I have a major obstacle, basically i understand customer development which is the process of testing a startup idea before anything is coded, so that a web app is not completely built to then find out that nobody wants it. But i cant do the product development side, i know what language i would like it developed in, i'm even prepared to try and mockup the UI, the customer development and marketing i can do, realistically i wouldn't try to learn to code myself as trying to do it all myself would be unrealistic. The customer development process, if you're not familiar basically means that a developer wouldn't be given a project to build out a load of features to completion, rather it would be an MVP (minimum viable product) and it's tested on the target market, even before that though im testing the idea very soon with what is referred to as a low fidelity MVP which doesn't even require a web app yet. I wouldn't get you to code if my idea is not tested by myself first and getting feedback from the target market, and when i talk of equity i would do more than just make a promise i could provide an agreement of some sort. The method of customer development with product development doesn't require perfection from the start, its about getting the minimum amount of features in front of the target market to test and iterate, the development is continuous instead of a project being worked on and then finished. My startup idea is not random, i know how to test the idea but without development its frustrating.
1) If you're not doing the coding, you don't choose the language. If you're not experienced enough to write the code, you don't know enough to know the ramifications of using different languages. 2) VERY few people who are experienced enough to really code a commercial site will work for equity any more, since we pay our bills by coding, and devoting full time to your project means a slim diet. Coding it on an "as I have time" basis could work for some, but you'd have to accept that it might go in spurts with long periods of no work. BTW, "experience" doesn't mean "I've been doing this for X years", it means "I've been doing this in an environment in which my superiors could read code, and I kept my job". Many people write sites that are semantically crap, and get paid for it (and we see it posted here when they ask for help). If the customer can't read the code, or has the attitude that no one reads the source code, so it doesn't matter (that's ALL robots read - your source code), such practice gets by for years. But it still produces semantic crap.
"Clients" - anyone buying anything, be it a good or a service - understand price. About the only way to beat price is with discount (or rebate, these days). Quality? Maybe after buying two or three of the cheapest ones. (They don't understand that $500 is cheaper than paying 3 people $200 each, then having to pay $500 to get something you can actually use.) I listen to what the client wants, tell him how much all those details are going to cost, then ask, "Now, what do you really want?" It's less messy than dumping a bucket of ice water on his head, but it brings him back to reality just about as quickly.
Hello Rukbat, thank you for taking the time to reply, maybe if it's only a casual agreement between poorly organised individuals then the language choice might be left to the developer to decide but this would not be the case with an organised startup. I wouldn't expect anyone who isn't getting paid from the beginning to work full time, as you point out people have bills to pay, you make a valid point about if it is done part time by the developer that there may be delays. You make a good point too regarding experience not necessarily meaning what most would think it to mean. When i talk of a developer working without a salary, it is not for them to work indefinitely without pay, much of the customer development method dictates that early on in the idea testing process that there needs to be clear evidence that people not only want the product/service but that they will pay for it when there is a usable product with minimal features, basically when the early adopters are paying for and using it.
It definitely is. I don't specify the languages I'll be using to develop a site in the contract for the job. That's up to me and any developers I have working for me to decide. Oh, I didn't mean "I won't be able to do any work tomorrow" delays, I meant "I just started a new job, so I won't be able to work on the project for a few months" type of delays. Look on Github or Sourceforge to see how many projects are in the "started, there's some code, but hasn't been worked on in 5 years" stage. That's what you get when the paycheck is equity. And the development can take many months which, for all intents and purposes, is "indefinitely". Bills are paid monthly. If I take a job for an equity position, I expect a delay in income, but a month, or maybe even two. I'm not the owner of the business, with two to three years of cash on hand (and if a business is started without that, it's destined to fail), so I can't just hope that the money starts coming in before I run out. I need a firm date after which, even if the project isn't earning a dime, I start seeing an income. Or the owner of the business has to accept that it may be a year or more before I have runnable product, since I'll be spending most of my time earning money, and I may not spend more than an hour or two a week on the project. It's not 1990 any more. The dot com bomb exploded long ago. Anyone doing a site on spec now is doing the development himself. Ideas are a lot cheaper than a dime a dozen, and everyone has them. Ability to carry them out is what counts now. So "design my site for an equity position" isn't really a viable business plan (you do have one of those, right?) these days, but if you have a lot of patience, or a lot of cash available, it could work.
I disagree, there are startups that burn through tens of millions in a short space of time without even having a revenue plan properly in place, yet there are bootstrapped startups that go on to grow steadily. Business plans, lol, clearly were on different pages, my interest is in customer development, i wont attempt to explain it here as i will end up going off topic. When i ask questions and some developers answer there is always the feeling of bitterness, uptight and anyone not a developer is just an idiot, i don't know why some developers react this way, i don't want to know why either.
No, it's just a reaction to non-developers' attitude that developing a website is just writing stuff that anyone can learn to do in a day or so, rather than something that takes decades of study (since, to be a good developer at any moment, one must study the current methods and languages, and that never ends), and one must know a myriad of fields, since a site written by someone who doesn't know at least a little about the business the site is for is a useless site. But I don't want to know why non-developers feel that way.
Were people, not non-developers, most decent people don't think that it's easy for you guys, if it was we wouldn't need you.