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How much should I pay to build a MVP and how long does it take?

I am a non-tech founder and I’m outsourcing a tech freelancer to build a MVP for my idea. Basically the idea is a website for that allows a traveler to calculate the cost of things they need to spend in the desired destination as well as find local tour guide to show them around. I’m in the interview process and would like to give candidates this task as a small test but I’m not sure how much should I pay and how long it takes to build a MVP of this idea. The candidates are from Russia and Ukraina. I would appreciate any advice.

  • So your “test” is having them build your MVP? As a developer, I would see right through that and avoid you like the plague.

    I don’t think you have done any research. look at what people charge on UpWork.com.

    It is amazing what you can find with this new fangled “Google” machine.

    Reply

  • I felt the same as the previous commented when I noticed that you equated an MVP with a “small test”.

    However I’m taking this as just someone who hasn’t done this before and you’re not just trying to trivialize the task.

    Although outsourcing is can be cheaper, it is definitely not cheap. Good coders from eastern europe cost around 30/hr and up and decent to bad coders 12/hr and up (mostly from south asia – I’m not saying ALL but that’s my experience).

    Your MVP can be as simple as a wordpress website where providers and customers contact you by email and you hire someone to design and update it. And everything is done over email and paypal. You “might” be able to get away with that for under a thousand bucks.

    If you want a real prototype that has user registration, ratings, feedback, reviews, you’re looking at 10K and up.

    As for a “test”, again it depends if you’re going for a wordpress MVP or a “real” prototype, your task may be different. The goal for the test is not to test their coding ability since you’re not going to be able to tell but how well they interpret your requirements.

    So say you’ve decided to go for the prototype (honestly I’d go with the wordpress route), a good test would be

    “Create a simple app that has two pages, a page where I can edit categories and a page where someone could select the category, give a 1-5 star rating (see yelp stars implementation) and a review. I’ll pay you $150, you do as much as you like.” (Then draw a mockup using moqups.com and paste the link to it)

    Interview 10-20 candidates, see their past feedback and select 2-3 for the “test”. They may or may not do it. Then based on the result, select the best fit.

    Good luck!

    Reply
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