[tadfisher]

If your idea is good, you can find developers who will work for a stake. They may not be full-time, because everyone needs to pay the bills, but they are out there. By having this "keep my idea secret so no one can steal it" rule at the forefront, you'll never find those developers.

That doesn't mean you should make a HN post with your entire idea diagrammed and annotated. All you need is a gist; "a social bookmarking service" or "text-message notification system" is enough to start correspondence.

Any service that will develop your product for you is not going to be worth it, period. This needs to be a collaborative effort under your wing. The developers actually working on the idea need to have their own stake in the product, moreso than a paycheck from a service that might build 1,000 dynamic websites in a year.

[gregw100]

I've come to that conclusion that I can't keep my idea a total secret, otherwise it will never see the light of day. At first I was entirely vaulted. As for the site, it's a social network with a focus on businesses rather than people. I've spent countless hours drawing up the blueprint, so there are literally over fifty other services that I believe the site could incorporate which all have a huge potential upside. It's very frustrating to have all these ideas but not know how to implement them. I've already spent thousands of dollars on developers, but I don't want to go completely broke.

[tadfisher]

Try college students. Seriously, I knew so many CS/SE majors who needed projects to work on that would mean something on their resumes.

Many colleges have an undergrad "capstone" program where entrepreneurs can pitch their ideas to teams of students, who may spend 1 or 2 quarters building a product in lieu of a thesis. This might be a good place to start.

[gregw100]

I couldn't reply to your last post, so I'm replying directly above it.

That's a good idea. I've thought of that, but 1. I'm not a very outgoing person and don't know if I would be great at pitching an idea and 2. It seems that students wouldn't bring the quality that professional programmers do. That's definitely an option though. Thanks.