Ask HN: As a student, how can I make sure a freelancing gig is legit? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: As a student, how can I make sure a freelancing gig is legit?

13 pointshamandcheese5 comments

I am not trying to be a freelance developer, per se, but I found an opportunity for some freelance Rails work that would fit my schedule pretty well (as a student). I have a phone interview on Wednesday this week.

I am weary because I see scammy looking job posts on my schools CS Facebook page pretty regularly (often business students who did all the work thinking of an idea and merely need a developer to implement it), and usually ignore them. But this one was upfront about the work and the pay, so I decided its worth a shot.

So my question is this: what should I expect the "hiring" process to be like as a contractor/freelancer? What signs should I look for to make sure this isn't a scam? Obviously don't work without a written contract, but what else?

View on HN

Require a hefty retainer up front. The retainer should be applicable against final invoice. This means you get a check upfront, then bill against the work you've done on a regular cycle and get checks for that work, except at the end where the money you got paid upfront covers the last part of the job.

The idea is that instead of the client always owing you money, you always owe the client work. The goal is to avoid people who don't pay. Good clients recognize that you shouldn't be assuming the financial risk of their project. Good clients are also ready to write checks.

A potential client who isn't prepared to write a retainer check upfront hasn't properly budgeted for your services. Often, they never will. A potential client who isn't ready to write checks, isn't ready to start their project.

Good luck.

Unfortunately you don't really know they're legit until their first check clears. With new clients, I'll only do a small amount of work before I see the first check (2-3 hours of setup, just to show good faith on my end). Once payments start coming in then I feel more and more comfortable making progress on their project.

You can get all the contracts you want... but if you're not prepared to enforce them in court, they're not worth anything. And even if you are prepared to sue, good luck getting any money from someone who doesn't have any.

Go with your gut. Don't work with anyone you have a bad feeling about. And most importantly: be prepared to walk away at any moment if something goes bad.

Even a contract doesn't really guarantee anything because it will probably never be worth it to get a lawyer and deal with suing them.

Just make sure they pay you regularly and if they want to pay when everything is finished then get a down payment. Don't let it get to the point where they owe you a lot of money because you never know if they'll pay. Try to not create a situation where if they don't pay the amount they owe you then it will really hurt you.

Thanks for the input guys! It turns out this isn't strictly client work, but rather a middle man style "consulting agency."

If I were looking for serious work I'd probably pass, but they do seem legit and I'm more than happy to work for the pay they are offering me as a student.

Have them sign a contract, there are lots of samples online.

Try to do the work hourly or set a fixed fee for a well defined scope of work (break this down in to milestones). With Rails you could probably package up one or two milestones of the auth, models, etc that you can complete quickly to show good progress, and good profit to get things started.

If they change anything from the initial scope send them an authorization to add a milestone and cost for that addition, before starting on it.

Set everything up with incremental development/review/ok/payment (even if it's hourly).

You should also require a retainer/initial payment to make sure they are serious. 50% of milestone 1 or what your first invoice would be.

Break the project up in to parts you can complete in a week or two. Then invoice incrementally, get his ok on that portion of the work and the payment then move on to the next portion of work.

DO NOT work too far ahead without sending an invoice, invoice often especially early on (for hourly I would invoice at least once per week till you're more comfortable with how easy the client pays you).

Getting their ok/payment is important, occasionally you'll get near the end of a project and maybe it's not turning out like they expected or they didn't include everything they needed in their scope and they will start trying to say it's unacceptable and start talking about a refund. That said, be prepared that they might decide not to continue the project after a few portions/milestones, which is ok, as long as they pay for the work you've completed.

Also if they are difficult to work with you might want to pull the plug on things after a couple milestones.

Also set it up so the source code resides on your hosting for his review until the project is completed. Release it on final 100% payment. (You can email send them a zip of your repo after each invoice is paid before starting the next milestone).

You can note these things in your contract.

Get an EIN number (Free from IRS), you can use your name as your business starting out. You use your EIN in place of your SSN. For your W-9 that they should request you fill out if you make over $600, regardless report all consulting income on your taxes next year whether they send a 1099 or not.

http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employ...

For payments you can use paypal. They could always try to do a charge back so keep that in mind.

Checks are typically ok, just keep in mind they might take a week or two to clear their bank, if they bounce those funds will be pulled back out of your account.

Typically you won't have an issue with people, most clients pay on time, occasionally you'll run in to a bad apple. Usually you'll get a bad feeling about a client, or see a red flag, it's best to pass on those projects/clients.

Good luck with your first freelance gig.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com