I keep finding myself on both the sides of this question<p>"I have money but no time, how do i find some bright college student to work on this small project for me?"<p>"I need 400€, How do i find a small project i can develop for and have no expectation of follow up or commitment"<p>I find hard to trust elance, upwrok and similar as it's either super-developer-guy or random-indian-guy, middle ways are buried behind the two extremes.<p>On the other side of the fence, as a programmer on those websites it takes a lot of time to build up reputation and network and it's easier to just get a job at McDonalds or similar (e.g. make a website and let someone else maintain it) for those 400€.<p>Something like university/hackerspace/open source facebook group with a barrier of entry to keep the quality but nothing as formal as a website
Everyone is "random" when you first meet them.<p>That Indian (or Pakistani, or Croatian, or Thai) person could be just the partner you need. At least look at their work.<p>And a lot of time they charge less because their cost of living is much lower. You can actually pay them more than others would and still save on a "super" developer.<p>I think it would be equal time and less energy than going to a University Hackathon for hours and waiting to see who rubs you the right way.
Its quite a challenge. I was on vacation over in the Philippines, and I decided to see if I could find someone to help with the front end for my side project. I interviewed two people.<p>The guy I ended up working with did an amazing job using a team of freelancers on the first task.<p>On the second task, he asked for more money up front, and then that was the last I heard from him. He took the money an ran.<p>I am looking for another person or team to help me now, but I think the process is going to be to start with a small task and try to build trust.<p>The most important skill in these cases is the ability to write amazing specifications.<p>I have had some good practice over the years, and you would be surprised how much it helps.
> random-indian-guy<p>Can you pick another stereotype please? It costs you little and is less degrading to us Indian guys and girls who happen to see it.<p>I'm sure there are newbies and/or posers of other nationalities as well on freelance websites.
You get what you pay for.<p>Every one of us spends our lives building on our experience and then presenting that experience to others in exchange for compensation.<p>Without a system to manage this, it's just something to be exploited.<p>How do you as the employee know that someone isn't going to have you do a bunch of work and deny you compensation, or request you do more additional work than what was agreed upon?<p>How do you as the employer know that someone isn't going to just take your money and not provide the requested work or provide something substandard?<p>If you can't build a reputation on either side, there's no reason for anyone to trust you.
I think what you have is a misunderstanding of the market. 400 Euro isn't going to get you more than maybe half a days work (a day for a long engagement, for someone who's billing mid-tier[1] simply due to the economics of freelancing. You're paying both ends of FICA/SS so that's (-) ~17% federal immediately of whatever he's taking in.<p>For US freelancers, you're paying for down-time between clients and meetings that won't convert into any work. SuperDeveloperGuy (regardless of his nationality) is going to have a full book, and as such will be able to command a higher rate than random-(any-ethnicity-guy-with-less-than-desirable-experience). The reason why we bill out at lawyer rates is because our labor patterns are similar.<p>HN has a freelancer thread you can check. I've used it before. I generally discriminate based on the quality of their comments (a subjective metric, admittedly) as well as how long they've been a HNer. Keep in mind college kids are getting 35/hr minimum at any summer co-op, so again, 400 EUR won't get you very far.<p>RE: Elance, et al -- On Upwork I've had great experience with the Eastern Europeans/Russians who have tons of feedback (is it still racism if it's a positive stereotype? hmm).<p>[1] (Personally a client approaching me with a rate in that range is price-signaling to me "I'm going to brow-beat you for every dime"; somewhat counter-intuitively the quality of clients I've had has increased as a function of the rate at which I bill. Once I crossed the 3-figures-an-hour-threshold people started taking my time a lot more seriously.)
One of the big problems you have is that at that price range, overhead is eating away at your money pretty fast. Even if you do an hour of negotiation with a few people for "free", then pay one of them hourly strictly for the work, both you and the people you talk to need to be factoring in that time to the ultimate price and whether it's worth it. I will observe that when people describe the successful freelance jobs they do at those rates, including some other comments in this very thread as I type, they seem to tend towards being some very stereotypical tasks that generally amount to "installing WordPress/Magento/similar and slight customization". If you're negotiating something non-stereotypical, you can eat up serious percentages of the time just describing the situation. You may have to step up to a slightly higher tier to even get beyond "hello".
