As a simple rule, you can usually break MVP clients into two groups:
1. Cash poor wantrapreneurs who expect the world but can't pay for it.
2. Entrepreneurs with realistic expectations who are able and willing to pay a fair rate for labor. The founder of Groove is a good example[1].
The person interested in a 3 week engagement that costs $2,345 is more likely to fall into the first group.
You want to do everything you can to avoid the first group, even if you're starting out and trying to build a portfolio. These clients are far less likely to collaborate with you effectively and far more likely to be unprofitable to serve. Additionally, because they don't have the capital reasonably required to execute on their ideas, you'll probably never build long-term relationships, which are very desirable for solos.
In terms of targeting the latter group, which would enable you to charge a lot more, you're far more likely to be successful if you can demonstrate that you have some product development chops. A lot of entrepreneurs need help translating their knowledge and ideas into functional requirements; many of them are not going to come to you with ready-to-implement wireframes, user stories, specifications, etc. These entrepreneurs need a partner who is capable of being involved in the tasks that come before implementation.
My biggest concern with doing something like this would be that you'd burn all your time negotiating - because clients are going to show up with a "3 months to implement" idea, and you're may spend more (unpaid!) time stripping the thing down to a reasonable MVP than actually coding.
"We'll agree beforehand on a list of features" has a lot of complexity hidden inside; if a client shows up with an idea "be the next Google" and hands you a list "1. SEARCH TEH INTERNETZ", what will you do?
I know you were joking, but I once had a guy complain about just that. I contributed a (very basic) search feature to some FOSS software and a user complained because it "wasn't as good as Google".
My response was something like "If I could write a search engine as good as Google in my spare time, I'd be living a lifestyle somewhat more luxurious than the one I actually have."
I see a lot of people advising you to increase it. Don't. Its a perfect number with a simple idea "MVP for $2345". It has in-built chance of virality/wordofmouth for its USP - so you are getting free marketing dollars inside that number.
If you charge 10K+ like others are suggesting, then you are competing with 10000 devs ready to do that work. If you charge 1K, you will lose money and target the extreme low ballers, and no amount of free marketing can make it sustainable. Your number of ~2.5K is a perfect balance.
But set a few hard-rules before you agree on a project:
- wireframes, mockups with annotations to avoid scope-creep
- design will be bootstrap quality (otherwise design is never-ending)
- is designed for demo purposes, it will break if 10,000 ppl access it.
Remember your clients are "idea mongers" who want to validate an idea, but dont have the chops to do it themselves. So your clients will not be businesses or startups - but plain old business folks with ideas. Stick with it. If the demand is great, then outsource it or franchise it, but control quality by keeping it within your strengths (py + web.py)
since you missed "1" here is a way to include it:
This is a fantastic opportunity for someone to build a marketplace that connects folks who need a quick MVP built with freelance developers. You could go a step further and break it down by back-end, front-end, design only, or all of the above (because maybe you already fill one of those roles yourself).
You can bake in the idea of a cash/equity split if the freelancer was interested as well.
The idea would be to limit projects based on time, scope, or budget from the get-go and stick to the MVP market niche.
Edit: Thinking about this idea more and reading more comments on this thread gave me another idea. Many people have commented that it might be a good idea to have your app fully wire-framed and thought out first. Need help with this specific stage before getting into the development of the MVP? Just another channel on the marketplace.
Idea Consulting -> Wire-frames -> MVP Development -> Design
All of course are optional and you could obviously swap Development and Design.
Chris Granger does (did?) offer a similar service[1]. I think his price (5000$) is more sustainable for a developer, but I'm not sure how the market is for this kind of work.
Chris, if you are reading this, please share your experience with us.
I got/get lots of offers, but in general the projects were pretty uninteresting (so many clones), people didn't really know what they want, and I found that what people really needed was someone to think through their ideas with them, not a prototype.
At that point in time 5k was reasonable. The price would go up quite a bit if I were doing it now though. But I doubt I'd do it again - the work didn't end up being as exciting as I thought it would be.
What I would consider doing in the future is the "idea consulting" I discovered most people ended up needing. I have a knack for pulling things apart and putting them back together in interesting ways :)
Back when I was running a web development company, I toyed with this idea a few times, but couldn't find a way to do it and not lose money. Hope your experience is different. Good luck!
This is a ridiculously low number. I'd say you really need to double it or so. Good luck! Looks like you've got some pretty cool past projects under your belt.
I love the idea - but I wonder why the price? it does seem really low. At 19 bucks and hour pro rata, you are not storing up cash to get through the hours when you are not earning, like marketing, talking to clients, understanding what they want.
I guess if you're just starting, that's decent money, but I don't think I could run with the same idea myself. I'd probably need to add a 1 to the front of your number.
