Client refused to pay and all of my work is a total loss of time.
A month ago I posted on IH #jobs channel that I am looking for some work. I got an email from fellow indie hacker that he want to rebuild his old product ( PHP) to new web technologies ( React ). He sent me the code, which was basically an authentication form and few pages ( product checkout , thank you , 404 etc). I worked 3-4 hours daily and gave more time on Saturday, Sunday, was giving him regular updates, was doing the changes he suggested. ( I deployed the site on zeit now and regularly showing him what has done and what is required.) The first delivery was ready and then he asked me to share the code.
And I asked him if I can get the partial payment ( provided that before starting the project I told him that he can pay whatever he wants since he was my first client ). After that he said you no longer need to share the code and we're done here.
Now I don't know what to do all of my work is useless now. I need some tips from you guys on this kinds of situations, how to avoid such scenarios and what care should be taken in the future.
Thanks.
Next time, make sure to have a contract in place before doing any work.
Generally true of course, but in this particular case, the OP offered services on "pay whatever you want" basis, so having a contract would not have helped: instead of telling the OP to f-off, the other party could have fulfilled their contractual obligations by paying $1 and then tell the OP to f-off.
0 still count as pay what you want, no?
Lol
@TheMaker you know I want to be more specific and try to get this to be a useful experience.
I don't want to come to that side of people are bad and they will exploit you.
Most people are good, and most people try to do good for everyone around, that's how society works basically. (yes bad intent exists in both purely bad people and even in mostly good people)
But the actual thing that should be the lesson here is communication.
We often start communication in a very naive way, I think that everything I know to be true the other side does as well.
This assumption works initially because the people you are around are the people you learned from and they are the people they learned from... starting with family and then friends and then school...
But the more you expend your world the more different people are.
And the more what you know to be true and what they do differ.
That's why communication is both hard and important.
You had probably some number in your head what the work is worth.
He had a number in his head, which probably since he works without pay on his thing... he doesn't conceive what a market rate should be, and 0 seems reasonable, since technically you really did offer it at 0.
The reasons we do contract or at least written offers and scopes etc is to fix communication.
For example a technical person and a non technical one, have very few terms in common for development work, and the 1st interaction/transaction might be quiet hard..
So you have to specify as many this that you can conceive on that you consider highly important to the transaction as possible in the initial offer.
Money is one of them, and if you expect a review and if you expect it publicly for example you should specify
So should be like scope, number of iterations, and what about bug fixes, and what is considered a bug?... at least the scope should be well bounded before hand.
From his side, a schedule/time exception is usually a concern and it's commonly very hard to answer in good quality, but for his side for example a delay has meaning and cost..
Just try not to oversimplify it all, unless you come to it with the thoughts these are learning experiences for you, on the process, and you'r not going to be happy from the 1st few iterations while you'r learning. And it might be because the other side had bad intentions or because either or both of you just don't communicate well.
Also on the contract, even if you have one, just know that enforcing one is expensive, lots of times over the cost of the project, that's why marketplaces are somehow better.. they usually at least escrow money, and offer arbitration.. putting milestones and partial payments help protect you partially or at least limit your loss exposure.
GL, I hope you have much better time on your next projects.
Thanks! Really appreciate your answer 👍
Yeah man, you brought this on yourself. Know 100% that your time and effort is valuable and bill accordingly, with contracts in place.
I don't want to be mean, and I would probably not take it as that, but I wouldn't blame someone who did.
You should have a number, it's not like a coffee or a meal.. even there some people pay 0.
Sorry to hear about your bad experience, it sucks but I think you can avoid this in the future. Here are a few ideas that you can do with little to no effort:
Problem: you told the client that they can pay whatever they want. Your expectation was to get paid but it looks like the client expectation was to pay nothing (whatever they want).
Solution: tell the client what they will receive from you, what it will cost them and how long it will take (approximately).
You can hack this contract together yourself from templates you'll find on the internet. Once you get bigger clients and can afford it, you can have a lawyer make you a proper contract.
Get paid upfront or mid-way. It's very typical to get paid 50% upfront for smaller projects. However, it could be a problem to get clients to agree on an upfront payment when you don't have a strong reputation yet. A compromise would be to have the client pay half when you are half-way done with the project and the other half when it's complete. These payment terms should also be in your contract.
Gain more legitimacy: Having a reputation makes it easier to get better clients (there are good and bad clients) and to get paid upfront. Make sure you have a nice website with examples of your work (could just be things you did for yourself if you don't have clients). Have an email address with your own domain (not gmail). Have an address on your website or at least the contract. Put your logo on the contract and invoices and make sure it's nicely formatted.
