What does it take to partner with a programmer?

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I have, what I think, is a great idea for a new website application (others I've talked to agree with me and they're not all my mom) but I have no programming skills.

Because of this, I have a job listed on Rent a Coder to see if I could find someone to hire to do it with me. My biggest concerns about this are:

1 - I don't have tons of cash laying around to pay thousands to get this done. I'll be able to make it work but I'll have to really stretch.
2 - I have a long-term plan for this which will include adding functionality for many months (years?) to come. I worry about finding a programmer through a site like that who will stick around for the long-term so i don't have to find a new person every time I want to add a button.

In an ideal world I'd have a good friend who was a programmer and I'd partner with them for part of the profits. But, since my world is not ideal that's not an option.

I know that programmers are approached all the time (as are all service providers) with pitches to program a site for free in exchange for a cut of the profits. What I'm wondering is, do any of them actually do it and how do those deals work? Do they get paid a portion up front and have the rest deducted from their % of the income or do they just do it all for free and pray? And, more importantly, how do you go about finding those folks who are willing to take the chance?

If anyone has any experience with this I'd love to hear about it. And, of course, if any programmers would be open to a partnership, please hit me up.
#main internet marketing discussion forum #partner #programmer
  • Hello there the deal between you and the programmer would be just that,between you guys.It really varies on how you will split the profits.As far as finding someone to partner with,start here in the JV Section,also check out Partnerup,and Linkedin.You may also find someone interested in your proposition at websites like Rentacoder. Whatever you decide to do make sure you have a business plan before you approach them.
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    • Banned
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    • In my experience we made some agreement that he will have a certain percentage on the profit since giving him a monthly fee is not appropriate because my business at that time was still growing. It worked well for us.
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  • If you are going to have to reveal your business model or if the business model is obvious from the description that you'd have to give to the programmer then chances are that you'd end up loosing the idea to them, if it is a money maker.

    If the programmer doesn't see it as a good idea they probably won't work for free unless you sign a sort of agreement that you'd pay them anyway.

    If programming is all that is required to build it and you are not gonna have to do anything, how would you expect a programmer to share profit?

    IMO no matter how good the idea is it always require lots of marketing at startup, which would cost some money too, so make sure you consider that too. Don't expect that just having a website will bring heaps of customer or even just casual visitors. But if you are well versed in IM you can probably start off for free to very small marketing capital.
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  • From my own experience the typical programmer stop to listen there.

    ps. Of course, if you are somehow related, taking part in the same community (like WF) it could be different.
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  • In any partnership (with programmers or others), it helps if the person knows you -- either you've built a relationship with that person or you've built a reputation in the niche.

    That's because a partnership of this kind requires a great amount of trust. We've all done JV's where one of the partners has flaked and wondered off. Your potential programming partner is the one who's going to put in ALL of the upfront work, time, etc. Really, you're not risking anything. So if you flake on your end of the bargain, the programmer is going to be the one who stands to lose the most.

    You can see why trust is important.

    Which brings me to my next point...

    Your starting point is to find someone you trust who trusts you. And then put everything in writing. Make it a legal agreement about what each of you are expected to do and what happens if you don't uphold your end of the agreement.

    Cheers,
    Becky

    P.S. It also helps if you have a track record of bringing products to market and making them successful. Otherwise, again, the programmer is taking a risk on you.
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  • Thanks everyone for sharing your thoughts. Obviously I'm not going to go into details here but what i have in mind is a tool for affiliate marketers. It would be offered in conjunction with something else I've already been working on for a few months so the marketing plan and everything is in place. There is a similar product in the marketplace but it's much more limited in functionality and doesn't have the additional resources that will be available through the other part of the project.

    Argh. It's so frustrating not having this skillset sometimes.

    Thanks again all!
  • Thanks Becky,

    I can definitely see how trust is a major factor. It goes both way. They have to trust I'm going to do what I say and I have to trust that they're not going to take my idea and run with it. I've been burned once before in partnering with a programmer. We decided to do some services swapping and after I provided my end of the bargain (a detailed site review and full marketing plan for his site) he disappeared leaving me with a 1/2 customized site filled with mods using his proprietary code. Ugh. Very frustrating.

