning. :)

TrevorJ 11y ago
I admire your philosophy on this. It's impressive work for 48 hours starting from scratch. I'm also glad you recognise that 2,000 for a video like this is a reasonable rate. A lot of times people don't realize just how much goes into that sort of work.

brudgers 11y ago

It takes time to select, communicate with, and manage an outside company. It creates a dependency on that company's schedule and the schedules of all the other companys that the outside company also works for. Those costs tend to be non-trivial even in cases where there is a long term established relationship. To put it in perspective, it may take a couple of weeks of calendar time just to get to a signed agreement. Never mind a few more weeks to get a final product [if it all]. That's a big break in cognitive flow for a small project that can be knocked out in a few hours.

pc86 11y ago

Only if you actually would have billed that time out (you wouldn't have).