Major Updates and Progress on Project V!
October 16, 2015 Posted by Tyler CruzI’m back 12 days later with another update on Project V.
I’m not sure how interesting this series is, but I could see how it could be a bit boring. That’s mainly because so far it’s only been the boring aspects in getting everything analyzed and prepared.
I wanted to document everything though because if the project does take off then I’ll have full documentation from the very beginning conceptual stages. It could act as a blueprint for others to copy who have an idea for a website or app.
I am glad to announce that I have finally conquered that nasty cold/flu I had, although I am still suffering with all my other serious medical issues. I’m currently waiting on the results of some new tests that I just had taken a couple days ago. I’m hoping the results come back bad so that my doctor will take my issues more seriously!
Anyhow, here’s what happened with Project V over the past 12 days. There have been many major updates. Here they are in the order they happened:
Investment Funds Received
I managed to receive the investment funds without incident.
I was slightly apprehensive about there being an issue with the transfer due to a couple of things, but after a few hiccups before it was sent out, it came through fine.
That means that all the investment aspects of the project have now been taken care of.
Met with Engineer
Since I am using Toptal to handle my development hiring/management, the way it works after you are accepted as a client is that you then go over the project requirements with one of their engineers over the phone.
They then rally up their appropriate talent that will fit the project’s technical requirements, budget, and timeline. It is then up to you to interview them one by one and select which of them you’d like added to your project.
Interviewed Programmer
About a week after meeting with the engineer, I was paired with a programmer to interview. This was interesting as if I had posted this project on Elance or Freelancer I would have received bids from close to literally 100 development firms and freelancers, so I wasn’t too happy that it took close to a week to finally have one programmer interested in taking on the project.
However, upon viewing his résumé, I was pretty impressed. I did additional background research on him as well of course, and prepared a list of 10 questions to go over with him for the interview.
I interviewed him the following day (a Saturday) over the phone and went over my list of questions and was pretty impressed with his responses. While addressing all of my questions, he also wasn’t scared to speak his mind in suggesting certain changes as to the architecture of the project.
Hired Programmer
Even though I could have waited for more programmers to choose from, I had pretty quickly made up my mind to hire this programmer.
He used to work at Facebook, is well versed with more recent full-stack web technologies, and actively works on his own projects as well (which shows me that he understands the needs of a start-up).
Since he does have his own little start-up, he is only available to work on Project V on a part-time basis of 20 hours a week. I’m paying $69/hour, so that’s $5,520 a month.
What the Hell Does MEAN mean?
I plan on dedicating an upcoming post just to this so I won’t go into too much detail here, but originally I was going to use a LAMP-stack for this project, just as I always had in the past over the past 15 years.
But then the programmer voiced his views on why I should strongly consider moving from LAMP to MEAN, since he says LAMP is dying and that MEAN is better for start-ups these days.
So what the hell is MEAN, or even LAMP for that matter? Well if you don’t know, keep an eye out for my upcoming post. It will be technical but should be an informative read.
In addition, instead of hosting the site on one of my existing dedicated servers, I will have to purchase a cloud-based scalable server due to MEAN requiring the use of port 80 (which LAMP already uses). Plus, the cloud-based hosting will allow for easy scalability.
Hired Designer
Originally, the plan was to have Toptal take care of the design of the project in addition to programming. But after learning a bit more how Toptal worked, I decided to hire my usual designer instead.
I worked with her on revamping the logo of the project which I think is an improvement over the old one, and explained the project to her. She gave me a quote to which I accepted and she is now working on the project. Her original ETA to complete everything was 25 days and it’s already been 5 or 6 days so she should be done everything in under 3 weeks.
She sent me the "splash" page a couple of days ago and I eagerly await the next page (I’m guessing I’ll be able to see it on Monday or Tuesday but I’m hoping it’ll be sooner).
Programming Well Underway
The programmer has only worked 3 days so far but has already got a lot done, despite only working part-time as well.
In addition to starting all of the foundation with proper architecture documentation and structuring, he has already created a rough framework of the project on GitHub.
