My biggest problem is educating customers on an iterative process. We don't do strict contracting, but we do license our iOS software platform and provide custo

My biggest problem is educating customers on an iterative process. We don't do strict contracting, but we do license our iOS software platform and provide custom development work for the apps. Both for our own products, and partner products, we like to begin beta testing apps at quite an embarrassing, early stage in the process. We also basically refuse to spec anything but the most basic features of the app, until we hear from users. In almost every case, the partner agrees to this structure, but then when it comes down to it, they see what we want to release to beta (50-100 users), and then they push back and try and get us to implement features they think are important, or fix bugs they believe matter. They are somewhat incredulous when we push back and decline to bill them hours. It always works out in the end. When the partner starts hearing the incredibly valuable things users say when they test the apps, they immediately understand the value, and it's smooth sailing from there. But trying to get a company to release crappy, buggy, unfinished software to 100 of their real customers seems to always take some doing. We've never had an issue getting paid, and we always require money up front. I did have to struggle once to get 10% of a contract, but I honestly believe it was just accidentally FUBARed.