Topic: DocOzone's patented gee-whiz formula for pricing!™ (Page 1 of 1)

Say, since I seem to be talking on and on about my "patented gee-whiz formula for pricing!?", if anyone has a list of specs they need to make a quote of, post it here and I'll step through and show you the math I use for roughing-up an hourly estimate based on what seems to be needed to be done. ("Seems to", as many RFP's have booby-traps in them, intentional or not!) This could be a good example of the kind of thinking needed to do these things, and we can rip apart any of the flawed logic I seem to use; this could be a good way to get your feet wet with this kind of stuff. All we need is an example set of specifications to work with, something real would be better. Anybody need a quote?

Your pal, -doc-

Hahaha......Sorry Sorry I just cant help but laugh at the title of this thread.
Got here from a link that shiiizzam posted, think this is awesome service that you are going to be providing! You never cease to amaze me Doc.


"I think when a person has been found guilty of rape he should be castrated. That would stop him pretty quick." -Billy Graham -

When I first started working for this Swedish company, the president of our company heard about a time estimate I had done for one of our clients. When I arrived, most quotes were of the "Hmm? I don't know, it seems like a big job, 100 hours? Maybe not so big, 50 hours?" variety. Numbers were just plucked out of the air. I came up with a calculation of something like 92 hours and 18 minutes. He just had to ask me, what was I planning to be doing in those last 18 minutes? With a very straight face I told him I planned to be patting myself on the back for finishing the job on budget! =) My next real job there I was the lead on, and had a time estimate of 410 hours, and thanks to my project manager who provided me with really accurate reports towards the middle and end of the project, I was able to lean on people and modify our ambitions so we added the final tweaks in the last day, launched when we said we would, and hit our total time used at 409 hours! (I went home an hour early.=) It really can be done.

Your pal, -doc-

Doc, i wish you needed a job.

i've recently inherited a publishing company that i may or may not sell out of by the middle of next year, depending on how well i PERSONALLY can mesh ethnic newspapers and magazines with my addiction to the web... i just had to say thank you for so much good (FREE!) advice on the business side of design. the calculator in my head has been wildly tick-ticking the entire time it's taken me to read this entire forum ..

SUN
//did u mention something about wanting to be a millionaire before 30?//

Well, I had wanted to be a millionaire by 27, but if Kevin's aiming for millionaire by 30, he's ferked....old bastards we be 'round these parts.

heh.

Ah, publishing....magazines....remind me to shudder over those war stories at some point.



I hope this forum gets the traffic it deserves, I should spend a bit more time around here, just to add the occasional "And this is what I did....so don't do that..it was really stupid"...


Peter




ICQ:# 10237808

I'm all too familiar with the time estimates you experienced at your first swedish employer, doc. I've got my fair share of that kind.

Anyway, just wanted to say that I'll stop by in here frequently if someone needs my slightly different view of things.

I'm no freelancer or even a designer by profession. I'm a pretty big customer!

My dayjob is to argue with you guys over deadlines, hourly fees, maintenance deals and concepts

But in here, I'll just lend a hand if anyone wants some comments from the other side of the fence

OMG DG, i've been wanting (for weeks!) to bust out with my shitload of gripes about the publishing business, but it never seemed appropriate in the asylum .. (and i got no time or desire to frequent any other forums online... ew..)

just knowing that somebody else in here might understand... *sniff* .... *sigh* ...

SUN
//where's the bloody nurse with the sedatives!?!?//

Eh? Who said I wasn't looking for work? See my CV at http://www.ozones.com/cv/ - I'm going to be trying to find the 5 companies I actually want to send hard-copies of it too, as the whole "entrpeneur" thing has not been taking off. (Not my fault! All my stupid clients are going bankrupt before they can sign the final contract! I hate it when that happens.) This coming week I finally start trying hard to get a job again, it's been a long time since I've needed to actually go *find* a job, I hate this part of working!

Your pal, -doc-

are you SERIOUS Doc?????

my projects might be a bit small time for a web genius like you, though... hmmmm.... i'm going to have to endure another three or four weeks of grind time (restructuring) with some of my advisers before i can get the specs to you, so maybe i'll leave it there for now ..

but, oh my gosh-ness ... the possibilities here .... hhmmm....

