5 ms·

I am awe-struck with what people with a passion manage to get done "in a couple weeks" just for fun. I can't imagine that I could have hired someone to do the

by alister 14y ago

I am awe-struck with what people with a passion manage to get done "in a couple weeks" just for fun. I can't imagine that I could have hired someone to do the same analysis, research, programming, scripting, graphics creation, and web site layout for anything less than tens of thousands of dollars. (Or is my intuition wrong about that?)

StavrosK 14y ago
Well, a week is about $2500, so I guess it'd take around $5k.
- noahc 14y ago
  There are many people who would call $2500 their two day rate. So, $10k+ doesn't seem that far fetched for a project of this complexity that delivers business value of some sort.
  - Zev 14y ago
    People who charge $150+/hour are rarely working 8 (billable) hours a day.
    - noahc 14y ago
      I think that's far. I mostly posted because I don't want people to believe that $5k is the most you could get for this project. There are infinite ways you could add a ton of value to this project that would be worth more than $5k. Automating the data retrieval and plugging it into mechanical turk for verification, being able to critique or comment on the deeper meaning of the change in colors. Or even online marketing to get the backlinks for a business could potentially be worth $10k.
      - StavrosK 14y ago
        I'm sorry, isn't this just a histogram of all the posters for that year? Am I missing something (e.g. a page I didn't see)? It doesn't take that long to make a histogram of a "movie posters year X" Google image search...
        noahc 14y ago
        No, you're right. But from your comment "it doesn't take that long.." its clear to me we're thinking about this in two different ways. You're saying, "Here's how long it would take me..." hourly * estimate. I'm saying, "Here's how to add more business value..." business_value * my_cut_to_decimal If you can, perhaps by not even programming, make business_value a large enough number then (business_value * my_cut_to_decimal) > (hourly * estimate). I'd go one step further and argue that the higher price is a win for both parties. You get paid more, and the company has just discovered a slot that they can slide money into and get more money back out off.
        StavrosK 14y ago
        Oh, sure, I agree with that. It's just that the OP was talking about what it would take for him to hire someone to do this, so I went with that.
  - wildmXranat 14y ago
    I don't mean to be facetious, but there are also developers, and I mean that in the loosest sense of the word, that call $100 their daily rate. My guess is that both parties need to maximise the value/profit ration by negotiating. $10k sounds right as we are delving into hypotheticals.
styts 14y ago
Nowhere does he say that he spent all of the 2 weeks working on this entirely. My guess would be that he did a 2-day sprint to hack the prototype and a bit more to polish it across the 2 weeks. Point is - he would not bill 2 working weeks were it a contracting gig. But then again, where'd you get such a motivated contractor (cf. working on own project)?
- alister 14y ago
  If he did it in a 2-day sprint, that makes it even more amazing -- which was my point. It seems unlikely to me that I could find someone to do the same quality of work as a contracting gig (whether it took 2 days or 2 months) and charge less than tens of thousands of dollars.
  - aw3c2 14y ago
    That's why people spouting "open-source is always less quality" and "without paying artists there would be no culture" are so dead wrong. People who feel the urge to create and do, will do so. And to me, things that were created for one's own enjoyment are pretty much always better than things created to be monetised.
    - briandear 14y ago
      Right. Can you imagine a film with the quality of Toy Story being produced just for fun? Not a chance. ThAt film took thousands of man-years to make. The whole open source everything movement is just communist nonsense that typically comes from people who have never had to make a payroll. Rails for example was the open source result of a profit-creating piece of software: Basecamp. The profits enabled the open source not the other way around. When I can feed my family, I'll contribute to open source, but who pays open source developers? Usually they're being subsidized by closed source work. For example, in my current day job, I'm building software for a startup. That pays the bills so I can afford to dabble in open source for fun. The idea if give everything away is just silly. Who is going to pay for the computer you're usin to develop on? Who pays the electric bills? Certainly not te little open source fairy godmother.

by alister 14y ago

StavrosK 14y ago

Well, a week is about $2500, so I guess it'd take around $5k.

noahc 14y ago
There are many people who would call $2500 their two day rate. So, $10k+ doesn't seem that far fetched for a project of this complexity that delivers business value of some sort.
- Zev 14y ago
  People who charge $150+/hour are rarely working 8 (billable) hours a day.
  - noahc 14y ago
    I think that's far. I mostly posted because I don't want people to believe that $5k is the most you could get for this project. There are infinite ways you could add a ton of value to this project that would be worth more than $5k. Automating the data retrieval and plugging it into mechanical turk for verification, being able to critique or comment on the deeper meaning of the change in colors. Or even online marketing to get the backlinks for a business could potentially be worth $10k.
    - StavrosK 14y ago
      I'm sorry, isn't this just a histogram of all the posters for that year? Am I missing something (e.g. a page I didn't see)? It doesn't take that long to make a histogram of a "movie posters year X" Google image search...
      - noahc 14y ago
        No, you're right. But from your comment "it doesn't take that long.." its clear to me we're thinking about this in two different ways. You're saying, "Here's how long it would take me..." hourly * estimate. I'm saying, "Here's how to add more business value..." business_value * my_cut_to_decimal If you can, perhaps by not even programming, make business_value a large enough number then (business_value * my_cut_to_decimal) > (hourly * estimate). I'd go one step further and argue that the higher price is a win for both parties. You get paid more, and the company has just discovered a slot that they can slide money into and get more money back out off.
        StavrosK 14y ago
        Oh, sure, I agree with that. It's just that the OP was talking about what it would take for him to hire someone to do this, so I went with that.
- wildmXranat 14y ago
  I don't mean to be facetious, but there are also developers, and I mean that in the loosest sense of the word, that call $100 their daily rate. My guess is that both parties need to maximise the value/profit ration by negotiating. $10k sounds right as we are delving into hypotheticals.

styts 14y ago

Nowhere does he say that he spent all of the 2 weeks working on this entirely. My guess would be that he did a 2-day sprint to hack the prototype and a bit more to polish it across the 2 weeks. Point is - he would not bill 2 working weeks were it a contracting gig. But then again, where'd you get such a motivated contractor (cf. working on own project)?

alister 14y ago
If he did it in a 2-day sprint, that makes it even more amazing -- which was my point. It seems unlikely to me that I could find someone to do the same quality of work as a contracting gig (whether it took 2 days or 2 months) and charge less than tens of thousands of dollars.
- aw3c2 14y ago
  That's why people spouting "open-source is always less quality" and "without paying artists there would be no culture" are so dead wrong. People who feel the urge to create and do, will do so. And to me, things that were created for one's own enjoyment are pretty much always better than things created to be monetised.
  - briandear 14y ago
    Right. Can you imagine a film with the quality of Toy Story being produced just for fun? Not a chance. ThAt film took thousands of man-years to make. The whole open source everything movement is just communist nonsense that typically comes from people who have never had to make a payroll. Rails for example was the open source result of a profit-creating piece of software: Basecamp. The profits enabled the open source not the other way around. When I can feed my family, I'll contribute to open source, but who pays open source developers? Usually they're being subsidized by closed source work. For example, in my current day job, I'm building software for a startup. That pays the bills so I can afford to dabble in open source for fun. The idea if give everything away is just silly. Who is going to pay for the computer you're usin to develop on? Who pays the electric bills? Certainly not te little open source fairy godmother.