

Ask HN: Say Yes or No? - 3lackRos3

We are RoR team with 4+ years expertise.We get projects through an intermediary. Every project we work on is brought by him. Few days back he spoke to us that the client is coming to visit the team and he wants to introduce my team as his company. The only benefit we get from this is that he has promised more projects in future.How do you think we should react to this?
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jdowner
Personally, I like simple things. Like my life; I like to keep that simple. I
try not to lie or mislead people because I found that that leads to no end of
complications and painful situations.

If I were in your place (from what you have said), I would not agree to
misrepresent your relationship with this person and furthermore I would
seriously reconsider whether I would want to continue to deal with someone who
is willing to do this. It would be hard to believe that I was not being
mislead by him. A reputation is easy to lose and hard to recover.

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mindcrime
I get all the people saying "never lie" and what-not, and by and large I
agree. But in this case, I'm not sure it _is_ much of a lie. If you
subcontract through this person, and through him only, and aren't making any
effort to do independent work, you are effectively part of his company. OK,
you can argue about the semantics of what words mean, but that's all you'd be
doing.

In this world, it's not uncommon for people to present sub-contractors in this
light. I personally don't think this is the optimal setup, and if I were in
your shoes I'd not want all my eggs in one basket, so to speak. But as long as
things are what they are, I don't see much harm in going along with this.

~~~
3lackRos3
Even I dont see any harm in this. As developers it gives us few advantages

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jea
At least in the US, you would be giving him the right to commit your company
to legal obligations by making a representation like this to the client. Check
out the law of agency.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_agency](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_agency)

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tptacek
It sounds like it _is_ his company.

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shock
Allowing him to present your team as his company puts him in control with the
client: he'll get more credibility with the client and he will probably be the
main communication conduit with the client. If it were me I wouldn't do it:
the same way he is misrepresenting himself in front of the client he could be
misrepresenting the client's wishes in front of you. From what you wrote it's
seems pretty clear that he sees a clear distinction between his interests and
your team's interests and I'm pretty sure he'll be looking after his interests
primarily.

Let's say you agree to his wish. What's in it for you? A promise for more
projects in the future? Maybe, as long as you agree to present yourselves as
his company. The only reason I see why you would agree to his wish is fear (of
loss) and there's something I learned with great pain: when I act out of fear,
I end up regretting it.

Then there's the fact that by agreeing with his wish you would essentially be
lying. I read an essay on NH a couple of months back about an entrepreneur
that had a golden rule: never lie! His reason for adopting this rule was that
by lying you are telling your brain that things are different than they are in
reality and so your brain starts operating with false assumptions and soon
enough your thought patterns adapt to the lies and you disconnect from reality
in various ways. After the disconnect occurs your brain cannot offer you
solutions to the problems you face in reality because it has accepted the fake
reality you've presented to it (the one created by the lies). That's it in a
gist. Here's the link[0].

Best of luck!

[0] [http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/11/the-surprisingly-
la...](http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/11/the-surprisingly-large-cost-
of-telling-small-lies/)

~~~
mindcrime
_Allowing him to present your team as his company puts him in control with the
client <snip> ... he will probably be the main communication conduit with the
client._

That's probably the case anyway. Client A hires Agency Z to do project Q, then
Agency Z subcontracts (some or all) of the work to Team D. Agency Z is always
going to be the primary interface to the Client anyway in a situation like
that. If he's got the pipeline and can bring work in, and Team D doesn't have
the sales/marketing mojo to bring in work on their own, they might as well
just go along with it.

That said, I'd encourage them to look for ways to break their strict
dependence on this one intermediary... I've seen Bad Things happen when a
company overly depends on one customer and then that customer goes away for
whatever reason. Building a sales funnel and getting deals takes time,
especially starting from scratch.

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nicholas73
I'm assuming the reason he does this is because he is either skimming money
off the top beyond what you've agreed with, and/or he is building 'his'
portfolio with intention of hiring more teams. Either way this is a bad long
term proposition for you.

If you need the money now, you can say YES but eventually you will have to
either replace this guy or look for projects yourself.

It sounds like he's getting paid by the client first and then he'll pay you?
If this has been the arrangement in the past and he paid as agreed, maybe. But
if this is a bigger project, as the client wants to visit, you should hammer
an agreement to get paid promptly in stages. You don't want this risk of him
simply running off with a big payday.

~~~
notahacker
If he wants his client to _meet_ the development team it almost certainly
means the exact opposite: he's pushing for larger agency deals with clients
offering projects big and complex enough for the client to want some line of
communication with the rest of the dev team, and trusts the dev team isn't
going to cut him out of the loop altogether.

A guy that brings you random spec work that includes you as "his company" in
his pitch is a lot less likely to ditch you than a guy that brings you random
spec work who represents himself as a one-man band whilst subcontracting the
work to you, or for that matter a regular small business client contracting
with you.

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billforward
This is a pretty standard way of working in many other industries. For example
when the cable person comes to install your service a good proportion of them
are self employed contractors branded as the cable company being paid a fixed
fee for every install they complete. The only dubious part of what you have
described is how the other party has communicated this, should have really
agreed these terms at the beginning of the relationship.

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JSeymourATL
Why operate under a False Flag?

Sadly, the intermediary's request shows his true colors. Suggest you make it a
top priority to find a new Strategic Partner/Rain Maker/Business Development
executive to represent your team. Frankly, this could be a great opportunity
to up your game. Adios Intermediary!

~~~
dllthomas
Or, if he's been doing a good job at it, make it official.

~~~
3lackRos3
Waste of money

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JSeymourATL
Every successful business model (even consulting) builds in client acquisition
costs. How is your intermediary compensated now?

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taprun
It's funny that no one mentioned the following:

This guy is going to lie to his client and wants you to lie too, but you feel
like you can trust him (to provide you with more work).

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loumf
In the future contract dispute, how will you explain lying to the customer?
IANAL, but it's usually not legal to lie so blatantly about business
relationships.

You are his partner.

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User9812
Say you're strategic partners, and you specialize in RoR development, and have
a business relationship.

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a3n
He may have already been presenting you that way, without your knowledge or
consent.

~~~
3lackRos3
yes, We know he is doing that. But unable to do anything

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ChrisNorstrom
NO. Imagine how betrayed the client is going to be when, not if, but when the
client finds out he's been lied to. All it takes is one lie to set up an
atmosphere of distrust.

