No Bids?

[dking]

I finally got an interface to elance that I can use and it seems like nobody is interested in bidding on my task, and I'm not sure why.

Is there a list of common mistakes somewhere? I followed the site instructions on posting, used the escrow service, and made everything as clear as I could.. yet after even inviting people to bid all i get are replies of people declining to bid. I dont get it.

I'm not sure about the rules for links , so I will not post the task link. If you want it, PM me.

[Krayzi]

I have done dozens of projects on Elance from $50-1000, and usually get a lot of bids that are right on target. There have been a couple projects that required some very specific expertise that only got a couple of bids.

The main thing with these sites (or outsourcing in general) is to post a well-defined task. Any detail you honestly care about should be in the bid description (or--if it won't affect the bid--in the first private message you send to your provider). Any details that you do NOT care about should NOT be specified, as this can potentially confuse the issue and hamper creativity. To sum that up, expectations need to be clear, but not overly restrictive.

The biggest pitfalls that I have found (having been on both sides of the subcontractor fence on small and large (> $100K) projects) are:
1. Under- or Over-specifying requirements
2. Communicating a budget or timeline that will be difficult to meet
3. Posting in the wrong forum. You need to go where you'll have to compete with similar projects. That's where you will get the best bids.

You can go ahead and send me the link in a PM if you like.

[Marcie]

You can post the task link :)

[webgal]

You can post the task link :)

ditto. Let's see what's up.

[dking]

The job is on elance as:
http://www.elance.com/php/bid/main/proposalList.php?jobid=14611845

I did the work and noticed that the biggest issue I have seen with personals sites is the location database. Once I have that I can direct VAs to code the rest; I have the design all sketched out, domains bought, etc.

I also noticed that the max amount seemed kinda high.. it did not seem to let me go lower. Everything I posted seems pretty standard in the software industry; I'm just not sure why such a simple task is not getting any bids.

[DrifterInc]

I wasn't able to access the job through the link provided...

I have not had much luck with elance.com - but have hired two people through odesk.com in the last week. a VR and a video editor. both have started their work and provided very good return on time spent to date.

-Billy

[Marcie]

I couldn't access it either. Maybe copy and paste the details?

[dking]

After posting this, I ended up getting a bunch of offers.. for compleatly unrelated things. One person posted a offer trying to take advantage fo the fact that they where the only one, an then suddenly out of nothing 3 more came.

Yet none of them actually seem to be what I wanted.

Here is the add text; It states non-profit because I wanted to test the waters with this small project, then grow with a much larger one.. testing the waters.

What I want to do:
I want to start a non-profit personals website, dedicated to a very specific and small market that is not profitable enough for a company to spend a lot of money supporting. For this, I need a good database that will allow me to give my users a search for the people close to them based on distance to the area code (and possibly city if more than one exist in that area code) and city chosen.

What I already have:
I already have my web server. it is a standard Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP setup. I don't have any code written yet, but I could do it myself if I had the time as I am a professional programmer. I just don't have the time.

Other requirements:
* I need to be able to give users the ability to search by distance from a given zip code, or distance from a given city and state.
* If the zip code has multiple cities in it, I need to be able to give the user the option of selecting a less general search staring point by allowing them to select eh city/state in that area code as either the location of where they are, or where they want to search.
* I am not looking for website design at this time, although I do require a working PHP4/5 page that can actually use this data to show that it will really work as it needs to.
* I am a big fan of Software Testing, as I do it professionally. PHP pages need to be given to provide a proof of concept, "yes this really does work" sort of demo can run some Test Cases of my own through. This is a strict requirement as i do not want a database that I can not use or fails basic software quality checks.
* It should be fast enough to scale large if ever my site is slashdotted, and "just work".
* It should include raw sql dumps so that I can import or update the database as needed.
* It should work in both MYSQL 4 and MYSQL 5 databases, using the same "select" based queries.

Time frame for delivery:
I need this by the end of the week if possible, if not the end of next week is fine. If you need more time, tell me why.

Bidding:
Bidding is sealed.