    So yes, I get the trust thing.
  • If you think about it, what would be the one reason that a programmer might not want to partner, on a share the profits deal?

    If you wonder why they might not, it is because 90 percent of the time there are no profits and programmers see this over and over again, they know the chances that you will make a sizable amount of money selling a service, is very little.

    So they just wont do it, that is why they want the money and not the profit because most of the time, there is no profit, that is just the way it is,

    Dont shoot the messenger,.
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  • @ Tim - Don't worry, I'm not going to shoot the messenger. I was aware of what you said so it's not a surprise. I posted this thread mostly because I was curious about how other people have done it.

    When it comes down to it, I think I'm just too new in the industry. I don't any relationships formed with these kinds of resources so the trust thing can't happen. I've been getting lots of bids on my project though and, for the most part, they haven't been too scary. I also spent the last hour IMing with my attorney and he's interested in the idea and has offered to back me financially to get it rolling. This has a few benefits the first one being I don't have to worry about him snaking my idea because the man can barely open his email.

    Maybe after this product is successful (knock on wood) it'll be easier to find people to partner with.

    Thanks again everyone for your thoughts and input.
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    • I've worked with programmers for a very, very long time.

      two things have helped a lot - chocolate and patience. Chocolate wasn't my idea. Another writer came up with it. But patience is the biggest factor. They work on their own timeline - even at the corporate level. CEO's try to push and they just break the whole thing.

      So, i would say that you need to have the following things:

      • Good business plan
      • Good marketing plan
      • Good BUDGET
      • Good legal advice
      • Good analyst - you need somebody that can analyze exactly what the software is supposed to do and how it will do it. Otherwise, you will be coding blind, which can take a lot longer and cost more money.
      • Good testing!
      I would actually go with the analysis first to see if the project is actually unique and competitive. I've seen guys lay out hundreds of thousands of dollars on a startup. If the idea is unique enough and good enough, you might be able to find somebody to code it for shares. But, you have to remember that the code has to be maintained. If you don't know how to do it, your programmer will also have to provide that service, or you will have to find someone to do it for you. If you have no background in software development and don't know anything about coding, I would say you are risking a lot unless you hire someone who has a very trustworthy background.
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  • The only ships that sink are.... partnerSHIPS. Just tread carefully. I have been stung by partnering in business with someone who I didn't previously know that well. I was too trusting and naive. I'm not saying it can't work but you really need to cross all your t's and dot all you i's. Each of you needs to know that the other is capable of their role and are also likely to see the project through.

    Also, outline the deal / arrangement solidly so there is no confusion at a later date. This includes shares, milestones and tasks.

    I would say though.... learn how to program yourself :-)
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    • This would be the ideal solution and I know some basics but my brain just doesn't work that way. I know enough to tweak stuff but the thought of starting from scratch gives me hives.

      Thanks for the thoughts
  • I'm a very experienced software developer and I get approached with ideas like this all the time. Others in this thread have shared some excellent points already and hopefully my take on it will help you see it from the programmer's point of view a bit better.

    I'm not saying all of these points apply to your situation. This is just my experience.

    - People fall in love with their ideas and forget that other people can't see inside their heads. In your mind it may be a vast pirate ship but in reality it's still two planks of wood you nailed together in your garage.
    - Everyone always underestimates how difficult the programming side of it is. "It's easy when you know how" ignores the blood sweat and tears of thousands of hours in front of a computer screen learning our craft.
    - So many people approach me with an idea and think that's enough. It's not. Success is 99% about the execution. Ideas are a dime a dozen.
    - What do *you* bring to the table? If your idea can be stolen just like that then you bring nothing to the table with it.
    - What is your background? A good software developer can show you the stuff he's built as proof of his skills. If you bring XYZ to the table what evidence do you have to support that? Just claiming to be the marketer is a poor cover for "not a lot".

    *Disclaimer* I'm sure a lot of those things don't apply to you. The mere fact that you're asking the question in an intelligent and polite way puts you ahead of a lot of the people I've had approach me.
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    • Man, I LOVE software development with a passion. I wish technical writers weren't dead in the water!
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  • Andy, I do actually know what you mean. In a former life I was a financial planner. Whenever I'd tell people that they'd invariably start pounding me with questions and conveniently ignore the fact that up until 2 minutes ago I was enjoying a nice glass of Pinot Noir.