To be honest, I said 3 weeks just to be safe (the old rule of doubling what you think you need). The plan was also to work on multiple projects in parallel.
You're right though, I am just starting off, and already feel a bit guilty asking for anything north of $5k.
You are doing the wrong calculation. He isn't claiming to spend 40 hours a week on the prototype. This could be done in spare time, taking advantage of time that is probably netting $0/hr, and in many cases probably can be done in less than 120 hours (especially if he locked down the technology stack)
I agree with the others. My initial assumption at this amount is that it wasn't 120 hours of work. It could be only 30-40 hours of work to get some basic python program going. He can control the features during the negotiation phase.
This is super inspiring and really makes me want to try a similar experiment. I've been wondering how I can make income while doing month long stays in different countries throughout the world, and this seems like it would be about perfect. New country, new project, enough income just to get by. Keeping the price low is not necessarily a mistake. It will allow you to pick from a much large range of products and if you can live for two months on $2000, why not just keep it low. The world doesn't necessarily always have to be profit-maximizing.
P.S. I checked out your essay about the first person view. I think you should watch this video from the BBC. It describes how this first person view that you describe is not actually making the decisions for your body, an MRI machine can predict what decision you will 6-7 seconds before you become conscious of making a particular decision. This doesn't necessarily answer your question, but the video shifts the question from why am I making decisions to why does brain make me think I'm making decisions.
How can you commit to a fixed amount to execute on an idea that requires an unknown number of iterations, re-evaluation of initial assumptions, and customer feedback? Maybe this is possible IF your customer is a sensible designer who can iterate in parallel with you and has a realistic sense of what an MVP is and isn't. If your customer is just some schmuck with 2.5 grand to throw around and no product experience, you'll likely find yourself fighting time consuming battles of scope and deliverables. And how can you juggle multiple projects like that simultaneously, when there's unavoidable friction that comes with the context switching? And, how fulfilled will you feel when your day-to-day is filled building things that are bug-laden and just minimally good enough? What kind of portfolio will that generate for you?
I sit down with each person and agree on a specific list of features they want before I get started. I say explicitly on the site that the $2,345 is only for one iteration.
I'm very intruiged by this idea, because I'm in a somewhat similar situation. I'm a fullstack developer all the way and love building products, but I haven't quite figured out a way yet how to make an income from that. Good luck and I would love to hear hot it's going.
Thanks for all the helpful advice! Totally didn't expect so much feedback.
Question for the more experienced people here: if I changed it to "$2,345 per week, and it'll take 1-3 weeks" instead of "$2,345 for up to 3 weeks," would I lose anyone I shouldn't be losing?
think if fivver has a complicated pricing or higher cost, would it be as popular as it is now? It would be completing with 1000s of other apps which does this thing.
Reduce scope or draw boundaries, but dont bump up the magic number :)
How would you market this (aside from posting on HN)? I want to do the exact same thing but charge more. Trying to freelance and I'm just unable to find clients.
I considered both when I first got started. Django was just too hard for me. When I read code using a framework I've never seen before, usually I can still kind of tell what it does. It might be my own stupidity, but when I read Django code I have no clue what it does.
I did consider Flask, which is much more similar to web.py, but eventually chose web.py because I was a fan of Aaron Swartz' work at the time.
This is ballsy but cool. Being a full stack business guy, full stack developer, and someone who had done years of freelance in the past, I'd be afraid of the scope creep and complexity issues that are going to rear their head. But more power to you for choosing to try to tackle them, I hope you end up on top.
[+] [-] 7Figures2Commas|12 years ago|reply
1. Cash poor wantrapreneurs who expect the world but can't pay for it.
2. Entrepreneurs with realistic expectations who are able and willing to pay a fair rate for labor. The founder of Groove is a good example[1].
The person interested in a 3 week engagement that costs $2,345 is more likely to fall into the first group.
You want to do everything you can to avoid the first group, even if you're starting out and trying to build a portfolio. These clients are far less likely to collaborate with you effectively and far more likely to be unprofitable to serve. Additionally, because they don't have the capital reasonably required to execute on their ideas, you'll probably never build long-term relationships, which are very desirable for solos.
In terms of targeting the latter group, which would enable you to charge a lot more, you're far more likely to be successful if you can demonstrate that you have some product development chops. A lot of entrepreneurs need help translating their knowledge and ideas into functional requirements; many of them are not going to come to you with ready-to-implement wireframes, user stories, specifications, etc. These entrepreneurs need a partner who is capable of being involved in the tasks that come before implementation.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7604055
[+] [-] al2o3cr|12 years ago|reply
"We'll agree beforehand on a list of features" has a lot of complexity hidden inside; if a client shows up with an idea "be the next Google" and hands you a list "1. SEARCH TEH INTERNETZ", what will you do?
