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Makes sense on paper but its a bad move, trust me, I've been there ... people simply don't appreciate free labor the way they would if they paid something for i

Makes sense on paper but its a bad move, trust me, I've been there ... people simply don't appreciate free labor the way they would if they paid something for it. Smarter move is to say "Hey, I bill out at $80/hr but to work at your startup I'll only bill $20/hr for 2 months", then make sure to send an invoice every 2 weeks with the bill at $80/hr with a line item showing the discount ... that way they are reminded of how lucky they are to have you. PS: All this is moot if you aren't actually awesome at coding.

brandnewlow 16y ago
This is a great idea.
- trustfundbaby 16y ago
  glad you think so ... just remember that idea comes from failing often ... being burned numerous times by people who took advantage of my free labor :)
Kilimanjaro 16y ago
This is exactly the advice I was going to give Vlad. Start at a low $10 and work your way up the ladder. If your first contractor is happy with your work (ie. he'll be extremely happy for how cheap you developed a 100 man-hour project for 1k instead of 10k) then he will gladly pay you more for the next gig, or at least refer you to some colleagues. Then charge $20, then $30, and in no time you will have built a rock solid reputation and in a year you will be able to charge whatever you want based on your skills. Never do work for free, ever. That diminishes your value and moral, and as collateral damage the coding market suffers as more and more people start working for peanuts.
- phatbyte 16y ago
  I couldn't have said it better
shortlived 16y ago
But will this work with someone living and working in Russia? It's one thing to work remotely in the US for a US company and it's an entirely different ballgame to do this when you are outside the US. Am I right? EDIT: grammar
- girlvinyl 16y ago
  What's the difference? I have a pair of designers/devs that I've spent a lot of money with, they're in the Ukraine. I've never met them. We skype, use basecamp and email to get the work done. They invoice, I pay through paypal. We've done several projects together and I plan to work with them as long as they're available.

brandnewlow 16y ago

This is a great idea.

trustfundbaby 16y ago
glad you think so ... just remember that idea comes from failing often ... being burned numerous times by people who took advantage of my free labor :)

Kilimanjaro 16y ago

This is exactly the advice I was going to give Vlad. Start at a low $10 and work your way up the ladder. If your first contractor is happy with your work (ie. he'll be extremely happy for how cheap you developed a 100 man-hour project for 1k instead of 10k) then he will gladly pay you more for the next gig, or at least refer you to some colleagues. Then charge $20, then $30, and in no time you will have built a rock solid reputation and in a year you will be able to charge whatever you want based on your skills. Never do work for free, ever. That diminishes your value and moral, and as collateral damage the coding market suffers as more and more people start working for peanuts.

phatbyte 16y ago
I couldn't have said it better

shortlived 16y ago

But will this work with someone living and working in Russia? It's one thing to work remotely in the US for a US company and it's an entirely different ballgame to do this when you are outside the US. Am I right? EDIT: grammar

girlvinyl 16y ago
What's the difference? I have a pair of designers/devs that I've spent a lot of money with, they're in the Ukraine. I've never met them. We skype, use basecamp and email to get the work done. They invoice, I pay through paypal. We've done several projects together and I plan to work with them as long as they're available.