

Startup Agreement Blues - rbkinsey

Agreed to develop a system for a startup at hourly rate.  After first week, company asked to hold of getting payment until company had customers, in lie of more work.  Agreed to this thinking it would be a few months.  It's been 9 mos and they keep looking closer to getting a billable customer, but haven't yet. Meanwhile the system I started has become very robust as I have put in 100hr weeks since the start.  My unpaid bill is over $60k now and I'm begining to feel like a fool for having trusted these folks as long as I have.  I signed an NDA before starting, otherwise have nothing in writing.  Startup is in CA, I'm not.  I've pretty much stopped going forward until I can get our details put on paper.  Could use some advice...
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lukevdp
Call them up, say enough is enough and you want to start seeing some cash.
You've put in 60k worth of work, surely they can pay SOMETHING. If they can't
pay anything at all right now, I'd be scared about getting paid in the future,
and I wouldn't be doing any extra work.

