How to hire an experienced US-based web developer for as low as $25 per hour!

If someone told me there was a way to hire an experienced US-based web developer for just $25 an hour, I’d probably tell them there must be a catch. If they told me that this developer has a bachelor’s degree in computer science, went to graduate school at MIT, is a patented inventor, has well over a decade of web development and startup experience, and even taught web development and software engineering as a Lead Educator in award winning bootcamps, I might just tell you that it has to be a scam.

But I am such a developer and I am making such an offer. However, like most offers that seem too good to be true, there are a few caveats. So what’s the deal?

Well, I’ve started a CTO-as-a-Service business called MVP CTO to help guide less-technical founders and Indie Hackers who are building technical products and services. For less than $1000 a month, I help guide founders through the planning and development of their MVP. Basically the idea is that even though you can build an MVP by utilizing low cost alternatives rather than hiring top-tier developers (from no-code tools to offshore developers and even AI), having a technical advisor on-call to keep things on track can be priceless (while not the focus of this post, if you’re interested in the CTO-as-a-Service, get in touch and learn more over at mvpcto.com).

So on a limited-time-basis, and as a means to promote MVP CTO and engage with potential long term customers, I’m offering two a-la-carte services that I’m calling Micro MVP and Mini MVP.

$100 Micro MVP

Add a single “Micro” feature to your existing MVP.

No code (and AI builder tools) are great but you can often hit a ceiling where something would be easy for an experienced developer but difficult in your platform of choice (Framer, Webflow, Bubble, Softr, Shopify, etc). Luckily, each of these platforms has an “expert” layer that allows experienced web developers to add custom code. For $100, I’ll develop a Micro MVP to solve your “if only my platform (Framer / Webflow / Bubble / Softr / Shopify / etc) made it easy to do this one little thing” problem.

Let's consider a Micro MVP as something that will take an experienced developer (i.e. me) 4 hours or less to implement. If you just did the math ($100 / 4hr), then you see this is how I got to $25/hour (see additional limitations below).

$1000 Mini MVP

Similar to Micro MVP, except the "Mini" feature can be slightly larger in scope.

Let's consider a Mini MVP as something that will take an experienced developer (i.e. me) 10 hours or less to implement, or something that can be passed to a junior developer and managed quite easily in under a week (even if I bring on a junior developer you will only deal with me during the whole process). If you just did the math, you see a more reasonable rate of $100/hour for an experienced US-based developer and hopefully you also see why the Micro MVP deal is such a steal at up to 4 hours for $100!

Sounds Good?

If you think you might be in need of a Micro ($100) or Mini ($1000) MVP and want to discuss, get in touch via “info” at the company’s website (mvpcto.com) or go to the website and enter your email address in the form at the bottom of the page. If you have any other questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment below.

Additional Limitations

• Offered on a limited time and scope basis - I will only take on projects as time permits and where I think they will be fun or interesting.
• Non exclusive commercial license - Any code provided will be licensed to you or your company such that you can use it freely (commercially or otherwise) but this license is non exclusive - if two people ask for the exact same feature I will provide the same solution to them both.
• While the small scope of Micro and Mini MVPs should make it less risky to estimate the time commitment, if I get started and realize it's too involved, I reserve the right to cancel at no cost to you.
• All payments will be made on UpWork - Even though they will take a cut of the fee, I’m interested in exploring the platform but have never used it, so this is my excuse to do so.
• Many solutions will require signing up for a Github account as well as a serverless computing platform and providing me with access so that you can control the solution if you need to make changes, but usually these solutions can be hosted on free (or close to free) plans and I will provide you with step-by-step instructions to get this set up.