
Should I Work for Free? - areski
http://shouldiworkforfree.com/
======
pmhpereira
Last submission was 2 days ago...
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9787328](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9787328)

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marknutter
I learned this the hard way in my early days of freelancing as a web
developer. The main reason I think it's important not to work for free isn't
the fact that you're not being compensated for your time (which of course
sucks) but that your client doesn't actually feel comfortable giving you
honest feedback about the work your producing because they know you're doing
it for free.

So what happens is you end up with a sub-par delivery because the client often
feels too guilty to look a gift horse in the mouth and you're not properly
motivated to make it better than you might if you were being fairly
compensated on top of it.

~~~
didgeoridoo
However, it's often better to work for free than for peanuts. The client who's
paying you a few tens or hundreds of bucks will often treat you like garbage,
AND give you poor feedback. Stick with your rate (if you don't have one,
decide what you're "comfortable" charging... and triple it) and explicitly
provide a "one-time discount" for the client to land on what they can pay.
Clients treat you better the more "expensive" you seem — which seems to hold
true even if they aren't actually being charged all that money.

~~~
hwstar
I learned this early on in one of my side businesses: "The one who pays the
least complains the most". Charge enough to communicate that you are a
professional. Don't take clients who are low bidders. Let your competition
take those and watch them suffer.

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franze
i have a one hour free for (early stage) startups.

and it's great. i give them all the input (i'm a consultant, so basically i
talk smart) i can in one hour. hold nothing back. sometimes it's all they
need. a push in the right direction. i don't want to sell them anything (yet).
sometimes i don't hear back from them for months, years. sometimes never.

why do i do it:

reason 1) data - (in my case access to their google search console and google
analytics). this helps me to adjust my benchmark of how i see the different
verticals / businesses.

reason 2) leads over time

2a) most startups fail. the people move on. this is how i got a "foot in the
door" to germanys biggest media-houses.

2b) some startups succeed. if they do, the usually come back to me. quite
often for very different topics than the one we actually talked about.

reason 3) ideas

it's great to talk to people with a fresh perspective. it's a give and get.
they learn something from me, most of the time i learn something from them.

all of this together is worth something. in my case: 1h of my time, 1h of
their time. so is it really "1h free" well, more like "1h non monetary" but
that doesn't sound as catchy!

is there a second-hour free? no

is there a one hour free for big companies? no, because it costs already lots
of time to sell big companies anything.

is there a one hour free for assholes? no

~~~
carlmcqueen
This makes a lot of sense but I would argue that having access to their data
no longer makes it an hour for free.

Data is a major currency.

~~~
crusso
Yeah, but so are experience, connections, and ideas - and they're all of
varying values depending upon one's lack of (and ability to utilize) each.

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madaxe_again
Streamlined version:

Should I work for free? -----> No.

Not even if they're your bestie, a charity, or your mother - unless you want
an unpaid support gig from here until the end of time, or want to never speak
to them again.

Free is not a sustainable dynamic for non-transient (I.e. Serving soup) tasks.

Imagine if you were to work in a soup kitchen as a volunteer, but the terms
were that you'd be liable for any food poisoning, and you have to come in at
3am on Sunday because the stove isn't working, and someone there thinks you
looked at the fridge once, which is close enough.

~~~
lqdc13
This might be a cultural thing, but I think everyone should help their close
relatives with computer problems.

Sometimes when their relatives need help, people literally give up everything
and live with them and help them with everything. Spending 20 minutes to sign
them up for email is not the biggest investment.

Basically if you think of yourself and your family as one entity, it makes
sense to minimize overall wasted time. Since you are most efficient at
computer-related things, it makes sense to do those things for them.

~~~
icebraining
I think the problem madaxe_again is underlying is that the 20m task often
leads to the person assuming you're the culprit of any possible problem the
computer might have in the future.

I still help friends and family with computer problems, but I try to avoid
friends-of-friends and such.