    So, while it's not the same, I do understand the theory of people thinking that just because you have a skill you should use it for free to help them.

    BTW, I don't think I mentioned this earlier, but when I was initially thinking about the whole partnership thing it was more along the lines of me paying someone $1500-2000 to do the initial development and then cutting them in on the profits to cover the ongoing development all the time knowing it wasn't enough to cover the initial effort they were putting in but hoping it would be enough incentive to get them motivated. That way if it did fail at least they got *some* compensation. I would never expect that someone would be willing to put that much effort in for free (because I do recognize it's a lot of effort) unless they were related to me in some way and I could lay a guilt trip on them.

    As it is, I'll just launch in phases that will come more slowly as I'll be financing them out of my pocket. Which is fine. It will give me plenty of time to get feedback from beta users on what functionality is most important.
  • Introduce him to attractive women trust me he will become your best bud lol
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    • First, people need to stop thinking about the "programming" part. That's analagous to looking for someone to pound nails into wood to build a house.

      Speaking of building a house ... suppose you decided to build your ultimate dream home. What do you do first?

      Of course, you sketch out a rough drawing of it, then you head over to the nearest Home Depot or Lowe's to get building materials, stopping along the way to pick up some day-laborers, right? When you get to the store, you show your crude drawing to your "crew" and tell them you want them to build you your dream house. You can't really afford to pay them right now, but when the house is finished and you re-finance it in three months, you'll give them each 2% of the mortgaged amount.

      This sounds pretty darned silly to most people, since they have some experience with shopping for homes, and perhaps even what's involved with custom home building. It might work for a small project like hanging a mirror or replacing a toilet. But anything more than that and you're likely to get hosed.

      But it's a PERFECT analogy for how people go about getting software created for them.

      It doesn't work any better in terms of software development than it does for building homes ... or anything else for that matter.

      If you want a custom home, the FIRST person you hire is ... an ARCHITECT. Then you spend several months refining the design, choosing materials, making financial trade-offs between cost of materials, their availability, their cost to actually use them, etc.

      Then there are zoning issues, licensing issues, permits, forecasting, scheduling, .....

      and ALL of this needs to be addressed BEFORE you dig your first hole, pound one nail into a piece of wood, or pour the first drop of concrete.

      Why do people think that when it comes to custom software development, all it takes is a paragraph or two outlining your idea and a "coder" you found on a web site where you're shopping for "lowest bidders"?

      And people wonder why the landscape is littered with failed software projects! HA!

      ** to the guy who suggested that the programmer might steal your idea ... trust me, if programmers knew how to market and sell stuff, they'd be doing THAT instead of programming!

      WARNING: the biggest risk of working with programmers from countries like India, Pakistan, Southeast Asia, and Eastern European countries is not that they'll steal your stuff and sell it. There are three closely-related risks, actually: (1) they'll post it all over the web on warez sites; (2) they'll use somebody else's code in your "custom" project without telling you, putting you in the position of distributing software that infringes on somebody else's copyrights; and/or (3) saying the work they did for you is yours and then turn around and use YOUR code in a project for somebody else without telling anybody.

      To these people, it's not "stealing" or "theft". They have been brought up in a cultural atmosphere where intellectual property cannot be "owned". To them, you're paying them to paint a picture for you -- with emphasis on the "painting" part, not the "for YOU" part. Before they hand it over, they make a bunch of copies and use them for other purposes. It's just how they do things. You hired them to paint -- that's what "painters" do.

      Cooks "prepare meals". Painters "paint". Programmers "program". If they find something somebody likes, as in a very tasty dish, they just prepare more of the same for other customers! It's as simple as that.

      -David
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    • What makes you think *I'm* not an attractive woman?
  • There's a saw in the software world that when you think you are 80% done, you are actually only 20% done.

    WHY?

    I believe it is because "done" to many people means that the basic functionality of the program works.

    Which would be fine if EVERYONE followed the path exactly, had the same computer, the same OS and the same version and the same everything else.

