Comment by yarcob | Hacker News Reader

Comment by yarcob | Hacker News Reader

Fixed price projects are really really hard. You will almost always end with arguments what is in scope and what isn't. You'll always have stuff in the proposal that turns out to be a lot of work, or unnecessary, but if it's in the contract the client will demand you do it.

With hourly projects, you don't have that issue. When the client makes unreasonable demands, you just tell them how much time it would take.

My recommendation would be to provide detailed estimates to the client, that show how much work every part of the project is. Include a few optional parts. When requirements change during the project (as they always do), then you can say, well, we could just skip this optional part and do whatever the client wants instead. This way the client is happy (they still have the same price) and you are happy (you don't have to work more hours than you expected).

This is exactly what has happened on our first project. My thinking was that we have to write the contract more detailed in the future, but I guess it will be hard to avoid these situations anyway. I'll try out your advice, thanks a lot.

The key is not better contracts. At the small and middle scales, pointing to the contract is almost always a sign of a poor relationship.

Good client relationships are worth more than a good contract. You want someone you can trust in a handshake deal. You want a good contract too. But the most important thing is a relationship where people see a problem as mutual. Where it's both the client didn't say and you didn't ask.

So when they ask for more than what’s in the contract, how should I respond?

With a conversation that delinates the proposed change to scope and its impact on cost and timeline.

But more important is to discuss how changes will be handled before signing the contract. In particular something like "You will probably change your mind as we go along, that's normal, here's how we might proceed when that happens."

At some point, I recognized a pattern. Potential clients who have a problem with such a discussion up front are telling you that they will have a problem with that discussion when there's payment involved later.

Your options then are walk away from the client or price the work accordingly.

It's worth noting that you can build all of those changes into your price. Your job is to help the client make money on their new or existing business operations. It is not to save the client money on your services.

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