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> Don't charge for your time if you can negotiate a better arrangement. Charging for time makes perfect sense in some cases, though. If you're working for a po
by badpun 3y ago
> Don't charge for your time if you can negotiate a better arrangement.
Charging for time makes perfect sense in some cases, though. If you're working for a pointless startup that is likely never going to be profitable (or "exit" while unprofitable), you can't express your rate in terms of business value because, well, there isn't any.
- gregjor 3y agoYes, sometimes you sell your expertise and experience, with vague goals, or no goals, and no defined deliverables. I call that consulting, and would negotiate a retainer rather than hourly billing. But sometimes you have to go with hourly. Some customers don't have the internal organization or focus to work out anything better than that. Because it comes up with startups specifically, I wouldn't accept equity in lieu of pay. If you strongly believe in the startup and the possibility of success, that might make sense, but as a gamble rather than a predictable income.
- xp84 3y agoI mean, you may think rightly that there’s no business value but it is the customer’s estimate of business value you care about, not yours, because you want to gauge what it is in order to estimate how big a fraction of that number you can extract as your share. You’ll get paid long, long before they fail, sell, or IPO!