Idea for Additional LaunchBox Development Help

[Beatlemaniac19]

I want a community opinion on this idea. Some people may like this idea, while others may hate it. At the very least, I want to start the conversation on it. The idea is hiring additional developers. Mainly, I'd like to hear Jason and Brad's feedback on this too. Here it goes: Jason mentioned that he would love to hire additional developers but his barriers to entry are (if there are more let me know): a) finding talented and dedicated developers b) properly compensating those developers Jason mentioned that, if he'd hire developers in the future, that he'd have to make these developers contract workers and work them part time. However, there may be a way to not only get full time developers, but also get them without digging into the LaunchBox reserve funds. Since there are a lot of Bitbucket tickets out there, Jason's probably focusing on the ones with the most votes. However, there are many tickets that don't have a lot of votes or have many votes, but aren't a priority now. My idea is that for any of these neglected developments, members can donate money to whatever developments they want to see implemented immediately. We'd start a thread called "Development Fundraising" or something like that, and people could donate there. For example, Issue #331 (Nested Filters) is one of the most requested tickets with 24 votes. I have no idea how much of a prioritization this ticket is to you Jason, but for sake of example, let's say it's a long-term development. If you find talented developers that you trust and decide to pay them $50 an hour (just an example figure), you can start a donation process for people to donate money to whatever development that they want. In this example it's the nested filter ticket. If the community raises $50 for this ticket, then the developer can do a live twitch coding session (like you do) and develop it for an hour with live community feedback and pocket the $50 donation for an hour of development. If the community raises $100, the developer will do a 2 hour stream and pocket the $100 and so on. Again, not only will you be able to technically hire developers for free from your end Jason, but the community can decide if they want to donate money to a particular development to get it implemented immediately, or wait for it patiently. From what I've seen, you have many members that are also developers that want to assist with LaunchBox too. This could be a good way to see if they can be of any help. I know many of you may dislike this idea, but any feedback would be greatly appreciated :)

[SentaiBrad]

This is a slippery slope. A IndieGogo or GoFundMe Campaign is really possible, but this would be something we would want to handle instead of the community. While we appreciate the work and dedication for the art for example, this is magnitudes more important that Jason and I would need to directly control. If we implemented a vote system though where Free members get 2 votes and members who have Premium get 3 or something, then gave them a list of features to vote on so we could get an accurate representation would probably work best in the case. However, getting people to actively vote would be difficult. The problem with the BitBucket is you can vote as many times as you want, so for an accurate study votes per user would need to be limited. Past that, it's not just having a developer create code. It's really much more complicated than that. It would take them several hours or days (depending on their aptitude) to just get up to speed on the code, BEFORE they ever start creating any code. They wont want to do this for free, at least any developer worth their salt wouldn't. We would also need them to sign paper work, NDA's (a bit more severe, but potentially a truth), and go through a lot of training. Someone who is more familiar with LaunchBox could get up and running a lot faster, but the best person for the job is required and being familiar with LaunchBox doesn't automatically make you a good candidate. We've thought long and hard about it. I don't know if we would be comfortable letting the community run this one, as much as we love the dedication a lot of people bring with them.

[Jason Carr]

I actually think it's a great idea, in theory, but unfortunately in practice it would be much harder to implement. Brad's right that it would take a developer many hours in the code to get familiar with it before likely being very productive adding features from Bitbucket. It's also important to note that before anything can happen, first we have to find an interested developer who is good at what they do, which is surprisingly difficult to find, especially for a contract part-time position. Unfortunately development is also extremely expensive. It's downright amazing that I'm able to do this as my full time job, really. But most new feature tickets on BitBucket would likely be at least $300 to implement if we paid a developer $50 an hour to implement them. Some might even be more than a grand. So I like the idea, but sadly, I don't have much confidence that we'd be able to pull it off. The good news is we're starting to gain enough traffic and income to hire some additional help. I am currently considering some options there; one of them is for me to offload some of the publicity stuff and focus even more on development myself (so that I'm less distracted, ultimately).

[SentaiBrad]

Yea, hiring someone to do unrelated tasks from Jason and myself will help both of us be able to do what we already do better. That is something that we proved is great. I off loaded a lot of responsibility from Jason and thus development picked up (also helped he went full time with this). Offloading even more should mean more time developing, even if it's only an extra hour or two a day, that could mean 10 bug fixes or a new feature, or over the course of a week new forums. xD

[Beatlemaniac19]

SentaiBrad said This is a slippery slope. A IndieGogo or GoFundMe Campaign is really possible, but this would be something we would want to handle instead of the community. While we appreciate the work and dedication for the art for example, this is magnitudes more important that Jason and I would need to directly control. If we implemented a vote system though where Free members get 2 votes and members who have Premium get 3 or something, then gave them a list of features to vote on so we could get an accurate representation would probably work best in the case. However, getting people to actively vote would be difficult. The problem with the BitBucket is you can vote as many times as you want, so for an accurate study votes per user would need to be limited.

@Jason @SentaiBrad I agree. This is your business so you guys should run the campaigns, if that's still an option, not the community. The community is here to support and spin ideas off you guys to make your product the best on the market. I agree with everything you said here. The IndieGogo or GoFundMe campaign is probably a better option and can be more managed if you decide to go that route. Regardless, a more accurate voting system like you mentioned here would be a lot better to gauge actual interest in future developments. If you guys are thinking about replacing the Bitbucket system with this idea, I'm on board. On the contrary, I can see why this donation idea would be an issue. I didn't realize that it would cost a developer that much money for a single Bitbucket ticket. When a LaunchBox premium license is around $20-50 and a Bitbucket development is $300 minimum (although it's a community pool of money, not an individual), that pricing model is out of whack completely. That's probably the main reason it can't work realistically IMO. I'm glad you guys are cool with discussing this issue. I agree that the more tasks that can be distributed, the easier your jobs become. Hiring some new staff would definitely help. Another idea is that, if you decide to hire another developer, you can train them to just fix bugs as opposed to active development. This way, you don't have to spend a whole week fixing code and can spend all your time on development for creating new features. I don't know if that's realistic, but it's worth a shot.