Looking for 3rd founder Programmer/Small investor (All details/pics inside)

[Gold777]

Hey guys,

My friend and I are looking for either a programmer or someone who can hire a programmer to join our project. We can handle the design/marketing/press, etc. I could actually also get the programming done but it may be quicker/easier if I can find someone on here who's interested who may have more time than the guy I would recruit otherwise. Also may be a cool opportunity to make a new friend.

Well anyway.

TaskPinner is an online service that makes it easy to get help for your computer/software related needs, by aggregating a wide variety of virtual personal assistants (aka Geeks), allowing you to compare quotes, and choose according to your needs.

There's a quick concept design/mockup I made, (currently in the process of outlining the other pages too).

If you want to come on board, send me a quick PM and we can have a friendly discussion. Designs will be coded fairly quickly once I hand the mockups over to my designer, and it won't to difficult to get a programmer.

IF you're going to steal the idea, then please let me know ahead of time so that I can kick it up a notch in order to outperform, and out-market your version .

If you have any questions just ask, thanks.

 

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[Gold777]

Also, if you right click the imgur pictures and open up in a new tab you can zoom in and it will show their full size. I don't know why they're so small on this page.

Anyhow, here's the user dashboard I just made a mockup of:

And here's the browse page:

This may be my last time bumping/updating this, have confirmed with designer that designs will start being designed in just a few days. I'll have all the mockups done within a few days as well. If no one here wants to come on board I'm going to stop updating, or if anyone's interested in seeing the progress and process of this, well then I may keep updating, if not, I don't care. Will contact my go-to programmer within a few days if no one here hits me up.

- Gold

 

[AndrewNC]

Have you done any validation of the idea yet to see if this is a service people are going to pay for?

 

[Gold777]

Have you done any validation of the idea yet to see if this is a service people are going to pay for?

I probably should remove the "pricing" button from the nav bar. There isn't a flat-rate price, the users are individual contractors and we'll just receive a % of what taskpinners charge. Yes I've received feedback and validation for that.

 

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[The-J]

Cool idea. What separates it from oDesk, Fiverr and eLance?

 

[Gold777]

Cool idea. What separates it from oDesk, Fiverr and eLance?

Thank you.

Well take a look at some of the categories, what do you see? eLance, oDesk, and Fiverr are places to hire people for jobs that often require a specific skill-set developed by an educational background, and that's perfectly fine. However, upon scanning eLance/oDesk for social media management jobs, I see nothing of that specifically (although I know several people who have sought that job or offered it).

Let me list a few of the jobs I've seen posted instead for "Social Media Management" on these sites:

• Existing CMS Web Site needs a simple redesign
• Ruby on Rails developer needed for a website
• Website development and monthly SEO maintenance
• CMS Portal development
• Senior project manager
• Business development manager

My point is, what do ANY of those have to do with social media management, and why isn't "social media management" a category/sub-category on their site? Well probably because they're underestimating the market, and also you can't really have a degree in "Social Media Management".

Or what about computer hardware troubleshooting/installation. Who makes a posts on eLance or oDesk that says "I smelled burning wires coming from my computer so I shut it off. I need someone to come down to my house and take a look at it, and repair it," ?

No one, those are the types of markets we're targeting. The markets that aren't common on eLance/oDesk, but have a big demand and can be done by people with stronger experience than educational background in that particular field. Take TaskRabbit for example, if someone on there posts a task that says "I need someone to clean my grill, will pay $30" well when they get there with the supplies what are you going to do, request their educational background and degree in cleaning grills? No that's something that mainly comes from experience, TaskRabbit doesn't even require you to have any degrees to become a "Runner" on their site. You fill out an application, submit a video interview, and they perform a background check, then you're free to apply for any task you have experience in/can complete.

That's the type of approach we're taking but we're targeting only the tech/virtual assistance market, except in-depth. TaskRabbit does this too but on a smaller level with less organization. An example task on TaskRabbit that you will see on our site as well, that you would never see on eLance/oDesk is "Read my novel and tell me what you feel - $107". Or "Crop pictures of cars for my website - $30".

They're just not common on eLance/oDesk because those sites are mainly focused on work for certified professionals, and there's just some (or actually quite a few) jobs/tasks you can't be a certified professional for.

I think that gets the point across and hopefully it answered your question.

As far as Fiverr... lol, they're honestly not even in our radar, there will be hundreds of tasks on our site that no one would accept $5 for completing.

So to summarize, what separates us from eLance/oDesk is that we emphasize tasks that doesn't require you to have a degree or be a certified-professional in.

 

[Gold777]

Design process has officially started.

 

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[theag]

what separates us from eLance/oDesk is that we emphasize tasks that doesn't require you to have a degree or be a certified-professional in.

