Finding part-time help for a start-up

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bpriceless's picture

Trying to get a start-up company going based on a drupal web site. What is the best way to find part-time, work for equity, super smart developers? I know the web dev market is good for everyone right now, but aren't there a few techies still interested in the risk/reward of pre-funded start-ups? Help

Comments

The best, if not the only way

highermath's picture

The best, if not the only way is to get involved with the community. This is not something that you can do overnight. Once folks know who you are, there is a chance that they will listen to your pitch.

I would agree; there is a

bradjones1's picture

I would agree; there is a glut of startup-owners who are making the same pitch as you, with too few developers to go around. While I'd love to have stock options in Facebook - now staring down a billionaire-overnight scenario - I am content with my regular income.

While I'm sure your idea is great your pitch is not helped by the many other folks on the market whose ideas are (frankly) not. Also keep in mind what you are looking for is essentially a CTO, which is a skillset broader than just development.

Good luck and I look forward to seeing you at a UG meeting soon.

Students / Recent Grads?

adriandahlin's picture

I'm a semi-technical startup founder, so this is a question I ask often as well. What do you all think about taking on a student part-time or someone straight out of college? You can usually find a talented programmer who is willing to learn Drupal. You take on some risk with someone who doesn't have a Drupal-specific track record, but these kids can be really cheap and have a big potential upside.

Based on a client experience

pcher1bw's picture

You are training someone, who will immediately jump ship when he graduates, unless you are planning to pay big bucks as soon as he graduates.

One of my clients had a CS student intern as his primary developer, as soon as the student graduated he jumped ship leaving the project hanging.

Paul Chernick
CEO
Chernick Consulting
(310) 569-2517

It depends...

magi182's picture

It depends upon the student. If you acknowledge that the person's life is in transition, if you don't mind that the person doesn't come fully-formed, it can be a great experience.

We regularly hire student interns to work on client projects. I wouldn't put them on high-value, long-term work, but for smaller projects, students can be a lot of fun, and a breath of fresh air with new ways of doing.

Depend on the business

vanderland's picture

Without giving us the whole idea could you tell us a little bit of what is the business about? I understand if you can't.

christefano's picture

Asking developers to commit to providing good work in exchange for equity is a risky deal for both sides. We get asked about this often enough at Exaltation of Larks that we have a blog post about it:

   http://www.larks.la/articles/equity-partnerships

I agree completely with highermath's comment above. If hiring from the local Drupal user community, it's wise to get to know folks in the local community and make it easy for them to get to know you. There's an interesting discussion in the LAPHP group on LinkedIn about why developers stay away from recruiters:

   http://www.linkedin.com/e/4vurj4-gzhprl2m-1f/vaq/26321472/1833081/715937...

Meanwhile, there are many well-established ways to get involved. For example, we have a Drupal job fair coming up in Los Angeles in a couple days:

   http://groups.drupal.org/node/275138

You're welcome to contact us about attending and exhibiting. We won't turn anyone away and have sponsorship levels between $100-$1000.

This job fair is FREE for job seekers. Check out our page on Droplabs.net for a recent testimonial from someone who was hired at one of our previous job fairs:

   http://droplabs.net/events/2013/01/28/los-angeles-drupal-job-fair  

Community barn raisings and sponsored hackathons

christefano's picture

Also at Droplabs, the local community gets together on occasion to work on sites for startups, open source projects (like COD) and non-profits as a "barn raising" — a one- or two-day event where volunteers get together for a hackathon.

Sometimes the companies or organizations that benefit from it pays for food and maybe the venue but not much else. These are designed as teach-and-learn events and naturally attract more beginner and intermediate developers than senior developers.

If this kind of community-oriented development is something you're interested in, talk with any of the organizers at Drupal meetups you go to, or contact Droplabs at http://droplabs.net/contact to see if they're interested and if it can be put on the schedule. (Our next barn raising is on February 2nd and will focus on the Otto coworking space management system.)