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My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

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Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#41

Post by carbocation »

PerryCox wrote: post #33
downandout wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article: "...The customer considers that if I don't want to record the video, it's because I have something to hide and want to lie about the real time spent on his project" . Dealing with a client that tells you from the outset that they believe you are going to lie to them isn't merely an annoyance. It presents a risk to your career. This client will never be satisfied, or trust a word you say. He…

These kind of quotes from a customer should be instant red flags that they are not someone you want to work for. Devilboy does have a good bit of advice about charging an outrageous amount, but it's important to pick your battles. Sometimes no amount of money in the world is worth the headache that a customer like this could cause.

There is always some amount of money that is worth the trouble. Now, it may be some amount of money that cannot be paid by any entity aside from governments, Exxon, Apple, and a few others, but it is some amount of money nonetheless.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#42

Post by JohnLBevan »

Surely the free market covers this? The contract specifies estimated and maximum costs for the project, and presumably includes a definition of the scope / requirements to be covered and delivery date. If the client thinks you're charging for work you're not doing then presumably they think you're too expensive, so should the two parties should agree to terminate the contract and the client should go and find someone else to build it. If they can't find a better rate then so what if you're charging them to spend a few hours a day on Facebook; the fact you're still able to deliver your side makes that irrelevant.

The only issue is if the maximum cost is far beyond the estimate and there's no justification of why that may be the case beforehand. If there is good justification before hand you should be able to let the customer know if that risk's been realised and report on it immediately, giving evidence to show that this risk became a reality.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#43

Post by uptown »

Devilboy wrote: post #38
madaxe wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Sometimes you have to just bite the bullet and fire them. We had someone approach us a few years ago we really didn't want to work with as everything they did screamed "moron in a hurry", so, rather than telling them to naff off, we gave them a quote that should have caused cardiac arrest. They agreed to it. Two years on. Still working with them. No amount of money makes it worth it. Particularly given that they…

Gotta get paid half up-front man!

Still leaves them with a 50% discount until you take 'em to court.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#44

Post by chops »

This is something I actually offer to my clients, and I do it for fun. I guess I was inspired by watching some of Notch's screencaps over a few days.

So I capture it with RecordMyDesktop (I run xubuntu), and run through an ffmpeg script (https://github.com/choptastic/watchmecode) that resizes the video to be the same length as an MP3, and makes an X minute screencap montage for the client.

Then it produces something like this, which I did while working on a specific feature[2] for my sports league management system[1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwn7mfmo0SQ

In my experience, my clients basically find it interesting seeing a snippet of how a programmer works. I had one client who would show the video around in his office like it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. At first, I thought the reaction was sarcastic, but I realized after the 3rd time showing another employee, and his elderly father, that he was just genuinely impressed by it.

THAT SAID, if a client required this of me because they wanted to monitor me (to make sure I'm working or whatever), I'd let them know that "sure, I can do it for the most part, but I have to disable it when checking my email, and any time spend curating the video due to privacy concerns will be billed to you as well."

But if a client asked it of me to satisfy their own curiosity of my workflow (which is unlikely, since I typically just volunteer it anyway), I'd be more than happy to do it.

[1] http://bracketpal.com (homepage is still embarrassingly sparse, as I've been working one-on-one with customers, a landing page redesign and online customers are coming first).

[2] The video above is the screencap of the implementation of this feature: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxTfaSfa_dQ

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#45

Post by uptown »

amykhar wrote: post #27

Given that this was posted in Sept. 2011, I don't think he's waiting for suggestions from us :D

Here's his update:

While all those suggestions are equally valuable, I've personally chosen to say to my customer that I accept to do the videos, but in this case, we must renegotiate the contract, keeping in mind that there will be a considerable cost, including the additional fee for copyright release. The new overall cost would be in average three times the actual cost of the project. Knowing this customer, I'm completely sure that he would never accept to pay so much, so the problem is solved.

Second update:

The customer effectively declined the proposal to renegotiate the original contract, taking in account the considerable additional cost.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#46

Post by ryen »

berntb wrote: post #28
michaelochurch wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At $50,000 per hour, I'd do 40 hours of work for a hideous client. We're not talking about murder or anything with risk to life. We're talking about dealing with assholes. There is a price (theoretically) that makes that OK, so long as it's time-limited. Of course, the client will almost certainly not agree to $50k per hour, but isn't that kind of the point?

I had a boss who was a bit too ... stressed ... for a while. You just couldn't reason with him about it. In the end I solved it. I wrote in an email that he was just too stressed and really needed some time off, so he started to attack me personally. I wrote to him then that he should take what he just wrote and show it to his parents or some other persons he had trust in, and ask them how he was doing. He finally re…

Why were you playing therapist when you could have told HR?

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#47

Post by ameen »

To play the devils advocate here, What if the customer wants to have a blog series on how that product was built? Key software design decisions, features, etc. What if he wanted to run this video by another software developer who only agreed to do software reviews, etc. How different would this from recording a bunch of screencasts on building a product. The customer gets knowledge of the entire build process, from the initial sketches to the final release.

But most if not all of it would be too much to deal with for a freelancer and should at least incur a 3x price increase to deal with the various variables involved.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#48

Post by Adirael »

amykhar wrote: post #27

Given that this was posted in Sept. 2011, I don't think he's waiting for suggestions from us :D

It seems that he ended up doing the work as per the original contract after telling the client the video recordings would mean paying 3x of the original amount.

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#49

Post by raverbashing »

madaxe wrote: post #29
elithrar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the client is 'not worth it' you're just not charging enough. Just work out what your price is and send them a new quote. Don't ever fire a client, that's just silly. Make the client say no. I disagree. The more you charge the more you put yourself at risk—nominating some insane figure to scare him off is just as silly as his request (or close to it). There is nothing wrong with not taking on work or firing a cl…

Yup. Sometimes you have to just bite the bullet and fire them. We had someone approach us a few years ago we really didn't want to work with as everything they did screamed "moron in a hurry", so, rather than telling them to naff off, we gave them a quote that should have caused cardiac arrest. They agreed to it. Two years on. Still working with them. No amount of money makes it worth it. Particularly given that they…

Well, why are you working for free?

"Payment upon completion?" Biggest lie ever

Re: My customer wants me to record a video of how I develop his software product

#50

Post by hawleyal »

chops wrote: post #44

This is something I actually offer to my clients, and I do it for fun. I guess I was inspired by watching some of Notch's screencaps over a few days. So I capture it with RecordMyDesktop (I run xubuntu), and run through an ffmpeg script ( https://github.com/choptastic/watchmecode ) that resizes the video to be the same length as an MP3, and makes an X minute screencap montage for the client. Then it produces somethin…

You are too nice.
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