#idea-validation Hi indie hackers.
#idea-validation
Hi indie hackers. I have been lurking around here for a while and this is my first post. I have been brainstorming building a product development as a service company called HashSquare labs. The idea is to offer custom product development services at fixed cost and bring transparency and predictability to the product development life cycle.
In order to achieve this, I envision a web portal and mobile apps that will provide a way for non-tech founders to get estimates, communicate with our project managers, and track progress on their project in one place.
So what are your thoughts on this? Looking forward to hearing from you.
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Sounds scary to offer development services at fixed costs, it could all to easily bankrupt you.
Hey Rosie. Thanks for your response. So the fixed cost model is decided based on specific requirements. We can be flexible on requirements change within reason, but the price would obviously change if the requirements shift too much.
So.. have you worked in a similar area before... I'd love to know more about your experiences..
My experience in tech is that things are always changing...hence it sounding 'scary' :)
Hmm.. That is true. So we plan to have enough overhead to accommodate small changes. But bigger ones need to be accounted for.
So this part need not be that scary. Have you worked with such companies before? What are the pain points and what do you think can be improved?
I get the value proposition for the customer, but what is your plan to do it better or different than any of the thousands of established dev shops out there? Many agencies give you a fixed quote, pending (inevitable) change in requirements.
Hi Roman. Thanks for your response. I have been working at one of these established dev shops for a while. One thing I clearly saw was the lack of transparency for the client. I am envisioning a web portal with an interface for the client where he can get quotes, talk to our engineers, keep tabs on his progress, and make milestone payments.
What are your thoughts? Also, what in your opinion can be done better to stand out in this crowded industry?
It's a tough problem to solve. Software development gets messy. A product naturally goes through iterations. How often do you see a one-and-done? Even when we work on small personal side projects, things change. I don't know the answer. If I were you, I'd ask myself: What's my "unfair" competitive advantage over the others? Have you figured out something they don't know yet? Also, having been on both the agency and client side, how often do engineers talk to the clients? I've mainly seen project managers do that. Otherwise it may as well be UpWork, where you just pay a dev(s) a one time fee to build you something. Hope you figure something out!
Hi Roman. You've raised some good points. Ideally I am envisioning providing a seamless customer experience. If I were a non-tech founder, I would want building software products to be as simple as buying a pizza. And we envision to make it that simple by providing quick estimates, transparent communication, and progress tracking within the portal itself.
And yeah the clients will be talking to project managers, but they would ideally be from an engineering background. That's what I meant.
Being on the client side, would you choose an agency over another if they provided you with this level of transparency? The customer experience would be exactly like upwork. But instead of dealing with potentially unreliable freelancers, they would be dealing with a team of experts.
I would be open to it. However, every vendor I've chosen in the past has been based on a trusted referral. You would have to run the numbers and find out if you can generate enough from those to make it worth your while. And then start by finding your first customer.
Hey Roman. Thanks a lot for your inputs. I am currently finding customers on Upwork, and building a team from that revenue. Would you mind me sending you a mail when we launch the website in a few months? Would love your feedback.