In need of good web developer

[Flatland2D]

My wife and I are starting our own business. Been almost two years in the planning/making, and the website is nearing one year in the works. Our current web developer (a company in NJ) works painfully slow, but to be honest, I haven't devoted a lot of time to working with them lately (mostly out of frustration). This should have been done in three months, but communication and other problems has greatly extended this.

The website is like a classifieds website where we allow (paying) members to post what they have for sale (market specific). This obviously requires a company well versed in e-commerce, something we didn't consider when choosing our first company. What we are looking for is a developer to take over once the site is handed over to us in its final form. Developers must be able to work backwards through their code to fix errors, modify for future changes and add features. Would definitely prefer to have someone local (anywhere in Texas actually, as long as we can meet face to face). It is possible I could take it over one day, I just haven't had time to learn PHP well enough. I do have lots of programming experience though.

I just wanted to post this here to see if anyone can recommend me a good web developer for this business. I would like to have it launched in a few months. I really don't want to keep using the same company anymore.

Thanks for any help!

[LedJedi]

I'm not a coder, but I know quite a few fellows who are. Can you give some technical details. What language is it written in? What database platform? What are the server specifications? etc.

[Kalrog]

It sounds like this advice is probably a year late... but you do know that there are pre-done modules out there that are open source / free and will do exactly what you are wanting to do? Most of these are for a linux web server, but there are some for MS as well.

Why spend time/money on something that someone else has already agreed to give you for free?

[Flatland2D]

It is written in PHP and uses MySQL databases. Paypal is used for transactions (the embedded version, not the redirect version). Main functions are register an account, charge accounts monthly/annually, add/delete/modify listings, display search results from very specific criteria, manage account, and some admin controls.

Yeah, I'm aware of already existing templates that do this. In the time that we have been planning our business, someone came out with a site like that using a classifieds template (I think it's like myclassifiedssite.com or something). We're not sure if they happened to think of the idea at the same time, or if they copied us from something my wife said (gave out information about what we're doing) a few months prior.

We probably could have used a site like that, but what we think will set us apart are several extra features we thought up that would need custom coding anyways. They are features very important to this specific market. The template classifieds site that beat us to market is not doing well, but I think that is partly do to the fact that they don't offer anything special like the extra features we have. They're just another place to advertise. We want to be THE place to advertise. I'd also guess that they have no business model. My wife and I have put a lot of time and energy into this and try to treat it like a real job. Our goal is the old American dream, to be your own boss and work from home.

Sorry for the secrecy, but it was very suspicious when that site popped up with our idea a while after it was posted on a forum about that market. I can give specific details and even show the website completed if anyone knows of a developer than can help (current status is fixing a few bugs before launch).

Also, if anyone knows of classes/seminars/books about starting your own (internet) business or advertising, I'd like to learn more. Thanks.

[LedJedi]

hmmm, see notes below

paypal:
I would strongly caution against using paypal as a portal for major business transactions. They cost too much. You're much better off getting your own merchant account and gateway setup through someone like 1&1.com

php & mysql:
For a small business, this is the way to go and you should have no problem finding folks who can help you with this.

Finding help:
I dont know any php heads off the top of my noodle that would be intersted, but you should certainly explore rentacoder.com. That's their whole purpose in life.

No worries on keeping it confidential. I've been involved in enough of these projects to know that i dont WANT to know if i'm not going to be involved. I'm much less likely to be sued/harassed for stealing the idea if i dont know what it is. :)

Also, if anyone knows of classes/seminars/books about starting your own (internet) business or advertising, I'd like to learn more. Thanks.

Learn all you can about SEO.

[Flatland2D]

Thanks for the help.

PayPal will hopefully work for now. It is a little costly, but we'll investigate other methods once we get things going and are looking to sharpen our profits.

I'll check out rentacoder.com. Sounds interesting.

Regarding SEO. The developers we have now claim that they optimize the website as they're building it, not just as a final step. I'll do what I can to try and increase this further.

[BrassMonkey]

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!!

If you paid for SEO and webdesign together, they should have been done together. Get a new company...

Thanks for the help.

PayPal will hopefully work for now. It is a little costly, but we'll investigate other methods once we get things going and are looking to sharpen our profits.

I'll check out rentacoder.com. Sounds interesting.

Regarding SEO. The developers we have now claim that they optimize the website as they're building it, not just as a final step. I'll do what I can to try and increase this further.

[GeoJAP]

This is a tricky deal. There are many, many ways to skin this cat. It sounds like your website is going to have quite a bit of functionality and that means coding will take quite a while for one coder if you want it to work correctly. Getting all the specs done correctly the first time will be of primary importance.

I prefer ASP.NET 2.0 over anything else for web applications. It gives ridiculously good functionality, much better than any script-based language like Javacript, PHP or ASP. But I guess it's probably cost-prohibitive. Keep us informed with what develops.

[ProudToCarry]

It is written in PHP and uses MySQL databases. Paypal is used for transactions (the embedded version, not the redirect version). Main functions are register an account, charge accounts monthly/annually, add/delete/modify listings, display search results from very specific criteria, manage account, and some admin controls.

Visit the Dallas PHP Users' Group:

http://dallasphp.org

Also, there are a few mailing lists that might be of interest:

jobs@ntlug.org
jobs@dfwuug.org

Both are moderated lists, so you don't have to subscribe to post.

Stick with PHP and MySQL. You'll find a high level of performance without having to pay onerous licensing fees.