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VentureStorm — Intelligent platform to connect startups and developers
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Jason Carvalho
Tyler, congrats on the launch of this product. I have 400 entrepreneurs in my local community that would benefit from this service. They support TriCelerate, a local startup platform, and I would love to share this with them. In addition, we constantly have questions from members of our local chamber of commerce, existing business owners who need access to great developers. Do you have any time to chat?
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@jasonlcarvalho Hey Jason, happy to connect. I'd love to see how we can help out and assist the entrepreneurs in your local community! Feel free to shoot an email to team@venturestorm.com and I'll contact you from my personal email from there.
This site is awesome - thanks for including http://privacy.com as one of the breakout startups of 2017
@tyler_denk This definitely seems like it has potential. I have seen a similar product called https://dutchstartupjobs.com/ in Amsterdam where I am based. Its pretty good too and they dont require a sign up to view listings. Also I tried signing up as a developer but the email link failed. Either ways,Good luck guys!
@shantanutarey Hey Shantanu- we appreciate your support!
Not having to sign in to view listings is definitely something we have considered. Although we don't believe ideas hold much value (it's all about the execution), many early stage entrepreneurs and ventures prefer some sense of security. We handle this by requiring developers to sign in to view projects. However, this is something we can definitely alter to optimize.
We saw the error you received and are having trouble replicating it on our end. However, we just went ahead and confirmed your account manually. Looking forward to having you as a part of our community. Let me know how you enjoy your experience on the platform!
@jessicanow Thanks Jessica! We've been talking to @ga here in DC, but are still working on getting a direct partnership. We've partnered with a few other coding bootcamps (including @makeschool) as well as university computer science programs!
@xtoq Hey Smokie! Would you mind emailing us at team@venturestorm.com? We have received a few notifications about the LinkedIn PDF issue; however, are unable to replicate the error on our end. If you could email us your CV I'd love to take a look and identify the issue.
I appreciate your feedback! Currently, when an entrepreneur / startup uploads a project they set a proximity. If they set it to local (and select a mile radius), then that usually indicates they are looking for someone local in that area. Otherwise they may select global which is shown to any developer on the platform. However, it is often they would select global to get more exposure but not want a remote developer - therefore I see you're point and we can add that shortly!
Let me know if you ever have any additional feedback!
@tyler_denk @venturestorm Done! Sorry was uber busy yesterday. And I hear you on the remote/global conundrum. It seems like so many jobs are listed as local but turn out to be remote, I suspect due to some HR departments' resistance to remote work. ;)
Thanks for your response, and please let me know if I can help you troubleshoot more! Or if you didn't get my email.
@tyler_denk @venturestorm Emailed and in a convo with Tommy. Wanted to give this additional feedback (also included in the email, but I didn't want it to get lost!):
I feel like it's WAY too many clicks to update my profile. While I get that this isn't the most important action for users, it shouldn't take 4 clicks to get there, especially when 2 of them are hidden in menu options. I believe that the links in the popup for "Account Settings" on the "Profile" page should be repeated in the popup when you click your name in the top right to reduce the number of clicks to get to the editing page.
@xtoq @venturestorm We're a small team of 3 over here, so don't worry I'm looped in with your email convo with Tommy :).
I really appreciate you taking the time to offer additional feedback. We work pretty quickly over here, so although we don't have an immediate build scheduled at the moment, I added that to the list of improvements and will try to get to that in the next few days!
I'll also try to remember to shoot you an email when it's live to get your thoughts!
This looks like a useful service! What is your pricing model? Do the developers propose their own rates?
@saleemyaqub Hey Saleem! Right now we are utilizing a monthly subscription model for premium accounts. You can utilize the freemium account, which allows you to post a project (position or startup opportunity) and begin to get some engagement from developers.
With the premium account, you have access to the entire database of developers, can filter and search based on location / skills / experiences / demographic / etc., can get analytics on who's viewed your project, and take advantage of some other features as well.
Entrepreneurs / startups post a budget for their project (or salary), while developers have the ability to include their hourly rate in their profile as well. Really we focus on fostering relationships, so usually both parties utilize the instant messaging to negotiate a fair price.
I'm a mobile app designer who would love to take on paid/equity projects, do you guys have any plans on inviting designers to the platform?
When it comes to finding developers, will you create a feature where Entrepreneurs to filter out developers who are willing to take on projects for equity and those who only want to be paid money? The developers I've encountered in the past only want money even though their skills aren't advanced as they say they are.
With messages, I would love to see a Read Receipt feature
@ios_javi Hey Javi, really appreciate your feedback.
Right now we use the term 'developer' very loosely, and for simplification purposes have included designers under that developer umbrella. I agree we could improve the transparency and even specify the difference within the account. Many entrepreneurs and startups are looking for front-end / design work so those opportunities do exist on the platform!
As for your second suggestion, I really like that as well. We're continuously adding value to our premium account features, and improving the filter function as you mentioned is definitely something we can do.
We actually track when a message has been viewed (obviously how we determine when to get rid of the unread messages notification), so adding a read receipt is a simple fix. We'll get that pushed up in the near future. Thanks again for your feedback!
