If your IP is software, think again

We are making something cool and new, and the hacker community has already made some cool products in the space. So we thought we might reach out to some of the guys in the space to see if they would like to collaborate.

There was one app out there we quite liked. So we emailed the guy. He said he had done about 1,000 hours of work (half a year, full time — surely he is exaggerating?) and figured that was worth around $50,000 if we wanted to ‘license’ it from him.

So I pinged a freelancer I know overseas, told him what we wanted, and he quoted me a price to build it. 7 days, $800.

I said, what? Whoa. OK you are probably underestimating this. I’ll sign up but you have to give me a deliverable after 3 days that is at least usable. Then build all the interfaces and be done.

So 3 days go by. He sends me the app. Completely finished.

How much time did you work last week?

20 hours.

So the 1,000 hours of hobbyist tinkering was cloned in 20 hours of expert chopshopping.

If your IP is software, think again.

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