Are You The Droid We're Looking For?
Many of you have asked for Android versions of the popular Schlock apps, which include both a free and a subscription comic reader, and a coloring book.
I used to work for a software company where I defined the products that drove a hundred-million-dollar per year business unit. I know a thing or two about the business of code for money. One of these things? I know a good developer when I see one. Gary Henson at Plus 14 is just such a developer. And one of the reasons he's so good at what he does is that he stays focused. He writes for IOS, he stays ahead of the learning curve on that platform, and his apps are wonderful.
He does not want to be an Android developer.
But he IS willing to work with one.
Are you that developer? Well, let me give you some more information so you can self-select a little bit.
When I approached the project of a Schlock app I asked interested iPhone developers to send me resumés and business plans. Gary stood out because he followed those instructions. He showed me apps he'd written, and he provided three different business plans whereby both of us could get paid for the work we were going to put into the project.
The plan we agreed to was a simple one: Gary was not interested in writing code for a salary, and deduced (accurately!) that I was not interested in hiring a one-shot engineer. I wanted a business partner. To that end, Gary writes code, I provide content, and we split the take. Most of the rest of the details had to do with how to get money in the first place.
We are now prepared to complicate things a little. We need a partner to code on the Android platform. This is spec-work, which means nobody gets paid for the code until the code makes money. But it is also skin-in-the-game work, which means that if Schlock on Android makes crazy money, the developer is collecting a sweet, double-digit percentage of that craziness.
Ordinarily I tell people that spec-work is a horrible idea. Never work for nothing. In this case, however, most of the risks have already been taken. There is a large, established audience, an existing, profitable server-side framework, and a gaping hole waiting to be filled by an Android developer who can knock an app out of the park. And we want that developer to be a partner, not a code-monkey writing to a paycheck.
Interested?
MODERATOR EDIT: We've closed submissions for now as it appears the Jedi mind-trick failed and we actually found the droid we were looking for. Thanks for your interest, everyone! Now stop waving your hands like that. It doesn't work.