Thread: How To Get a LOCAL Programmer Dirt Cheap...

One of the most talented developer/IT professional I've ever met came out of a trade school.

His brain is wired differently, I swear. The guy can grasp concepts on no time flat. And his code is amazing.

In my experience, this is what happens when inexperienced programmers take on major projects:

Originally Posted by The-Truth

Alright, so there you have it !


Here Is What I Want YOU to do.... Do you need a designer/developer/programmer? If yes, why not go local to retain more control and get it cheap by hiring acollege/university student? … exactly


So then, how are you going to attain one? Tell me your plan on getting that local talent for cheap !


Here is an example:


For entrepreneurs that are just starting out / who are possibly in university: Just do exactly what I did. (note: it helps that I go to the university because in the students head we have something in common already and I am part of their community, so they are willing to trust me more (yes I just gave you a brief lesson on psychology )


For Very Busy Veteran Entrepreneurs:You could get your family or friends involved. Know anyone in your family that goes to university or hangs out with people that do? Why not ask them to get you 5 stellar candidates for $50 bucks … give them criteria and tell them that the 5 candidates have to meet it or else they don't get the $50.


I hope this post helped and I can report my experience with the students I will interview if you wish.


Of course, if you have any more questions/concerns or requests, I am more than willing to answer all of them.


The Truth Has Spoken → ( Yup I just went there)


P.S. If You Are A Web Developer In Toronto, Hit Me Up

I'm a programmer, I've been programming since middle school. I studied Computer Science at a University here in Georgia. I don't think your idea is a good idea...It's just plain weird. And the guys who say "you get what you pay for" are right!. Oh and you don't need to spend 50 bucks at all. Just go to the....Oh I don't know.... Information Technology, Computer Science, Computer Engineering departments or buildings....most of the students in those buildings at any given time are on that particular "track" (programming, web development...software engineering, network administration). But the problem with your method is this: most of those students have no "real world" experience developing a product that is actually used by people. They spend 99 percent of their time writing code for to answer an exercise out of a textbook somewhere not designing entire systems and applications. Trust me, it's different! They THINK they know what they are doing but they usually don't. But they do know enough to sweet talk you and wow you with their technical buzzwords! You can find cheap programmers but they are going to be among some of the most cocky and inexperienced programmers among the bunch. They can hack together a system that "works" (for a few people) but internally when you look at the code it's a complete mess of weirdness and security flaws. Stop being cheap. Don't base your business on some 19-20 year old self proclaimed whiz kid fresh out of high school...You aren't slick, you think you are getting quality work cheaply but they are just building a piece of sh*t that will stay glued together long enough for you to pay them their "weed/video game/new computer/Beer" money.

You are better off persuading someone who's been out of college for at least a year or two (had time to work on actual projects). And you won't look like a pervert on campus with a fist full of 50 dollar bills! Better yet, hit amazon.com or some free resources and learn to program yourself ( This alone will help you interview programmers and weed out the bullsh*tters and the liars ).

PRO TIP: There are plenty of experienced programmers willing to help you and also looking to get into the fastlane (but they may want some ownership in the site..or dare I say it..respectable pay..which is perfectly fine) but don't try any of this slick crap.

P.S. - I can tell by the way you wrote your post that you'd definitely be the type to fall for those inexperienced developers who are "all talk" and you will be out of tons of money before you ever get version 1.0 out the door!

lol, well had you read my post you would know that I wasn't saying pay the programmers $50 but if you are a busy entrepreneur to get kids to FIND programmers for $50. Thanks for replying without reading the post....


Also, I have learned basic programming and I interviewed about 50 people .... and the programmer that's doing the work is doing it without me paying a dime unless I am happy with the work



Just to update everyone since I did start this thread:


- I ended up hiring a guy from the Philippines, and the main reason was that he gave me a great idea for the website that no one else had done.

He went above and beyond to impress me, as he made a mockup the day after I interviewed him without me even asking for it.

- I got him doing the work without me paying him unless I am happy with the work

- He had a great portfolio and he's young and has a lot of passion about what he does. This was key as my gut told me I had a winner and I got him for a good price due to his age.


