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Comment by qeorge | Hacker News Reader

The design really looks great. We're always looking for good designers to work with, but not being a designer myself, I'm not a member of forrst.

Are you a member, or did you browse the work posted and contact someone directly? Would love to hear more about that process.

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I'm a member, but not actively.

I had the idea for the site and posted it (http://forrst.com/posts/Any_designers_interested_on_collabor... but I don't think this link will work if you're not logged in)

This is what I wrote:

Hey,

I'm a ruby on rails developer and I'm 5 months pregnant.

Today I created a baby registry and it was a nightmare. I ended up using the amazon.com universal wishlist. It's a bookmarklet that lets you add any product on the web to an amazon wishlist. Unlike a registry, your friends and family "reserve" an item instead of actually buying it from the specific store that has the registry.

My idea is to create a new website "baby registry anywhere" (terrible name) where you can add and reserve items similar to the universal wishlist. I think it would also be cool to be able to add more than one link for an item, so your friends/family could choose where to purchase it.

I could probably code a minimal, launchable version in a week (or 5 Fridays). In the past I've hired designers for projects but I'd love to work with someone as partners on this.

---

I had a kind of overwhelming response and clicked with one designer via text chat and we went forward. In retrospect, I've spent way more than 5 days on this.

Congrats! I'm thrilled to hear that you found someone through Forrst. Clicking around the project -- looks awesome.

Thank you, that's extremely helpful. Congrats again on the site, it looks awesome.

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

-from Gödel, Escher, Bach

You know someone's a programmer when they even talk in recursion.

Hacker News: Hacker acronym can keep employing recursion; news explores web sites.

How does the partnership work in this case? % of revenues? % of the project/venture? What if the designer gets too busy with other projects?

Sorry, I am being curious because most of us hackers are in the same boat when it comes to design.

From my POV, I waited until I was sure that the designs were what I was going to go forward with (this took about 4-5 weeks, maybe 2-3 iterations of different pages and colors). Then I proposed a % of revenue for x amount of time and it was accepted.

The project has moved slower than if I'd hired a designer (for example Lindsey is currently defending her thesis at school and is 100% focused on that). But I maybe always had the trump card by being like "We need to launch before I have a baby".

Overall I think I got lucky and I'm not sure what advice I'd give. Forrst is like HN for (hungry) designers though.

Thanks for the advise. I too think that partnership with a designer is a great thing. Things keep changing and you need more design help when you are iterating through ideas.

Great site and thanks for the background info. As a developer, I'm always in need of good design. I love the site design and the story of how you found the designer. I hadn't heard of Forrst. If anyone has a spare invite to kick my way, I applied for membership.

Are you able to share how the partnership was executed? Was it a verbal/email commitment or did you draft up some legal agreements?

Congrats on the launch! The app looks awesome.

Can any forrst.com members send me an invite? I'd love to check out the site. My email is lalalee at hotmail.com . Thanks.

I would like one too if possible. My email is alexgandy at gmail dot com. Thanks.

I'd like one as well... sbc at charrington dot com. TIA!

I usually don't post my address, but this is too good to give up on! I'd like an invite, if possible. dan.raz+forrst at gmail

I also would like an invite: eric dot holloway at gmail dot com

Happy to send invites. Just email me at Kyle At forrst .com

I'm still in awe at how well this turned out. Huge kudos to you both. And, made me realize: Clearly we need to do a better job keeping tabs on awesome collabs like this. I'm certain there must be more.

I tried signing up and was surprised that a Twitter account is required.

Please add me too ... "steve dot moyer plus forrst at selesy dot com". Thanks!

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