"The mobile team is completely blocked while the backend API team implements the API spec given by the mobile team.
Each week the mobile team is blocked costs your company: 5 engineers * $100 * 40 hours a week = $20,000 a week."
So you are offering an API prototype for $5000 how does that solve the issue for the mobile team? (also it doesn't stop me from losing $20,000 for the week you are working?)
Also if you are company with $20,000 to throw in the trash for a week I'm pretty sure you could hire a few more backend developers.
The mobile team would integrate with the prototype API while the real one is being implemented.
Also, companies can't just hire more developers. Developers aren't as elastic and on demand as EC2.
That's the issue I ran into on projects I've worked on. It's when you have a team that's split horizontally on a product and one is blocking the other from making any progress.
The math section...
"The mobile team is completely blocked while the backend API team implements the API spec given by the mobile team. Each week the mobile team is blocked costs your company: 5 engineers * $100 * 40 hours a week = $20,000 a week."
So you are offering an API prototype for $5000 how does that solve the issue for the mobile team? (also it doesn't stop me from losing $20,000 for the week you are working?)
Also if you are company with $20,000 to throw in the trash for a week I'm pretty sure you could hire a few more backend developers.