Hey guys,

This thread is for anyone that is familiar with hiring and/or being hired as a developer/programmer.

So I’ve put together specs for a location-based app and I’m planning to interview developers in the next week.

The specs are fairly simple - 3 screens with the main screen showing locations near the user, the distance from the user, and how many people are there.

I’ve received a range of offers from multiple freelancers, however I’m not technically inclined and so I don’t think I can make an informed decision as to who would be best for the job.

I plan to either hire another freelancer to help with selecting/interviewing potential candidates (catch 22) or get as informed as I can and use my best judgement.


Do you guys have any advice or suggestions on qualities (or red flags) to look for in a programmer?

Also, what are some MUST ask questions I should keep in mind while interviewing?


As an example, one developer who I’m considering mentioned:

-this project would take an estimated 120-160 hours

-he would use Swift and Objective C for the front end (this sounds ok, but curious about back end and database technologies he would use)

-he’s willing to use any project tracking tool I’m comfortable with (any suggestions?)

-he would use Git or Bitbucket for management/delivery of the app


I welcome any and all advice

The first thing you should ask is who is doing the design (what it actually looks like) of this app. Do you already have a design in mind?

If you don't have a design, spend a lot of time looking at their previous work or portfolio and if you like it, who created the design. How did they choose to make it look the way they did?

If a programmer is doing his own design work, you need to be very careful about expectations on how it should look and operate (unless you don't care).

If you post all of your specs here, someone can help with the hours estimate.

For an iphone app, Swift is standard. Are you ever planning to also launch on Android? If so, there may be multiplatform issues to consider.

For their capabilities, you want a list of all apps they care to show you in the app store. Download some. Do you like them? Will you be comfortable receiving something of the same quality? Read the ratings/reviews. Actually read some of the reviews. An app could be rated 2.5 stars because dummies are out there trying to use it in an unintended way. Or sometimes ratings are low just because an app has ads despite it functioning exactly the way it was intended.

You probably don't need much project tracking for such a small project. Maybe a spreadsheet would be good. Take each screen as a milestone maybe?

On the backend, be careful of anyone who tries to sell you their "solution". It is likely they could give you a generic backend either BaaS or a pile of code that you can take and install on another server if you want to. Bottomline is you don't want to be at your developer's mercy on the backend for the life of the product.

Git w/bitbucket is standard. Make your own account for that and have him deposit it there.

Lastly, hire me.

Yes I've put together the specs already so I'm mainly concerned with the developer creating what I've put together

I'm having trouble getting the image posted on here, but in a nutshell I'd like the main screen to be similar to the main screen of the bravo app, but:

- instead of showing casinos, I'd like it to show basketball courts
(I'd prefer the most efficient, cost effective way but what I'm thinking is the app takes the users location, queries a database, and returns the results sorted by proximity)

- instead of showing the # of tables, I'd like it to show the # of people at that location with the app open

- Also, the bottom inch of the screen would display banner ads

There would be 3 buttons:

- the refresh button that refreshes the users location and subsequent data

- a button that takes the user to a screen with just text (this is the 'About' screen)

- a button that takes the user to a text box where they can enter feedback (a 'send' button on that screen would send their message to an email address)

- Also, on the 'About' and 'Feedback' screens there would be a 'Home' button to bring the user back to the main screen.


That's a good question. Ideally yes but I'm not sure how that affects things, what should I be considering? I have limited knowledge, but I thought Phonegap could be used for this.
The short answer is I'd prefer the app to be developed for both platforms but only if:
- costs were similar to iOS only
- the app could be accepted in both stores

This seems like a good idea, I guess the backend would be a milestone too?

This does worry me. I feel like architecture-wise I'd like the backend developed so that it can be scaled fairly easily. I don't know much about this area except it may require a rest api or parse?


Thanks for the detailed response.

1. have them show you things they have done.
2. get some references and call those references.
3. google doc spreadsheet is an easy way to track. jira is what I've used the past 10 years or so. It's probably overkill for this project, but it's only $10 a month for 2 users. github or bitbucket are both fine choices for the code to reside in.
4. make it clear in the agreement you own the source code at the end of this. Don't let him bully you into "I've used propriety code that I can not let out" or some bull**** like that.
5. You should have some sort of written agreement saying something like:

once items 1-7 on the spreadsheet are complete you get paid x
once items 8-15 are complete you get paid x
once approved in the apple store you get the final payment.

