Mike Lee on why he can charge $1,000/hr for iPhone development

<i>That’s a little like hearing what Brad Pitt got paid for his last movie and wondering why the producer didn’t instead hire Brad Pitman for scale.<p>Oh you’ve never heard of Brad Pitman? You’re not familiar with his work? But you are familiar with Brad Pitt’s work, right? After all, he’s an experienced actor and producer with not one, but two, Academy Award nominations and a portfolio full of household names.</i><p>Bzzzt. Horrible analogy. Brad Pitt isn't worth what he's worth because of his <i>portfolio</i> full of household names. He commands his rates because he <i>is a household name</i>. People will go see movies just because he's in them. He's not getting paid for talent, experience, or attractiveness. He's getting paid for his personal brand. That brand all but guarantees that the filmmakers will earn a handsome return on their investment.<p>You, however, are an iPhone app developer. App purchasers have never heard of you. They will not turn out in droves to buy an app just because you worked on it.

Wow, he might be good at programming, but from his writing, he sure seems like a jerk (Zed Shaw's long lost twin?). I've known many professionals who, being very good at what they do, charge both less and more than $1k/hour, but none of them would ever mention their rate in public, much less feel the need to explain why they deserve it.<p>On the other hand, this is great PR for software engineers: a couple more posts like this, and I'll be able to double my rate and still seem like a deal by comparison :)

To everyone who thinks he's crazy, a single, solitary counter that is in no way indicative of a trend or a pattern: when it comes time to have someone build our iPhone app, I know who my first e-mail will be.<p>You wanna know why? I know his rate without having to fill out a goddamn "contact me" form and his portfolio signals that he's worth the rate. Now, I have no idea how many hours it would take to build our app, but you're damn well sure I'm going to ask him to tell me.<p>You not making as much? You hurting for clients? Well, maybe you should publish a rate and have an up-to-date portfolio on your website, not on Carbonmade or Forrst or Dribbble or wherever the hell the cool kids are these days.<p>Cause I'll tell you: I've got cash to burn and I'm in the market for great developers and designers right now, and they're impossible to find, vet, and hire.

Even if he doesn't get $1000/hr in the end, his statement is likely to be already doing some work in the form of <i>anchoring</i>. That is, $1000/hr seems ridiculous but you might now, as a client, feel like $250/hr isn't ridiculous.. yet if he'd said $250/hr at the start, that would have also seemed as crazy as $1000.<p>This effect of price anchoring has been demonstrated a lot and it works, sadly.

He's claiming his role in Tap Tap Revenge as justifying that rate. If all you know about his role at Tapulous is what's been written at TechCrunch that probably sounds impressive. Of course if you know some of the guys there who don't have a soapbox and a sycophantic following that's a pretty hilarious opener.

The "motherfucker" page doesn't load, maybe I can help him with some web development at only $1,000/hr

I'm guessing this is more of a flat fee structure, and he's optimistically expecting it to work out to $1k/hour.<p><pre><code> You can write to my former coworkers in Apple’s Developer Technical Support, and they will point you toward a solution within three days. Or you can just call me and have it ready to resubmit by morning. </code></pre> . . . so what happens if it's <i>not</i> ready by morning?<p>Is there a scenario where I'm dinged for $24k in a day while he's mainlining coffee &#38; trying to debug my app?

One day, Mr. Lee is going to feel deeply embarrassed that he wrote, and published that piece.<p>Until then, I imagine he's going to get four or five clients a year, bill them 50,000 each, and laugh his way around Costa Rica.

Neil Gaiman also took a lot of flack when it was revealed how much he charged for speaking engagements. But when he explained his reasoning, I came to see how his high fee rate was justified.<p><a href="http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/05/political-football-in-teacup.html" rel="nofollow">http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/05/political-football-in-...</a><p>Similarly, if Mike is entertaining a lot of contracting requests, a surefire way to filter out the wheat from the chaff is to set a high contracting fee rate.

I'd be curious if he actually <i>can</i> charge $1,000/hr for iPhone development. It sounds like it's deliberately less than his time-filling rate: he doesn't get fully booked weeks at that rate. In fact he seems to imply that his schedule is <i>so</i> empty that he's likely to be free on any given day to start working on a new project immediately. That's certainly a reasonable strategy, since sometimes the money-maximizing rate is not the same as the one that fills your schedule. But, how empty exactly is his schedule? Are we talking 10 hours/wk billed on average? Or are we talking no work most weeks, with the occasional job every few months?

I don't know him, so I can only go by what he wrote there. So all I see are two things he cites as accomplishments, yet with that, he is nearly guaranteeing a hit. I don't know of anyone -- writer, filmmaker, etc -- who'd base any sort of track record on just two outings. Hell, even Spielberg had a bomb when he was hot: 1941.<p>Here is Steve Jobs on designer Paul Rand, who Jobs wooed from IBM to have him design the NeXT logo: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb8idEf-Iak" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb8idEf-Iak</a><p>So ask yourself, would Steve Jobs think the guy who wrote this post was worth the money he was asking?

Seems to me the promise here isn't just "I'll build you a great app" but "I'll get your app in the Apple Store" (hence mentions of the author's positive record and connections with Apple) - in essence, it's a combination of a lobbyist/developer, and lobbyists do charge $1000/hr.<p>Apple has an approval process reminiscent of a third world beaurocracy, decisions are unpredictable, timelines unknown and the entire process is completely opaque to the outsider. Around such systems you often find people with good connections offering their services in ensuring proper treatment, for a handsome fee.

