[GLLUG] I had an idea, now, How to Find a good developer?

Wed Feb 4 04:20:24 EST 2015

> I'd like to call something out that I've noticed. I didn't see a single
answer to the OP's question:

> I had an idea, now, How to Find a good developer?

As Clay mentioned, the idea was not sufficiently developed anywhere near
enough to be looking for a developer.  Now, add in the part where a good
developer is almost impossible for a total layman to tell from a bad
developer at this stage, and you have a recipe for disaster.  An
good/ethical developer would not accept a project in this stage and many
would ignore you completely as a waste of time, but there are plenty of
unethical people that would just take your money and burn through it
without nothing productive to show.

The first steps involve education and then further development of the idea
into a requirements.  Once you have reasonable requirements, you can
consider looking for a developer.  Even then, without enough additional
education to help you identify the good developers from the bad, you will
have to blindly trust someone else to do that for you.  A layman is just
not capable of doing that on his own.  You might be able to identify
developers that worked on successful projects, but you won't know enough to
determine if the work was done efficiently, if the underlying code is a
steaming pile, etc.  Lots of projects do manage to work despite the
development team if you throw enough resources at it.

On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 9:50 PM, Dave Crampton <dave.crampton at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I'd like to call something out that I've noticed. I didn't see a single
> answer to the OP's question:
>
> I had an idea, now, How to Find a good developer?
>
> I saw plenty of "here's why you don't want to do what you want to do." Is
> the attitude the same at in-person meetings?
>
> --
> Sent from my mobile device, please excuse typos and brevity.
>
> On Feb 3, 2015, at 9:11 PM, Richard Houser <rick at divinesymphony.net>
> wrote:
>
> You don't really need wads of cash.  Some of the best software projects
> have been done on shoestring budgets.  You only need wads of cash to get
> someone else to do all the work for you.  You have to bring something to
> the table, and if you don't have the skills, that means you are Mr.
> Moneybags.  If you have the time, discipline, and inclination, you can
> certainly teach yourself most of the necessary skills.  Reading the license
> agreements is a simple example.  OSS licenses are specifically written in
> plain language so you don't need to hire a lawyer to understand them.  If
> you are willing to devote a couple years to developing the appropriate
> skills, you could probably do 90-95% yourself with open source.  It may
> very well be ugly under the covers, but you could have something working
> for a very low cost.  It wouldn't even need to be an expensive education:
> (ex. http://ocw.mit.edu/).  Getting a basic CS education would also help
> you identify a good developer, btw.  There are LOTs of bad ones, and you
> usually need an engineer and/or experienced software developer to spot the
> difference before it's too late.
>
> For my part, I'm slowly developing the skills and a small prototyping lab
> to build my first few attempts at potentially commercial projects (several
> years in).  Pure software guys have it easy.....
>
> On Tue, Feb 3, 2015 at 8:25 PM, Peter Christenson <pac1.mi at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> All,
>> Thank you all for your thoughts and opinions. They have been very helpful
>> in in my thoughts about moving forward.
>>
>> As a recap, the pointers I have learned that will help my idea to come to
>> life, are that, an NDA may be needed to protect myself from having the idea
>> stolen, however idea's can not be patented, and no one really wants the
>> idea, only the outcome.  I need to research the market for similar things,
>> and find out what will make mine different. I Will need stacks of cash, and
>> then more stacks after that.  I should learn how to write formal
>> requirement documents or hire someone to do it for me. I need to research
>> the licenses of each piece of software, and possibly consult a lawyer. I
>> should hire the best developer I can to build a good team of  developers I
>> can because they cost less than cheaper developers.  If I can't communicate
>> what I want, I will get a beautiful system that doesn't do what I want. And
>> last but not least. I need stacks of money ;-) I hope I haven't missed
>> anything.
>>
>> So... when trying to find a developer what should I be looking for, that
>> will  qualify them as a good one, when I'm not one?
>> On Feb 3, 2015 1:11 AM, "Thomas Hruska" <thruska at cubiclesoft.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 2/2/2015 1:04 PM, Peter Christenson wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Patrick and Chick, Thanks for the fast response.
>>>>
>>>
>>>  however I will share that it is a meal planning and shopping list tool
>>>> that
>>>> would be available via browser as well as mobile app and maybe even a
>>>> desktop app.  with the goal of helping the end users, without adding
>>>> more
>>>> complexity to their lives.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Oops.  Missed this.  Still pretty broad and it's the sort of thing
>>> that's been done a zillion times.  You'll have a lot of competition in the
>>> space.  Google Docs is probably your biggest competitor.  Google is not
>>> worth taking on.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Thomas Hruska
>>> CubicleSoft President
>>>
>>> I've got great, time saving software that you will find useful.
>>>
>>> http://cubiclesoft.com/
>>>
>>
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