[Minneapolis1]

Because most good programmers regularly hear from people who want them to work for free on an idea someone has...with the chance that they will get paid well once the idea succeeds. Ideas are easy and we all have them; executing them well is very hard.

[thekillingtree]

Yeah, I get that. I do. In all of my emails I ask for a rough ballpark quote or an estimate of how many hours. I realize how hard it is to do this sometimes, but you have to start somewhere.

[fizzbar]

Wild speculation: if you're at the "ballpark" stage, you probably have a very vague feature list / overall plan... I suspect if you tighten up the description and scope you'll have more luck (although given how many offers for quotes you just got, perhaps a better method is to just post on YC ;)