4 ms·

>> Ironically, it strikes me that there's a gap here for a business to solve; connecting entrepreneurial devs with business owners aware of problems. >This. Wh

>> Ironically, it strikes me that there's a gap here for a business to solve; connecting entrepreneurial devs with business owners aware of problems. >This. Why hasn't this gap been filled yet? It's called Upwork. No seriously, hear me out. When a business owner has a problem they perceive could be solved with technology, they create a job or they go on job posting sites seeking either an employee or a contractor to try and solve their problem. Where they get it wrong is that they frequently have unrealistic expectations about what it will cost and how long it will take. They have no idea what skills they should look for and who to trust. Is there a market mismatch here? Absolutely, but you'll have to find a way above the fray of recruiting sites as that's really the state of the market.

quickthrower2 7y ago
Yeah I’ve tried another similar site and people’s expectations are a bit loony, usually they want to pay the price you would charge a single customer for 1 year as a SaaS for you to develop the entire solution! Maybe non software folks don’t get the difference between say paying Atlassian $1000/month or whatever it is for Jira and paying a dev $1000 to develop a JIRA clone, because it probably seems like the same thing.
- edmundsauto 7y ago
  You're validating the problem, not the value or the target market. You need all 3, but it's easier to identify problems, then validate whether the defined target would be interested at a given price point. The freelancer sites are just a starting point, they answer the question of, "what are some things business owners want".
- poulsbohemian 7y ago
  Recent client: "I took a fortran class back in college, so let me know if you need any help." Therein lies the problem: They know lawyers, doctors, accountants, heck even plumbers are going to be expensive because they are educated / trained and/or they get you out of an identifiable tight spot (the IRS isn't happy, water is coming into the house, I'm having a heart attack, I'm getting sued, etc). Software developers? Outside the FAANGs technical people are viewed as fungible. Many, many small businesses are grossly undercapitalized such that a business owner might very well be paying that technical person a lot more than they pay themselves. Likewise, technical roles are typically compensated well above many other clerical / field / service / business type roles such that a business owner might not have ever paid so much to any other single employee.
  - balfirevic 7y ago
    > Outside the FAANGs technical people are viewed as fungible. Fungible does not mean low-paying. Plumbers are mostly viewed as fungible, however expensive they may be.
josephjrobison 7y ago
Man, this is such a genius idea. Spend a good amount of time manually looking through job requests, then learn how to search for these, then cluster them and quantify the market which leads to total addressable market, then compare competition and figure out a premium offering, then sell at enterprise level with product + services, then gain efficiencies and go wider market, much like HubSpot. Or something like that!
pnathan 7y ago
No. That's bottom feeder stuff generally I used to have an Upwork account, to try and swing some cash on the side. Most of those jobs are paid far out of proportion to what they are asking people to do. "Facebook but for XYZ", is something I'm pretty sure I've seen there, several times. I suspect that you can get a lot more leverage visiting your local business organization watering holes...
- poulsbohemian 7y ago
  >No. That's bottom feeder stuff generally That might be true, but it doesn't negate that there are a lot of business owners there doing exactly what I stated.

quickthrower2 7y ago

Yeah I’ve tried another similar site and people’s expectations are a bit loony, usually they want to pay the price you would charge a single customer for 1 year as a SaaS for you to develop the entire solution! Maybe non software folks don’t get the difference between say paying Atlassian $1000/month or whatever it is for Jira and paying a dev $1000 to develop a JIRA clone, because it probably seems like the same thing.

edmundsauto 7y ago
You're validating the problem, not the value or the target market. You need all 3, but it's easier to identify problems, then validate whether the defined target would be interested at a given price point. The freelancer sites are just a starting point, they answer the question of, "what are some things business owners want".
poulsbohemian 7y ago
Recent client: "I took a fortran class back in college, so let me know if you need any help." Therein lies the problem: They know lawyers, doctors, accountants, heck even plumbers are going to be expensive because they are educated / trained and/or they get you out of an identifiable tight spot (the IRS isn't happy, water is coming into the house, I'm having a heart attack, I'm getting sued, etc). Software developers? Outside the FAANGs technical people are viewed as fungible. Many, many small businesses are grossly undercapitalized such that a business owner might very well be paying that technical person a lot more than they pay themselves. Likewise, technical roles are typically compensated well above many other clerical / field / service / business type roles such that a business owner might not have ever paid so much to any other single employee.
- balfirevic 7y ago
  > Outside the FAANGs technical people are viewed as fungible. Fungible does not mean low-paying. Plumbers are mostly viewed as fungible, however expensive they may be.

josephjrobison 7y ago

Man, this is such a genius idea. Spend a good amount of time manually looking through job requests, then learn how to search for these, then cluster them and quantify the market which leads to total addressable market, then compare competition and figure out a premium offering, then sell at enterprise level with product + services, then gain efficiencies and go wider market, much like HubSpot. Or something like that!

pnathan 7y ago

No. That's bottom feeder stuff generally I used to have an Upwork account, to try and swing some cash on the side. Most of those jobs are paid far out of proportion to what they are asking people to do. "Facebook but for XYZ", is something I'm pretty sure I've seen there, several times. I suspect that you can get a lot more leverage visiting your local business organization watering holes...

poulsbohemian 7y ago
>No. That's bottom feeder stuff generally That might be true, but it doesn't negate that there are a lot of business owners there doing exactly what I stated.