6. make sure the back end will run anywhere. node/php/perl can be hosted anywhere. Run away if he says it's his secret stuff that only runs on his server.
7. if you build in swift you can't easily port it to android. Phonegap/cordova/ionic are technologies I've used to get it to both ecosystems. They use html/css/javascript. The great thing about that is you can easily build a web version of the same app.


I'm curious where your bids are coming in at, I'd probably bid $5-$10k on this project.

Yea I'm probably going to look online for a sample agreement and edit based on the specifics of this project. I'll have to make sure to be very clear in regards to rights regarding the source code.

Final payment after approval from the app store seems appropriate. I think testing and Q/A would fall somewhere in items 8-15.
Most developers have suggested php for the backend, but I'll keep this in mind.
The bids are coming in at around $3-$10k. My budget is currently around $5k, however I'd prefer to get this done for less (~$3k) and redirect the additional funds to a less risky investment option. I'm still going back and forth on the budget as I contemplate my options.

In your opinion, could the leanest version of this be done for less than $5k? From what I've read it seems hybrid apps may be a cheaper alternative to native apps. Is that true?

Yes, I have no doubt a stripped down version of what you described could be done for less than $5k.

Yes, I find native code to be a pain in the ass compared to html/css, but then again I've been doing html for about 20 years now and only dabbled in native. At work I'm constantly asking my guys what is taking so ****ing long on our native apps.

TLDR: If you can't find a technical cofounder then this app doesn't stand a chance, don't waste good money on vanity projects that nobody else will believe in unless you're paying them.



Dude, please don't do this. I've made some very successful apps and what very few people outside the industry are aware of is that the entire industry is pay to play.

If you make an app, first of all it's going to suck. Freelancers just won't give a **** about it and follow the specs and leave it at that. You'll have third rate crap at best. But here's the thing, you won't be able to see that because you have maker's bias, you believe in this so much you'll drop thousands on building it and then once it's there you're just so happy you have an app you fail to see it for the garbage that it is. I am currently self employed as a consultant specifically brought on to fix ****ty websites and apps because this problem is so prolific.

Secondly, you'll probably have to budget about $1-3 bucks per user acquisition. Then you need to factor in that 70% of apps are deleted after one use, your app will be closer to 95% because it's so niche and requires others to use it to be worthwhile. Not to be a dick but it's probably going to be even lower because it's being created by a first timer that doesn't know what he is doing and not getting any unbiased opinions because the freelances just want to code what you say, collect the wire transfer and move on to the next project. Even if they themselves notice massive issues it's very unlikely they'd even say anything.

Getting those first few hundred people in each location is going to be a nightmare and you'll need to reach critical mass. Let's say you're targeting Chicago, you'd need to focus a marketing campaign just on Chicago and do it in burst mode where everything all happens at once because your app won't be able to sustain a trickle of users because you'll lose user #1 before user #50 joins and user #50 won't stick around if he's the only one there, same reason why users 1-49 all left, kinda like a revolving door if you catch my meaning.

Every app you know spends millions of dollars in marketing each year, that's how you know about, that's a huge reason for raising so much VC capital. For example, Uber spends over 1k per driver acquistion on Facebook ads - that's a huge reason why they needed to raise so much money because no drivers means no Uber and that's the going rate for their marketing acquisition and trust me, they aren't throwing money at the wall and hoping it sticks, that's the most efficient possible way they've found to do it.

Feel free to PM me for any further questions but please don't do this. If you can't find someone that believes in your project enough to be a cofounder with you then that's a huge red flag. I don't mean to be hurtful but I've seen countless people follow these same steps, assume they'll drop 5k into it and end up spending 20k and then aren't prepared to drop another 100k marketing it. The app then just sits buried in the app store and often won't even show up in search results because Apple and Google assume they meant something else - there are countless apps you can't find in the stores without the direct url until they get enough traction where Google and Apple will agree to acknowledge their presence in search results.

Go to a hackathon and pitch the idea and there you may be able to not only build an MVP with a bunch of engineers for free over a weekend but they may wish to join ranks with you full time. More than anything though you'll get a lot of honest feedback because there will be plenty of people with ideas for projects to do in the hackathon and only the ideas other people like will get chosen. You may get an mvp built, you may hear from a lot of people they'd rather build a side boob screen saver.