Simple answer: one weekend in Las Vegas.
Honest rationale: if you accept a $10,000 grant for your "startup" but don't know how to spend it, you're clearly gambling your time away. You might as well gamble the money away.
334 karma · joined May 26, 2011
Honest rationale: if you accept a $10,000 grant for your "startup" but don't know how to spend it, you're clearly gambling your time away. You might as well gamble the money away.
2. "Which brings me to the second assumption; I'm doing this for the fun of working with other people to bring ideas to life, not to make money." I hate to break it to you, but when you charging money for your services, you are working for money and building a client-based business. You may not need the money, but your clients don't really care; they expect that when they cut you a $5,000 check, you're going to be 100% committed to delivering what you promised them.
3. "There's no reason I can't work something out with my clients. There's also no reason that we can't set up another two week iteration." How exactly do your clients "work something out" with you? Is it based on you loving their idea? What happens when the complexity of what the client is seeking increases? Are you going to make yourself available, or are you going to cut out and take on a $5,000 engagement that you can knock out without breaking a sweat? Again, your official pitch is wham bam thank you ma'ma.
I'm sure you're a nice guy Chris, and based on your background, I wouldn't be at all surprised that you're capable of building great things.
But...anybody who has been in this business for any length of time knows all too well about talented individuals who try to play the role of service provider but delude themselves into thinking that they don't have to operate like one. It's sort of like taking a job as a police officer, but trying to limit what type of calls you'll respond to in such a way that you're no longer doing the work of a real police officer.
Bottom line: when all is said and done full time contractors who align their interests with their clients are almost always more productive than "I'm doing this for fun" freelancers who think their impressive resumes entitle them to $xx,xxx/month in short-term client engagements.
1. Many clients prefer fixed price engagements, but savvy clients know that "prototype in 2 weeks for $5,000" isn't as good a proposition as it seems. What happens when I send you dozens of wireframes for a complex web app that would realistically take an experienced programmer a month to prototype well? Answer: I'm going to get what I paid for in real terms, but not what your offer really "promised" in spirit. Experienced clients tend to avoid one-size-fits-all offerings for this very reason, so you're left with the inexperienced clients who may wind up disappointed. These clients are easy prey, but can also cause real headaches as well.
2. Your Q&A section isn't very client-oriented. Yes, you're targeting the HN/"startup entrepreneur" set, which is comprised of people who might not think anything of answers like "That's not a question and this is also a prototype", but great service providers exhibit respect and humility. If you're interested in building prototypes and probably aren't going to want to go beyond that, "My primary focus is on building fantastic prototypes. Please inquire about non-prototype projects" would reflect a lot better on your attitude than "That depends on how interested I am in the project." Your clients pay you; you're not doing them any favors.
3. The idea "it shouldn't matter what language this is written in" sounds good on paper, but it is actually quite flimsy. Prototype code may be scrapped relatively quickly, but the idea that a client will build a prototype in two weeks and not want/need to iterate on it before building a production app is absolutely naive. You're basically saying that every assumption and use case that went into producing designs/wireframes will be dead on, and validation won't require any tweaks. If the client isn't willing to invest in Clojure and you're (likely) gone after $5,000 and 2 weeks, where does that leave the client? The better approach: if you're sticking exclusively with Clojure, sell the benefits of Clojure and leave it at that; don't try to fool the client into believing that "it shouldn't matter" because your code is supposed to be written once and then disposed of.
Bottom line: I don't know Chris and he may have great skill and experience, but this offering seems like little more than an angle for the developer to drum up $10,000+ monthly while making sure that he really doesn't have to align his interests with those of his clients. Wham bam thank you ma'am...
* Have you ever dealt with a major insurance claim? Even if you were renting out your car for $100/hour, that won't compensate for the headache you will be in for when your renter rear ends a brand new Mercedes-Benz and sends the passengers to the hospital.
* Think beyond insurance. What are you going to do when you receive a parking ticket or red light camera violation in the mail that a renter was responsible for? In the case of the parking ticket, you're on the hook no matter what.
* Even worse, if your renter is involved in an accident that's reported to Carfax, the resale/trade-in value of your car could plummet.
* There are no incentives great enough to compensate for all of the possible extra maintenance and repairs you may have to deal with. Depending on the make and model of your car, even a small ding or scratch could cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars to repair.