4 ms·

This is definitely a low-end estimate. To build a good product takes a team of four senior people (2 back-end, 1 front-end, 1 UX) 6-12 months including the iter

This is definitely a low-end estimate. To build a good product takes a team of four senior people (2 back-end, 1 front-end, 1 UX) 6-12 months including the iteration and modifications. Let's say the average salary for a senior person is $120k / year + health insurance and benefits, office, etc. We're already at $240k for 6 months or $480k for 12 months NOT INCLUDING health insurance and benefits. Don't tell me that a dev shop can do it much faster/cheaper. I've worked with a few of the TOP dev shops out there and you always get more bang for your buck with FTE who have a vested interest in what you are building. We haven't even discussed sales and marketing yet. This is just the cost of shipping something that works, not the cost of getting to Product/Market Fit. All-in I would say getting to Product/Market Fit can be anywhere from $1M - $6M for SOFTWARE depending on the complexity of the new market.

PeterisP 8y ago
It's probably better to talk about this budget not in terms of dollars but in terms of man-months or FTE-years or something like that. There's all kinds of reasons why the same thing will cost wildly different amounts of money (e.g. the cost of a good back-end engineer depending on your location), and you can get a lot of work without paying the full amount in cash, but you still need to budget that you'll need to obtain x FTE-years. Quoting the article, "I worked for free until the founder could pay me." ... you can't rely on hopes that you'll find a good deal like this, so you anyway need to budget money or effort or time (to find such people) for this amount of work instead of just saying $0.
scarface74 8y ago
I would never say that having less people can do it faster but probably cheaper. Spit balling here, but say four people could do it in 6 months (the aggressive end of your range), what if two people - one UX and one full stack developer took 12 months worse case. I would think: - While I don't know many "full stack developers" who are good at UX, I know plenty that can do front end development and back end development pretty well. I know a few that can go all the way down and create a decent cloud infrastructure with databases and do devops (raises hand). - By combining tasks, you don't have to double pay health insurance and benefits for four people. - Once you pay over the Social Security maximum, you don't have to pay the 6.2% employer side of Social Security, saving a little more money if you pay one or two superstars. - The whole "Mythical Man Month" thing starts to work in your favor the less communication overhead you have between developers. - Do most sites have a front end UX complicated enough that you need a full time UX guy at first? Can you outsource that?
- deegles 8y ago
  A recurring theme on HN is how difficult it is for experienced technical people to identify talent and hire them. If you unlock the secret for identifying even a mildly competent UX/full stack dev combo and then convincing them to work on a startup idea we’re all ears.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    I can go through my LinkedIn connections and find a couple dozen full stack developers with years of experience that also know how to optimize the data tier for a small to medium size business. I know fewer that have dev ops experience, they might have developed it over the years. I know only one who is a full stack developer who has all of the qualities above and have a deep understanding of cloud architecture - that’s me. Most developers I know haven’t focused on cloud architecture the way that I have. They became team leads after a few years. They moved up in salary by becoming leads. I’m on my way to being an overpriced consultant. I don’t know but a few UX people.

PeterisP 8y ago

It's probably better to talk about this budget not in terms of dollars but in terms of man-months or FTE-years or something like that. There's all kinds of reasons why the same thing will cost wildly different amounts of money (e.g. the cost of a good back-end engineer depending on your location), and you can get a lot of work without paying the full amount in cash, but you still need to budget that you'll need to obtain x FTE-years. Quoting the article, "I worked for free until the founder could pay me." ... you can't rely on hopes that you'll find a good deal like this, so you anyway need to budget money or effort or time (to find such people) for this amount of work instead of just saying $0.

scarface74 8y ago

I would never say that having less people can do it faster but probably cheaper. Spit balling here, but say four people could do it in 6 months (the aggressive end of your range), what if two people - one UX and one full stack developer took 12 months worse case. I would think: - While I don't know many "full stack developers" who are good at UX, I know plenty that can do front end development and back end development pretty well. I know a few that can go all the way down and create a decent cloud infrastructure with databases and do devops (raises hand). - By combining tasks, you don't have to double pay health insurance and benefits for four people. - Once you pay over the Social Security maximum, you don't have to pay the 6.2% employer side of Social Security, saving a little more money if you pay one or two superstars. - The whole "Mythical Man Month" thing starts to work in your favor the less communication overhead you have between developers. - Do most sites have a front end UX complicated enough that you need a full time UX guy at first? Can you outsource that?

deegles 8y ago
A recurring theme on HN is how difficult it is for experienced technical people to identify talent and hire them. If you unlock the secret for identifying even a mildly competent UX/full stack dev combo and then convincing them to work on a startup idea we’re all ears.
- scarface74 8y ago
  I can go through my LinkedIn connections and find a couple dozen full stack developers with years of experience that also know how to optimize the data tier for a small to medium size business. I know fewer that have dev ops experience, they might have developed it over the years. I know only one who is a full stack developer who has all of the qualities above and have a deep understanding of cloud architecture - that’s me. Most developers I know haven’t focused on cloud architecture the way that I have. They became team leads after a few years. They moved up in salary by becoming leads. I’m on my way to being an overpriced consultant. I don’t know but a few UX people.