I've hired 'random-$whatever-human' many times. Sometimes Indian (1/7) sometimes not even guys! WUT!<p>Your hiring problem is caused by your lack of time commitment to finding the talent. Your impatience comes through loudly in the post.<p>That said, Upwork could use some improvements (which I'm working on).<p>You'll have to get over the idea that you can higher someone perfect , instantly and that some magic group (that you dont actively manage) will ensure that people meet your quality standards
I solved this problem for me by building <a href="https://Squads.com" rel="nofollow">https://Squads.com</a>. You're welcome to check it out of course. Invite only, to solve the random-klingon-eunuch problem.<p>Here's a full feature walkthrough without marketing bullshit: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17uPOmgFFo4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17uPOmgFFo4</a>
These are community websites, since you don't want a marketplace:<p>1. Find someone from <a href="https://nomadprojects.io/" rel="nofollow">https://nomadprojects.io/</a><p>2. Go to a hackathon and meet devs.<p>These are marketplaces:<p>1. <a href="https://gigster.com/" rel="nofollow">https://gigster.com/</a><p>2. <a href="https://gun.io/" rel="nofollow">https://gun.io/</a>
Maybe a local dev. group/meetup? I haven't been to one in years...But the one I used to visit (focused on web design AND web dev. which agreed was too broad) had often some senior folks, as well as newbies/college students/grads in attendance. Most everyone was very polite and accepting of both seniors and newbies. This of course constrains your search to folks who physically attend these meetups...but at least you can discuss things more easily than electronically, vet them in person, etc.<p>Or, maybe, this question that you posted here on HN you can actually bring up during one of these meetups, and see if others have the same challenge, what advice <i>they</i> can offer? True, not as scalable as a website (or some similar alternative/online group), but at least your name would get known around the locale, and there's the networking opportunities, etc.
I have been looking for a solution to the same problem - short projects with no long term commitment for some side income.
Maybe this is useful - CodeGophers: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11663869" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11663869</a>
> "I have money but no time"<p>You have time. The only person I've ever met who actually had no time was on his deathbed.<p>Everyone else is poorly prioritizing their time. Or their money. Cut your expenses in half and you regain half of your productive hours.<p>And of course doing it yourself is an investment in yourself - possibly the most valuable investment you can make. Naturally this assumes that you treat the project as "deliberate practice" and not something to simply get out of the way.<p>If you have the right sort of personality traits (which anyone can develop) you absolutely have time.
I know the founder, and it might be that Cohort[0] is what you're looking for. Not publicly available yet, alas.<p>[0]: <a href="https://cohort.is/" rel="nofollow">https://cohort.is/</a>
You mentioned "bright college student" and "university", which makes it seem like you have a preference for that route.<p>Most schools have some kind of online job board. One example: <a href="https://du.studentemployment.ngwebsolutions.com/JobX_FindAJob.aspx?s=1&ls=1&sdgpi=3" rel="nofollow">https://du.studentemployment.ngwebsolutions.com/JobX_FindAJo...</a><p>That said, while there's likely some great budding talent there, there's also a dearth of real world experience. You may find pitfalls there.
Shameless plug: this is the exact use case for my start up, <a href="http://codegophers.com" rel="nofollow">http://codegophers.com</a> which we launched recently.<p>For people looking for coders, we offer quick turnaround on small projects, typically priced between $100-$500.<p>For coders, it's a quick way to make money without having to commit to a multi week project. Please check us out or email directly at start@codegophers.com
With 400 euros you do not need a dev but a modder: he/she buys templates and cloud space from well known marketplaces for peanuts or for free then inserts your content, sets up your project online and writes you one page to manage it properly. He/she will spend a couple hours and you are served with a working minimum viable product for showcase.
Why not ask Hacker News Community? May be we can create monthly post.<p>I find people among my friends. What work really good, but unfortunately slow. But usually people are ready to help with out money. My projects are startups and people found them interesting.<p>I you need money or ready to pay you can go to freelance website, but I don't know what quality do you get.
I'm currently working on a platform to facilitate this sort of thing called <a href="http://hivemindly.com" rel="nofollow">http://hivemindly.com</a> but it's not yet ready for a public launch. You can register your interest though.
I'm not sure what more do you expect ove upwork and the like? Tinder for developers?
Unless you put in the time, it's not going work, in love or coding. Simple.