

Ask HN: How to make sure I get this job - zackabaker

In one of my recent posts I asked about pricing for iOS development. Well I set a price and wrote a proposal and presented to this company. I am only 15 but they were impressed I think. They told me a few changes they would like to see and wanted me to revise the proposal and also create a 5 minute video explaining the proposal. I really would like to get this job and I think it could open many more doors for me. Does anyone have any tips, mainly for the video so that I could really sell them on the idea? Thank you very much!
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lsiunsuex
from a recent major website re-programming / redesign (now 11 months in
development now) i would say the following:

1: don't mix business and pleasure; i know the client personally (my wife
works for them) so it gets sticky at times

2: make sure the contract properly outlines the work that needs to be done in
DETAIL - and don't deviate from it without changing the contract

3: watch out for feature creep - this ties into 1 and 2. they will ask for
more. Minor changes aside (color, text size, etc...) is ok; major changes
(adding a wholesale section) is NOT ok

4: stick to your deadlines; at one point, they wanted a person in house to
design the website. I said ok and stopped programming until she was done with
the designs. I've had nothing but problems ever since. designs have been late;
they've given me the design only to turn around and make more changes to them.
SAY NO TO THIS unless the contract is revised and everyone agree's on new
deadlines.

5: make sure what you need up front, you get. I always ask for 50% down. I got
this, but as deadlines were broken, I never got 50% of the remainder at each
additional stage. As a freelancer, this hurts.

6: Contracts usually don't take into account time you need to figure things
out. One of the things I needed to figure out was how to store a file on a CDN
with a link expiration so that even if someone viewed the source of the
website, the files I was linking to would be invalid after 2 seconds (the best
security i could offer and it was accepted by the client). But, it took 1 week
to figure out how to do that even with talking directly to support staff at
Rackspace. 1 week doesn't sound like a lot over 11 months, but its a lot when
every week that passes is another week you don't get paid.

these are my personal views obviously and not all my freelance work goes this
way. This was the biggest project I ever took on by myself and it ended up
requiring a lot of engineering. Thank god, it's almost done but it was for
sure a learning experience.

~~~
lsiunsuex
oh yeah - #7: don't bite off more than you can chew. When this project
started, it was the only project on my plate. After they pulled the "we want
our designer to design the site" switch on me, this was no longer the only
thing on my plate. Now I have 3 other projects i'm working on at the same
time. Sounds great, but when you're now working 80 hours a week just to get
them all done, it kinda sucks.

~~~
zackabaker
Thank you! This all looks like great advice! Especially the feature creep, my
client is already showing signs of that. I

