Developing A Program?

I have a really good idea for a program that I want to invent. I know absolutely nothing about programming. Where is the best place to find programmers? How much do they cost? And the most imporatant one is how do you safeguard your idea so they do not steal it themselves?!

Bigballin,

I can code well in vb.net. PM / contact me via messenger if you'd like to chat about some of the specifics. As far as someone stealing your idea, you can have a contract signed. There are services online for such things, and they are cheap or free at some places.

Do you know specifically where I would find this contract?

There are a lot of websites where you can post your project description, and programmers who can do your work will bid how much it's gonna cost. You can then award the project to one of them if they are confident they can deliver, and the price is rite.

these sites like odesk, freelancer.com, vworker and rentacoder etc generally have an option to include an NDA. So whatever idea and issues you discuses with any programmer is technically under a non disclosure contract.

Ofcourse it won't prevent your idea from being stolen, but it gives you some level of protection in some cases.

And generally speaking, programmers aren't interested in stealing ideas. They are mostly interested in getting some work, and get paid.

How much it's gonna cost depends on your project. It may cost anything between $100 to $10,000+.

Anyone else have any experience doing this that they can share?

You'll also have to state if its a web-app (php, asp) or destop app (vb.net, c#) cause generally speaking these are completely different skill sets

Depending on how good the idea is and whether or not it is technically feasible I might be interested in helping you out for some kind of profit sharing deal.

drax2009 said:

You'll also have to state if its a web-app (php, asp) or destop app (vb.net, c#) cause generally speaking these are completely different skill sets

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I had no idea about this and I dont really know which one it would be...I think desktop app.

Choronzon said:

Depending on how good the idea is and whether or not it is technically feasible I might be interested in helping you out for some kind of profit sharing deal.

Click to expand...

What kind of deal? Can you make any types of programs?

Safeguarding your idea is very difficult unless you sign a contract with a company (easier to sue a company rather than an individual). I would avoid using a freelance website since you would need to publicly state your idea.
I am a fluent programmer (I also have a company) and can probably draft such a contract if you are interested..

## And the most imporatant one is how do you safeguard your idea so they do not steal it themselves?!

Actually, this is the least important one. Ideas are worth very very very little. It is all about execution. Seriously.

If your idea is any good, nobody will want to steal it anyway.

Oh yeah, oDesk and Freelancer are good places. Prepare to go through several coders first though.

Here's a quick way picking someone.

a. Have a Brown M&Ms clause in your advert. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Halen#Contract_riders
- Specify something like "if you have understood this response, have 'I understand' in the subject line" or something. Be ruthless about ignoring anyone that does not adhere to this.

b. Ask for a relevant sample.
Ask everyone to bid with a relevant sample. Just one. Again ignore anyone that sends you a list of irrelevant projects

c. Ask for their opinion
Ask the bidder to cite an example of a related project/website/application they like. This will give you an indication of whether you are on the same page when it comes to the look/UI for you app

d. Give them free reign
Unless you have a very specific reason, allow the contractor to make as many of the tech decisions as possible. I have seen people with no tech clues specifying things like database and OS versions as part of the requirements. This is useless

e. Trial several contractors
If you can, break up the app, or specify a minimum subset, and then get 3 or 4 different contractors to work on this same job. It will give you an indication of how they work or don't work in a real setting. You can compare like for like output between different contractors.

f. Pre payments no. Milestones yes
Never ever prepay. Agree payment milestones *before* you start the project. Don't make payments outside these agreed milestones. Have agreement on arbitration when the question of whether a milestone has been reached or not is being disputed.

g. Terminate contract at first sign of non communication
- A contractor that disappears for days with no update will be a problem. Fire them. Fire them quickly. No excuses, no buts, no exceptions. Yes, there will be delays, but there is no excuse for non communication. None. This should really be rule #1.