>I am really sorry to read this. If you and Gary are having trouble finding work the job market must be even worse than I thought.Well, the problem is that we *haven't* been looking for work. We've been working on the "next-gen" version of our software. We have one installation in Seattle (involving Police, Fire, DOT, Public Utilities). That whole installation was completed this past summer. And we keep hoping to get more customers, but they're not falling in our lap (plus, the process takes time once you *do* get an agency interested). It'll happen, it's just not happening soon enough. In the meantime, we've been trying to complete our next-gen version, which will be much more efficient than the current version (which is pretty darn good as it is).
>I looked at some of the online work for hire sites, looking to get some C# experience working cheap, and have to agree with Gary's research showing it doesn't pay enough to live on. It seemed like I kept running into people in other countries willing to work for $5 a day.Crowd funding isn't the same as crowd sourcing, which may be what you're thinking of? (And, yeah, I've looked at a few of those online work for hire sites too). Crowd funding sites, such as Indiegogo and KickStarter are for people trying to get funding for a project or for a small or startup business. The theory is that if enough people help you out by funding you with a few hundred bucks (or more, or less), it will add up quickly. The key though is that enough people have to contribute. They do for some types of projects ... but what we were seeing on Indiegogo is that people want to spend money to get something useful. For example, if we were developing apps for smart phones, and one of the perks of funding us was that you'd get the app for free, people might be likely to particpate. That won't happen with the type of software we're developing. Not even if our Indiegogo campaign were to try to appeal to people's sense of safety and/or community (because our software can be used by police and fire agencies to help them better serve the public) ... because people would probably still want some kind of perk ... and a refrigerator magnet or T-shirt with our logo on it probably isn't all that compelling. <g> So, we still don't think we'd get much of anywhere on Indiegogo.
Anyway, I'm going to be doing about 2 weeks of work starting on Monday, but it's not paying much at all ... in fact, it's so little that I'm not even gonna tell you what it is. It's embarrassing! I'd rather be working on my next-gen stuff!
~~Bonnie
>>I posted this on Facebook (and an obviously abbreviated verson on Twitter too!), but thought I'd also give it a go here.
>>
>>I know this is pathetic, and I really hate to beg, but we're broke and down to our last few thousand bucks -- enough for this month's expenses and then that's it! Back in December, we were going to start a Crowd Funding campaign on Indiegogo or KickStarter for our company:
http://genevasystemsgroup.com But Gary's research seemed to indicate that very few of those campaigns raised enough money and so he decided not to do it. But, then I thought about all the friends I have here, so I thought maybe I'd make an appeal (ok, beg).
>>
>>Even though we never put up a campaign on Indiegogo, I have other means of getting donations. I have a PayPal donate button on my blog, and even wrote a blog post back in October (that all my many blog readers have ignored, even though 50 people have viewed this post),
http://geek-goddess-bonnie.blogspot.com/2012/10/cyber-begging.html. Seriously, if you can spare a few hundred or a few thousand (or whatever), Gary and I might make it through another month or two. As you may or may not know, you don't need a PayPal account to donate via PayPal (credit cards work too, although I believe your credit card company will charge you fees).
>>
>>I know this is pretty pathetic. Sorry about that. =0(
>>
>
>I am really sorry to read this. If you and Gary are having trouble finding work the job market must be even worse than I thought.
>
>I looked at some of the online work for hire sites, looking to get some C# experience working cheap, and have to agree with Gary's research showing it doesn't pay enough to live on. It seemed like I kept running into people in other countries willing to work for $5 a day.
>
>Good luck!
