Non Geek seeks Geek for chat and maybe more...

Kelter

A friend of mine and I have put together a plan for a website that would require the development of a fairly nifty piece of software that would allow users to do a number of bits and pieces that are not currently available on the net

The problem is I, and he, are not programmers. I am fairly net savvy and believe that what we want done is not unreasonable, but still, it requires someone who knows ALOT more than I to figure out the most effective way of doing it. I would then expect it to be a few months work for a few different programmers/

So my question for you guys is this... If you were me, and were about to be in the business of hiring/partnering with a number of geeks to get this done, how whould you advise me to approach the problem. I mean the whole point is that I don't really know what I want.

Seth Brundle

You need to find out what it would cost to establish what you have planned. One way to lower initial costs is for the geek to become a partner in the business.
If you are paying then you need to have a full list of what you want the system to do and then get fixed costs for that. Anyone tendering should (if its an original idea) sign some form of confidentiality agreement.

sicruise

Start by maybe not calling the geek a geek...

Evil Phil

I for one and proud to be a geek.

Anyway, as people have said. You need to get a software development savvy person on board. Either as staff or a partner, and go from there.

sicruise

So whats your idea?


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Dang... worth a shot.

Tom Dunne

Kelter wrote:

I mean the whole point is that I don't really know what I want.

There's where you start.

Get down in detail exactly what you want. It doesn't have to be technical, it does have to explain in detail what needs to be done.

Then you can approach somebody.

Kelter

ok then... heres what I mean. I can describe in detail what I should see at the end, but I don't know really know what should be behind it. I mean the issue is which one of you geeks I need (I hope you all take that in the friendly way I mean it:).

So if you were me, where would you start? If I just approach some geeks, anyone who needs work will claim that they're the right man for the job

constellation

References, experience, samples of work done previously. Same as most other professions.

Try http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html for some suggestions. If you're not technically inclined, then you may not be able to use some of the techniques but you would able to get a rough idea.

cornbb

Kelter wrote:

ok then... heres what I mean. I can describe in detail what I should see at the end, but I don't know really know what should be behind it. I mean the issue is which one of you geeks I need (I hope you all take that in the friendly way I mean it:).

So if you were me, where would you start? If I just approach some geeks, anyone who needs work will claim that they're the right man for the job

Your job is to define exactly what the site/application should be capable of doing, what it should look like, and what its functional requirements are. The geek's job is to decide what is behind it.

There are several web development methodologies, different web developers would specialise in one or more of these. Maybe if you post more details about what you want here we can tell you what sort of person to approach, you would need to know how big a development team is required, whether there are databases involved, large amounts of multimedia, etc...

constellation

cornbb wrote:

Maybe if you post more details about what you want here we can tell you what sort of person to approach, you would need to know how big a development team is required, whether there are databases involved, large amounts of multimedia, etc...

I second that. From a business standpoint, the big question (at least what I was told) is to ask yourself if there is something similar to your idea out there at the moment. If so, why is your idea different? If not, why not?

Back on topic. You can phrase what you are looking for in vague terms without divulging your idea.

Crash course in requirements analysis
http://angryaussie.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/requirements-are-like-ogres-2/

di11on

Kelter wrote:

...I can describe in detail what I should see at the end, but I don't know really know what should be behind it...

You probably don't really care what should be behind it. Describe in detail what your requirements are and let the developers worry about what's behind it. If you describe your requirements well enough (including provision for future possible requirements) then what should be behind it is the minimum required and the developer will certainly implement that.