SUN
//thinking...thinking..//

Oh yeah, what's the phrase, "serious as houses?" =) The dot.com.boom left my newest business in a shambles, and it's a hard job market out there, too many companies are laying off to hire anybody, even me! (Really!=) To be honest, I haven't tried to hard to find work really, and I'm loooking into freelancing again, or possibly just taking a low-level production type job, something that would give me time to do all of my fun projects, like this place, Znippets, etc... I took a bunch of the summer off, and now I'm all ready to go, money's running out, what better time to think of the future? You gimme a holler if anything comes up, and I'll keep looking for something to fill the time (and wallet, heh.)

Your pal, -doc-

You could turn the Asylum into the biggest internt based freelance design company there is. Not only could we learn for free but get paid to learn.

HeHeHe...

why you laughing quarath?


SUN
//just call me mr burns//

I was just thinking of all that corporate money rolling in.

aaahhh... well in that case..

MMMUUUAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

SUN
//no shame in being a capitalist//

Ok Doc... try this on for size...

I'm going to be building a portal - but doing it for myself, so I can't bill anyone per hour! (Damn!) Where you can advise though, is when it comes to making it a profitable enterprise. I think my dream would be to have a local body (ie. a local council etc) buy the site, and even pay me to upkeep it. Then theres advertising.. etc etc..

At least you can tell me how much the site is *worth* - for the time I put into it...

======Predicted WorkStack========

Design:
Lots of hours - taking photos, photoshop time using photos in site design.
Updates - up to me! - no moany client asking for tweaks! (then again, when the asylumites see it...)

Coding:
This'll take ages! I'm planning -
Discussion Forum
Instant Messaging (of sorts)
Member profiles
User Submittable Articles (with an Admin "ok" it before publishing)
User Submittable News (with an Admin "ok" it before publishing)
Local Business Directory
Someone's Looking For You*

Networking:
Speaking to local pubs for gigs listings etc.
Speaking to local councils to offer them the chance to submit "articles/news" - or even admin others submissions.
Speaking to local businesses to see if they'd like to appear in the business directory.

Marketing:
Lots of local newspaper adverts.
Lots of mini billboard style posters.
Lots of inside pubs and shots posters.


=============================

As you can see, I'm hoping to spend some time speaking to everyone that is everyone in my local area about this project. The money making opportunities should spin off from these meetings - ie offering advertising/pub reviews etc.

One last thing - I need to be careful over this in a business sense. I'm going to pay for everything out of my own pocket, and I'm not publicly intending to treat this as a profitable business venture. However, that IS exactly what I want it to become... How do suddenly start taking in money without landing myself in trouble.. will I have to start up as a company with tax returns etc etc?

----
* Someones Looking For You - a neat feature I'm planning where a potential new member - lets say its Mr Doc Ozone is hugely tempted to register just in case any of his friends have "looked" for him on the site. So I could search for Doc Ozone, find no results, but when Doc registers, it would say "sonicsnail has been looking for you - click here to leave him a message". Hopefully people will just be toooo tempted to see if they're popular.
----

Thanks for any input!

Pete

Ok, this will take some time, there's a few things mentioned on your feature list that imply other things, member list implies member/user database, with authentication, which implies MySQL or something similar. This aspect alone is a biggie, but from there you get many of the other features for free. Submitted articles and approval, vcould be "brute forced", but also implies a publishing system perhaps, with a database, and now the member authentication comes into play again, users fit into different "roles" (better than the term "groups", who might have members with different roles, get it?)

ANYways, I'm mainly jabbering just to push this back up to the top, I'll pull the text out, put it into a text document, and see what can be done.

Your pal, -doc-

Hi Doc...

Well, you're right about all the complicated stuff - its blown my mind too many times when thinking about it... so I've taken a HUGE shortcut, and implemented PHPNuke. Believe it or not, its almost overkill for what I'm trying to do, but I'm doing the good honest thing and making a lot of tweaks to the site (not the PHP code really, but how much appears on a page etc) and doing all my own graphics of course.

The fun part of this is the fact that you can incorporate "themes" - users can actually choose how they want your site to appear (based on what themes you have made available) - though I'm probably only going to give them one option - . The themes are not as simple as just a different style sheet - they're also a complicated little PHP page called theme.php, which dictates to the site how to render things like tables, so you can decide if tables have borders, backgrounds, corner images, etc etc etc.. (damn cool eh!)