It also sounds like he can convince you that if you don't go with him you are going to have problems and then you are going to have to hire him eventually anyway. Being able to convince people not to look around at other options is a very good way to drive your price up.<p>I'm surprised he didn't make that point in the article; it certainly is related to why he can charge so much...

If the best are 10x as productive as the mediocre, I don't see a problem with this. Of course, you might say that the $120 bulk of freelance programmers are already a notch above mediocre and maybe $500/hr is more reasonable, but whatever the market will bear.<p>It's a good argument to cut top marginal tax rate so that he has an incentive to take more work than he's willing to at $500/hr after taxes (assuming he's in the US).

He isn't talking about charging $1,000/hr for coding. Rather, he is doing technical consulting. This means he should be able to deliver high value in a short time, and he'll only ever bill clients a couple hours at a time.

I think this guy can have a positive impact on our industry if he reports back in a month or two and tell the world that he actually worked at that rate. The value of IT consultants could be perceive differently.

Say what you want about his ego, but this article will stick.<p>When some biz guy or PM has his back against the wall with a horrible, failing project that just won't work, calling in the 1k an hour iPhone guy won't sound like a bad idea.

The Dunning–Kruger effect at work.

This is coming from the dude who used to work for free and live in Wil Shipley's basement? Wow.

Does anyone here really know if the author is serious? I honestly can't tell, having never heard of this guy, if this is an instance of Poe's Law or Stephen Wolfram-style megalomania (well, at least Wolfram has more to show than "not one, but two number one titles on the App Store").

gracious |ˈgrā sh əs|<p>adjective<p>1 courteous, kind, and pleasant : smiling and gracious in defeat.<p>* pleasantly indulgent, esp. toward an inferior.<p>* elegant and tasteful, esp. as exhibiting wealth or high social status

I'd like to hear from him in a month or so how it worked out.

I'm pretty sure the real drawback of coding for $1000 an hour is you're never actually allowed to shut up it.

tldr: Mike Lee is the Brad Pitt of programmers. :/

Of course he can charge $1,000/hr.<p>So can I, or so can any man; but will clients come when he advertises it?

Interesting approach to customer acquisition. After taxes he'd be sitting on just over a million a year without working much more than 40 hours a week.<p>But maybe his pricing is predicated on the desire to not work 40 hour weeks?

simple supply and demand issue that he's taking advantage of. the iphone is a fairly new platform and i'd say the number of true "platform experts" is very small so <i>anything</i> you can point to that differentiates is a reason to charge a crapton. haven't you seen all those crappy corporate apps? some companies will pay for a track record, and good for them/him.

Can someone please explain why when I zoom in with Chrome on this page the text size remains the same? I've never seen anything like it.

It's not about how much you can or will charge, it's about how much you've actually sold.

"im so great at coding because i've spent so little of my life doing it! that makes me better, qed"<p>huh?

Slightly O/T, but can someone explain why with JavaScript disabled this blog post is completely invisible?<p>I can't see any technical reason or understand why one would penalize NoScript users (like me).

what a douche

Well, aren't we a feisty bucket of crabs. (patio11 brought up this metaphor - and it's perfect.)<p>People, if you're here on HN, you spend a lot of time devoted to reading about the importance of confidence. That it's the entrepreneur's stock in trade. Hell, maybe you even write your own blog posts about the importance of confidence &#38; post them here, hoping for attention.<p>But what do you do when the chips are down and you come across somebody who truly embodies them? Clatter your claws and try to pull them back in:<p>"HA HA" "Oh so he's like Brad Pitt now?" "Wow, 2 app store hits, whatever" "Hope he likes having no clients!" "I would never hire him" "DOUCHE!" "What a jerk" "I'm gonna judge him just by this essay and assume that he has none of the actual qualifications or experience he mentions"<p>The power of belief-action congruity at work. Or not.<p>If you want to be successful, and you believe having confidence is part of that, then you better figure out of your words and your deeds line up. Because if they don't, you are never going to get what _you_ want.<p>Now, I've never charged $1k/hr... but almost. And if you return true business value, that is totally a reasonable number. Remember - it's all about the value returned. That's another HN belief, isn't it?<p>When I returned to consulting after two years in traditional employment, after many years of lackluster freelancing, I raised my rates from $80 to $200 to $250 to $300 to $400 and beyond. My last project came damn close to $1k/hr after all said &#38; done.<p>And you know what? My clients loved it. They kept coming back for more. They loved my work and thought the prices were reasonable, because there's nobody out there doing what I do in that price point.<p>(My only true competition in that space was Stamen - a mid-sized agency compared to little old me and my husband, an intimate 2-person team. Who competes with Mike Lee on what he offers in that blog post?)<p>I would keep raising my rates and I would have started talking about it, too, except that I don't want to consult any more. The more you charge, the more people need you, the harder it is to say no to projects that promise to put a quick $40k in your pocket.<p>The moral of the story is: most freelancers are lazy, unprofessional, with their interests completely divided, and have little to no real-life experience to back up their years spent coding in the basement. They undercharge, take on too much, and then produce merely mediocre work. They have no true value proposition other than a body that types the special arcane symbols, and asks the client the occasional question. They have no connections.<p>Believe it or not, there are many companies out there who will gladly pay for an experience that is entirely the opposite of that.

There are no testimonials on his website. Just saying.

I like how I have to allow his domain in NoScript just to see the <i>page text.</i> Not that the site actually <i>does</i> anything in javascript, as far as I can tell, besides pointlessly slow down page rendering.