Question from a reader --
Hi Sebastian,
I have enjoyed the consulting advice in recent posts. Thanks for sharing. I’m writing because I have the opportunity to meet with a client and develop his ‘music game idea.’ I’d like to get as prepared as possible for our initial meeting. I’m thinking that my goal is to let him do most of the talking and try to document his needs, then go home and think about everything, calculate hours/cost as best I can and write a very clear proposal.
This will be my first try at something like this so I’m not expecting to get everything right. However, I would like for the client to be pleased with the end product if we move forward. From what I can tell, this sounds like an application that will require functionality for user login, account history, streaming audio and user interactions. I’m no designer so I’ll probably need to hire someone to make it look pretty too.
I’m not sure that this potential client has any idea what a web app costs. I’d be up for charging at the low end of the market, but how do you determine what the market is for a given set of requirements? My best guess is that a project like this should cost at least 5k-ish. That number may repel him but I don’t want to charge something too low.
So my first challenge is to figure out pricing. The second is to try to distill useful information from someone who may not be very tech savvy. There are a lot of tools out there and I could see this ‘music game’ taking the form of (a Spotify app, something in browse and various other incarnations). Do you have any advice on how to solidify your approach and go from someone's 'dream idea' to a specific click-path, branding, etc?
I love coding and I like the idea of taking more control of my career. I apologize if this email is a bit scattered. I’m trying to bring this idea into focus. Hope to hear back from you.
Thanks again for the blog,
R
Instead of trying to sell him, educate him on what goes into web development, the usual costs, the chance of success/failure, what he needs to do to make itself, and the risks involved even if everyone does their part.
Don't try to sell him, just genuinely educate and let him know you'll be happy to participate if he wants to use you.
If he does use you, break it into discrete components where it could be "handed off" to another dev if anything goes off the rails... your potential client doesn't have experience as a buyer, so he might wind up being... umm, hard to work with.
If he winds up being a jerk to work with, you still have an ethical duty of care to him. That duty will be getting him to "the next stage" with a clear plan to go onwards. This way he can evaluate your work and decide to continue, and you have an easy out if it doesn't work.
The way you're describing this client, it sounds like he's not clear on his scope, hasn't purchased before, likely underestimates the work and value a good developer brings (just a guess, because most people do -- maybe not, so don't be biased, but most of the general population does)... anyway, there's a real chance this one could go off the rails, scope creep, unhappy/demanding client who doesn't understand all the work, changes his mind, etc.
Perhaps not! Hopefully not!
But start by:
(1) educating him on all the accountabilities, risks, and costs involved -- don't try to sell. Almost try to "un-sell" on this one. You want to be working with people who are educated and appreciate what you do. The best is someone who has used your type of work before. You can get away with that not being the case, but it's always more dangerous.
(2) launch your collaboration with a plan to get it to "Stage 1 Complete" where the code, design, documentation, scope, plan, etc. are at a reasonable point where they can be handed off to someone else if the project isn't clicking quite yet. Make it very clear before starting that if the scope changes, prices change too. New clients will always accidentally scope-creep you and change their minds too much. Maybe not always, but more often than not. And you're new, so you don't know how to deal with this yet. So be careful, and start with a complete project that's just a short march to the first big milestone. If that proves a headache, you can get out with minimal stress/hassle/work, and the client can get out with some useful deliverables and not much cash spent.
Hope that wasn't too pessimistic, but it's my read on the situation. Godspeed and let me know how it goes.