Show HN: TinyApps – Upwork but for tiny software development tasks (opens in new tab)

Hello, Kiran here.

We have been working for the last few weeks on building TinyApps. A lot of us have come across situations where in we want to offload some of our work but at the same time we don't want to take the pain of finding developers, agencies and the cost that comes with it. This would help in focusing on our core work and at the same time get some bandwidth.

So, we are launching a platform where in you can post your tasks which could be just a bug fix, a simple infrastructure setup using terraform, a dashboard in react or anything related to software development for a fixed tiny price similar to the price of a coffee.

Unlike upwork, we only focus on software dev.

Would love to get any feedback and thoughts.

Where can I sign up as a developer?

We also launched a similar service in the past like 3-4 years back and trust me it doesn't work as you think. The problem is with the product-market fit. It is very hard to find the right people for your service and the fierce competition from all the major players makes it even harder. If you are truly involved in the service then don't wait for the people to find and reach out to you, instead try to find the right audience and reach out to them. I know it is tougher than saying. We've tried it but unfortunately, it didn't work as we planned and that's why we shut it down after just 6 months. Nevertheless, at least try it first. All the best.

"A task which can be completed in few days i.e less than a week is generally a tiny task. It could be a bug fix, a simple crud app, a server setup etc. Ofcourse if you have something which takes more time or are not sure, don't hesitate to proceed, that becomes a medium tiny task or a big tiny task :-)"

That's not tiny. Tiny is 1-2 hours work. Tiny is something like changing a hardcoded text string in a codebase or changing something in a properties file.

You should have your site looked at by someone in copywriting or thelike.

There are a ton of errant mistakes that make no sense and a lack of consistency.

Setting up the env probably eats into your margins.

Whenever I onboard a new contractor, they bill me 4+ hours just to get the thing to run on their machine and understanding the code base.

I'm curious if you're constantly having different devs, this overhead for each dev makes it less appealing on both sides of the table.

I also had someone (who I gave paid trial "tiny task") steal my codebase and post the code publicly on github to pretend to use in job interviews. Ever since then, I try to minimize the number of contractors I allow access to my source code.

How do you prevent the subcontractors from doing this?

I tried to create a similar service a couple of months ago but it didn't take off. Good luck to you.

I think it needs a lot of trust before people can start posting on our platform. For example- Upwork has built the reputation for that. So, bootstrappers like ourselves can't survive that period. I think that's the reason for my failure while creating that platform.

Small suggestion: you are calling it upwork but no signups for devs is a real bummer. If you aren't ready to take outside devs yet, at least put a waiting list where devs can put their email and other info to be contacted later.