Ask HN: The Care & Feeding of Your Developer

8 points by whogivesashirt 15 years ago | 10 comments

Hi all,

I'm one of those creative types who has app ideas, but can't speak any digital languages. From harried dealings with my Comp. Eng. pals, I've learned that any developers I'm likely to consult with look at projects in a far different way than I do.

I'm wondering if you all can help us "ideas" types

1) Teach us how to present our ideas in a manner that is useful to the programmers,

and

2) Suggest tips for n00bs on sourcing our first developer.

amitklein 15 years ago |

It sort of depends what you are looking for: a partner or someone to execute?

* If you are looking for a partner describe your big vision, your near term goals and how you you are thinking of implementing them. Ask for suggestions, make sure you both believe the big picture and talk through the details.

* If you just want someone to build your vision give as much detail as possible. Show wireframes/designs of every screen with annotations.

I also like using product backlogs to define the functionality for projects. Make a list of every feature ranked by priority. Ask your tech partner to fill in the difficulty for each item to help you prioritize.

whogivesashirt 15 years ago | |

Your first point raises the question of how to approach someone with an idea, when I don't necessarily have funds to back it up. Is there an accepted protocol for this? In spending time on this site, I've noticed that's a pet peeve of most developers.

amitklein 15 years ago | | |

I think you have to be able to convince someone why you will be successful. Most people want to see traction and idea validation before they join something (especially if there is no cash up front). Is there a way you can demonstrate that without the product?

IanDrake 15 years ago |

On #2 - Start small. I'm a developer who outsources work too. Picking a dev isn't easy for me either. You really need to pick a small unit of work to start with. Then, if you like what you see, have a slightly larger unit commissioned, and so on.

Handing the entire project over to a developer you're not 100% sure of might be the single worst mistake you can make.

whogivesashirt 15 years ago | |

Thanks for your response.

One of my irons in the fire is an iOS game. Can you give me an example of how these get carved up into work units? This is exactly the kind of thinking that is fuzzy to someone like me.

IanDrake 15 years ago | | |

Sure. Obviously you need a graphic artist for the visual assets, but that you can start small too.

First determine the game's flow. Typically I see: App Icon (click) -> Splash Screen (wait) -> Top Level Menu (click) -> Low Level Menu (click) -> Game Play (up to you)

If you want to get comfortable with your dev resources, start by giving a graphics designer an overview of the project and say you want a splash screen, app icon, and top level menu, with more work to come.

Here you'll need to help the designer understand who your target market is. Do some research into your market so you can guide your designer. For instance a dungeon game for teens might be dark and edgy, whereas a game with Puppies Pillow Fighting™ might use light pastel colors and look cartoon like.

Then get a coder to create a shell of an app using those elements. Sure there's no game play yet, but it will get you started with short money.

Now you have an app that can be tested, it has an icon, pauses on a splash screen and then displays a menu. After that, you should have a good feel for how to interact with your resources. Are they responsive to communication? Did they deliver what you asked for? Did they meet their own budget and time estimates? Were the deliverable work?

Again, be upfront with budget. For the dev resources, you should know how much they charge per hour. Then ask how long it should take to develop the assets. Make it clear that they're only to bill you up to the estimated amount.

Then give them check-in points where they stop work and contact you for feedback. For instance, tell the designer to start with the splash screen and show you a rough draft along with the amount of time spent developing it (so you know how much of your budget is left).

This limits your loss if you don't like them, their concept, or their work. After four hours you can decide if they're heading down the right path.

Developers are more difficult because partial software doesn't do anything. So, get your designer working first, while that's going on you should be finding a developer. Once you have the assets from the designer get the developer to create a shell of an app using them.

Now for minimal money you should have an app that loads on your phone and a set of dev resources that you've proven you can work with. From there you just keep the overlapping dev cycle going. Designer is working on cycle 2, while the developer is working on cycle 1, and so on. At the end of each cycle you should have a working app with which you can judge their work.

This method is slower and perhaps slightly more expensive in the long run, but it can be less risky than handing over 20-40K to one company and hoping you get what you want in the end.

whichdan 15 years ago |

Spend some time looking into how software contracts are written - they're usually very verbose/explicit and will outline exactly what the programmers need to do. It's also helpful if you can sketch out your idea on a piece of paper, if you have an idea in mind.

creativeone 15 years ago |

Good post. I'm in the same boat as you are.

In parallel to my current project, I have begun learning Python. Hopefully my next project I can be the lead developer.

oceanician 15 years ago |

Story boarded Ideas are good.

whogivesashirt 15 years ago | |

Excellent point. Storyboarding certainly helped. It also helped me realise how I was thinking in big pictures and my developer pal preferred the mechanics.