[+] [-] Turing_Machine|12 years ago|reply
My response was something like "If I could write a search engine as good as Google in my spare time, I'd be living a lifestyle somewhat more luxurious than the one I actually have."
[+] [-] redindian75|12 years ago|reply
If you charge 10K+ like others are suggesting, then you are competing with 10000 devs ready to do that work. If you charge 1K, you will lose money and target the extreme low ballers, and no amount of free marketing can make it sustainable. Your number of ~2.5K is a perfect balance.
Remember your clients are "idea mongers" who want to validate an idea, but dont have the chops to do it themselves. So your clients will not be businesses or startups - but plain old business folks with ideas. Stick with it. If the demand is great, then outsource it or franchise it, but control quality by keeping it within your strengths (py + web.py) since you missed "1" here is a way to include it:1 for $2345 :)
Great idea! Good Luck!
[+] [-] cwilson|12 years ago|reply
You can bake in the idea of a cash/equity split if the freelancer was interested as well.
The idea would be to limit projects based on time, scope, or budget from the get-go and stick to the MVP market niche.
Edit: Thinking about this idea more and reading more comments on this thread gave me another idea. Many people have commented that it might be a good idea to have your app fully wire-framed and thought out first. Need help with this specific stage before getting into the development of the MVP? Just another channel on the marketplace.
Idea Consulting -> Wire-frames -> MVP Development -> Design
All of course are optional and you could obviously swap Development and Design.
[+] [-] cardine|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notduncansmith|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smnrchrds|12 years ago|reply
Chris, if you are reading this, please share your experience with us.
[1] http://iwbyp.chris-granger.com/
[+] [-] ibdknox|12 years ago|reply
At that point in time 5k was reasonable. The price would go up quite a bit if I were doing it now though. But I doubt I'd do it again - the work didn't end up being as exciting as I thought it would be.
What I would consider doing in the future is the "idea consulting" I discovered most people ended up needing. I have a knack for pulling things apart and putting them back together in interesting ways :)
[+] [-] 147|12 years ago|reply
If I recall correctly, he got more projects than he had time to work on and people didn't care that it was written in Clojure and not Python or Ruby.
[+] [-] subpixel|12 years ago|reply
customer #1: $2000
customer #2: $2100
customer #3: $2200
And so on until customers stop signing up. Then you start over.
[+] [-] elwell|12 years ago|reply
You should ask for 1/4 up-front, before you write any code.
[+] [-] _g2lm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PhrosTT|12 years ago|reply
This is like the one venue for most people CAN build out their ideas.
[+] [-] zavulon|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _g2lm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshlegs|12 years ago|reply
just curious, but what kind of business model did you end up going with?
[+] [-] joshlegs|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|12 years ago|reply
It did get me thinking though - really good luck.
[+] [-] _g2lm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robinhoode|12 years ago|reply
$2,345 / (40 * 3) = $19.5416666667/hr
I guess if you're just starting, that's decent money, but I don't think I could run with the same idea myself. I'd probably need to add a 1 to the front of your number.
[+] [-] _g2lm|12 years ago|reply
You're right though, I am just starting off, and already feel a bit guilty asking for anything north of $5k.
[+] [-] sheetjs|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unreal37|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soleimc|12 years ago|reply
P.S. I checked out your essay about the first person view. I think you should watch this video from the BBC. It describes how this first person view that you describe is not actually making the decisions for your body, an MRI machine can predict what decision you will 6-7 seconds before you become conscious of making a particular decision. This doesn't necessarily answer your question, but the video shifts the question from why am I making decisions to why does brain make me think I'm making decisions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6S9OidmNZM#t=303
[+] [-] elwell|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _g2lm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] meetamit|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _g2lm|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nchuhoai|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _g2lm|12 years ago|reply
Question for the more experienced people here: if I changed it to "$2,345 per week, and it'll take 1-3 weeks" instead of "$2,345 for up to 3 weeks," would I lose anyone I shouldn't be losing?
[+] [-] astrodust|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redindian75|12 years ago|reply
Reduce scope or draw boundaries, but dont bump up the magic number :)
[+] [-] antocv|12 years ago|reply
A better idea is to go with $12345 for 4 weeks.
[+] [-] 147|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ritchiea|12 years ago|reply
Why web.py over flask or django?
[+] [-] _g2lm|12 years ago|reply
I did consider Flask, which is much more similar to web.py, but eventually chose web.py because I was a fan of Aaron Swartz' work at the time.
[+] [-] cmapes|12 years ago|reply