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Why Developers Don't Want to Work on Your Idea (2011)

• lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  Also to be fair I don't want to work on the idea of the guy paying 350-400 a day - but at least they pay. I want to work on my idea - and that's hard enough
• lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  Engineering is not the solution Ideas are not the solution Feedback and willingness to be flexible are the solution Who cares if the original idea sucks - is the prospective idea guy willing to invest time effort blood and tears making something happen - constantly measuring and validating ideas as they go If yes leap in with both feet.
• kephra 14y ago
  I always call it the programmers curse: infinite ideas vs. limited time
  • sek 14y ago
    Yeah I just realized that when Seth Godin mentioned it in a talk. There is an unlimited amount of ideas out there, so these are not the scarcity at all. So they are pretty cheap. Being able to execute them is the big thing. The ideas that sound really worth something, like patents are created by the Engineers themselves with an incredible amount of work. Why should anybody care about your shower idea? This also annoys me about the "idea guys", they are often incredibly simple. They didn't do any market research to validate anything, or thought about all the possible risks. When somebody comes to me and says: "I had an idea and spent the last 2 months doing research about it. So I modified it and now have something where I am pretty confident there is demand for it." This is something I would take serious.
  • cassetti 14y ago
    It's also the guiding principle in economics. People will always have infinite wants and finite resources.
• patman81 14y ago
  Love it. I'll keep this post handy, so I can link to it in my next reply to an "idea guy". If someone comes along with a great idea and suggests a revenue share, reminded him about the old truism that the idea is 1%, while execution is 99%. At least that will give you a starting point to negotiate the percentages of the revenue share...
• OafTobark 14y ago
  Should note that another major issue not mentioned in this post (of which I am sure there are more) is what the idea guy brings to the table beyond the idea. Majority over estimate their abilities, skills, knowledge, background, and even work ethics to such a shameful degree...
  • Apreche 14y ago
    Not only do some overestimate their ethics, but developers typically very principled. I've had people tell me straight up their business model is to leech out a database of personal information from Facebook with crappy apps and such. Even if you offer money good luck finding someone who is both skilled and evil.
  • mmahemoff 14y ago
    This is the crux of it. In other industries, the "idea guy" would usually be an investor bringing $$$ to the table. A random hustler can't just approach a civil engineer with "an idea" to partner on a new bridge and expect the engineer to quit working and give up the next few years. They have to offer major value. I think the best thing a non-technical founder can do is follow lean principles and bring actual data to the table. Show they've actually done the research - MVPs, letters of intent, etc - and make it clear they have a vision they can execute on. All of that is in the realm of possibility for someone who's not a programmer, and would help to make the case they're serious and capable.
    • coopdog 14y ago
      Definitely. Anyone coming to me with an idea I say that's great, just follow the lean principles to develop a non-technical MVP, and I'm in. Haven't had anyone come back with a proven MVP yet : P
• marklit 14y ago
  Lots of contracts in London are paying £350 a day. £350 / day * 48 working weeks of the year * 5 days a week = £84,000 / year. £55,498.64 in your pocket after tax. Compare this to ~5 - 10 years of working for peanuts in a startup hoping for an exit. Keep your eye on the clients who agree to short payment terms, forget the dreamers.
  • StavrosK 14y ago
    In my experience, 350 was the low end. When recruiting, we couldn't get any decent people for under 400 (and I mean decent; 350 got us a Web front end developer who didn't know CSS). 400-450 did get us amazingly knowledgeable people, though, so that extra 50 was a small price to pay.
    • cs02rm0 14y ago
      And if you want a reasonable back end developer then, well, even 450 is low end for a Java developer where I am a couple of hours outside London.
      • mgkimsal 14y ago
        Comparison for 'startups' isn't as appropriate, because most startup operations won't be using Java (at least not as a primary platform).
    • marklit 14y ago
      Out of curiosity were you recruiting developers directly or going via a headhunter or agency? £350 that I see a lot is what's offered from headhunter emails filling my inbox everyday. They take a large margin for themselves as a finders fee.
      • StavrosK 14y ago
        Yeah, it was a recruiter. They probably did inflate the prices a lot, although I think they took some days' wages as a fee or something. I can't be sure.
• lampe 14y ago
  the first point is the most matching. "Ideas are easy, execution is hard." I often get requests of ideas but they are so hard to execute that you would need a bigger team to do it and a lot more money then the idea holder has...
• snoonan 14y ago
  Make options vest (or accelerate anyway) on product milestones, not time and I think it would help highlight where and when the value has been created.
• realrocker 14y ago
  I second it. This is much nicer response to keep away the "ideas guy".
• venomsnake 14y ago
  I was approached with an idea it was by a guy that had years experience in the industry, connections to sell the thing and solid ideas how to market and fund the enterprise. So far it is going fine. I think that this approach will see a lot of interested developers.
