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Hey DEV Community,
Let's be honest. We've all been there.
You're scrolling through a freelance platform, looking for your next gig. You know you have the skills. You know you can deliver. But all you see are the same "Top Rated" profiles with thousands of reviews gobbling up every project.
You feel like a digital ghost. Your profile is a perfectly crafted message in a bottle, tossed into an ocean that only seems to flow in one direction: towards the top 1%.
It's soul-crushing. And it's a broken system.
My name is Yash, and I'm a solo founder building a SaaS called IdeaHub. And I've hit a wall. Not a technical wall—that's the easy part. I've hit a moral wall, and I need your help to tear it down.
The Dream: Where Great Ideas Meet Great Talent
IdeaHub's first mission is simple: we provide founders with a database of validated business ideas, researched from real user pain points. We help them skip the "what if this fails?" phase and jump straight to building something people actually want.
But an idea is worthless without execution.
So, my next step is to build the bridge. Right on the page for a validated business idea,
HERE-- >
I want to feature the developers and agencies who have the exact skills to build it. A founder finds their dream project, and boom—right there, they find their dream team.
My Dilemma: I Refuse to Rebuild the Same Broken Machine
As a developer, I can code the matching engine in my sleep.
SELECT * FROM developers ORDER BY profile_completeness DESC, experience_years DESC;
Done. Easy.
And completely wrong.
Doing that just rebuilds the same old kingdom where the already-crowned kings get all the gold. It creates another platform where talented new developers, or experienced pros in a new niche, are left fighting for scraps.
I refuse to build that.
Before I write a single line of code for this feature, I need to ask you—the developers this is for—a critical question.
The Challenge: How Do We Build an Algorithm for Fairness?
How do we design a system that gives every single talented developer a real, legitimate chance to be seen? What does a truly fair and transparent matching system look like to you? What if we got 10 million+ dev profiles then how can we give everyone a FAIR CHANCE ?
I'm a blank slate. My goal isn't to be "right"; it's to build this right. Here are some raw ideas floating in my head:
The "Freshness" Boost: Should new, quality profiles get a temporary, powerful boost to put them in front of founders?
The "Availability" Spotlight: Prioritize developers who have recently marked themselves as "available," giving active job-seekers an edge?
The "Niche" Lottery: For any given project, maybe the top 5 "perfect matches" are shown, but 2-3 other spots are randomized from a pool of developers with a >80% skill match?
The "Project Passion" Match: Allow developers to "upvote" or express high interest in certain types of projects, and use that as a heavy weighting factor?
These are just starting points. I want your gut reactions, your crazy ideas, your "that'll never work and here's why" critiques.
Negative feedback is a gift. It stops me from building something you'll hate.
My mission is to build an ecosystem where true talent connects with validated opportunity, based on merit and passion, not just a popularity score.
**My Unbreakable Promise to You
And let me be crystal clear about one more thing, because this is the entire foundation of this mission.
There will never, ever be a "pay-to-play" system.
The "Promote Your Profile for $29.99" button that plagues other platforms will not exist here. I will never ask a developer to pay money to get discovered.
Your visibility should be earned by your talent, your passion, and your skill—not bought with your credit card. This isn't just a feature I'm building; it's a chance to start a small revolution against a model that treats developers like commodities.
**
So, tell me. How do we do it?
Drop your ideas in the comments below. Let's design this thing together.
If you want to chat directly, my DMs are always open on X: https://x.com/gawande_ya21815
Thanks for helping me build something better.
Cheers,
Yash
(The entire "team" at IdeaHub... for now 😄)
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