coderforhire

My biggest strength technically is chef/puppet, automation, and configuration management. I have a 9-5, focusing solely on puppet/automation etc, but my real goal is self employment. The market for someone in this area is fairly lucrative, but most of the job opps are either W-2's or 6-12 month contracts, at least in my experience (am I wrong in this?). Are there any products anyone in the HN community would like to see/use having to do with config mgmt? Is there a need for chef/puppet server hosting? I was considering a site with the basic premise:

1. migrates a user from heroku to a cloud provider of their choice (amazon or rackspace to start)

2. sets them up a git repo, that includes all the default code that set the machine up (passenger installation, postgres etc); they can customize that code, push to git, and it will automatically apply the updates of the code.

3. allows them to utilize chef or puppet to manage their machines, and offers consulting services, the dashboard would also allow 1-click deployment of various stacks, spin up machines etc

4. 5-10$/mo per server?

feel free to contact me anthony@coderindustries.com

I will be honest, I am sick and tired of building stuff that "I think is cool and no one else does". I just don't "get" how people obtain feedback before building just yet; I have put up landing pages, gathered 50-100 emails for a project, launched, and then crickets.

I know my weaknesses (it's not tech, or launching, its validation and marketing), so I want to try an experiment:

1. Post an idea, with an estimated price to the consumer:

eg; online service that will photoshop a photo for 9.99$ (something I have tried fwiw)

2. Have it be webbased (no iphone/droid apps, currently in-between macs)

3. The first idea that gets 10 people to email me: anthony@coderindustries.com, and say they will pay upon launch, I'll build it.

4. if you want to take an active marketing/bizdev role, and have a proven track 50/50 split.

5. If you want to take an active marketing role, and don't have a proven track record 75/25 split (my way).

6. If you don't want to take an active role 90/10 split (my way).

As the ideas are posted, if something pops up you would pay for, email the idea, and any tweaks you deem needed.