  • eps 14y ago
    Did you know him before that?
    • venomsnake 14y ago
      We were introduced by a friend.
• chrisbennet 14y ago
  "You'd be crazy to have me work on this for a few months for 50% equity when you could just spend 6-12 months yourself learning to code and doing it yourself and have 100% equity. Of course, if you don't think it is worth spending a few months of your own time why should I take a chance on it?"
  • jrogers65 14y ago
    6-12 months learning how to code? Good luck building a business on top of software written by a junior-level programmer. Even better luck expanding and scaling it if/when the time comes. It takes years to reach a reasonable level of competence in software development and on the order of a decade to master it. The problem with taking people's word on how much work they do when they are involved in marketing and the soft sides of business is that they have a disproportionaly (as compared to tech specialists) large amount of experience in marketing, negotiation and soft skills. Hence, they market themselves and over inflate how important their contribution is. In my experience.
    • InclinedPlane 14y ago
      Yeah, pretty sure I take offense at the idea that my skills are equivalent to 6 months of crash education by a novice.
      • cheald 14y ago
        I think that the point is more to demonstrate that "Hey, what I do takes a lot of skill and expertise, it's not just something you can throw together in a weekend". If an idea guy wouldn't be willing to invest at least a year to learn how to do it themselves, the idea's probably not as great as they think it is.
        • sharkweek 14y ago
          I am nearing the end of a "crash course" code lesson and have no intention of creating a company on this knowledge anytime in the near future. However... I would like to start building out some of those "annoying itch" ideas I have been sitting on and feel this enables me not only to prototype those out, but also allows me to have a half-intelligent conversation about my idea with someone who is a far better dev than me.
• georgespencer 14y ago
  Eternal September has arrived for Hacker News. A post of this type or a loose twist on it (generally "engineering > ideas") appears every year.
• lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  Maybe I am doing something wrong but I have never been approached by such an idea guy - the last closest was running an insurance brokerage and just got fed up with poor delivery from his current devs yet had a laundry lost of features needed in his site Maybe if you are getting approached by morons a lot you might want to review where you are hanging out - just there mus be some reason
  • joshcrews 14y ago
    If you want such calls, but up a website with a title tag of "Ruby on Rails developer in <your local city> | <your phone number>". I'm not trying to parody anyone, that's what my website says and I get contacted frequently by idea guys.
  • sopooneo 14y ago
    They're not necessarily stupid, they just don't have any understanding of goes into creating software.
• cammil 14y ago
  The antidote to this is a well formulated requirements document. If you can define precisely what you want, then you will have much more hope in recruiting developers. Why? 1. The lack of ambiguity of the scope gives developers the opportunity to determine their costs with some accuracy. 2. The requirements define the benefits of the project. Either the developers are convinced your logic is correct, and therefore will make money, or they do not. The former lot are those that you can convince.
• Wilya 14y ago
  If you're trying to recruit Swombat when looking for a developer to build your idea, then yes, you probably won't be very successful. On the other hand, if you're bringing something to the table, and try to contact developers who are.. well.. mainly developers (as opposed to expensive consultants with decades of experience), your success rate might be higher. And by "something", I don't mean code (nor the idea, but there are things beside those). Seriously, I'm a developer, I don't give a damn if my potential cofounders could code or not, that's redundant. I would look for someone who has what I can't easily get. Someone having an accurate view of the state of an industry, or being nosy and/or well-connected enough to be able to get this view. Or someone some marketing/sales skills. Or someone with some proof that people (preferably people with money) are interested in the product.
  • amikazmi 14y ago
    I can value the skills of another developer. I can't value "well-connected" or "marketing/sales skills" So if a developer comes to me with an idea, I can evaluate the partnership better- it is less risky then to go with a partner with complementary skills (not saying it's better to do it, it's just easier to figure out what you are getting into)
• dhimes 14y ago
  Ideas are easy, execution is hard But good ideas are quite rare.
  • hcarvalhoalves 14y ago
    The catch is that you don't know if the idea is good or not before validating it in real life.
• TommyDANGerous 14y ago
  Great to know, thanks. I've always had trouble dealing with Time zones and offsets, it's a headache dealing with time. Sign, I just don't got the time!
• Hawkee 14y ago
  I think it really comes down to the initial monetary investment of the idea guy. For the idea guy to approach a developer with a $200 software package and $8/mo web hosting they've got very little vested. Asking the developer to invest what amounts to anywhere from $60-$150/hr of development hours is unreasonable. Now if the idea guy has invested thousands into data, a nice piece of co-located hardware, exclusive partnerships with reputable advertisers, etc. we might have something. The idea is worth very little in terms of investment. I think the equity breakdown can be broken down as such: 5% for the idea and the dollar for dollar investment by each party.
