Am I gonna get screwed on this? Do I commit or ditch this project?

[AlexanderTheG]

<div class="bbWrapper">Alright, here&#039;s the essence: Software as a service.<br /> <br /> I&#039;ve talked with personal trainers and noticed that there was a problem that software could fill for them. I talked to two of them in person really probing their brains to see if this was a big enough problem that I should commit several thousand dollars to in order to make software.<br /> <br /> After getting the green light from a lot of people I talked to (they visibly got excited thinking how much better it would make their lives), I did some research and realized <b>there is a ton of software that already exists more or less doing the same thing. However, none of them are &quot;mainstream&quot;. </b><br /> <br /> None of them are the de-facto standard that personal trainers use (since I guess it&#039;s mostly a freelance profession).<br /> <br /> So here&#039;s the question:<br /> <br /> <b>Do I make my product and invest 2-3k and assume I can market it / differentiate better, or start from square 1?<br /> <br /> <br /> </b></div>

 

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[thejanitor]

<div class="bbWrapper">I&#039;d say if there is a demand then there is a sale. Do a general analysis on other similar products and source reviews. Pros, cons, marketing etc. <br /> <br /> To me it sounds like you can easily excite trainers on this program, so if that is a case gear the software to allow a socially viral program that will create a need for other trainers to utilize. <br /> <br /> Build off of others strengths and weaknesses and then throw in innovation to give it that boost.</div>

 

[dknise]

<div class="bbWrapper">If you&#039;re going to do it, you&#039;re going to need to bring innovation to the table. It also needs to be entirely user friendly. I&#039;m not sure what you&#039;re offering up, but you could definitely extend your pitch from individual trainers, to entire gym franchises such as Gold&#039;s, 24 hour, LA, or Bally&#039;s. If you could land a huge deal with one of them, that could be huge.<br /> <br /> What is the $2-3k for? Are you a software developer or would you be outsourcing it? A $2-3k project outsourced would be reaaally small, so I&#039;d wonder how much value it&#039;s really adding.</div>

 

[AlexanderTheG]

<div class="bbWrapper">Dknise,<br /> <br /> The average quote I got on Elance was 1-2k. I would have to spend a lot of time interviewing these programmers to narrow them down as i&#039;ve never done this before. I&#039;m gonna use the same process most people use to hire app programmers for the first time.<br /> <br /> Why does price tag have to = utility?<br /> <br /> This is for version 1.0 the MVP -- after that, the updates and more features will come with the (ideally) money I&#039;ll be making from marketing it and getting users to pay a monthly fee.</div>

 

[dknise]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="" data-quote="AlexanderTheG" data-source="post: 237054" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=237054" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-237054">AlexanderTheG said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Dknise,<br /> <br /> The average quote I got on Elance was 1-2k. I would have to spend a lot of time interviewing these programmers to narrow them down as i&#039;ve never done this before. I&#039;m gonna use the same process most people use to hire app programmers for the first time.<br /> <br /> Why does price tag have to = utility?<br /> <br /> This is for version 1.0 the MVP -- after that, the updates and more features will come with the (ideally) money I&#039;ll be making from marketing it and getting users to pay a monthly fee. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>Well a $1k job to hire just one programmer means they&#039;re throwing less than a week&#039;s worth of resources at it, which means it&#039;s a really small task. There are beautifully simplistic ideas such as Instagram that provide value, but everything that goes on behind the scenes to make it that way is huge. If you&#039;re looking at charging a monthly fee, then clearly there is some backend database work and web service setup in addition to the front end UI.<br /> <br /> Just tryin to nail ya with the tough questions.<img src="/community/imgs/emoticons/em-wink.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-shortname=";)" /> If you&#039;re looking to get into hiring software to be written, as a developer, I highly highly highly recommend reading a book on software requirements.<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.amazon.com/dp/0735618798/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20" target="_blank" class="link link--external" rel="noopener">Software Requirements 2: Karl Wiegers: 9780735618794: Amazon.com: Books</a><br /> <br /> I believe the real purpose of the book is for project managers to nail down what needs to be made, but it falls on def ears if the people asking for the software don&#039;t know how to tell a dev what they&#039;re looking for! If requirements for a piece of software aren&#039;t nailed down before design and development, it&#039;s what we call &quot;dev churn&quot; which means dev resources were used to produce a piece that never made it to production because of a change in requirements. It ends up wasting a lot of the developer&#039;s time, and also a lot of the funding from the people who want the software made.o.0<br /> <br /> Best of luck! <img src="/community/imgs/emoticons/em-smile2.png" class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-shortname=":)" /></div>

 

[AlexanderTheG]

<div class="bbWrapper">Hey DKnise I really appreciate the response. I will definitely check that out, i guess I need to do more specific research to give the developer a better idea of what I actually need created.<br /> <br /> Well I guess the question then is, is 2k a ridiculous low sum of money? Am I fooling myself in thinking that a basic version 1 could cost 2k?</div>

 

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[PatrickP]

<div class="bbWrapper">Depends who is doing the work. There are quality programers in India who work for $10 an hour so $2000.<br /> <br /> So that is 200 hours worth of work. Is that enough to build what you need, I don&#039;t know that.</div>

 

[dknise]

<div class="bbWrapper"><blockquote data-attributes="" data-quote="Alexander]Hey DKnise I really appreciate the response. I will definitely check that out" data-source="post: 237477" class="bbCodeBlock bbCodeBlock--expandable bbCodeBlock--quote js-expandWatch"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-title"> <a href="/community/goto/post?id=237477" class="bbCodeBlock-sourceJump" rel="nofollow" data-xf-click="attribution" data-content-selector="#post-237477">Alexander]Hey DKnise I really appreciate the response. I will definitely check that out said:</a> </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-content"> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandContent js-expandContent "> Depends who is doing the work. There are quality programers in India who work for $10 an hour so $2000.<br /> <br /> So that is 200 hours worth of work. Is that enough to build what you need, I don&#039;t know that. </div> <div class="bbCodeBlock-expandLink js-expandLink"><a role="button" tabindex="0">Click to expand...</a></div> </div> </blockquote>johnp and I actually just talked about the cultural influence on work ethic in India on the speedway. You may only pay an Indian $10 per hour, but it&#039;s going to take him 3x as long.<br /> <br /> The full time guys I worked with at Microsoft who were from Mumbai had a crazy work ethic, but they agreed. The journalist Dinesh D&#039;Souza sums it up best in his reasons why he left for the US in that the caste system still alive there today discourages hard work for more reward.</div>