Assembly - Quirky for Software | Hacker News Reader

Assembly - Quirky for Software

assemblymade.com

47 pointssinak16 comments

I love it, but I'm a bit worried about how it will fare, how stake will be distributed, etc.

They barely started, and some projects already have 86 people registered to work on them... how would that work? If this works out; you'd see projects with 8000 people 'working' on it; I wonder if that would make it worth your while (besides being fun).

It isn't discussed, but I think there should be some management where you can steer the project/members a bit.

8000 people 'working' on it most definitely helps get initial usage off the ground for apps that require a network effect. But you are right, this was my initial concern as well. People and product management seems as though it will be the major challenge for Assembly. However this is an enormous opportunity to go meta and dog food new distributed labor management systems and structures. Valve Software + "The Cloud".

We go into this in detail in the FAQ. A good place to start might be: https://assemblymade.com/help/general#general-6

Some of these ideas are pretty good. I'll be visiting this site often for inspiration. Or maybe even to steal. I wonder how agile the process is vs. an independent team also building the same thing while having the benefit of monitoring the project's progress, ideas, discussion, etc. However, Assembly does have the advantage of getting their first customers.

Thanks.

I believe Assembly has a competitive advantage as the first mover and more importantly the open development approach where anyone in the world can participate...for example in only the last 40 hours, already over 83 people have signed-up to build support-foo...a not-perfect but relevant comparison: Zendesk (largest competitor to product) has an engineering team of only ~50 including designers, QA, & devops.

Well, quantity isn't everything ... See Brooks's law

This will be a hit if it comes to fruition.

A hassle-free hacker-friendly alternative to GMail. Simple freemium model, no ads, and complete privacy. Even use your own domain.

https://assemblymade.com/amail

Some discussion from earlier today here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6606423

Ok, so I had a closer look at it and now I have a question: on the homepage you have 121 ideas atm, but I don't see where I can browse them, except for the top 10. The hello page states "Every month the Assembly community picks an amazing idea for an app". I signed up and logged in, still can't see anything past the top 10. Am I not 'community' enough or are you openly 'faking till you make it'?

%5 goes to idea maker, i get it. What happens to other %95 ? Is it evenly distributed, or assemblymade takes a percentage?

I am interested in contributing to projects if it's evenly distrubuted among developers or assemblymade gets a cut no more than %5. Please be clear about it.

You can see how proceeds are split in the "How do I get paid" FAQ answer: https://assemblymade.com/help/profits#profits-1

Interesting idea. Since they mention Quirky, it's ironic that the Quirky founder is on record (this month's Inc magazine) as saying that one of his motivations is to create real physical products, and that too many people are creating "mobile apps and social things".

I'd like to see this model work but I predict it won't. For the same reason you don't see 83 collaborators in a painting.

You may be surprised about how many people are involved in art/paintings, at last in the "contemporary art" era. Damien Hurst and others collaborate with (or employ) teams of artists to complete their work. Related reading: "The $12 million Stuffed Shark" by Don Thompson.

Sidenote aside, I tend to be bearish on Assembly too, but I'd also love for them to prove us wrong.

edit: grammatical things.

Interesting analogy. I'm not sure the process to create a software product and to create paintings share much though...building a successful software product is inherently a team effort. You may have a few leaders influencing the direction but every successful product I've worked on depended on good decisions made by the whole team.

A more relaxed analogy to a music band has often come to mind. There's certainly a place in the world for a successful 83-piece orchestra but the piece is mostly written by a single composer. Plus, concerts most people go to today are to see smaller bands.

I did notice a strange thing about my earlier comment though. When I read an HN article in the morning I'm much more apt to write a comment or response. An argument seems to be quickly evaluated based on its feasibility rather than how rewarding it is. It's the opposite in the evenings.

As a model at least, it kind of explains why I'm writing such a thoughtful explanation tonight, after having been downvoted without an explanation that morning.

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