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Jay, What people are trying to communicate is that they don't judge that you are offering value. It's a possible and valid answer to your question that you hav

by motoko 18y ago

Jay, What people are trying to communicate is that they don't judge that you are offering value. It's a possible and valid answer to your question that you have to consider: that you ad is good, but your opportunity is bad. That doesn't help you launch your business, so how about this: What you seem to need to do is pay a contractor to build you a web application you have designed. Think of this as building out an empty strip mall unit into a cafe for fulfill your dream of owning a coffee house. You have a general idea, and with your good credit, you can lease the space, but you need somebody with skills and experience to do the build out: build a bar, install coffee machines, plumbing, electric, internet, interior design, funishing... etc. Assume you have plenty of cash and some rudimentary experience outfitting commercial real estate. Then this is straightforward: you request bids, hire a contractor, they do everything you want, you pay them, and cafe business is entirely owned by you. When the contractors are done, they are gone, though you are always welcome to repeat the process of you paying them for new work to maintain or expand your business. You will probably learn something about negotiating contracts based on over-optimistic sales projections, but oh well, that's life. So, this will be your general experience if you hire a web application contracting firm. But what if you don't have the money to hire somebody to do the work, and you can't do the work yourself? Now you are in troubled territory for which there is no MBA formula... This seems to be you. Here are some example scenarios, still following the cafe analogy, that could work and have respectable expectations of success: * You work with your family or very best friend who can help you do the work because they love you. They get some equity, but it's "your" business, and they respect that. Maybe the cafe goes on to be part of the family business. * You save your money until you can pay somebody to do the work. * You get a small business loan from the bank to do the work. (PS: off-topic, but please do not allow your friends and family to co-sign your small business loan if you really care about them...) Now you can't do any of the above... and now we're getting into shady territory of almost certain failure: * Reminded of stories of people who seemingly helped each other for free (see above), you convince "some guy / some kid" who "worked in construction / seems really handy" that the two of you will finally Achieve the American Dream and that together you have a shot at making TONS of money by him doing your work. You can't pay him, but you give him some "equity," and "that's ok, you'll be rich when this gets huge if we all work really hard."

swombat 18y ago
I'd add that the "hire a contractor to build things out" thing works well for an easily defined thing like a cafe, but much less so for a web application. If the contractor is honest, the first thing they'll say when you try to fix the price is: "I don't know what you're trying to build (even though we've spent an hour talking about it). That's in great part because you don't know what you're trying to build. We'll find that out as we go along, once we get some users in front of it and figure out what they really want. Therefore, it would be dishonest of me to quote a likely cost. I can timebox it for you: It will take less than two years, and more than a month. But that's all the accuracy I can give you. I can also tell you how long it's likely to take to build the first iteration - but not how many more iterations there will be after that." Unfortunately, most contractors won't do that and so you'll find yourself with an ever increasing bill or with a piece of useless code.

by motoko 18y ago

swombat 18y ago

I'd add that the "hire a contractor to build things out" thing works well for an easily defined thing like a cafe, but much less so for a web application. If the contractor is honest, the first thing they'll say when you try to fix the price is: "I don't know what you're trying to build (even though we've spent an hour talking about it). That's in great part because you don't know what you're trying to build. We'll find that out as we go along, once we get some users in front of it and figure out what they really want. Therefore, it would be dishonest of me to quote a likely cost. I can timebox it for you: It will take less than two years, and more than a month. But that's all the accuracy I can give you. I can also tell you how long it's likely to take to build the first iteration - but not how many more iterations there will be after that." Unfortunately, most contractors won't do that and so you'll find yourself with an ever increasing bill or with a piece of useless code.