I did not end up going local mainly because I couldn't find a right fit. We shall see what the final product looks like, and if it's no good... well i don't have to pay so no harm done really.

Thanks everyone for contributing and sharing your opinions

It's much appreciated

Originally Posted by fastlaneCoder

I'm a programmer, I've been programming since middle school. I studied Computer Science at a University here in Georgia. I don't think your idea is a good idea...It's just plain weird. And the guys who say "you get what you pay for" are right!. Oh and you don't need to spend 50 bucks at all. Just go to the....Oh I don't know.... Information Technology, Computer Science, Computer Engineering departments or buildings....most of the students in those buildings at any given time are on that particular "track" (programming, web development...software engineering, network administration). But the problem with your method is this: most of those students have no "real world" experience developing a product that is actually used by people. They spend 99 percent of their time writing code for to answer an exercise out of a textbook somewhere not designing entire systems and applications. Trust me, it's different! They THINK they know what they are doing but they usually don't. But they do know enough to sweet talk you and wow you with their technical buzzwords! You can find cheap programmers but they are going to be among some of the most cocky and inexperienced programmers among the bunch. They can hack together a system that "works" (for a few people) but internally when you look at the code it's a complete mess of weirdness and security flaws. Stop being cheap. Don't base your business on some 19-20 year old self proclaimed whiz kid fresh out of high school...You aren't slick, you think you are getting quality work cheaply but they are just building a piece of sh*t that will stay glued together long enough for you to pay them their "weed/video game/new computer/Beer" money.

You are better off persuading someone who's been out of college for at least a year or two (had time to work on actual projects). And you won't look like a pervert on campus with a fist full of 50 dollar bills! Better yet, hit amazon.com or some free resources and learn to program yourself ( This alone will help you interview programmers and weed out the bullsh*tters and the liars ).

PRO TIP: There are plenty of experienced programmers willing to help you and also looking to get into the fastlane (but they may want some ownership in the site..or dare I say it..respectable pay..which is perfectly fine) but don't try any of this slick crap.

P.S. - I can tell by the way you wrote your post that you'd definitely be the type to fall for those inexperienced developers who are "all talk" and you will be out of tons of money before you ever get version 1.0 out the door!

fastlane coder i agree with you but also disagree at the same time... as far as looking like a perv on campus.. thats your own hangup, were business men here ill do whatever i have to do to accomplish certain tasks in my life, get over it, its smart and strategic not creepy.

Second thing i do agree is yes you can fall for a kid who knows little or is a "robot" who has learned from school and has no real world experience. But i have found that within the first time i did it i have got someone who showed me a site with massive traffic. The kid is good...really good, its as simple as that. The head of the computer science department said this kid is really good, i still had online friends who run big sites review his code which said hes great so after that come on you just have to run with it.

Most developers wont agree and thats fine but its there own hangup and a disease of knowing TOO much about their industry and not focusing on business that leads them to believe it needs to be perfect.... you do not need to launch out of the gate with a perfect system. Build whatever, grow it, redo it later, its called "cross that bridge when you get to it".

Thats like me going out to buy and 18 wheeler to run a few shovels of dirt. No you'd buy a piece of crap pick up truck and see if it was worth it and expand as you go. Think about it, haven't you seen terrible systems making alot more money than some really well developed sites? Too many programmers discourage people and scare them into thinking they need to do things perfect. Again, make a junk site, if you make $5,000 re do it again, as you build up and see it working then get the perfect guy to do it and pay him well.


I have had scalability/security issues for sure from bad coders, its true no doubting that, and it was a nightmare/headache fixing it and redoing things all the time but it doesnt matter, if you make money you can do whatever you want to do, otherwise i would have been waiting around harping on scalability rather than focusing on how to build a business.


1) There are some really good computer science school and bad ones obviously the approach will change accordingly.

2) Do not learn how to program right now....see if your any good at making money online first before you waste your precious time doing something that youll never be as good as fastlane will be anyway.

i think zendolphin said it once...Oh man my car is having issues and breaking down.... i better go learn how to be a mechanic now...

You can either open a mechanic shop because you know how to work on cars ( dont do that, read the E-myth) or you can hire guys because its an emerging market and be a business man, your choice.

