I have an "accidental startup" in the making - but I need help.
Tags: startup, php, discuss, career
Published: 2021-01-19 18:32:22

##**UPDATE**
I thought I'd post some progress... and exciting news! I've gotten a developer that came highly recommended by a person I trust, so it looks like there's still a chance this thing will fly. Rather than delete the post, I thought I'd leave it here for ... I dunno, historical purposes. Thanks to everyone that read through it!

-J

##**TL,DR**
I got involved in a project that I did not know had the potential to grow and I need help.

OK, so the reason for this post...

It's pretty tough to find freelancers that are indie and not associated with some agency via Google-fu, and since the conversation can't even begin without the agency getting all up in the middle of things, this situation is not suited to that sort of arrangement anyway. I was getting to my wit's end trying to locate someone of interest when I remembered "oh - there's dev.to!" 

##**The Story**
I was contacted by an associate of mine in our local Department of Education to develop a service that allows a custom (and ridiculous, IMO) workflow for purchase orders to be approved and submitted. It was a project beyond my skill set but I wanted to help, so I hired a freelance developer to implement feature requests for the project. 

Long story short, they completed the project and this agency (the board of Education) is paying yearly fee to keep the service. Of course one paying client is not making me rich, as you can imagine... but things recently got interesting. At least I think. 

I've since been approached again by the same person that requested this service and asked if I would be willing to pitch it to a group of potential clients in other Board of Education facilities across the state. Apparently because every Board of Education in the state uses this same crazy workflow for their purchase orders, the entire state might be up for grabs for selling the service... a very exciting proposition! So why not just say yes and dive in?

##**The Problem**
As I mentioned at the top, I still cant wrap my head around the code base. The service is a highly customized [Dolibarr](https://www.dolibarr.org/) implementation. I know what my skill level is and this is... well, beyond it. The service will need maintaining and further development, and I have no doubt that I will not be able to learn enough fast enough to provide service to the client in a responsive and competent manner... so I have so far refrained from agreeing to sell any further instances of the service. This is, of course, not ideal :(   

##**The Solution?**
The way I figure it, I need to find someone that 1) has the technical knowledge to continue to support the system that has been developed and 2) is willing to do so on a profit-sharing basis. If I can find that, I can go back to my client and agree to meet with more Boards of Education across the state fairly quickly.

 The current client is happy with the service, and I have contacts that I can leverage to sell more instances of the service to other (and much larger) Boards. I'm  perfectly willing to do that legwork and get this thing to profitability, but only if I know that a better coder than I has my back.

##**The Question**
Is dev.to the right place for a request like this? If not, can you recommend somewhere to look for an indie dev that would be interested in something like this?

Thanks to all that got this far! Hit me up if this kind of thing might be up your alley and you want to hear more - or if you know someone that might be interested.