If you are not a Computer Science student, and are looking for someone to help you develop an app or website, for pay, equity or experience, have a quick look at these tips to get the best responses. People who follow these tips are much more likely to get the contacts they need to get their project off the ground.
You don't need to go into detail, but a general hint, "change the way you search for products online" or "fun multiplayer 2D mobile game" is enough. We understand that you might be protective of an idea, but at the same time, we need something to get us interested.
Developing for iPhone is very different to developing for Android or the Web. Computer Science teaches us to be adaptable to new programming environments, but for the best productivity, you need to find people who have the right skills. Also, listing the technology you want to use might attract people who want to take on a particular type of project.
If you don't know what technology you need to use, why not ask that instead? A discussion about the best way to start a project might give you people to talk to when you come to needing developers.
Ideally, give an hourly rate. Less experienced students who haven't worked on larger projects before might be willing to work for less than £10 an hour, but generally £12-16 is common, and for certain skills and experienced students, £20-30 wouldn't be unreasonable at all.
There are a few important things to bear in mind when it comes to advertising rates. Firstly, there's often lots of work available to us, internships are never unpaid, and graduate positions are well paid and easy to find for good students. We're very lucky to have skills that are in very high demand. In industry, it's not uncommon for freelance developers with certain skills to make £300 a day, so while we might have less experience and have university obligations, we are performing a highly skilled job that typically has the wages to match.
If you're trying to start a project on very little money, consider giving equity instead of pay. This is obviously a big risk and investment of time for developers though, so you'll need to do a bit more convincing, which leads on to the next point...
If you're paying someone this matters less, but if you're going into a business partnership with them, what are you contributing? Contributing an idea is worth very little, people have ideas all the time, many of which could become products and businesses. If you're contributing business and finance skills, for a small business that may well not be enough to match up the time a developer is putting in.
If you're bringing management skills, have you ever managed a team of developers before? It can be difficult at times, and requires a significant amount of knowledge to do well. As an example, product managers at Google (for a team of 5, not unlike what you may be pitching), are often required to have a Computer Science degree, or equivalent just so they can understand the impact of product decisions they need to make.
Do you have other people interested already? Are you looking for artists and designers? Are you looking for multiple developers? Answering this shows that you've done your research about who you need on the team to make it happen, and it also tells developers what sort of a working environment it's likely to be.
Open source software is that which is distributed, and allows anyone to take it, modify it, and re-use in different ways. Some great software is open source, like Firefox and the core of Google Chrome. However to build a profitable business on open source software often requires very different approaches and is therefore uncommon.
If your project is just about doing something awesome, and not about making money, consider making it open source and posting about it here. There are many developers who will happily contribute time and effort to open source projects for free.
Don't let all of this scare you off, we're always looking for new and interesting projects to contribute to, but just remember that finding people for part time development work can be quite unlike finding people for other part time.