"In the catfish world, code speaks, money changes hands, and friendships are evanescent"
:( friendships are important to everyone, this sounds like a really unhappy way to live.
:( friendships are important to everyone, this sounds like a really unhappy way to live.
It started off as a copycat site, so my ex friend basically just asked for that site, with slight modifications. That was easy, so we costed it appropriately. Then of course as the idea ballooned, he wanted all sorts of bells and whistles. On top of it all, he thought he'd manage the coder himself. I told him to read a book about agile, so he could get used to the Trello card approach to managing it. He decided not to. Also there were a million other little pieces of advice that he had his own opinions on. For instance we told him copycatting a design is easy, but we can't do a new design without a designer, and that would cost both onboarding time and money. He went and got a designer anyway. And the guy quit after a week, so a new guy had to be found.
In the end we delivered what he'd asked for, but he wasn't satisfied. I told him I was giving him honest advice as a friend, and that he could easily spend another year and another salary on some yesman who would take him for a ride. So he got a yesman who told him we'd really messed it up, it wasn't professional, and so forth. And then he threatened not to pay us, so I had to threaten him with debt collectors.
Haven't talked to him since. Site came up eventually, a year and a half after we'd actually built it.
I say this having done a decent amount of freelancing and making the same mistake myself (of course, after having read/heard this advice multiple times).
Working for friends and not treating them exactly like any other client usually ends badly.