TrueNinjalo wrote: ↑Thu May 10, 2018 2:53 pm
As an engineer, I give scopes to companies and asks for quotes all the time.
As do I. Would you say it is a particularly
fruitful process to spend that kind of time working out the specs for a client you're not sure is able to pay to get the work done? I've certainly found it to be rather inefficient to have prospective clients ask me (and many other consultants) to do all that work upfront only to find out they didn't have a reasonable budget to hire
anyone.
As I said I don’t know what the going rates are for this as I have no idea what is all involved.
As I said, it doesn't matter what the "going rates" are. It only matters what it is
worth to you to get things done. You give a bullet list of 4 items you want done. Just attach
your budget.
Next, I don’t have a budget.
Everyone has a budget. Some pay more, some pay less. You paid your friend $150 (plus a bonus). The only question before you here is what this new work is worth to you. If saying you have no budget means it's worth $0, just say that. It makes it really easy for someone to decide if they want to volunteer or not.
I may value my time more or less than you or anyone else here.
The value of your time isn't in question. The value of the work you want done is. It should be a really simple question to answer. No rational person here is going to blow a gasket if you say want a custom Raspbian image for $100 (or whatever). Yeah, you might get people who call you cheap, but if that's sincerely your budget, it's a more professional approach than expecting everyone to read your project details and work out a quote, only to jerk the carpet out from under them.
Now, with that said, can you do the work I’m requesting? If so, what kind of compensation would you require? Or let me put it another way. Can you give me a quote for the work I need done.
I can, but you've done nothing to demonstrate that it is worth my, or anyone else's, effort to do so. Indeed, I would have a number of questions about the brief descriptions you've given. It would take quite a bit of back and forth to work out a reasonable spec that I could attach a hard number to. But it's just not that attractive a prospect when you say you have no budget to work with.
So, come on, realize you have to give a little to get a little.