I'm already suspecting that these peolple dont know everything they say they do and thus cant understand some of my terms, but if you guys have any other tips, please say so. I know I am sure that I messed up pretty badly, but with this being my first one I am sure it is not as bad as it could have been, and I'm learning.

[webgal]

I will take a closer look. But next week? Is this a reasonable time frame? Right off the bat I read "I have no money" but "I want it done right and I want it done next week". So this would put me off right away. I think you need to state a budget range.

I've not read it all in full but it just sounds like a lot of the listings that want everything for nothing and fast. The quality of the person who would respond won't meet your standards. Especially yours. I don't know if this is a quick turnaround for something like this but it seems really fast.

[Doreen]

I asked my database/web app guy about your listing, and here are his comments:

- Scalability of the application (if you get slashdotted) would require local caching of location results, which isn't hard to do, but adds to the spec, since the slowest processing part of the spec is doing the address/zip code lookup to an external web service.

- The amount of control you specified over ways to limit the search results might easily add a zero or two to the price, since increasing resolution at that part of the process is a significant difference in the amount of work on the bid.

- You'd need to offer to provide GIS/zip code information if you don't want to add the external look-up caching. (or want the area code piece to work, since the Yahoo geocoding service doesn't include area code, for example) He's not sure those are publicly available. And if you're providing PHPUnit cases, that makes the spec a lot clearer.

It's actually a project he's interested in, so feel free to PM me if you want to follow up. My profile has a link to a sample of Rails app built on a MySQL database that's our primary product.

[dking]

I asked my database/web app guy about your listing, and here are his comments:

- Scalability of the application (if you get slashdotted) would require local caching of location results, which isn't hard to do, but adds to the spec, since the slowest processing part of the spec is doing the address/zip code lookup to an external web service.

I'm aware of the third party connection slowing things down; Thats why I wanted it all internal with the city name already mapped to the zip code in the DB so no extra query would be needed. Its a many city to single zip relationship.


- The amount of control you specified over ways to limit the search results might easily add a zero or two to the price, since increasing resolution at that part of the process is a significant difference in the amount of work on the bid.

Not really, its simple a option box that uses the correct values to modify the sql query run; Security is handled by the fact that the options presented simple run a select case of options, not custom sql created on the fly by the users input. Its not a big problem, and that exactly what I would expect a programmer trying to get extra money to say.. unless of course he does not fully understand my intentions.


- You'd need to offer to provide GIS/zip code information if you don't want to add the external look-up caching. (or want the area code piece to work, since the Yahoo geocoding service doesn't include area code, for example) He's not sure those are publicly available. And if you're providing PHPUnit cases, that makes the spec a lot clearer.

Why do I need to use GIS Data? I'm not using a 84*-datum, and I dont want to. Its a simple tree based pair cross matching algo, not a complex "you are here" requirment. Your guy seems to think he needs to do more than he really does. And no, use of Yahoo is not an option.


It's actually a project he's interested in, so feel free to PM me if you want to follow up. My profile has a link to a sample of Rails app built on a MySQL database that's our primary product.

I dont work with ruby on rails; its slow and it does not scale; This post copied to you via PM, thanks.

[Doreen]

I think you're right on the mark with "understanding your intentions".

Taking a look through your additional comments, your bid might have better success if you go into a little more detail in the description on how you're envisioning the location matching will work.

There are enough different ways to handle that part that I think it might not be clear off the bat that you're not really looking for full location mapping functionality. I work with someone who comes from an industry where a great deal of precision was required in his database projects, which works great for my needs, but probably leads to assuming you're looking for something more precise than you are.

I've gotten successful bids from freelancers working on a small budget, well under $500, in a tight timeframe (1 week turnaround as well) on eLance before. And one of the things that helped was providing a list of exactly what resources we would provide, clear descriptions of the scope of what we expected, and what was required for the intermediate draft. It was important to the bidders that we made it overly clear that we weren't expecting miracles and had a reasonable understanding of how long the project would take.

Good luck!

[lar]

Right off the bat you don't say what you are looking for. You describe the site but not that you are looking for someone to program the database, which is what I'm assuming you're looking for. Do they also need to create the entire site? What about the design?

Also I think if you lengthen the time frame you might get a bid.