How to find someone for a custom website (geography-based)

[Philip Marlowe]

Hey guys - I'm trying to understand what's involved in building a custom website. The functionality would be a membership site that connects people by geographic location. Many sites have this functionality for everything from dating to babysitters - you're looking for someone local.

I prefer iterative development to some grand waterfall scheme that gets me a "finished" product a year from now. I also want to meet in person and I'm near a metro area so that should be no problem.

Any ideas on where I even begin? I assume that this type of website isn't particularly complicated, but that if I want the flashy paint job and spinning rims that's where the costs increase? I've checked a lot of web design firm 'portfolios' and have yet to come across what I'm looking for - everyone just seems to do modified Wordpress sites.

This is all part of my initial planning and due diligence so thanks for humoring me.

-PM

P.S. - After I wrote this post I realized it's probably similar to @MJ DeMarco and his limo business (in the type of location-focused website I need - not the business area).

 

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[Leo Hendrix]

Post a job on upwork, try similar sites possibly.

I'm not sure if there is a similar progress thread already on the forum, but you should test out the dev first.

Sounds like you are looking for a web developer NOT a web designer.

 

[Leo Hendrix]

Sorry I just saw you want to meet in person, well post on craigslist, local tech fb groups, twitter, people you know + any networks and meetup.com Google + & LinkedIn might have someone or a team as well.

 

[Mr Fox]

I'm a web developer with over 4 years experience, 2 of which were spent in freelancing.

Building a website with this functionality is not hard, I'm actually currently working on a project that has this geolocation feature for casino bonuses.

Finding a good freelancer or agency is not particularly easy, since the good ones are usually full and have very high prices. Most agencies use Wordpress because it's still the best CMS solution out there and you can tailor it to the projects needs.

Besides sites such as Upwork you could look for web devs through Linkedin, but it's still going to be a hustle. You need to look quite a bit to find a reputable agency or decent web developer since most are already working for someone and you have to 'steal' them or catch them at the right time.

So my advice is this: Be as concise as possible with what you're trying to accomplish and approach as many devs/agencies as possible and ask them for a quotation. If it fits your budget ask them for a portfolio and if they worked on a similar project before. If the answer satisfies you then there you go, you found yourself a good lead.

Here's an advice: whatever timespan they estimate for you, tell them you spoke to a friend and he said it would take (their time estimate - 20%) tops.

Hey guys - I'm trying to understand what's involved in building a custom website. The functionality would be a membership site that connects people by geographic location. Many sites have this functionality for everything from dating to babysitters - you're looking for someone local.

I prefer iterative development to some grand waterfall scheme that gets me a "finished" product a year from now. I also want to meet in person and I'm near a metro area so that should be no problem.

Any ideas on where I even begin? I assume that this type of website isn't particularly complicated, but that if I want the flashy paint job and spinning rims that's where the costs increase? I've checked a lot of web design firm 'portfolios' and have yet to come across what I'm looking for - everyone just seems to do modified Wordpress sites.

This is all part of my initial planning and due diligence so thanks for humoring me.

-PM

P.S. - After I wrote this post I realized it's probably similar to @MJ DeMarco and his limo business (in the type of location-focused website I need - not the business area).

 

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[awanrmb]

Just additional tips when you first time hire the web developer, don't give him full specs...
Test with little functionality in short period of deadline to see if he can meet the deadline and have the skills.
It's a waste of time waiting if you trust some developer and time goes by there's no progress or he deliver something with full error messages.

Goodluck!