Should I Take the Deal?

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supermike
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Should I Take the Deal?

Post by supermike »

A guy shot me an email two days ago out of Michigan. He flips websites regularly and has 4 other partners. They do affiliate marketing and website flipping as well. They get a site idea, build it up, generate traffic against it, and then sell it, making quite a lot of money, supposedly. They also buy tiny sites that someone else has built, change the code and the look and feel, build them up, encourage the traffic, and then sell those too.

Anyway, he wants me to do one of these websites where you type in what you want and look for the best price in a particular topic area, and it shops around with other sites. (It is *not* adult-oriented, nor even close.) Also, don't forget -- he also needs me to build the admin pages for the site too. He does not pay by the hour but wants, instead, me to spend 30-45 days building the site for $7,000 and a 1% stake in the affiliate income. The affiliate income comes in two fashions -- ad copy clicks and referral traffic from the clicked best price items. If I go over in hours, then I must eat the cost until it is complete. If I do well, then I may also be paid for follow-on tasks and for work on other websites they build. At my disposal, I will get a newbie junior developer to work with, a page template designer, and a developer who handles all the backend integration with the other sites that sell the service or product the site integrates with. They had a developer build like 50% of the app, but then supposedly flew the coop after 30 days and they never received his source. So, the only thing they have now is a well-done functional spec, some wireframe designs, and a competitive site on the web that they say they want me to sort of copy in most respects.

He does have a track record of selling other sites from his portfolio on the web. I have no idea at all whether the last developer on this project discovered the guy is full of feature creep -- he either may be one of those guys or not.

Looking at the competitive site example, I'm a bit nervous. I was thinking more along the lines of 2-2.5 months. However, since the page templates are not mine to do and will be done extremely rapidly, the backend third-party site integration is not my deal and is almost completely finished, there's no ecommerce here, and they gestated on this project already for 30 days -- I was thinking that I might be able to crunch it into 30 - 45 days.

Another thing I'm nervous about is that they are not certain how to integrate the referrals where companies pay them back for the clicked price items that drive traffic from this site to their site. They said pixel tracking was not possible with these vendors and that the backend guy was thinking it would run along the lines of a query param call with a CRC applied on it, like ?ref=2338&c=30388, where ref is the sort of "secret" code for themselves and c is the CRC value. Some vendors he said may want an exception on that, but in general it will be done with query param calls.

So I ask you, would you take this deal for $7K USD and 1% ad revenue stake? Would you put some conditions on this deal to consider before taking it? What questions would you ask before taking the deal?

Okay, what if he comes back with $6000 USD and a 1.5% stake in the ad revenue?


P.S. Now, as far as my background on something remotely similar goes, I've done a searchable, browsable, paginated classified listing site with listing promotions that involved a good amount of Javascript and AJAX work as well, and some ecommerce integration, and it took me almost 3 months and $7K to do. At first, I really wished I had generated it in 2 months and for $9-$10K in order for it to have made my while, but in the long run it worked out because the client and I have built a great relationship and I'm getting more cash from him on other projects. However, since then, I have learned jQuery, which can improve upon one of my greatest time killers. I also burnt a couple weeks on that project fighting with the ecommerce, burnt a week waiting on the design and page templates, burnt one week in loading data, and burnt three weeks in extensive testing and in changes to the admin that I did not know had to be redone (we interpreted a functional spec item about the admin interface completely differently).
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John Cartwright
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Re: Should I Take the Deal?

Post by John Cartwright »

When dealing with large projects in the past with fixed budgets, I pretty much told my employers they aren't allowed to talk to me throughout the development phase in fear of feature creep. Someone who isn't willing to dish out a couple bucks extra when things take a little longer don't don't fully appreciate how things work. I mean, if you as a developer are having to deal with your employer making adjustments to your set plan, which I can most certainly guarantee will happen, having to still meet deadlines is frustrating.. but thats what they expect. These employers need to ask themselves, do they want things done rushed, or properly. Both the programmer and the employer win if things are done properly.

p.s. $7k seems a bit on low side for what I envision this would be
supermike
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Re: Should I Take the Deal?

Post by supermike »

JCart, thanks for the rapid advice.

Yeah, I'm working on the discussion about feature creep with him. I had one client who paid me $1K when I was just starting out and I didn't know yet what to charge people. (Boy, was I dumb then.) And I delivered that final thing, but then he asked for 50 more features. I needed the cash so terribly bad at the time that I did those 50 features. He then moved the carrot even further and asked for 25 more features. I did those features and he finally delivered me a check, but then asked for 15 more features. At that point, I cut off all communication with the client and blocked his ability to chat me as well. So I REFUSE to go to this level in the future.

The $7K is a bit low, but I'm making up for it with the 1% ad revenue income, and the fact that he's giving me a page designer/templater, a newbie dev to do what I ask, and a guy who handles all the backend integration stuff with the other vendor sites. I'm just the guy who glues it all together and connects the pages to the database, and the project manager as well.

And I'm trying to put my best foot forward so that I can get follow-on work in other phases and other projects.
supermike
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Re: Should I Take the Deal?

Post by supermike »

Darn, it's looking like this guy is a no-go. He's saying that he can hire guys in-house and pay them just a few dollars per hour more than my rate, plus get face time with them.

What is it with clients and these cheap rates? I mean, even with the falling USD, I should be at an advantage to Europe and UK clients. What am I to do, eat bread crusts and tell my kids to dig for worms and crickets if they're hungry?

What is it with clients who want to set ridiculously low project timelines, expect a 3 month project in 30 days, and pay $10 per hour less than my rate?
matthijs
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Re: Should I Take the Deal?

Post by matthijs »

I can't give much advice here I think, as it's difficult to judge the situation. But one thing I would be careful with
If I go over in hours, then I must eat the cost until it is complete.
You have to be very very sure of the exact amount of features and work you're going to do.
One big problem I see here is: the other developers you mention. You are right that it will save you time if a front-end guy does the templates, another one the database, etc. But working with more people also means a lot of communication. And sometimes miscommunication. And waiting for other people to finish stuff. Or dealing with other's strange or buggy code. All things that may cost you a lot of time.
rimian
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Re: Should I Take the Deal?

Post by rimian »

If you haven't got the resources to manage scope creep and your client knows he can push you until he gives you the whole $7K then you've got yourself in a sticky situation. This guy would be clever enough to exploit that.

Remember it's towards the end of the project when you realise you things are going pear shaped. If you feel nervous now then you should pay attention to that feeling.

Why would someone offer you %1 of the profits? If you're a good developer and provide a decent service then your client should expect to pay you for what you're worth in cash.

Good luck!
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