Services work for startups? Services is a distraction to startups. Also, if I wanted to go that route, I could get my own services work or use an agency. Am I missing something here, guys?
True, but raising money is also a big distraction and can kill a startup. It really depends on the startup team and the route they want to go, whether raise money or bootstrap. Plus, you don't have to take a full-time project. You can choose to work 2-3 days a week or even weekends.
Going through an agency is fine, but they usually don't cater to team gigs and they take a pretty big percentage of your rate.
I ran an interactive services agency that tried to bootstrap products with services. It doesn't work. The time consumption of doing services is far too great a commitment to adequately perform the duties required to make your startup a success.
Comparing fund raising time commitment to ongoing contract work is not apples to apples. Fund raising takes time, but it's time spent on your startup. Also, it's a one or two time thing, not the unending time suck that is services.
There's a reason there are innumerable posts about the failures of bootstrapping products with services.
On the flip side, as a client I would be quite weary of hiring a startup team to do a project. If the startup takes off (even a bit) then be damn sure that startup team is out like the gout! There's not much incentive to complete the gig.
Not trying to be negative here, but I see a lot of holes in this business.
Startups can't always go straight after fundraising. When my team an I were iterating on product for the first 4 months, we had to pay the bills. My two cofounders both have kids, and one has a mortgage. I have a mortgage too. Tell me exactly which VC is going to give a team with a crazy idea a bunch of money? How many checks like that have you seen written to such early stage non-serial entrepreneurs?
So you know what we did? We all spent 3-4 days a week on contracting gigs, and the other 3-4 days a week working on our product together. Aside from the fact that we really didn't see eachother for half the week (which sucked because communication broke down), the contracting worked great. I set up expectations with my client and did some amazing work for them, and in the same week we made great progress on product.
Is it ideal? No. But does it keep the lights on and the health insurance paid and food on the counter? Yes. Assuming that everybody who decides to start a company has $50k saved up in their account is ludicrous.
And you know what? If we could have worked on the same project when we were bootstrapping rather than different ones, our communication and camaraderie would have been a lot better.
I completely agree that if you have a good deal of runway through savings or venture capital, staying heads down and avoiding distractions is the right move. But Christeso, that's not what this product is for. It's for all the other guys who need to hustle and scrape together enough money to keep going.
Going through an agency is fine, but they usually don't cater to team gigs and they take a pretty big percentage of your rate.