By the way, the idea of considering myself and my family as a single unit is
bizarre to me, unless you're talking about just the immediate relatives. Each
branch of my family has at least two "sub-branches" who don't speak to each
other :)

~~~
lqdc13
Well, I understand where he's coming from. But if you follow this line of
reasoning further, you basically say that you should never help anyone -
including your immediate family - with anything because they might think you
ruined it for them.

I'm not saying you should be Mother Teresa, or even help people you don't
like, but iff you like someone and they need help, just help them out.

They might help you out later with something else they can do better than you.

~~~
madaxe_again
_They might help you out later with something else they can do better than
you._

Unlikely, because they won't see what you've done as help - you just end up
associated with the computer, and viewed as part of the problem.

I'm not saying never help anyone with anything ever - just not with technical
tasks - don't build someone a website, don't set their computer up, don't
uninstall their malware - you will just end up beholden, and nobody will thank
you.

By all means, however, mow the lawn, do the shopping, bake a cake - just
nothing which requires ongoing support.

~~~
varjag
> Unlikely, because they won't see what you've done as help

So many times this.

It is peculiar how people view computer janitory as "simple" activity, despite
not being able to do it themselves. Is that because all you do is press some
buttons here and there? It is in fact perceived to be so easy that you get
people complaining for your free work.

I've been asked by literally total strangers to "fix their PC" for them; would
they ever consider asking a random plumber for a favor like that?

\- "Oh so you do something with computers, could you please fix my laptop?"

\- "Eh what are you doing for a living?"

\- "A mason"

\- "Cool then, we long wanted to change tiles in the bathroom"

[awkward silence]

~~~
theorique
I admit, I've never gotten this from total strangers. That would be a very
strange experience and I'd probably make a joke about it, as you describe.
Relatives have occasionally asked me for computer help but those questions
have typically been very specific, time-and-effort-bound, and nobody expected
me to deliver on a follow-on "service contract".

~~~
wylee
I'd guess the scenario is more like a social setting where you know some of
the people and don't know others. And you're having a "what do you do?" kind
of conversation where you respond with "computer stuff" and then the person
you're talking to, or someone in earshot, says something like "Oh, maybe you
could help me with mine...".

That's happened to me several times. I've also had people do a similar thing
in work settings--people who weren't even direct coworkers.

------
iolothebard
Misses a huge point, if you're doing a startup with friends, typically you're
all working for free.

Keep your day job, do some work on the side, retain all rights to your code.
Make sure the person or people you're working with are equally dedicated. Have
clauses that cut people out for non-delivery on their parts.

A startup is only 25% the code in my experience, it's the most critical part
(unless you're selling vaporware) but it's just ahead of sales which then
quickly takes over. Unless you're doing the facebook model (which I've never
been able to grasp personally).

~~~
pc86
The company (because there is a legal entity, and not just three guys hacking
in a garage, _right_?) absolutely needs to retain ownership of the code. If
the CTO decides he'd rather work for Microsoft 6 months in you can't have a
legal structure that allows him to take all the code with him and dump
everyone else back to square one.

If you've got two or more people working on a business/startup/project,
everything done toward that goal needs to belong to that entity, not the
person that created it.

~~~
tokenizerrr
You have licenses and contracts for that.

------
pkaye
At times, it feels like, the more someone is paying you, the more they will
respect you. Don't work for free unless they have a good respect for you
otherwise you will be used. My own experience was trying to help out two non-
profits with some IT work and they ask you for the world and treat you like
shit.

~~~
aantix
Spot on.

The higher I push my rates, the more respect I get. It's been a surprising
finding coming from a programmer that came from a pretty broke family.

But it gives me courage to constantly push my rates higher and higher. Courage
in that single negotiation moment seems to generate professional respect that
even great work doesn't generate.

"Here's my rate. It's non-negotiable. <blank, cold stare accompanied by dead
silence until the client decides to speak>"

I've always found this list incredibly useful when preparing to negotiate with
a potential new contract. [http://note.liudas.eu/v1/wp-
content/uploads/2014/05/Negotiat...](http://note.liudas.eu/v1/wp-
content/uploads/2014/05/Negotiation.pdf)

In an age of where an half-way descent engineer is thrown a job offer, you
should be able to generate enough leads to continuously try out new rates.

