If any of you have found a light-hearted comedy video about feature creep, I'd really like to get one. My client is asking me for freebies after we had a site wrapup on a Phase 1. And Phase 1 was freebie city, let me tell you. The woman is bankrupting me!
So, she keeps sending me humorous videos every week, and I thought I'd send her one back.
What clients don't understand is that if they bankrupt their freelancer, then he has to hang up freelancing and go catch a regular job. And now they're in limbo on their website, having to find another reliable freelancer to fill those shoes adequately.
Here I have a small stack of project proposals to go through after a bout of marketing, and these clients are antsy and want a quote estimate ASAP, and this old client is going to drag me down a list of freebies such that I not only lose new work -- I can't pay the bills. So she will literally bankrupt my business if she keeps doing this to me.
And too many clients do this to me. Clients really need a huge effing clue.
Funny Video about Feature Creep
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jack_indigo
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Re: Funny Video about Feature Creep
I'll apologise in advance for this. It's going to be blunt.jack_indigo wrote:Clients really need a huge effing clue.
Your clients don't need a clue. You do. You've invested in your client's business without realising it, and without getting anything in return. You're the idiot, not the client. You've spent time that you could have used earning money working for free. If someone capable of providing a service you need agrees to work for you for free you'd be a moron to turn that down - that's basic Business 101 stuff. It's your fault that you're in the situation you're in now. It's not the client's fault.
You need to stop agreeing to do things for nothing, obviously. What happens after that depends on your relationship with the client. One of three things will happen;
1. the client accepts that they have to pay you for your time
2. the client accepts the website in it's current state and doesn't make any more changes until they can pay
3. the client abandons you as a developer and goes elsewhere, possibly to someone else who'll work for free (or less than you)
If options 1 or 2 aren't possible, and you want to retain the client for some reason (not sure why you would, they don't pay), there is a fourth alternative. Continue to work on the client's site for nothing, but tell them in no uncertain terms that their updates will never take priority over paid work, so if you have a paying contract you'll finish that before doing anything to their site. And don't let the client persuade you otherwise.
The lesson to take away from this is simple: don't work for free in the first place. If they can't pay real money then ask for their time in return if they do something you'd find useful, or ask for goods if they sell something you want, or (my personal favourite) ask for an equity stake in their business - a 10% share in return for a website is a good deal.
Whatever you do, don't blame the client for taking advantage of you. If you let them you have to understand that it was your mistake to do so.
Re: Funny Video about Feature Creep
If you dont have time to finish the current work how are you going to take on more? Dont fool yourself.. Your client isn't physically standing in your house physically stoping you from pursuing new work
Also let me guess, your application is fairly complicated several month project with a large database schema and a lot of complicated custom UI stuff and you have no automated tests, aren't using any sort of off the shelf MVC framework, and spend most of your time hunting and fixing bugs. I think we've all been there
I have seen people spend significant portions of their lifes making other people rich. At least make sure you get yours. You know the saying "you do you, ill do me"
I see your options as
1) quit web development and get a regular IT job
2) realize that the problems you are facing are difficult but there are solutions, and realize that the harder the solution, the more people went before you and quit, meaning there is a larger market for your services once you take some time off and figure things out.
I hope you choose #2 and I would be more than willing to help counsel you in software methodology, and business tactics.
For example if you are not using some kind of issue tracker, like MantisBT, you are doomed for failure. You need to manage what features you are going to implement and when, so you have clear deadlines, weekly releases if you will. If there are bugs you need to stop and postpone the next release, and fix all the bugs.
It is probably too late for automated testing but I would read up on that. Unit testing and MVC will save your career, it did mine. Now I have fortune 500 companies coming to me for their projects (still waiting on them to signup!).
I would also advise coming up with a pre-packaged product. Having 1 main source of income is like having your eggs in one basket. For instance I bought a program called secure loads for my file delivery system. It was $80 and it is absolutely horrid. You could write a script that let other developers distribute their files, and sell it for $35 a pop, youd get 100s of sales a month
Also let me guess, your application is fairly complicated several month project with a large database schema and a lot of complicated custom UI stuff and you have no automated tests, aren't using any sort of off the shelf MVC framework, and spend most of your time hunting and fixing bugs. I think we've all been there
I have seen people spend significant portions of their lifes making other people rich. At least make sure you get yours. You know the saying "you do you, ill do me"
I see your options as
1) quit web development and get a regular IT job
2) realize that the problems you are facing are difficult but there are solutions, and realize that the harder the solution, the more people went before you and quit, meaning there is a larger market for your services once you take some time off and figure things out.
I hope you choose #2 and I would be more than willing to help counsel you in software methodology, and business tactics.
For example if you are not using some kind of issue tracker, like MantisBT, you are doomed for failure. You need to manage what features you are going to implement and when, so you have clear deadlines, weekly releases if you will. If there are bugs you need to stop and postpone the next release, and fix all the bugs.
It is probably too late for automated testing but I would read up on that. Unit testing and MVC will save your career, it did mine. Now I have fortune 500 companies coming to me for their projects (still waiting on them to signup!).
I would also advise coming up with a pre-packaged product. Having 1 main source of income is like having your eggs in one basket. For instance I bought a program called secure loads for my file delivery system. It was $80 and it is absolutely horrid. You could write a script that let other developers distribute their files, and sell it for $35 a pop, youd get 100s of sales a month