This looks great! But, http://www.venturestorm.com/proj... is not loading nor is LinkedIn signup working for me... Could it be because of US-East 1 🤔
Please Confirm.
@anushk Thanks for bringing this to our attention. It does seem to be linked with the AWS outages. Try back in a little bit, hopefully it will be resolved by then. Nothing like massive internet outages on a launch day :)
@taylor_johnson Finally it works for me! The website is pretty nice but I can't find the option to link with linkedIn account as my account was initially created using email/password. Is it not possible to do that at the moment?
@anushk We appreciate your compliment!
Right now, the only way to link your account to your LinkedIn is via sign in. Obviously the AWS outage isn't something we exactly planned for :/. You can however import your LinkedIn resume to auto-complete your profile so you don't need to manually fill out your profile information.
The only other advantage to signing up with LinkedIn is the one-click login. Because you created using email/password, you'll just need to sign in with those credentials in the future.
I can definitely empathize with the problem space you guys are tackling; so many great ideas don't come to fruition due to a lack of technical expertise. The platform looks great too, I'm excited to try it!
Btw, how does the payment process work for developers – in terms of $ or equity?
@naitik_17 Hey Naitik, it's definitely a huge problem we're trying to solve!
One of the main advantages to using VentureStorm is the streamlined communication between the two parties. It's not a job posting board where you submit and application and wait months to hear back. Because of the seamless communication, we encourage users to negotiate the terms of the contract. If you choose to pay in $, we offer escrow services to provide a secure transaction between the parties.
As I'm sure you're aware, equity can be a messy situation. Although we allow entrepreneurs and startups to promote that they are willing to allocate equity for the position, we don't handle the equity transaction. We are working on additional ways to provide assistance to both parties for this transaction however.
Hi Product Hunt! VentureStorm is a web application that connects entrepreneurs and startups to talented software developers! Far too many startups struggle to acquire the necessary tech talent to take their venture from zero to hero. Whether these companies are in need of a technical co-founder, a freelance developer, or anything in between - VentureStorm makes connecting to the perfect developer seamless.
Before many of you ask what makes us different than existing platforms, I figured I’d go ahead and beat you to the punch! We have curated a community of developers that genuinely want to work with startups as they grow and scale. VentureStorm itself is incredibly simple and intuitive to use, while it streamlines the entire process to focus on building quality relationships and trust. Our machine learning algorithms use data to intelligently recommend the best startup opportunities for developers, and inversely, the best developer candidates for your startup. Other platforms that offer similar features and benefits will cost you 15% of the developer’s first year salary or thousands of dollars per hire. We built something flexible and affordable that the solo entrepreneur can utilize, in addition to large scale startups.
A very special thanks for @erictwillis for hunting us today! My team and I will be here all day to answer questions! We’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts :)
@tyler_denk @erictwillis This looks like it has potential. Created an account as a developer, but there aren't many projects in there so far, so hopefully that'll pick up in the following weeks.
The only way I see this rising above the competition is if you carefully curate the projects as well as the developers. Nothing kills a platform like this quicker than poor content. Personally, I've put in little details about myself (caus the LinkedIn import failed) and I can already contact people for all the projects... That might essentially be spamming for startups looking for quality people.
@baboon @erictwillis Hey Horea, thanks for joining our developer community!
We have had over 500 startup projects posted to the platform thus far (many have already found developers, thus their projects are no longer active). However, there are nearly 200 active as of right now, and growing!
As you mentioned about curating projects, each project is initially set to 'inactive' until they schedule a call with me or someone else on the team. This ensures both quality assurance and the ability for me to help them improve their post so it's better content for developers!
We haven't encountered anyone having issues with the LinkedIn import feature, but are looking into your issue now. That feature is just an option to help import profile information- you could always enter in information manually as well! Sorry you encountered that error. Hope you enjoy the platform!
@tyler_denk Yeah, no worries, it told me you were notified :) It's good to know that you curate the projects and that they serious about their intentions. From my personal experience, that problem has been plaguing these markets for a while now.
Looks like a great product if it gets populated with projects. Currently, I guess there are only US based startups, but it would save time, if next to salary or equity, the location would be showed. I've also tried to upload my LinkedIn CV and it crashed. The message showed a notification was sent to your team so I guess it will be shortly handled. Good luck!
@georgenikolic Hey George! Of course, we believe the platform we've built solves a huge problem for entrepreneurs / startups, and also provides a lot of opportunities to developers! As a completely bootstrapped startup with limited budget, we admit we could use more projects and are looking to do that on a daily basis! We also have some startups located around the world, although the little marketing we do does currently focus in the US market.
Would you mind emailing us at team@venturestorm.com? We have received a few notifications about the LinkedIn CV issue; however, are unable to replicate it on our end. If you could email us your CV I'd love to take a look and identify the issue. Thanks!
@georgenikolic @venturestorm Got it! My teammate, Tommy, is the one who built the LinkedIn PDF import so he took the lead on that and got back to you. Sorry if that was confusing but I am in the loop. Thanks again!
