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17 Comments

Imposter Syndrome is Strong Today

Been hawking Developer Select in various places and can't help but today I especially feel like it might be useless and someone might just call bullshit on the whole thing. I keep telling myself that this is a prospecting effort right now, and judgement from potential customers is absolutely a thing you want and need...and that you want to know about for the sake of feedback and iteration.

This is something that comes in waves for all of us I think, but it hit me hard in the last hour.

Wrote some support docs for myself and have been experimenting with Upwork bids as a sales and lead channel. I like it conceptually, but wonder if prospecting by offering an alternative hiring path on a freelance hiring platform is a bad idea.

Oh well, ask forgiveness not permission.

  1. 5

    Sorry. You didn't ask for feedback. But I'm going to shove it to you anyway :)

    Your messaging may be wrong.

    The site focuses on making hiring "developMENT" instead of "developERS" sound some kind of new big thing.

    But based on your site, when superfluous "developer units" are stripped away, the essence of your business sounds just like normal project based development, which is half a century old concept, and 100x larger market than developER outsourcing.

    So, if you actually offer some different model than normal project based development, then you'd need to make that clearer. And if you don't, then you compete against many others, and main messaging should probably be around "why choose you".

    1. 1

      Fair point, will give that some thought.

      It's not conceptually new in some regards. But the approach is a bit sideways. Rather than look for contract work, I make the proposition that business could hire a subscription service instead of an hourly contractor.

      So, not any newer than subscription ad copy/blog writing/SEO services. The difference re project based contracting is in the flexibility of not needing a scoped project, just a need for work. It pulls the tendency toward waterfall development out of the typical project based model.

      1. 2

        Got it. But if you don't estimate and fix the price in advance, then it just changes the wording of my original point slightly... instead of outsourcing with project based billing, you do outsourcing with time based billing.

        There is no fundamental difference between outsourcing project development with hourly rate and "subscription". Nor there is any fundamental difference between paying hourly rate (based on experience) and buying "development credits".

        So my original point remains: I'm afraid that you try to sell a standard thing wrapped under non-standard terms. Because the thing you sell is actually standard, you have no competitive advantage. And because you use non-standard terms, you waste half of your website explaining them.

        That, or then I don't understand your fundamental difference? :)

        1. 2

          You're not wrong. I absolutely am trying to sell a standard service wrapped in non-standard terms...but I am not afraid of that. I've considered selling batches of hours as a package as well but I'm up in the air about that. I'd rather link it to project difficulty than time, but I'm sure I'll experiment with that.

          On some level I'm attempting to abstract the hourly developer away from the cost, wrapping it in a project managed team that can grow on demand (within reason), letting the customer pay for it at a reasonable cost on a model closer to a salary basis, and letting them scale up or down on short notice without the need for drawn out HR operations related to employee churn.

          I'm also not targeting all companies in need of IT staff. I'm specifically after small to medium sized companies who're under the impression that they need to go through staffing firms (with all the extra charges they command) to find decent developers. I've also got a couple interested referrals who have found it near impossible to find local talent.

          It'll be on me to convince them that maybe they don't need the hiring headache, but so far it seems they're more willing to negotiate with something closer to menu pricing for a service as opposed to hiring people...at least when you're asking them to consider a remote option as opposed to an in person developer.

          So far the response rate feels pretty good, but only time will tell.

          1. 1

            absolutely am trying to sell a standard service wrapped in non-standard terms

            But why exactly?

            You use completely different terminology and slightly different contractual terms, but they don't yield any major benefit for the customers compared to standard "project delivery billed by the hour", while they significantly complicate your sales effort (as evidenced by you spending half of your website explaining the non-standard stuff).

            Also, if you think about the rest of your reply more carefully... You describe some benefits of your service, but actually 100% of those are general benefits of the entire outsourced project delivery industry...

            Anyways, I'm really not trying to put you down, just offering viewpoint of somebody who has co-founded 3 of those companies.

            1. 1

              Oh I get it, I'm not married to the message and ultimately I think the site copy moves more toward the infield. But I'd rather start in left field and iterate my way there to see if I can land on some different messaging.

              Ultimately arguments like "but isn't that the same as x?" don't stop people from starting successful businesses. You don't need a huge chunk, you need a profitable chunk. Bottled water, lawn care, septic maintenance, and software development all have that in common.

              I figure why do more normal when I already have contracts that fill my needs the normal way.

              1. 1

                why do more normal

                Because if you use standard terminology and contractual terms, you need to spend much less time explaining your non-standard stuff. That leaves you more time to focus on things that actually make or break the sale.

                That applies to sales calls, meetings and your website (which for example misses 5 out of 5 most important points for converting, instead focusing on explaining "developer units" etc)

                1. 1

                  Yeah but that's what I do with my other work. This is different on purpose friend, for the sake of exploration and experimentation.

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                    My point has been all along that it is not different, expect in the terminology. I give up :) :)

                    1. 1

                      Different terminology is part of what I want from this. You're explaining that what I'm doing isn't new and that it might be better executed in more standard terms, and I'm saying I know and it's current iteration is different in that way on purpose.

  2. 1

    Leave the building and go talk to your potential customer one on one. Basically, do things that don't scale.

    After talking with 20 SMB about their problems to find talent, you will know if you can solve the problem or not.

    I might be wrong, but your imposter syndrome could be raising from the fear or not knowing if your idea is good. The solution? Leave your head and go out to find out.

    1. 1

      It's great to quote some generic Lean/Y-Combinator/PG advice, but do you realize that in this case the poster is actually actively doing sales, plus not solving a single problem, but instead offering project delivery ("problem solving") services for his customers?

      1. 1

        Maybe I'm mistaken, but I thought there weren't any sales yet ("I keep telling myself that this is a prospecting effort right now")

        That generic advice is what I say to myself when I spend too much time on my own head.

        plus not solving a single problem

        Yeah, he is trying to solve one of the hardest problems I know about

        1. 1

          Yeah, he is trying to solve one of the hardest problems I know about

          And what is that?

    2. 1

      Definitely, this was a momentary (ish) thing that I don't usually experience actually...except right before I start doing exactly that. Something like stage fright, which I also used to get, but which teaching high school cured me of pretty quickly.

      It's on my daily task list to reach out to 5 prospects. For me that means cold-call/email/contract bid/or plain old walk up to someone at a chamber of commerce meetup.

      1. 1

        I don't think you are feeling Imposter Syndrome. I understand that's a feeling about not deserving the success they have.

        I think what you feel is what an intelligent person feels when have doubts, or when confronted with opposition.

        Keep going until your succed, or until you decide that's time to move to another idea. I wish you the best of luck :)

        1. 1

          Well not anymore:p it's a passing sensation for me these days but it was consistent for the first several years of my career. The feeling that someone I was about to reach out to would call bullshit on my qualifications and laugh me out of the metaphorical building was particularly strong for about an hour.

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