In fact, on the 2nd day he actually sent me a short screencast showing some of the basic functionality of the site so far!
I am hoping to see another screencast soon.
Next Update
So as you can see, there have been a lot of major developments.
In my next update on this project (which I expect to be in approximately a week from now), I hope to be able to announce that another main page of the design is complete, and there may even be a very early working model of the site up by then!
Finally, real progress!
These are interesting — don’t think they’re boring. BUT they would be 300% more interesting if you gave out even a vague sense of what the project was. Nobody’s going to steal it, and even if they do it doesn’t matter — implementation is way more important that ideas 🙂
Hi Tyler, thank you for the update. I am following you since 2007 and cannot wait for the net update. Thank you for sharing the early stages, keep on rockin’!
Why on earth would you go with the MEAN stack over LAMP?
Unless your current project calls for some technological requirements that LAMP can’t provide, it’s probably better to go with the tried and true.
Your project already has many unknowns, why throw an unnecessary technological unknown into the mix? Better to have that locked down and focus on iterating and pivoting your product.
What’s going to happen after the initial contract? You won’t know how to maintain your own product. Even small changes will require huge learning curve. Even if you outsource, you’re going to have to pay out of your ass for someone with a niche tech knowledge vs. the popular LAMP stack.
Coming from someone who has made a similar mistake before… watch out.
Not being able to modify MEAN code was definitely a factor I considered. However, to be honest, my LAMP skills were never very good to begin with, so there is really not a huge difference between the two in my situation.
From the research I did, LAMP is on its way out and MEAN is the newer kid on the block. It’ll take ages for LAMP to die out completely, but I’ve spent too long holding onto old technologies and ways and I occasionally like to try the newest thing.
Sorry Tyler but you’ve been mugged. Developers love new technology (that they can charge more for because there’s less competition) and the best way of getting them on their CV is to learn via doing. The moment you let the developer dictate the technology (without full justification) is the moment you lose control of your own project. There is NOTHING a MEAN stack is going to gain YOU over LAMP. I use neither by the way, all about Python at the moment.
I’ve been writing software for getting on for 25 years, it is something I have seen and done a lot of times. From C to C++, COBOL, to Delphi, from Delphi to .net, from ASP to PHP, from PHP to Python etc Not to mention the various forms of SQL I’ve wanted to learn so have edged clients/employers towards “Yeah boss we really need Oracle for this”. Win win, awesome work history on my resume and then can charge the earth for maintenance until the market fully catches up.
In short, Joe is right.
A MEAN stack is not THAT exceptional that support after development is going to be hard to find and is hardly niche. Nor is it that exceptional that it will stand out on your resume.
If the developer’s expertise is with a MEAN stack and Tyler is find with that, then there really isn’t a problem. The only point where you are being “scammed” is with the cloud based hosting. You can easily run a MEAN stack on the same machine as a LAMP stack, all you need to do is have your Apache proxy the request to your node instance.
The developer actually has more experience with LAMP stack and said he’d still do it if that’s what I really wanted, but outlined all the perks to using MEAN for this project.
Port 80 is the issue with using both LAMP and MEAN on the same server apparantly, and I don’t have a load balancer.
It’s not about standing out, it’s about another skill set/technology to add to the list and something “physical” to show potential new clients.
“The developer actually has more experience with LAMP ” – the same as the vast majority of web developers then, that’s the issue with on-going support. Expertise = LAMP. Expanding Knowledge = MEAN. I agree that there’s nothing exceptional about MEAN..within a certain group. Outside of that group talking about Node you might as well be talking Swahili. Had Tyler even heard of MEAN before the developer suggested it?
Anyway, I really hope that this project is some form of collaboration/IM type web app that is really going to benefit from the unique benefits of MEAN. Either way I look forward to seeing what this all turns in to and wish him the best of luck.
MEAN is the future. I like the call, Tyler.
I have a really good feeling about this project 😀
Can you please help out how to make money with affiliate? I’s really looking for this money making method…What is your phone number ?
wow.. This project is gonna be a top-notched
Any chance of getting the programmers information for a facebook related project / questions? I would love to talk with someone who worked at facebook!