I'll show you the version I'm working once I've got something sensitive sorted out.. (doctors on monday - heh)

cheers for now,

Pete.

Do we get to see this golly-gee-whiz formula Doc? Or are you still very busy? I'm really curious as to how you come up with such well done numbers.

Bump

Still waiting to see how this one comes out.

Also, a few people ( quite some time ago ) mentioned sample contracts, and tips on protecting yourself....
this would be a good place for those, too, yes ?

Hey Doc...
I'm not sure if I'm talking to the right person here (my work is flash related), but I'm curious how much I could sell a site similar to www.ninjasinpyjamas.com for?

Also, my company works on a flat rate, and I'm wondering if I should start charging by the hour instead. We're still strictly small-time, and most jobs don't take more than 20 to 30 hours to complete.

Thanks!

Depends upon how long it took you to make and how much you think you are worth per hour.

It tends to be a little hard to judge on a play site. Something done in flash normally demands upwards of $50 per hour. You have some interesting navigation, and it is clean. You have a somewhat professional look, however some of the links, as to the tutorials don't display as good as should be.

I am not a flash designer, but I am estimating that it took you 4 hours to do the concept work. Around 10-15 hours to work the design (this might be totally wrong), and then another 5 hours to propagate the content correctly.

For this, we can estimate around 20 hours for the site to be done completely. For this you could come out with a bill of $1000 on the low end and $1500 on the higher end for hours based on a flat rate of $50 per hour.

You might be able to up your rate to $75 per hour. Might be hard in this market right now, you might have to lower it to $40 or even $30 per hour to get the business.

It is all very variable here.

For a play site such as that, I would have given a bill of $500 flat. It would be fun to work on and the people you are designing for probablly don't have the money that a bigger business would have.

it is all just so variable. so many issues to consider.

You want to charge as much as you can get from the client. If they say yes to fast you didn't charge enough, if they don't call you back you probabally charged to much.

Play the client know the client. You can charge M$ $250+ per hour. You can charge jo-blow gamer $5 per hour.

-mage-

Alright Doc, I got one for you...

It is *mostly* pretty straight-forward small business 'info' type web site.
Home Page, About Us, Contact Info, etc.
Descriptions and pictures of 25-30 different product lines...thinking javascript fancy type display...no problem.

All that is fairly simple -- stuff I can handle.

Next (and here lies the question), the client wants companies to be able to:

a) order product and arrange for delivery on-line
--credit card or by pre-arranged credit negotiations (that is, a company may have a 'tab' with my client and simply get billed at the end of each month.)
--the product is highly customizable, so the end-user would need to be able to specify customizations. My client is a small, local business which prints posters, vinyl signs, billboards, etc. The end user would need to be able to transfer graphics, text, etc to my client. I'm anticipating use of FTP, but don't have all the details worked out yet.

b) send regular marketing info, ordering reminders for regular customers, bills, etc via e-mail.

I've never tackled anything this large before...and expect to use the "Server-Side Scripting - Oh my!" forum a lot in the next few weeks (get ready Ini, mr.max, warmage, etc.).
The client wants to know what this will cost...

thanks
mobrul

danm..... i knew i shouldnt have gone into atoms.... oh well, i'll just have to get rich another way... ^_^ but i still love my drawing coding and writing.. there's a net beast inside of me.... hmmmm, i probably need an exorcist... anyone?

Hey Doc .. you worked for USweb/cks .. odd .. I'm close to getting hired working for them .. I read your CV well most of it .. what are they like to work for?

ok can anyone help me price up a job i have in the pipe works its different to my usual stuff so having a hard time.

Its for a model agency,involves creating a database for model details also each record must have four photos attached to record (need scanning resizing etc) currently over 500 models.

ok then i need to create a dynamic web site using ASP linking to database to enable agency clients etc to browse through the models by category (search pages) Porobably 20 or so different search routines.

i have worked out that there will be somewhere in the region of 10 static pages, 20 or so asp pages.

ok thats the main dsite design taken care of, then comes the grinder .... designing database populating it with records and images....processing upto 15000 images for web use (or potential web use).....now the hard part as i am in cz republic its like extracting blood from a stone from clients as far as pricing goes, to give you an idea say a static web site with 6 or 7 pages and no gimics as such would be charged on average at about 100-200 uk pounds here.

this site is one i dont want to lose by screwing up th epricing so any input would be greatly appreciated

thanks