Putting together a web dev team?

kwerk

kwerk

kwerk

Wise Guy
Soldato
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If you had funding and an office space and wanted to start a team to develop random startup ideas, how would you go about it? Say 3 or 4 people that can cover everything to build solid scalable website from hardware, sysadmin, database, backend dev, frontend dev, etc.

Payroll, contracts, insurance, legal and all that.
Knowing what kind of devs you actually need?
Where to find them.
How to get a good one
How much to pay them
etc etc

I suppose you would need a consultant or something first who can do all that, but then where do you find one of those?
 
I can put that together, but it'd cost you about £600 per day just for me.

Before the "lolkwerks" roll in, it is a bit daft just trying to create a think tank and hope you strike gold. Actually have an idea you think will work first.

I'd also suggest as a startup you soley live on the cloud, dont invest in your own infrastructure. Developers are crap at building and maintaining hardware but they are fine at creating automated systems that can deploy to the likes of Amazon Web Services.
 
I'll sort out the getaway cars..........

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It's generally useful for this sort of startup to have a few folks with the basic skills to start off then cover your weak spots as needed. I'm sure it's doable completely from scratch but you then have a bunch of people without much personal investment beyond a paycheck to getting things in shape.

If you have mates in the field, start by putting a few ideas past them, if not, best of luck.
 
You'd be silly to get a team together just to develop random startup ideas. Start on your own, if you get interest then start hiring. That's how a lot of these indie game developers did it.

As above, you'd be silly to get a team together just in the hope that you might strike gold.
 
JBod said:
I can put that together, but it'd cost you about £600 per day just for me.

Before the "lolkwerks" roll in, it is a bit daft just trying to create a think tank and hope you strike gold. Actually have an idea you think will work first.

I'd also suggest as a startup you soley live on the cloud, dont invest in your own infrastructure. Developers are crap at building and maintaining hardware but they are fine at creating automated systems that can deploy to the likes of Amazon Web Services.
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Well I already have a couple things I work solo on and have funding offers (well in to 6 figs) from some of my clients. It's getting too much to handle by myself now and I want to step it up a notch but barely have time to even research how to start. I want to finish off these 2 projects and then build 2 more concepts I have with the money the first are 2 are generating.
 
Craig321 said:
You'd be silly to get a team together just to develop random startup ideas. Start on your own, if you get interest then start hiring. That's how a lot of these indie game developers did it.

As above, you'd be silly to get a team together just in the hope that you might strike gold.
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Ignore the ideas part. I want to know the nuts and bolts of getting such a thing up and running.

Hypothetically if you had some office space, a half rack and a gigE port, and salaries for 3 people for a year... what mudane technicalities would you do next? Look in the yellow pages for a business consultant?
 
kwerk said:
Hypothetically if you had some office space, a half rack and a gigE port, and salaries for 3 people for a year
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A rack and gigabit network is far from the first priority for setting up a business (particularly a business with just 3 employees).
 
Can you code?

If you could write the applications yourself, given enough time, then you should be able to judge whether an applicant knows what he's doing at interview. Likewise you'll have the beginnings of an estimate of the work required.

If you can't code, you need to find someone else to vet applicants. And assess whether the project is feasible. And work out how many developers with what skill set would be required. Oh, and find people who are willing to work for a boss who doesn't understand the mechanics of putting the project together.

The legal stuff isn't too bad - various small/medium law firms will handle that either cheaply or free for a startup which looks like it may succeed. Basic accounting too. The business model is that some of the startups do very well and are unlikely to bother changing law firm.

How much to pay is difficult - it could be anywhere from minimum wage to a few grand a day, depending on how good a developer you need and how willing they are to work on your project.
 
Surely the massive advantage of a business like web development is that you can start with almost nothing - just one or two of you - using your own PC's or laptops, working out of your house and contract in design where needed. Why buy expensive assets and office/hardware costs until you're off the ground?
 
kwerk said:
Well I already have a couple things I work solo on and have funding offers (well in to 6 figs) from some of my clients. It's getting too much to handle by myself now and I want to step it up a notch but barely have time to even research how to start. I want to finish off these 2 projects and then build 2 more concepts I have with the money the first are 2 are generating.
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"Well into 6 figs",
pmsl, that should keep you running for a good few weeks!

