Hey, I'm one of the programmers working on this project. We actually have a feedback form ready to go, we just ran out of testing time before the launch today. We'll be pushing that change in the next couple of days.
He seems to argue that you can build a more robust application from the ground up. In my limited experience it's the hand rolled applications that are and out hand and unstable. A major advantage of a good framework is that it does force you to stick to it's conventions which typically follow best practices.
As for the barrier of entry I found that learning a framework is like learning a new programming language to a certain extent and to really take full advantage of the framework you need to know the underlying language as well. It seems the barrier of entry is actually raised by frameworks.
All of my current client projects are hourly. I typically give them an estimate so they have a ball park figure and then bill hourly and update them as the project progresses. This seems to work out really well.
The only downside that I see so far is that as you get better as what you do you tend to get quicker as well, which in an hourly arrangement means you make less. You can always raise your rates as your experience grows but for previous clients it can be hard to explain.
It's crazy how many of this type of post are showing up everywhere. In the past couple weeks I've seen 4-5 posts on what founders did wrong or right with their companies.
It must be nice to be past all that and looking back on it to glean the lessons. Can't wait to get there.
Yikes! "Work hard, play hard..", there has to be a company that can do better than that cliche. Other than that, it sounds like a cool company to work for, as far as start-ups go.
