looking for some project advice for a startup

[Carruth, Rusty]

ROTFL!

Words to live by.  All that George said is excellent, but I had a good
laugh at this:

-----Original Message-----
From: plug-discuss-bounces at lists.phxlinux.org
[mailto:plug-discuss-bounces at lists.phxlinux.org] On Behalf Of George
Toft

....
Also, it's fun to do destructive testing and put screenshots in the
docs.

Regards,

George Toft

-------------- end of original message -------------

The 'bad' thing about startups is that, well, they are startups :-)  No
money, low chance of succeeding even if they have the best mousetrap in
the universe (consider Beta vs VHS, just to quote the standard reference
- come on, you knew SOMEONE was going to do that!)

Quick and not very precise answers, all IMHO:

1 - not too bad, as long as you don't require 20 years of experience :-)

2 - $50 is 'ok' for a not too experienced person.  I charge $120/hour
when I do consulting work, and I don't do much any more - not really
worth my time (not money-wise, but fall-behind-in-other-projects-wise),
so you could easily pay more for a more experienced person.

3 - this will make 1 extremely hard.  That is to say, most people
wouldn't take equity in payment unless they don't need the money.  In
which case they'd probably want to charge more like the equivalent of
$150 to $200 per hour, given the risks involved.

4 - You  might consider a 2-pronged approach.  Start learning what you
need (as someone else said, not rocket science :-) ) while looking for
someone who is willing to take equity (good luck, IMHO).

5 - no idea, sorry.

6 - a lot depends upon the details of what they want and what you start
with (hardware, software, etc) - sorry not much help