I work for a software startup of 8 engineers, manager and the CEO, we burn through about $1.6 million USD a year.

A standard engineer is going to be on $75-120K pa depending in area in the US. Managers are at $110-150k. You then have to pay accounts and secretarial fees.

You then typically multiple salaries by 1.5x at least to cover expenses, taxes, pension contribution, benefits, health.

Add in the lawyers and legal fees. E.g. Getting a patent can cost you $10-15K

Throw in bussiness consultants, marketing, specialist advisors, conference/trade show fees. We are having a stand at CES, getting a booth is something like $10k, we spent another $10k getting professional marketing and video promotional work.


You then have office rental, our office is $9k a month and we are in a very cheap area of the US.
 
D.P. said:
"Well into 6 figs",
pmsl, that should keep you running for a good few weeks!

I work for a software startup of 8 engineers, manager and the CEO, we burn through about $1.6 million USD a year.
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1.6 million USD is still a 6 figure sum in pounds sterling. Not really sure of this point, hes already said that it will just be 3 people that he wants to hire, not 8 developers.
 
richthomuk said:
1.6 million USD is still a 6 figure sum in pounds sterling. Not really sure of this point, hes already said that it will just be 3 people that he wants to hire, not 8 developers.
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It matters little, he has no clues on the costs of running a startup. If he had close to a million gbp then he would state it as such. Besides which Kwerk is based in the US
 
D.P. said:
"Well into 6 figs",
pmsl, that should keep you running for a good few weeks!

I work for a software startup of 8 engineers, manager and the CEO, we burn through about $1.6 million USD a year.

A standard engineer is going to be on $75-120K pa depending in area in the US. Managers are at $110-150k. You then have to pay accounts and secretarial fees.

You then typically multiple salaries by 1.5x at least to cover expenses, taxes, pension contribution, benefits, health.

Add in the lawyers and legal fees. E.g. Getting a patent can cost you $10-15K

Throw in bussiness consultants, marketing, specialist advisors, conference/trade show fees. We are having a stand at CES, getting a booth is something like $10k, we spent another $10k getting professional marketing and video promotional work.


You then have office rental, our office is $9k a month and we are in a very cheap area of the US.
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I don't need engineers I need like a web/js guy, a python guy (besides myself) and maybe a lighttp/mongo or whatever admin guy. How much could that cost 50k each? The office is only $800/month with room for 4 people, inside a modern bank building, shared conference rooms, receptionists, fiber, etc. it's quite nice. Then hosting is about $600/mo for 6 servers I currently use, then $300 for sendgrid. So its less than $2000/month to run everything currently.
 
kwerk said:
I don't need engineers I need like a web/js guy, a python guy (besides myself) and maybe a lighttp/mongo or whatever admin guy. How much could that cost 50k each? The office is only $800/month with room for 4 people, inside a modern bank building, shared conference rooms, receptionists, fiber, etc. it's quite nice. Then hosting is about $600/mo for 6 servers I currently use, then $300 for sendgrid. So its less than $2000/month to run everything currently.
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Someone on 50k is £4k or so a month before tax...

kwerk said:
Ignore the ideas part. I want to know the nuts and bolts of getting such a thing up and running.
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Well that's just silly. What if you get yourself a bunch of uncreative people, or even a bunch of creative people that just can't think of something that's actually going to sell? Massive money sink hole potentially.
 
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kwerk said:
I don't need engineers I need like a web/js guy, a python guy (besides myself) and maybe a lighttp/mongo or whatever admin guy. How much could that cost 50k each? The office is only $800/month with room for 4 people, inside a modern bank building, shared conference rooms, receptionists, fiber, etc. it's quite nice. Then hosting is about $600/mo for 6 servers I currently use, then $300 for sendgrid. So its less than $2000/month to run everything currently.
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Stop thinking of physical equipment, just put your service(s) in the cloud it can support everything you need and have reliable monthly predictable costs without any lengthy contractual obligations.

I'd recommend 2x Devs and 1x Sysadmin/webops.
 
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