7 ms·

One thing I have learned about using Elance and other bidding type sites from time to time with work is low,is that most project posters determine the bid solel

by kclay 13y ago

One thing I have learned about using Elance and other bidding type sites from time to time with work is low,is that most project posters determine the bid solely based on price. Now I understand this but, if you do that then you run into this type of game with contractors. Most non-developer don't understand when someone that is well qualified to handle your project they will make sure there is enough conversations before hand to make sure that all specs and milestones( yes I know you can't know all but just for argument's sake) are fully understood by both parties. The first red flag should of been an iOS app for $800. I don't do iOS development but I for sure you can't get decent developer for $800. Red flag #2 was when the client felt indebted to the developer for doing a fix. To me it looks like he is just trying to nickel and dime for everything little change. Maybe that how some people work but from my personal experience as a developer and from contracting from sites like these I've never had an good contractor do this, now that's not to say I haven't had this happen, I have. Last one was when he said he would hold the sources until a 5 star review, this made me laugh. Now I can see for a review, in some eyes a project isn't complete until a review about one's work has been done, so I can understand that. But denying source until he gets a 5 star that's just absurd. If it was me I would of first made sure all of this convo happened in Elance workroom and then get Elance into it (yeah it would take longer for them to resolve but he would get his files) and then right a lengthy review for this developer to make sure that no one else has this problem. I guess that's just what you have to deal with when using bidding sites. I'm glad he go his app approved but the old saying still stands: You get what you pay for

macspoofing 13y ago
> To me it looks like he is just trying to nickel and dime for everything little change. For $800 you bet your ass the developer will nickel-and-dime. After all, he was nickel-and-dimed.
- eli 13y ago
  By whom? The system? The developer bears at least a little responsibility for submitting a bid that is too low to cover successfully completing the project.
  - macspoofing 13y ago
    >The developer bears at least a little responsibility for submitting a bid that is too low to cover successfully completing the project. I didn't say he doesn't. The guy talked the developer down to an $800 fee, and then his interpretation of the agreement was the developer should take his feedback into account after the code was submitted to him ("I figured some graphics changes would be OK. Basically, the overlay graphics are slightly different. Same functionality"). That's definitely a self-serving interpretation. Clearly the dev does not want to do anything more than he absolutely needs to do. For that amount of money, he wants to knock-out an app in minimal time and move on. So I'm saying they both nickel-and-dimed each other. I'm not judging, but that's what happened, and I have slightly more empathy for the developer in this case.
    - eli 13y ago
      Sure, fair enough, but roughly zero projects are going to succeed with that sort of minimal approach. It almost guarantees the client will have to pay for additional work. I was only being slightly facetious, though -- the system really does suck and I think deserves most of the blame.
      - moneyrich4 13y ago
        almost all software requires more additional development after its done.
    - ojbyrne 13y ago
      Also this is written from his perspective. It's most likely he forgot (or deliberately didn't mention in this article) everything the developer said during those negotiations, presumably things like "we will have to negotiate additional charges for anything not specifically mentioned in the spec."
  - x0x0 13y ago
    no the dev doesn't Mike, in his own words: I went through the app, listed out the bugs I was finding for each component, mocked up a couple small graphical changes, and sent them over to the developer. bugs are covered under a fixed price contract. Changes aren't. And Mike is a marketer / photographer; do you really believe he has any idea of the difference between a "small graphical change" and something that requires a code change? The developer is at fault only for agreeing to any changes without a price increase. And thus the classic problem with fixed price contracts: when I've done them I've been really clear with clients that no changes are included. Bugs yes, but every change is a renegotiation. Now often the lines between those two are a bit blurry, and I try to give clients the benefit of the doubt. But I bid to a very specific spec, and what can seem like a tiny change often goes against the grain of assumptions built into the code and is anything but tiny. To a person, clients agree then whine down the road when guess what, that change is a price increase. Sigh. The answer is to not do fixed price; it just sets you up in a very adversarial relationship with your client. Plus, well, if you pay bottom price you get bottom quality.
- EpicEng 13y ago
  Yeah, except for the fact that the developer is the one who sent the quote.
wheaties 13y ago
What may be a "change in the way it looks" to the author could, in fact, be a change in code.
waterlesscloud 13y ago
Look at it the other way- the people who want $800 apps are the ones most likely to withhold payment or give bad reviews. The developer is probably working from hard-won experience, the client in this case is not.
- chii 13y ago
  I think its prudent for the dev to set expectations straight away. I would expect most people to be reasonable, but that most people, if they had their initial expectations broken, would feel cheated. So the art of consulting/free-lancing is to make sure reality matches expectations. For both parties. Of course, there are clients that expect a facebook for $1000, but if the dev makes sure to set out such expectations at the start, and don't agree until something is signed and sealed.
mkramlich 13y ago
I've reached the point this year where I've concluded that the correlation between "bad client/employer" and "low pay" is so high that I treat that correlation as 100% and immediately rule-out such parties upfront before risking investing my time/energy into them. The correlation has not been 100%, but close to it. In actual practice. (And by the way: fuck theory and fuck words. I only look at what happens in directly observed and touchable reality anymore.)
- billmalarky 13y ago
  "(And by the way: fuck theory and fuck words. I only look at what happens in directly observed and touchable reality anymore.)" Heuristics have been shown to be highly effective.
  - mkramlich 13y ago
    totally agreed. though I hope you meant that in a completely non-sarcastic way. :-) (because I know there's a vein here on HN that believes every positional claim must be backed by some scientific paper.) there are many negative things to getting older. but one good thing is you accumulate a larger set of direct RL observations and experiences, out of which you can see certain patterns, some good, some bad, and certain correlations. Treating these correlations as black-or-white indicators can potentially be bad if it closes you off to opportunities. But it can also close you off to bad experiences. You might lose on the small/near-term but you win more in the aggregate and in the long run, playing the odds to your benefit.
    - billmalarky 13y ago
      >totally agreed. though I hope you meant that in a completely non-sarcastic way. :-) (because I know there's a vein here on HN that believes every positional claim must be backed by some scientific paper.) I was being serious, and it might humor you a bit when I tell you there are numerous "scientific papers" that back the effectiveness of heuristics (google heuristics case study to find some).