They dont require that either.

 

[PatrickP]

I am not understanding.

So Task rabbit DOES have listings for the things you are going to have people do?


And what if Odesk decides hey we will add the sub category of Social Media Manager doesn't that really hinder a good portion of what your site is doing?

 

[Gold777]

They dont require that either.

Yeah but the people doing the hiring often do.

I am not understanding.

So Task rabbit DOES have listings for the things you are going to have people do?

They have listings for SOME of the things, not all. Also as I said it's very unorganized/general, I think there's a lot of tech savvy people out there who prefer to use a platform that solely focuses on their strengths and needs.

And what if Odesk decides hey we will add the sub category of Social Media Manager doesn't that really hinder a good portion of what your site is doing?

Not if we're already gaining traction, and even then that's just ONE sub-category, so it wouldn't be much to worry about.

 

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[Mike39]

How are you monetizing this? Are you charging per lead, or the geeks work for your company, or you take a cut of the purchase?

 

[Gold777]

How are you monetizing this? Are you charging per lead, or the geeks work for your company, or you take a cut of the purchase?

We just take a % of the purchase, the percent is undecided as of right now but I'll have those numbers soon. First, I'll need to factor in a few things such as hosting, etc, and then I'll choose the % accordingly. Of course we'll probably end up adjusting it based on customer feedback as well.

 

[theag]

We just take a % of the purchase, the percent is undecided as of right now but I'll have those numbers soon. First, I'll need to factor in a few things such as hosting, etc, and then I'll choose the % accordingly. Of course we'll probably end up adjusting it based on customer feedback as well.

Your customers will want a 0% fee, you dont have to ask them about that. And hosting costs are negligable these days. What you have to look at is customer acquisition cost (will be VERY expensive in such a saturated and competetive market) + operating costs (mainly salaries) + profit.

 

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[Milkanic]

So you are going to give up equity to someone that can hire developers? I really don't understand why you need to bring someone else into this or how this took two people in the first place. Write the requirements and hire someone on odesk.

 

[1PercentStreet]

So you are going to give up equity to someone that can hire developers? I really don't understand why you need to bring someone else into this or how this took two people in the first place. Write the requirements and hire someone on odesk.

Yeah, this would really only take me 3-5 days to get together myself at the longest. Getting it developed, no more then 3-4 weeks. Not sure why you'd give equity to anyone else. I like control.

 

[Gold777]

Your customers will want a 0% fee, you dont have to ask them about that. And hosting costs are negligable these days. What you have to look at is customer acquisition cost (will be VERY expensive in such a saturated and competetive market) + operating costs (mainly salaries) + profit.

I absolutely agree, those are the things we'll need to take a look at. However even if customers do want a 0% fee, I can't really see that happening. It may be a 0% fee at launch but eventually we'll have to shift to fees, and I think taking a cut is better than charging a flat rate fee, and there definitely won't be any ads on the site so that's not an option. Thank you for the feedback, I appreciate it.

So you are going to give up equity to someone that can hire developers? I really don't understand why you need to bring someone else into this or how this took two people in the first place. Write the requirements and hire someone on odesk.

Truthfully I have everything I need, I just thought it would make things more interesting if we could bring a third brain in to help with product development. One of the things we strive for is producing a smooth user experience

Yeah, this would really only take me 3-5 days to get together myself at the longest. Getting it developed, no more then 3-4 weeks. Not sure why you'd give equity to anyone else. I like control.

I'm not the control-freak type, as long as I own the majority owner then I'm satisfied. I don't mind giving up extra equity, as long as the ones receiving the equity are contributing significantly to the project and work well with the team.

 

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[1PercentStreet]

I'm not the control-freak type, as long as I own the majority owner then I'm satisfied. I don't mind giving up extra equity, as long as the ones receiving the equity are contributing significantly to the project and work well with the team.

You will not be saying that if you're about to sell for $3million and your share is only $1million.


Also, what is to stop me from gaining equity and then just not working on anything?

 

[Gold777]

You will not be saying that if you're about to sell for $3million and your share is only $1million.

Trust me, I'd be a lot happier with $1 million out of $3 million than you think, that's more than enough to live comfortably and work on another low cost project with high potential.

Also, what is to stop me from gaining equity and then just not working on anything?

A legally binding contract with a list of clearly defined expectations, and also a year long cliff period with a few years vesting .

 

[Milkanic]

I just bought taskpinner.com - I'll sell it to you for $1000.

Just kidding, but you might want to snag that domain.

 

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[Gold777]

I just bought taskpinner.com - I'll sell it to you for $1000.

Just kidding, but you might want to snag that domain.

Haha yeah, will do.