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You say that now, but in my experience most people able to shell out this kind of money very often doesn't really have a clue about what it is they actually nee

by mstade 4y ago

You say that now, but in my experience most people able to shell out this kind of money very often doesn't really have a clue about what it is they actually need and have no reasonable go to market strategy beyond "let's just build it and they will come", and then it fails spectacularly. I've been on the receiving money end of this kind of project several times in the past and as much as you try to help and guide, there's almost always an atmosphere of "I'm the one paying the invoice so let's just do as I say" even though everything points to them being absolutely wrong. I've also been on projects like this where the buyer has a strong vision, is able to communicate it, but is also very hands off when it comes to implementation. With regular reporting (weekly or bi-weekly being ideal) to do course correcting they've gotten tremendous value out of the $100k-$300k spend. To be fair, being a buyer for tech projects is really quite difficult – especially if you don't have a very clear and communicable vision of the end goal.

sarchertech 4y ago
I’ve had the same experience. It’s almost never 100-300k to build an app where the client knows exactly what they want. It’s $100-$300k to spend a year helping the client figure out what they want to build.
- TuringNYC 4y ago
  > It’s $100-$300k to spend a year helping the client figure out what they want to build. This is one aspect, and having a CEO/Founder with a Product Manager hat on is critical to cost-effectiveness (MVP, low fi design, phasing, derisking, etc.) I cringe every time I see a founder spend money on design before the MVP is figured out and before functionality exists. But another is cycling thru multiple dev agencies, each of which exploit them in different ways (see my other comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34595540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34595540)
EarthLaunch 4y ago
Same experience. I have turned $100k-300k contracting projects into multimillion dollar successes in a short time. But those ones had a good business plan, and were hands-off on technical matters because they were semi-technical themselves. These successful projects are the ones you feel good about, and the ones to put on the resume. The other type, where they give you a lot of money to "do what we say", but don't have good ideas...they're unsatisfying. The work feels pointless because it's not going anywhere. It's weak on the resume, the client isn't ongoing after it fails, you usually don't get references out of it. If you're short on money then the second type is fine, but you try to build toward only taking the first type of work. (I believe this applies to employment, too.)

by mstade 4y ago

sarchertech 4y ago

I’ve had the same experience. It’s almost never 100-300k to build an app where the client knows exactly what they want. It’s $100-$300k to spend a year helping the client figure out what they want to build.

TuringNYC 4y ago
> It’s $100-$300k to spend a year helping the client figure out what they want to build. This is one aspect, and having a CEO/Founder with a Product Manager hat on is critical to cost-effectiveness (MVP, low fi design, phasing, derisking, etc.) I cringe every time I see a founder spend money on design before the MVP is figured out and before functionality exists. But another is cycling thru multiple dev agencies, each of which exploit them in different ways (see my other comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34595540 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34595540)

EarthLaunch 4y ago

Same experience. I have turned $100k-300k contracting projects into multimillion dollar successes in a short time. But those ones had a good business plan, and were hands-off on technical matters because they were semi-technical themselves. These successful projects are the ones you feel good about, and the ones to put on the resume. The other type, where they give you a lot of money to "do what we say", but don't have good ideas...they're unsatisfying. The work feels pointless because it's not going anywhere. It's weak on the resume, the client isn't ongoing after it fails, you usually don't get references out of it. If you're short on money then the second type is fine, but you try to build toward only taking the first type of work. (I believe this applies to employment, too.)