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Because far too often, 'hire a freelance developer' means, "I'll give you 20% of the company if you make the MVP." At my university, several times a week you g
by film42 13y ago
Because far too often, 'hire a freelance developer' means, "I'll give you 20% of the company if you make the MVP."
At my university, several times a week you get people saying, "I have my MBA and I just need 3 developers who are really solid to build the idea. I don't have cash, but I'm determined and will give you equity for your time."
Developers are far too often under appreciated, and most entrepreneurs don't want to shell out a few thousand on an MVP. Sometimes, they don't pay when they're not happy with the result, despite you following every suggestion and even giving plenty of free hours to make the product better.
Lastly, those who are willing to shell out a little cash will often find the cheapest talent they can, which is great, until they start to grow and they realize they've hit a wall because it's nearly impossible to add features and improbable to redo the whole product.
But when the startup has some money, and they know what they want, and they listen to your tech advice, there's no better feeling than crafting a new company or product from a qwerty keyboard and a text editor.
- nedwin 13y ago"I'll give you 20% of the company if you make the MVP." Which is not what this article is saying at all. That's why there is a dollar figure attached to hiring a freelance developer, not an equity split.
- film42 13y agoYou're totally right, but I was replying to the parent comment.
- dasil003 13y agoThe key phrase here is "At my university". You're definitely going to get an oversampling of business douchebags trolling for cheap labor on college campuses. Once you get out in the real world for a while this won't bother you anymore because you'll realize that plenty of business people really do understand the value of good developers, and with a certain amount of talent and experience you will write your own ticket in or out of a startup. As a developer all you need to do is watch out not to be taken advantage of; educating these tech-neophyte business people is not really possible as they are multiplying rapidly as startup culture percolates out into global business culture.
- b1daly 13y agoWell poor you, having your valuable time wasted by losers with no cash