I think one difficult thing about being a developer is having all your business friends tell you they have this idea that would make millions but you have to build a prototype (for free) for them to pitch. They don't seem to understand that this is a full time job.

I heard one guy talk about this on YouTube. He said, "Would you ask your plumber to work for free? Yeah Jim, I have this great toilet if you could just check on it, I know you love your job so if you could just check on it free of charge I MIGHT pay you to do the other ones if you did a good job on the first one." I won't ask anyone else to work for free, regardless of their line of work.

I can and do tell them where to go, but then, I've never had the patience for them.

I had one... acquaintance... pitch an idea to me. I wasn't particularly thrilled by the idea, but he was and at first I was wondering why he was telling me about it all. Then came the inevitable:

Him: "So I need you to build an iPhone app to demonstrate it's possibility."

Me: "I can't do that, I don't have the equipment."

Him: "What do you mean?"

Me: "I'd need an iPhone, £300, at least, a Mac to develop on, so that's at least £1000 on top, an apple dev licence at £300, so I'm looking at £1,600 worth of equipment, do you have or can you supply this?"

Him: "No, that's up to you to get, besides you can reuse it for other app projects."

Me: "You can go to hell mate, I ain't investing £1,600 in your little prototype idea, either supply the development environment or find another mug, cos even if I had that kinda cash I would not spend it on your idea!"

He didn't speak to me after that.

@nmunro 😂😂 I think I'll use that approach next time, ask them to buy the equipment

@nullspace It's always worded like they're doing you the favour. Like you're just some purposeless number cruncher that needs someone with "real vision" to direct what you should and shouldn't build.

My attitude is that if they're prepared to genuinely invest in their idea to that degree they might have the drive to make a company out of it. If not, they're probably not ever going to have the shares to pay you with.

@nmunro nice reply

Exactly- had that happen to me about 3 months ago. A guy I play racquetball with

I usually stop them at "I have an idea it's like facebook but...." that's plenty

Oh I love these ones "And it's going to generate revenue within two months and I'll make a boat load of money and pay you 25%. I mean it's not fucking impossible but it's HIGHLY unlikely.

@nmunro Exactly! they don't want to invest but they want you to invest your time and brain. Then they'll tell you, programmers aren't as rich as the business guys, they are the ones who can bring in the money. sigh. I told one of them, they should learn how to code.

@daarkfall "but it's cooler than Facebook" 😂😂

@nullspace Pastor a local church that has about 3k people in it was at a meeting with influential businessmen in the city. They were all talking about their cars, their houses, boats etc.

The pastor, not anywhere close to their financial status innocently asks "So how are your families?"

What happened next can only be described as a spontaneous group therapy session talking of loss, divorce, kids who don't want to know them anymore, failed second marriages, failed third marriages.

My point, money !== rich.

Ok, we might not pull in the same big bucks, but for all our rants and complaining aren't we generally happier and more content with ourselves?

@nmunro Very good point, we are happy and that's what matters.