Last but not least I'd recommend you to stay away from platforms such as Up-work. They are predatory, protect the client more than you, and commoditize you work. Your goal should be to get better, make a name for yourself and charge more with every project. On upwork you'll just be one of thousands trying to be cheaper than the next guy.
Really appreciate your answer 👍
It's so sad that it happened to you :(
But in the future, always divide your work into pieces and don't move to the next piece until the previous is paid. Even if it's your first client. I also always put this agreement into Google doc - you see all the changes there (so, there is no way to change the terms without knowing it).
Good luck.
Thanks for the advice!
Have a Contract. If you don't know how to get one, look up "Statement of Work" templates on google.
Always ask for partial payment upfront ideally 50%. He was your 1st client so you wanted to do him a favor. The thing is that clients don't give a shit about that. Bad ones will still stiff you. Always ask for some upfront payment even before the work begins. Serious clients will not mind that.
Ask client to pay frequently on milestones. This way you reduce your risk of losing money.
Ask them this question "Have you ever had a dispute with a freelancer and how did you resolve it ? ". They may lie about this but after getting more experienced, you will be able to get a feel for what type of client they could turn out to be.
Try not to find clients who complain about money or are too cheap.
Thanks for the advice!
Hey, that's really unprofessional. I'm seeking a skilled person for a project or two of my own. Discretion is imperative. Anyone interested?
I am interested.
Upfront payment always.
A lot of freelancers have had this experience. Firstly never ever say "Pay what you want", that shows you're an amateur and you don't value your worth. I'm not calling you this just from the perspective of the client.
Always, always take money upfront or don't work on the project period, you should always ask for 50% or you can do a stagger payment, 35 upfront, 35 mid and 30 on completion.
Start operating like a business and not a hobbyist. Better luck next time
so sorry though, you were trying to be nice and got burnt, hope that doesnt turn you jaded
This has happened to me a few times in my career. It haunts me. I feel for you, OP
Maybe we could make a black list for makers.
This idea has crossed my mind SEVERAL times
What if...?
I wonder the legal part.
Well, if we required a login to view bad people, it would add some layer of legal protection. On top of that, we could have the app be one-way (you can search for specific clients but you can't ever see a full list of bad apples)
That, sounds smart. I can't backend though...
Same here! haha
Ok. Damn it...this would be such a project for IH users...and IH itself
I think you could probably do this no-code(?) Worth a shot
find a way to resell the work to his competitors or people in similar industries!
resell it multiple times maybe to differrent cities/countries/whatever
Generally dangerous... when you do contract work without a contract on an existing codebase, the IP/copyright situation becomes unclear.
Any chance of releasing yourself?
I didn't get this
You built some kind of product. At least 1 person at some point needed it. What is stopping you from completing the product, making it a downloadable product, or even a SaaS?
Alternatively, open source it and use it as portfolio item for future work.
Great idea! I was thinking about the same.
Be careful. You may have copyright issues.
Hmmm... even if you didn't get paid it doesn't mean that you can steal.
Always use a platform like PayPal or UpWork to avoid situations like that.
UpWork is soooo greedy, they take 20% what is a total rip off. I prefer to divide the whole work into small pieces. Even if a client didn't pay for the first or the next one, it's not a big deal.
I know about up work but how does one use PayPal to avoid situations like this
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share who if possible.
I don't think it's a good idea
Why?
Publicly naming someone for bad things they did is generally not a good idea.
I think this would be more of an opening of a dialog, than "name and shame". By withholding this information, there is a possibility that this person will take an advantage of other people.
Agree on payment amounts and dates/milestones before starting work, always. Even if you let the client name their own price (which I also think is a bad idea), still get them to agree on that price before doing any work.
Thanks for the advice.👍
Sorry to hear about this, that's not fun.
I've definitely been burned in the past for not getting contracts signed & going off word of mouth. Best of luck going forward — this happens to everyone & i'm sure you'll get back on the horse : )
Thank you!
Use a platform like Upwork to start your contracts and avoid people with unfunded accounts and no reviews. It's a risk you took and a hard lesson to learn.
Another way is to take up 50% payment (defined scope project). If they refuse, good signal not to bother.
Tried up work before, it's really hard to find work there unless you have a solid portfolio.
should be better to offer real cheap rates on work platforms, then to try random work with no facilitator, no "social credit", no real person identification, cross countries trying to enforce a no terms deal...
Pay what you want = you don't owe me anything, I'll take donations if you have them.
Contexts it works in are with some "social contracts" or sorts and having past market pricing context and more...
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