Hacker News Reader

Comment by dynjo | Hacker News Reader

We are based in Bangkok :-)

I understand and I know it's just an estimating tool but are you saying I can hire your team to deliver a gold-plated does everything iOS app with geolocation, health and sensor inputs, a top-notice design, etc including the detailed functional requirements (we all know what clients think is a complete specification), tested and delivered in the app store for 1,576hrs of billable work at $56/h total cost to me including any overhead you may have (like your market street sf office)?

Sounds very reasonable to me. $56/h is above the market rate for Thailand, Eastern Europe, Russia, etc.

I think the point was you get what you pay for. $56/hr is probably above market rate in those locations for straight up development work, not the fully loaded costs of a project that size which will need to include requirements gathering, design, UX, testing, integration, etc outside of straight up development work.

Our hourly works out slightly more than this, but yes the economics work because of the geo-arbitrage.

We are actually a 6 year old western company based in Bangkok. We have worked with many big name startups very successfully.

Any names to mention checked your site and didn't see much.

You have just described why so much offshoring moved back to the US. If you need something cookie cutter that has already been done, sure, but then why are you building something that's already been done? If you have all the infrastructure to take everything else out of the equation except the raw development, then it often still makes sense to have a developer or 2 full time to maintain the app and understand the business needs.

I bet the offshore guys get a lot of work from all of the "I have an idea!" people though.

Could you link here to a few apps which you have have built and designed at that price and within the timeframe?

Here is a recent one https://slimwiki.com

Would love to grab coffee! (No contact info in your profile)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com