I have no hangups with either pervs or 50 dollar bills, that's just the way I talk , If you were standing face to face talking with me the comment wouldn't be an issue at all for anybody here (you'd know just from body language/tonality..etc).

I agree with you you can find some good ones, and the department heads and faculty know who they are and they'll tell you (and you wouldn't have to pay them anything...you could probably just get their emails from the campus directory(ies) or their department web page. I have yet to see a page that didn't have that information listed! They are usually eager to find jobs and such for their students because it looks good for the university and the Department! I still get emails from my professor about potential jobs...

From personal experience, it's not that they know too much but they tend to over complicate things. That is just in their (our) nature....they specialized in solving technical problems so they dig through and over analyze the technical aspects of the business while the actual money making aspect goes neglected. This is a COMMON problem. I remember being in college and I'd have 5 or 6 computer science classmates and friends around and we'd be thinking about startup ideas....In mere minutes we'd completely left the business aspect alone and started talking about Scalability, Database backends, encryption, Server side languages and frameworks, server platforms (linux,windows)...IDEs (netbeans,eclipse..etc)..why? Because we were just nerds and that's where we naturally gravitated.

But you are dead on the money about just starting with something basic and redoing it and adding to it as necessary. People in the CS community are just starting to figure that out. If you noticed, for the longest time software/websites have been all about "features"..AKA how many bells and whistles can we cram into this release? This is why you're word processor has half a bajillion feautures that you'll never know about/use without taking some kind of course. Now they are all about simplicity and usability....and it's starting to pay off!

Originally Posted by theBiz

fastlane coder i agree with you but also disagree at the same time... as far as looking like a perv on campus.. thats your own hangup, were business men here ill do whatever i have to do to accomplish certain tasks in my life, get over it, its smart and strategic not creepy.

Second thing i do agree is yes you can fall for a kid who knows little or is a "robot" who has learned from school and has no real world experience. But i have found that within the first time i did it i have got someone who showed me a site with massive traffic. The kid is good...really good, its as simple as that. The head of the computer science department said this kid is really good, i still had online friends who run big sites review his code which said hes great so after that come on you just have to run with it.

Most developers wont agree and thats fine but its there own hangup and a disease of knowing TOO much about their industry and not focusing on business that leads them to believe it needs to be perfect.... you do not need to launch out of the gate with a perfect system. Build whatever, grow it, redo it later, its called "cross that bridge when you get to it".

Thats like me going out to buy and 18 wheeler to run a few shovels of dirt. No you'd buy a piece of crap pick up truck and see if it was worth it and expand as you go. Think about it, haven't you seen terrible systems making alot more money than some really well developed sites? Too many programmers discourage people and scare them into thinking they need to do things perfect. Again, make a junk site, if you make $5,000 re do it again, as you build up and see it working then get the perfect guy to do it and pay him well.


I have had scalability/security issues for sure from bad coders, its true no doubting that, and it was a nightmare/headache fixing it and redoing things all the time but it doesnt matter, if you make money you can do whatever you want to do, otherwise i would have been waiting around harping on scalability rather than focusing on how to build a business.


1) There are some really good computer science school and bad ones obviously the approach will change accordingly.

2) Do not learn how to program right now....see if your any good at making money online first before you waste your precious time doing something that youll never be as good as fastlane will be anyway.

i think zendolphin said it once...Oh man my car is having issues and breaking down.... i better go learn how to be a mechanic now...

You can either open a mechanic shop because you know how to work on cars ( dont do that, read the E-myth) or you can hire guys because its an emerging market and be a business man, your choice.

you could probably just get their emails from the campus directory(ies) or their department web page. I have yet to see a page that didn't have that information listed! They are usually eager to find jobs and such for their students because it looks good for the university and the Department! I still get emails from my professor about potential jobs...

i tried this actually but didnt work out for me, not sure if it was purposely or they were just busy but i would try that first agreed.

From personal experience, it's not that they know too much but they tend to over complicate things. That is just in their (our) nature....they specialized in solving technical problems so they dig through and over analyze the technical aspects of the business while the actual money making aspect goes neglected

Yes this is very true, it gets to the point where you have to be like ok this is our to do list, just do it, otherwise it could turn into a scalability free for all with nothing actually getting done except me losing money.