Looking For Partnership/Team

Ye' old general discussion board. Basically, for everything that isn't covered elsewhere. Come here to shoot the breeze, shoot your mouth off, or whatever suits your fancy.
This forum is not for asking programming related questions.

Moderator: General Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
Jonah Bron
DevNet Master
Posts: 2764
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:28 pm
Location: Redding, California

Looking For Partnership/Team

Post by Jonah Bron »

Hello, world!

I'd like to connect with a designer to share clients/projects with. I can do pretty good design work, but I'm no graphics artist, and frankly, I enjoy programming more than designing. Ideally, I would delegate design to the designer, and he would delegate programming to me. Is there anyone here that would be interested in that type of loose partnership? Preferably someone I recognize. I would also like to review your work before-hand.

Alternatively, I would be open to joining a team. I just would like to take the entire load off of myself; it's very difficult to specialize in everything.

To those who have been in the field a while, what are the legal ramifications of this sort of thing? And are there any good websites to make this sort of connection/information on this?

Thanks!

P.S. I considered putting this in Job Hunt and The Enterprise, but finally decided it didn't belong in either.
alex.barylski
DevNet Evangelist
Posts: 6267
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:00 pm
Location: Winnipeg

Re: Looking For Partnership/Team

Post by alex.barylski »

You can try social networking sites, such as programmermeetdesigner.com
matthijs
DevNet Master
Posts: 3360
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 3:57 pm

Re: Looking For Partnership/Team

Post by matthijs »

Smart move I think. It's difficult to do everything and be good at them. It might even not be possible. There are very few people who can design and program good. I'm more a hybrid person (so you could say I'm not very good at either), but for the real design work I also team up with graphic designers, for example when a client needs a logo/identity.

It's difficult to say how you could find a good person to work with. I guess you can go the formal way, using job-exchange sites like PCspectra mentioned. I would also try the more informal way, by trying to discover and meet graphic designers through forums, blogs, twitter, etc. and then first get to meet them a little bit, then maybe do a small job together and if things work out well do more.
josh
DevNet Master
Posts: 4872
Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2004 3:23 pm
Location: Palm beach, Florida

Re: Looking For Partnership/Team

Post by josh »

Limiting yourself to a single designer isn't always a good way to bring in sales. Personally I tell people "find your own designer, or go to 99designs.com". Most have a designer in mind, and have chosen a designer that is really good at what they want to do. And they come to me because I do the specialized programming. If they don't have a designer, I send them to 99designs.com, and I charge them a fee for slicing & styling.
User avatar
Jonah Bron
DevNet Master
Posts: 2764
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:28 pm
Location: Redding, California

Re: Looking For Partnership/Team

Post by Jonah Bron »

Hey everybody, sorry for the delay, I've been on a trip.
PCSpectra wrote:You can try social networking sites, such as programmermeetdesigner.com
That looks it might be just what I'm looking for, Alex: I'll take a closer look at it later.
matthijs wrote:Smart move I think. It's difficult to do everything and be good at them. It might even not be possible. There are very few people who can design and program good. I'm more a hybrid person (so you could say I'm not very good at either), but for the real design work I also team up with graphic designers, for example when a client needs a logo/identity.
Yup, that describes my position perfectly.
matthijs wrote:It's difficult to say how you could find a good person to work with. I guess you can go the formal way, using job-exchange sites like PCspectra mentioned. I would also try the more informal way, by trying to discover and meet graphic designers through forums, blogs, twitter, etc. and then first get to meet them a little bit, then maybe do a small job together and if things work out well do more.
I'll see what I can do in that area. So far the only community I'm really active in is this one, so the only people I'm exposed to are developers :| . I need a polar opposite. I still don't understand how community works on Twitter... I should look into that.
josh wrote:Limiting yourself to a single designer isn't always a good way to bring in sales. Personally I tell people "find your own designer, or go to 99designs.com". Most have a designer in mind, and have chosen a designer that is really good at what they want to do. And they come to me because I do the specialized programming. If they don't have a designer, I send them to 99designs.com, and I charge them a fee for slicing & styling.
That's good advice. Unfortunately, most of my clients don't know squat about anything, so I really have to do all the work for them. I would so love to get to where people/companies come to me for specifically for programming. How would you recommend getting there?
User avatar
social_experiment
DevNet Master
Posts: 2793
Joined: Sun Feb 15, 2009 11:08 am
Location: .za

