I always make the client prove the business case before I work with them. I have zero interest in building toiletware.
That said, I had a conversation today with a client who has a fun, cool idea that it is going to be very hard to build revenue on and very hard to market. He's 46. He's been an employee all his life. He's poised for a mid-life crisis. Guys like this either get a mistress or an MBA. What I told him is that this is going to be cheaper than an MBA, so probably we should just build the damn thing.
This is a detail but both of your testimonials are from people in the same state. That's better than none but the fact they are both from the same place makes me suspect one is your wife and the other is your accountant. Solicit real user feedback you can use to build your testimonials - bribe people with an iPad contest or whatever if you have to!
Actually, doesn't YC suggest you not incorporate when you partner or launch so that if you apply for and get into YC, they can help you form with their preferred structure?
Someone is going to have to show me an assesment of the true liability exposure of a website with no personally identifiable user data, no financial information, and presumably no personal assets to collect against before I'm convinced that's not a perfectly sound initial plan.
We formed a partnership agreement, no incorporation, FWIW. The agreement is binding.
I'm a web designer by trade. While I think I have a good innate layout and design sense that I've been working since the days of print, I certainly do not believe it can't be learned. If your goal is to produce product, though, you have to consider if there's a long term time/money benefit to learning. I license layouts from Theme Forest and icons Graphic River for clients all the time when budgets are tight and money is an issue. There's no shame in it. It's very efficient and in the right hands, effective.
For me the biggest advantage is that they do backend stuff as well, which since that is God's most tedious job, is a real bonus. It is so much easier when you have somewhere to start.
Are these typically equity relationships, and if so, how much?
While you have good links on how it can work when they are, they don't need to be. Good people are generally nice and want to help. The tech community can be very tight like that, in a good way. A lot of people will give you their time for the asking, with nothing in return except the satisfaction of paying it forward and helping to nurture a promising startup.
If you;d like to contrast the MailChimp "shiny on the outside, shitty on the inside" experience with a direct competitor, log into Campaign Monitor. It is comparative bliss. I am also a fan of the outside, as it happens - its a nice site:
Try Plendi.com - snapshot receipts with your iPhone, it goes up and is entered by an actual person. Then you throw out the reciept - it's fabulous. You or your accountant just downloads them to do expenses at the end of the year. It integrates with other accounting packages too.
We have a three person startup with one programmer, one design and marketing person, and one "other." The "other" person on the team had the original idea, pays the dev bills, and is our primary non-technical tester.
We value all three partners equally - literally and figuratively. Sure, we could outsource the code, or outsource the design, or decide no idea has value if you can't build it yourself, but that is just not how we are constituted as people. We're very comfortable with our configuration.
I am so delighted you like this idea! With the caveat that all business models are pie in the pixel sky until they aren't, the idea we've been building toward is this:
Membership is free. A number of themes are free. Other themes are not free, and are $5 (or less) each. (Tumblr does themes this way and we like it.) You can use any theme you buy for as many of your events as you like.
We are not clear if people will simply buy each theme as they want it or will buy credits to spent on themes ala iStock and Envato marketplaces. The credits model seems to have a lot of advantages. With credits, you could also gift the themes to friends for occasions, which is nice.
We will likely also have a premium membership model that lets you upload video, create slideshows instead of having a static main image per event, and gives you archival cloud storage of your original uploads. This would be $20 per year or less. Premium membership will likely come with some credits, too.
I'd be very keen on feedback about this if you have any thoughts.
All PHP files (with WP code) must be distributed with a GPL license. Images, stylesheets, and JavaScripts do not need to be and can be sold commercially.
I think that's idealisitic. I design websites for startups and small businesses, pretty much all of whom are broke. I also spend a lot of time helping them with their online marketing because very few 3rd parties can provide those services inside the kinds of budget my clients are working with.
Do I like doing PPC campaigns? No, I sort of hate it but I do it because the clients I love need it and there isn't anyone else to do it. I wish more of them would get better at doing their own newsletters well, too, but I also want a pony and that isn't happening either, so I do monthly emailings for the clients who need them because I want them to do it right.
Am I passionate about PPC and newsletters? Hell no. But I am passionate about these people and these companies so I do it cheerfully because it's part of my job to do the tedious and annoying stuff that supports all the other work I love to do. I don't think that's pitiful; in fact I am pretty sure that's exactly the way it's supposed to work.
I realized I only enjoy software if I'm building what I want to build or something that interests me.
You know what? It's called work because it isn't fun. Most people do a day job to pay the bills. It's part of being a grown-up and it comes with commitments and responsibilities that yeah, sort of suck a lot of the time. Even if you're lucky enough to do something you love for a living (and I am) it isn't passionate enthusiasm all of the time.
If you can contract on the side with projects you're passionate about or build your own projects, that's how a lot of people stay engaged with the work. If you don't want to be a software developer at all, though, college seems like a good option only if you're going back to find a new area you're genuinely enthusiastic about.
That said, I had a conversation today with a client who has a fun, cool idea that it is going to be very hard to build revenue on and very hard to market. He's 46. He's been an employee all his life. He's poised for a mid-life crisis. Guys like this either get a mistress or an MBA. What I told him is that this is going to be cheaper than an MBA, so probably we should just build the damn thing.