Show HN: Bootstrap your startup with high end gigs

So, I read the title and it looks AWESOME. Perfect! I thought. Just what I needed. A platform that obviates the need for me to seek funding.<p>Just to be taken through the application to be told on the last screen that they will be prioritizing startups that have gone through incubator programs.<p>That's very annoying and misleading.<p>Had I known that, I wouldn't have spent the time it took to fill out the 4 pages of application.<p>You guys should have been more upfront with that.<p>Other than that, this looks very promising - but you need to clearly articulate who you are looking for. Is it 'premium accelerated' startups? Or TRULY bootstrapped startups?<p>Not to poo poo on anyone's parade, but if you go through a startup accelerator that can be hardly considered 'bootstrapping'.<p>Edit: Also, do you guys pair up people? For instance, I am a single founder and I can do all the development - but I am not a designer. Can you guys supply a designer for me to work with?<p>Edit 2: Kudos on not adding (YC class number) to the title. I prolly wouldn't have clicked it, to be honest.

One more thought...going through the application process it seems like you guys might be going for an hourly rate.<p>As a single founder, I would much rather flat-rate projects. I don't have the time, nor interest, in tracking time.<p>I know what I want to make every month, based on the scope of the project I can generally tell how long that will take. So I can budget my monthly income that way.<p>So I hope that if you are going the hourly way, at least you have an alternative to bid on projects individually.

This is really cool, but is 2 days too late.<p>Last Sunday my co-founder and I published a page [<a href="http://bootstrap.getblimp.com" rel="nofollow">http://bootstrap.getblimp.com</a>] to get gigs in order to bootstrap our startup. So far we got a few good leads for jobs we can do on weekends without taking time off the startup.

Services work for startups? Services is a distraction to startups. Also, if I wanted to go that route, I could get my own services work or use an agency. Am I missing something here, guys?

This is genius. Great idea! We took contract work to pay for an employee at my last startup and it worked out pretty well (until they stopped paying). He would work for them ~2 days a week, and that would cover his salary for the whole week. Basically, we got a free employee 3 days a week + his input and expertise.<p>Although this approach is a little bit distracting, it can be much less distracting that raising capital and dealing with bad investors. I would recommend it to any early stage startup.

How do you source your gigs?<p>Having quality clients is as important as having quality developers.

Very, Very interesting concept. This is very much what I've been thinking of doing with my new company rivvir.com. Thanks for verifying the business model!<p>Seriously though, my focus was on doing something like this to cultivate the Houston Startup scene(there isn't much of one yet but there seems to be simmering pot and few really good start ups.) Blog posts here:<p><a href="http://www.rivvir.com/blog/" rel="nofollow">http://www.rivvir.com/blog/</a>

We did this at my first startup and it worked really well. However, it's also really useful to be able to just pimp out one of your teammates. For instance, on our team, one of the guys had much more serious of a resume than the rest and could easily bill at $150/hr. That supported 2 of us full time and himself part time... Adding individual contracts would be great as well for that purpose.

I love the idea of getting gigs without having to go get them myself. Can single person devs shops apply too?

Serious question:<p>As a client, why would I want to hire a team that I <i>know</i> is focused on something else? I don't want my project to be treated as a means to an end for the startup to achieve their dream.<p>How are you going to address this kind of apprehension?

Many great bootstrapped startup do this, but who has the time to solicit new projects. This solves a huge problem. Nice work guys.

Hey guys, we just launched a platform to match top startups with high end projects. We're focused on supporting startups that would rather take on a short term consulting gig than raising a round of funding. We'd love some feedback. Thanks!

What if we went through an incubator, but it didn't work out (company dissolved)?

Will it handle teams out of the US?