I’m creating a new thread, but this is sort of a piggyback off of Agatha’s post for Offshore contractor recommendations. To make a long story short my developer came on board as a contractor/potential co-founder. Unfortunately, he had some personal issues that came up and couldn't continue with the project. So at this point, I have a partial Beta site built in Django that isn't functional. I’m looking at a few different options, but funds are tight ($3-$5K) and I need to get the beta up and running.
1. Referrals to trusted Django Developers (Probably offshore, due to the budget) that could possibly get it done within my budget and preferably within the next 1-1.5 months. I have the wireframes and technical requirements at least from a UX side.
2. Being a non-technical person, I’m looking for advice, based on what’s been completed, my wireframes and requirements list. I’m trying to figure out whether the remaining features and design of the site could be completed within my budget. I understand everyone is incredibly busy and the primary point of this post is the referrals, but if you can help I can send you the documents.
Here is a quick overview of the project:
MyGigline solves the communication problem of available resources for military, veterans and their family members. It’s a social information network that personalizes the military journey by tailoring events, services and special programs according to an individual’s location, needs and interests. While not nearly this complicated right now, one of the easiest ways to describe it is a hybrid of StumbleUpon and Angie’s List for the military.
As for the features, it’s a multi-sided platform where military members can interact around valuable content from government services, nonprofit organizations and military-friendly businesses. For the Beta site we are focused mainly on members and nonprofit organizations and provide a place for them to create profiles, as well as post, find and save specific events, services and special programs (resources). While our main goal is localizing these resources first, we would possibly include some of the personalization in the Beta. Basically, members would discover resources based on their personal interests and the preferences (tags) they select when they create their personal profile.
Obviously I have much more detailed feature lists, but hopefully it gives the general idea. Thanks in advance for your suggestions and help!
Everyone,
Thanks so much for the support and advice. Just to quickly reply:
Jon Chin--Thanks for the referral and I completely understand detailing the project requirements and setting milestones.
Ed Pierce--It seems the message never came through
David Rossellat--Great article on the different type of outsourcing websites and I'll check out Off-Shore
Jonathan Vasco--I can't agree more with all of your advice. However, as you probably very well know developers, especially ones who are willing to work for equity are in very high-demand. That number even dwindles some more, due to the niche market I'm working in at this time. I'm going to the meetups, reaching out to folks on FD, etc, but if your interested, I'd be happy to discuss more:). What I've come to realize is that many developers often like to see a semi-tested business model, something already built (even if it's thrown out later) and proof that there is some traction. At this point I've done much of the face-to-face customer development, I know my market, and hope that the beta helps me get that proof of concept to continue recruiting those valuable team members. Also, thanks for the other advice on talking to local dev companies.
Best,
Mark