• Swizec 14y ago
  As a guy specialising on developing MVPs for people with ideas, here is the general list of rules I use before taking on a project: 1. Are you willing to pay my normal rate? 2. If so, can you convince me the market is there and you know how to address it. 3. Can you convince me _you_ are the guy who's going to be able to bring it all together? I know that after rule 1 I shouldn't care, but with so many potential projects out there, I like working on ones I think will amount to something rather than spending two months coding and then having it all thrown away. Call it a personal satisfaction thing. Fundamentally, the rules amount to equity isn't tasty.
  • kami8845 14y ago
    You're ignoring a powerful aspect here: Founders are cash-poor, but equity-rich (almost infinitely so). I don't know whether you have enough money to cover your costs (I assume so, you sound quite successful), but I think it would be interesting to seek out promising founders and take a little bit of equity, instead of another "bunch of money"(tm). That increase in money is not going to significantly change your life, getting an early in at a startup might though. And in addition to that, you'll probably enjoy building that umpteenth MVP a little more if you have the feeling that the quality of your work has a potential stake in your future. There's of course a lot of my making assumptions here, but I think it's an interesting thought to consider.
    • swombat 14y ago
      Only newbie founders are equity rich. Smart, experienced founders would rather spend money than equity on anything other than a top quality cofounder.
    • Swizec 14y ago
      This is where my other rule comes in: "I am either a freelancer or a cofounder". To be your cofounder you must also convince me that this project is something I want to spend the next several years of my life on and it must be great enough to convince me to drop other projects and start working on this full time. I don't believe in part-time cofounders, that way lies burnout and failed projects. And despite all that, equity still isn't tasty so I will need to earn at least some of my normal rate anyway.
• yoaviram 14y ago
  It boils down to this: startups hardly fail because of technology (they do because of marketing). So no matter how good a developer is, he/she still has a very limited affect on success. Therefore taking equity, event a 50% stake is not a smart investment. Unfortunately startups can rarely afford to pay normal rates.
• orangethirty 14y ago
  Here is why I decline work offers: - They cannot pay my rates. - The client seems shady. - The team/person will not agree to my terms. - We have a chemistry clash. - Red flags regarding the way they talk about people.
• benjamincburns 14y ago
  I never thought I'd find myself repeating this. A chicken tells a pig that they should start a restaurant together. The pig tells the chicken no. "Why?" asks the chicken. "Because you'd be involved, but I'd be committed." Revenue share is a great idea, but there's no way I'm working on your idea for free while you just sit around and wait for me to make you money.
• gesman 14y ago
  The client who tries to give his own clueless estimate of complexity of the job - automatically gets into no-reply/spam list: "...and i think it's not that complicated" "...it shouldn't take more than ... to complete" "...Joe Blow said it's simple and let's assume that"
  • radio4fan 14y ago
    IME, that's pretty much all of them. But then I think that nearly everyone has a tendency to think that anything they don't fully understand must be simple. You don't have to hang around here or on Slashdot for long to see that programmers suffer from this too...
• pknerd 14y ago
  So true! Almost every week an entrepreneur contacts me and wants me to come his Next Big Idea and that on equity basis. I usually ask: If it's such an awesome idea then why doesn't he get funding and pay to developers. Usually they have no answer.
• nimrody 14y ago
  "The idea being proposed is often very unrealistic" For some reason developers/engineers tend to be pessimistic while leaders/idea people tend to be optimistic. In order to produce really great products you probably need both sides -- so don't dismiss the "idea guy" without giving the proposed idea at least some thought. Perhaps the original idea is too broad but can be the basis for a useful product.
• jamesjguthrie 14y ago
  "People approaching developers often dramatically underestimate the amount of development work, or the complexity of it." I'd add underestimate the cost of a decent final product to that too.
• sutro 14y ago
  Some writers are OK with being ghostwriters, or copywriters. They can apply their craft within the confines of other people's ideas. Great writers work on their own ideas.
  • StavrosK 14y ago
    Ugh, what does that even mean? What's a "great" writer, other than a writer who works on his own ideas, and why can't a "great" writer be a ghostwriter? This analogy doesn't even apply here, it's just a self-congratulatory remark to make some other readers feel better about "sticking it to the man".
• FollowSteph3 14y ago
  Another good criteria is have you done something before? Doesn't matter so much if it succeeded or not, but what you're looking for is will you follow through. Someone who has tried and put real effort, past the initial first few months, is likely to at least be worth further investigation. This little criteria removes over 99% of ideas only people
• rwaliany 14y ago
  I thought I’d weigh in my opinion as a developer-entrepreneur who has worked with various business and technical co-founders. I wrote a post covering 'Business Product Responsibilities' with a graph here: http://simplyryan.com/2013/01/19/business-product-responsibilities/ http://simplyryan.com/2013/01/19/business-product-responsibi.... I have found that I don't want to work with non-technical founders because they often don't take ownership of their responsibilities.