He's not a really good coder, really good programmers don't work for peanuts. Good programmers in America make anywhere from 6k to 10k a month, what exactly do you think you're going to get for 2k?
For the price you're offering, you won't find any good programmers that'll work for you, you'll only find hacks who think they can and are more than willing to take your money while learning.
If you think you can spend 2k to have some monkey write some code for you that you're going to sell and make a ton of money with, you're sadly mistaken. If you think your idea is with 90% and he'll do all the work for 10% and 2k, you're also sadly mistaken and very like to be taken, as you clearly have.
If you think you have an idea that's worth anything, you need to find a good programmer and bring him on as a full partner, he'll be the one doing most of the work and offering anything less will be insulting and unlikely to work out for you. He needs to be as vested in the success of the endeavor as you or it'll likely fail.
If you just want your idea implemented by a contractor and you keep all ownership and a reasonable estimate is that it's two months of work, then you're looking at 10k to 15k to get it done right by a competent programmer, not 2k. You'll get what you pay for.
No, it's not typical for programmers as a whole, but it's typical of his specialty, which is quantitative market analysis. He quit to do a Web 2.0 startup for a lot more money.
For the price you're offering, you won't find any good programmers that'll work for you, you'll only find hacks who think they can and are more than willing to take your money while learning.
If you think you can spend 2k to have some monkey write some code for you that you're going to sell and make a ton of money with, you're sadly mistaken. If you think your idea is with 90% and he'll do all the work for 10% and 2k, you're also sadly mistaken and very like to be taken, as you clearly have.
If you think you have an idea that's worth anything, you need to find a good programmer and bring him on as a full partner, he'll be the one doing most of the work and offering anything less will be insulting and unlikely to work out for you. He needs to be as vested in the success of the endeavor as you or it'll likely fail.
If you just want your idea implemented by a contractor and you keep all ownership and a reasonable estimate is that it's two months of work, then you're looking at 10k to 15k to get it done right by a competent programmer, not 2k. You'll get what you pay for.