    Unfortunately, they don't.

    Which brings up the problem of what should happen in the program when something unexpected happens (they run out of memory; they run out of disk space; the file they are trying to read is corrupted, they push this button instead of that one in an unexpected sequence. Every software q.a. person has heard this excuse from a developer "but NO ONE would EVER do *THAT*!" Wanna bet? )

    So, then comes the hard, and far less glamorous job of making the program robust, and able to handle exceptions.

    The problem is, for the person hiring the software to be done, they don't have much of a notion of all the various kinds of things that could go wrong.

    So, "good programmers" practice "defensive programming" (and, unlike defensive medicine, in the long run, it should save you, not cost you, money.). And that's where the rest of the 80% of the effort of writing a robust program comes in.

    But, not only is it not as glamorous, it's also far less understood, and doesn't get the respect it deserves. Hence, the software industry invented software quality assurance. So that someone would make a robust product. (You see, there's also another saw in the software industry: the cost of fixing a bug grows logarithmically the later in the development cycle where it's found. For instance...it's a lot cheaper to fix a software bug if it's found before it's ever in a customer's hands. Once it is, it's not only more expensive (and more embarrassing) for the developer to fix it -- but also more expensive for the customer -- because they have to take the time out to upgrade the program to the latest version.

    Ain't software fun?

    Some of it is. Some of it isn't.

    Live JoyFully!

    Judy Kettenhofen, Copywriter, Software dudette, Marketer's Geek
  • Thanks Zap, Will and Save for your input.
  • As a developer, my point of view is this... If you are a marketer, then prove it to me first and then I will code your project for free and allow you to keep 100% of the profits.

    If you do not understand what that means then contact me and I will explain, only if you are serious....

    James
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    • ha! I'm the exception queen! I used to drive my developers nuts writing specifications covering every exception known to man. But my apps didn't fail!

      Don't hire an architect unless you can pay a minimum of $100,000 for development! Those dudes are expensive and I don't think you'll need an architect just to develop one software package. If you were going to develop an entire online site, yes, you would need an architect.

      Uh....

      Don't believe James....
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  • No I said I will code for "FREE" just you have to prove to me you can market first. I require no payment at all... Prove to me you can market and you will have what you want.. It's that simple.

    Please do not assume what people will do and will not do, especially people you do not know. Not being rude but I posted an actual option for the OP and yes I have some very highly developed scripts online. I do NOT use open source code, I custom code everything...

    James
  • I'm a programmer and marketer. As a programmer...

    ideas are a dime a dozen, I'd want money or proof you could do your half of the partnership which I assume would be marketing. Just having the idea as being 50% wouldn't work.

    ideas are everywhere, you'd need to offer more than just the idea for me to be interested in working for something other than cash upfront my 2c
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    • In terms of partnering with a programmer, my advice would be if you find one who:

      * meets their promised deadlines most of the time...
      * answers your emails in a timely manner (within 2 days -- not 2-3 weeks)...
      * can actually do the job that they say they can (not overstate their abilities)...
      * will agree to "stay on" and provide tech support for the product they code for you...

      ... then grab them fast before someone else does. Because you're looking at the exception to the rule.

      I've tried to do business with easily 2 dozen different programmers and many of them just left me with empty promises and an overall bad experience. (Note: I'm not talking about any of the programmers who have posted in this thread prior to my post. I haven't done business with any of them so I have no opinion on their professionalism or skills to offer.)

      Tried all of the major outsourcing sites... personal referrals... you name it. 90% of the time, it was a bad experience.

      I'm not talking cheap programmers either. I'm a professional copywriter who doesn't work for cheap because I offer my clients high-quality sales copy and customer service... so I look for the same from anyone who I hire to do work for me.

      Sorry to sound like the naysayer but if you're looking to find a programmer to partner with, then you best be prepared to do an extensive search and interviewing process.

      My 2 cents,

      Mike
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    What does it take to partner with a programmer?

    I have, what I think, is a great idea for a new website application (others I've talked to agree with me and they're not all my mom) but I have no programming skills. Because of this, I have a job listed on Rent a Coder to see if I could find someone to hire to do it with me. My biggest concerns about this are: