Show HN: Betatype - A freelance site where clients pay $3,500 for prototypes

Re:Show HN: Betatype - A freelance site where clients pay $3... by dangero on Monday April 28, 2014 @11:13PM (#7664708)

I look at it like this: There are 4 directions that a software project can be constrained: Time, price, scope, and quality.

1. Elance or ODesk can offer you fixed time, price, and scope, but highly erratic quality.

2. An expensive contracting agency can offer you fixed time, scope, and quality, but with high costs.

3. This site promises fixed cost, and quality, but makes no promises on scope or completion timeline.

All that's left is for someone to make a site that has fixed timing, like "Software Prototypes in One Week". I'll wait for that one to hit the front page of HN. As a developer I'd actually prefer that because I know when it's going to be over.

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Re:Show HN: Betatype - A freelance site where clients pay $3... by ville on Tuesday April 29, 2014 @12:46AM (#7665021)

"All that's left is for someone to make a site that has fixed timing, like "Software Prototypes in One Week"."

Looks like someone already did that too: http://protoverstas.com

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Re:Show HN: Betatype - A freelance site where clients pay $3... by jpatokal on Tuesday April 29, 2014 @01:00AM (#7665057)

10,000 EUR + 2.5% equity (o_O);

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Re:Show HN: Betatype - A freelance site where clients pay $3... by tluyben2 on Tuesday April 29, 2014 @02:26AM (#7665330)

More realistic though; you really cannot do anything for $3500 (E2500). Well you can do something but it won't be very nice I don't think. E10k is good for a proto.

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Re:Show HN: Betatype - A freelance site where clients pay $3... by MetaCosm on Monday April 28, 2014 @11:43PM (#7664816)

"Done In One Week"

Quality, Cost and Scope will be "best effort"

Honestly, it might sound silly, but it would be useful. Give a client an idea of what can be done in a week, lets them know what can be off the shelf and what has the be built, etc. Something like $85 an hour @ 3500 a week. Better than spending a week in meetings arguing about scope.

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Re:Show HN: Betatype - A freelance site where clients pay $3... by dangero on Tuesday April 29, 2014 @02:33AM (#7665352)

Yeah, as an engineer it sounds like a blast. If I could line up work doing that week after week I'd definitely give it a go for a while.

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Re:Show HN: Betatype - A freelance site where clients pay $3... by Mikushi on Tuesday April 29, 2014 @05:56AM (#7665943)

Same, specially that I love doing prototypes.

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Re:Show HN: Betatype - A freelance site where clients pay $3... by thruflo on Tuesday April 29, 2014 @12:46PM (#7668194)

Sprinkle a little 'agile' magic dust...

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Re:Show HN: Betatype - A freelance site where clients pay $3... by sprobertson on Tuesday April 29, 2014 @01:45AM (#7665193)

self-plug: You're almost describing my company, Prontotype: http://prontotype.us/

We're not trying to build one-week twitter clones, but well-working prototypes out of unique ideas.

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Re:Show HN: Betatype - A freelance site where clients pay $3... by dangero on Tuesday April 29, 2014 @02:38AM (#7665374)

Hmm, so as a software consultant I'm impressed with your business model because it seems like a scheduling nightmare. How do you manage to have available resources when people contact you? Do you sometimes have to say no if your team is busy with something else?

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Re:Show HN: Betatype - A freelance site where clients pay $3... by sprobertson on Tuesday April 29, 2014 @03:18AM (#7665479)

Since we're focusing on prototypes/MVPs the process is very iterative and feedback oriented, so scheduling just consists of fitting well-defined blocks together. We've also got a balanced team which helps us parallelize. There haven't been any scaling problems yet, but when there are we're ready to bring on extra talent.

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Re:Show HN: Betatype - A freelance site where clients pay $3... by dangero on Tuesday April 29, 2014 @11:10PM (#7671380)

How do you find clients?

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Re:Show HN: Betatype - A freelance site where clients pay $3... by sprobertson on Wednesday April 30, 2014 @12:25AM (#7671599)

Now: Word of mouth spurred by high quality output. Before: Job boards and friends in business schools.

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Re:Show HN: Betatype - A freelance site where clients pay $3... by atmosx on Tuesday April 29, 2014 @05:51AM (#7665925)

I have used elance for graphics work 4 times. The 3 was fine, acceptable result, nothing outstanding. That one time it was an awful poor choice. But for a long-term project, expensive project I'm not sure if eLance is the way to go.

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