Hot answers tagged developers
8
I've been in your boat: sadly, there's nothing you can do once the money's gone, especially if it's overseas.
Write it off and consider it a lesson-learned. I then came to the conclusion that you can't start an internet business if you don't know how to program. It takes about a year or so of struggling full-time to get up to speed with programming but the ...
7
Yes, it is possible. If it is difficult depends on the work others have done. IF it is code and follows the "Clean Code" principles aswell as using standard frameworks then it should easy to take over the code.
If the previous programmers did not respect general coding conventions or use exotic frameworks, it might become difficult.
Personally I would ...
7
I've read your last question which I supposed related to this, What can I do to be sure that progress is being made on my web application?. The answers are very solid, though you may not have opportunity to apply them on this case.
I don't think his intention is to scam you, though the fact is you are scammed. He is just dishonest, strived to take all ...
7
If it was a local team I would say it is due to boring work. Great developers take motivation out of building great software. Maintenance periods, too much bug fixing, doing the same thing for too long are examples of things that will make their productivity go down.
In a remote team, you can take all of that in consideration, plus the fact that they might ...
7
You can't, except by contract.
You are worrying about the wrong thing, thought. If your business plan contemplates hiring a couple of developers, letting them design your product and then firing them, you are in more trouble you realize. Just wait until the first bug appears after your original team is gone.
Edit:
You seem to be worried because what ...
6
I am a victim of Virtual Corporations as well. I put an ad on elance for services they responeded along with several others. I choose them they guaranteed they could deliver I would have my site up. They found every excuse not to have my site up.
They ask you to pay a low amount to start but then it ends up being more than they said you think well I have to ...
5
There is an easy way to check the progress.
Where is the source code? If he worked on the backend he can show some source code. In addition, ask him to push the source code to a tool like bitbucket.org. It is free for a small team (github requires to pay even for a single private repo). The benefit: you can see all the changes, step by step. And when they ...
5
I've worked on projects where there was an existing codebase - and sometimes I had to start over from scratch, but usually not. If possible, I prefer to use the existing codebase unless there is a really good reason not to.
A competent programmer, or team of programmers, should be able to inherit code and build on it. This should be the preferred approach, ...
5
If you want to learn it, and you won't lose customers in the process, and you can see a good upside to the conversion - then go for it.
If you're doing it because you think there's some external market pressure to be in the "cool crowd", or that Ruby is inherently better than PHP - don't.
Languages all have their merits and demerits.
Language choice ...
5
There is no simple answer to this. It depends on:
What country you are in
How many years you have been working
How much demand there is for the work you're doing
How much supply there is for the skills you have
It could be $5 p/hour, it could be $200 p/hour.
Maybe focus on what would be a rate you are happy with. If you get paid a rate you are happy ...
4
I've been on both sides of this, both as a developer and a founder. Here's how I would see this from a developer's point of view:
When you do this, you're asking me to take on 100% of the risk, for only a fraction of the reward. That is, if the business fails, I did a lot of work for which I get nothing. If it succeeds, I get a portion of the profits, along ...
4
There are other onstartups posts here and here that may provide some insights on dealing with delivery delays.
Also - here is good thread about how different startups approach remote teams. The story that prompted the discussion is also relevant.
Outsourcing is always a challenge - communication problems quickly become amplified. Having a set methodology ...
4
If you're paid a competitive salary then any equity you get is a bonus.
It sounds quite simple, you are just working a job that you get paid for.
The reason people give equity is to compensate lack of salary. If the founder wants to pay you instead of giving equity, well I don't see a problem with that.
3
I can explain this with respect to to India in general. Freelancing is not a profession here in India. There are hardly any full time freelancers available for work.
Most of the developers you contact or hire are already working somewhere else. IMO, most of the times they will not have any time on weekdays for any extra work. Maybe an hour max. As Indian ...
3
9 times out of 10, adding developers will slow down the process.
You mention you engaged with a freelancer firm - are we talking about a firm of 1?
If so, 1 developer has zero lag when task switching - (s)he doesn't need to explain to anyone outside their own head. Adding an unknown developer with timelag, language differences, will only make things worse.
...
3
There are always going to be good developers that require minimal supervision, and there will be developers that need a lot of supervision. Both can be managed effectively if you know what you are doing.
It seems like you are already deep into this project with your existing developer. Here is something you'll want to consider adding another developer. ...
3
I believe the best approach for you is to find an co-founder who is from technology, not only a freelance programmer.
A person that believes in your idea as well, who will take shares from the company, by developing the solution + getting to know where and how hosting it + in the future, hiring other developers + help with technical specifications when ...
3
Great advice from Justin and Jon.
Additionally,
You can try to find out other start-ups, in the domain you have experience and looking for technical help. If they are bootstrapping, my guess is, they will be interested in taking your services. You may not get a "GOOD" deal of money but it will definitely help you build connection/portfolios/references.
...
3
I've been doing independent software development in the US for private companies for 8 years now, some of that time with a company and some of that time alone.
You've identified the problem correctly. Unless you have some strong warm leads to companies needing serious help from consultants, the answer is you need to grow slow. You won't be able to jump in ...
3
In general the best people to hire are ones you already know or who people you trust know. Doesn't your current developer know any other developers?
Does he or could you attend any user group meets or conferences? This is a great way to meet people in a non-stressful situation to assess what their personality is really like and how they get along with their ...
3
Your vision of the product and it's potential has to excite the developers. It's akin to a film producer attracting an actor or a director.
Bear in mind, what engineers strive for is to have what they make be embraced by the whole world. (If an engineer tells you otherwise, you can bet he's not a great engineer.)
Your product idea has to at least have that ...
3
Put it all together for the purpose of finding someone. You don't want 12 different programmers working on your software, that would be a nightmare to manage and would require you to train 12 people.
As for actually doing the work once you find someone, break it down to small tasks and give them one at a time.
As for the price, I would find someone to ...
2
There are plenty of answers in this Q&A, so you might want to try the search box on top right in addition to the answers here.
I would like to point you this question first:
Is it common for people to work for free in exchange for equity in a startup?
In addition I see some issues with what you wrote:
You wrote your team which is around 23 has ...
2
Sure it is possible.
There are several ways to find developers:
Search the web for terms like "paypal, php, developer" and visit developers blogs. You can see the expertise of a developer on the topics he writes on his blog. I got several jobs because people visited my blog and were convinced I could do the job
Visit startup sites and use the "job pool". ...
2
It sounds like the poster above is more across the back-history than I am, but indeed if you contracted via Elance then this is the best route. Quite simply you have no chance of recovering the money otherwise.
I do strongly advise anyone building software projects to build in-house, or at least with someone you can see on a day-to-day basis. This not ...
2
Quick Summary: talk to them more, nag if necessary.
Having worked both sides of the outsourcing process, the sad truth is that the noisiest client is the one I do work for first. You say: I don't flood them with emails, because I know how hard it is to concentrate when emails are coming in every 2 minutes ... Two weeks can go by, and I hear nothing. At ...
2
Take this for granted. There is almost nothing you can do to make your code/idea(s) 100% protected. That too only if you can catch them stealing your idea/code.
But allow me to propose a fail proof setup for you ;) :
Set up a few computers and secure/encrypt the hdds.
Make sure none
the computers can connect to the internet but only to a local
computer ...
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