by kclay 13y ago

macspoofing 13y ago

> To me it looks like he is just trying to nickel and dime for everything little change. For $800 you bet your ass the developer will nickel-and-dime. After all, he was nickel-and-dimed.

eli 13y ago
By whom? The system? The developer bears at least a little responsibility for submitting a bid that is too low to cover successfully completing the project.
- macspoofing 13y ago
  >The developer bears at least a little responsibility for submitting a bid that is too low to cover successfully completing the project. I didn't say he doesn't. The guy talked the developer down to an $800 fee, and then his interpretation of the agreement was the developer should take his feedback into account after the code was submitted to him ("I figured some graphics changes would be OK. Basically, the overlay graphics are slightly different. Same functionality"). That's definitely a self-serving interpretation. Clearly the dev does not want to do anything more than he absolutely needs to do. For that amount of money, he wants to knock-out an app in minimal time and move on. So I'm saying they both nickel-and-dimed each other. I'm not judging, but that's what happened, and I have slightly more empathy for the developer in this case.
  - eli 13y ago
    Sure, fair enough, but roughly zero projects are going to succeed with that sort of minimal approach. It almost guarantees the client will have to pay for additional work. I was only being slightly facetious, though -- the system really does suck and I think deserves most of the blame.
    - moneyrich4 13y ago
      almost all software requires more additional development after its done.
  - ojbyrne 13y ago
    Also this is written from his perspective. It's most likely he forgot (or deliberately didn't mention in this article) everything the developer said during those negotiations, presumably things like "we will have to negotiate additional charges for anything not specifically mentioned in the spec."
- x0x0 13y ago
  no the dev doesn't Mike, in his own words: I went through the app, listed out the bugs I was finding for each component, mocked up a couple small graphical changes, and sent them over to the developer. bugs are covered under a fixed price contract. Changes aren't. And Mike is a marketer / photographer; do you really believe he has any idea of the difference between a "small graphical change" and something that requires a code change? The developer is at fault only for agreeing to any changes without a price increase. And thus the classic problem with fixed price contracts: when I've done them I've been really clear with clients that no changes are included. Bugs yes, but every change is a renegotiation. Now often the lines between those two are a bit blurry, and I try to give clients the benefit of the doubt. But I bid to a very specific spec, and what can seem like a tiny change often goes against the grain of assumptions built into the code and is anything but tiny. To a person, clients agree then whine down the road when guess what, that change is a price increase. Sigh. The answer is to not do fixed price; it just sets you up in a very adversarial relationship with your client. Plus, well, if you pay bottom price you get bottom quality.
EpicEng 13y ago
Yeah, except for the fact that the developer is the one who sent the quote.

wheaties 13y ago

What may be a "change in the way it looks" to the author could, in fact, be a change in code.

waterlesscloud 13y ago

Look at it the other way- the people who want $800 apps are the ones most likely to withhold payment or give bad reviews. The developer is probably working from hard-won experience, the client in this case is not.

chii 13y ago
I think its prudent for the dev to set expectations straight away. I would expect most people to be reasonable, but that most people, if they had their initial expectations broken, would feel cheated. So the art of consulting/free-lancing is to make sure reality matches expectations. For both parties. Of course, there are clients that expect a facebook for $1000, but if the dev makes sure to set out such expectations at the start, and don't agree until something is signed and sealed.

mkramlich 13y ago

I've reached the point this year where I've concluded that the correlation between "bad client/employer" and "low pay" is so high that I treat that correlation as 100% and immediately rule-out such parties upfront before risking investing my time/energy into them. The correlation has not been 100%, but close to it. In actual practice. (And by the way: fuck theory and fuck words. I only look at what happens in directly observed and touchable reality anymore.)

billmalarky 13y ago
"(And by the way: fuck theory and fuck words. I only look at what happens in directly observed and touchable reality anymore.)" Heuristics have been shown to be highly effective.
- mkramlich 13y ago
  totally agreed. though I hope you meant that in a completely non-sarcastic way. :-) (because I know there's a vein here on HN that believes every positional claim must be backed by some scientific paper.) there are many negative things to getting older. but one good thing is you accumulate a larger set of direct RL observations and experiences, out of which you can see certain patterns, some good, some bad, and certain correlations. Treating these correlations as black-or-white indicators can potentially be bad if it closes you off to opportunities. But it can also close you off to bad experiences. You might lose on the small/near-term but you win more in the aggregate and in the long run, playing the odds to your benefit.
  - billmalarky 13y ago
    >totally agreed. though I hope you meant that in a completely non-sarcastic way. :-) (because I know there's a vein here on HN that believes every positional claim must be backed by some scientific paper.) I was being serious, and it might humor you a bit when I tell you there are numerous "scientific papers" that back the effectiveness of heuristics (google heuristics case study to find some).