Re: Looking For Partnership/Team

Post by social_experiment »

Jonah Bron wrote:Unfortunately, most of my clients don't know squat about anything
Either that or they have no ears when you inform them that you don't develop AND design graphics. Although i wouldn't mind working with a professional graphics designer (from time to time) i don't hate the fact that i can do a bit of designing myself.
“Don’t worry if it doesn’t work right. If everything did, you’d be out of a job.” - Mosher’s Law of Software Engineering
matthijs
DevNet Master
Posts: 3360
Joined: Thu Oct 06, 2005 3:57 pm

Re: Looking For Partnership/Team

Post by matthijs »

Jonah Bron wrote:I'll see what I can do in that area. So far the only community I'm really active in is this one, so the only people I'm exposed to are developers :| . I need a polar opposite. I still don't understand how community works on Twitter... I should look into that.
I think there's not a single way of meeting people (designers), just like in real life. But the most basic thing you can do is search the net for local web/graphic designers, check out their sites, see if they have a blog, read their articles, comment on them, get in touch, etc. Most people I have met online is by sheer coincidence. Maybe a comment on a blog article, an email to ask something or getting noticed myself for something, etc
alex.barylski
DevNet Evangelist
Posts: 6267
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:00 pm
Location: Winnipeg

Re: Looking For Partnership/Team

Post by alex.barylski »

That's good advice. Unfortunately, most of my clients don't know squat about anything, so I really have to do all the work for them. I would so love to get to where people/companies come to me for specifically for programming. How would you recommend getting there?
There is no silver bullet unfortunately. Marketing & Advertising simply put.

Cheers,
Alex
josh
DevNet Master
Posts: 4872
Joined: Wed Feb 11, 2004 3:23 pm
Location: Palm beach, Florida

Re: Looking For Partnership/Team

Post by josh »

Jonah Bron wrote: I would so love to get to where people/companies come to me for specifically for programming. How would you recommend getting there?
That way I did it is I found a seemingly simple niche, & develop it out. When feature requests come in I'd always say exactly this "well I was working on a similar feature, I can add this one for $50" or something along those lines. After a while my software had enough features that I gained the trust of my customers. Part of the silver bullet was unit testing, it allows me to make more configuration options (which in turn require more cyclomatic complexity). The unit tests managed the cyclomatic complexity and allowed me to scale my software base.

To be honest I prefer the small little $50 customization fees ontop of my software licensing. I hate the larger custom projects, but either way the features almost always go back into my software, usually as a module "sold separately" which I feel allows "viral" growth for a software company. Now within my niche people recognize me as a trustworthy company that always delivers, and stands behind my products for years to come (when other programmers disappear after the job, I am here taking phone calls, sometimes 10s of hours of phone calls helping the client with seemingly simple questions, after a while they appreciate that I take the time, and they come back for future work, to buy more modules, or refer friends).

I'd avoid partnering with any specific designer, it limits yourself. Your client will get better designs if you allow multiple designers to compete. see http://www.99designs.com

A lot of what I feel that I do that is special is translating an hour long phone call into a series of 1 sentence assertion methods (getting off the phone with the client, and starting to write unit tests). It keeps me on task, writing software that solves the problem they just described, and not some variation on that problem that I think would be "cool" to program. It also reduces/gets rid of those "uhh forgot what I was just coding" moments. That used to be really frustrating before I started testing, I'd get distracted on solving the 'wrong' problem and just be like wtf am I doing, sitting there sulking in my own pity. Not a very good way to go about my daily job. I'd be afraid to rollback my changes because I invested too much of my own time, etc.

In summary, be agile & under sell your off the shelf products :-)
Post Reply