Prepare like hell for the negotiation. Know their favorite sports team. Know
that they graduated with honors from Caltech. Tell them exactly how you're
going to help their company, unapologetically give them your rate, and then be
absolutely quiet waiting for their response. "First person to talk always
loses", so STFU. Don't flinch.

------
chaostheory
There's one huge thing that the author missed: working for free on an open
source or creative commons project, as well as the advantages of just getting
your work out there on those licenses even if it doesn't directly benefit you
financially immediately.

~~~
saint_fiasco
I think that's covered in the non-profit branch.

~~~
chaostheory
Not really. The non-profit branch implied that the completed work will belong
only to the non-profit. With open source and creative commons, ultimately the
intellectual rights still belong to you; you're just letting other people use
your work for free.

You also don't have to release open source or creative commons work for
someone else. If you look on github, most projects are the work of
individuals, and released & maintained primarily by them and not a separate
non-profit entity.

TDLR the author has forgotten that you can also work for yourself for free and
not just other people

~~~
s73v3r
The author is in the field of graphic design. It's not unreasonable that they
wouldn't have much exposure to that.

~~~
brentvatne
I agree that open-source is definitely missing from this if it is considered
from the perspective of a software developer. "Should I work for free?" is a
simple and easy to remember title but it is an oversimplification when the
author actually intended on it being something more like "Should I do design
work for free?" That said, this was also made in 2011 and I think a lot has
changed since then.

------
rayiner
One of the first bits of advice my old boss gave me: never work for free. I
was surprised because I'd never even considered doing that. But it must be
common enough for him to have mentioned it.

~~~
busterarm
Depends where you are. In creative fields in NY, there is tons of free labor,
or people getting paid on a scale of Net-180 to Net-Never (proportional to how
many times you say "Fuck You, Pay Me"). As well as a load of illegal
"internships". Outside of finance, businesses here are often extremely cheap
to the point of being dishonest.

I really don't understand why people put up with it. Nobody has any ethics
either.

~~~
SilasX
Seriously? Six months to pay? :-O

~~~
busterarm
Considering what all of the young animators I know went through after looking
for work here out of SVA, six months was if they were lucky.

It has gotten a lot better over the last 5-7 years though.

------
ac166
I thought this was going to be one of those websites that just had NO in big
letters on it. Sadly it's not.

------
shubhamjain
There has been only one time I was willing to work for free, to establish some
credibility as a freelancer when reaching out wasn't working that well and I
didn't had anything to show in my portfolio, plus I didn't want to go on
bidding wars on Odesk, Elance. I think that (desperation) might be one of the
major reasons why someone might want to work for free.

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jacquesm
Funny how one of the branches leads to nothing but 'no' and still has a whole
bunch of extra questions to ask. That could be optimized!

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asgard1024
You should work for free as in freedom, not for free as in beer.

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dspeyer
I notice that once you go down the "is it for a legitimate business" branch,
the answers are all "NO". They could have omitted all the follow-ups.

~~~
adrusi
Ah, but then you'd lose the explanations for _why_ each scenario is not
appropriate to work for free in.

------
ac166
I was thinking this was going to be one of those websites that just says NO in
big letters. Sadly it's not.

------
dvirsky
One branch that isn't covered here is joining a non-funded startup as the
technical co-founder.

~~~
pc86
But then it's not free. Just because most equity is worthless doesn't mean the
work is done for free.

~~~
dvirsky
True, but you still bet your future and work many many hours for no pay, and
in some cases it never even gets seed funding, so you end up just wasting a
ton of time, even though no one profited from your work.

Also it should be mentioned for young/inexperienced people, that you do this
only if the equity is significant (don't join if they have 5 non technical
founders, no product and offer you like 5%), and if the founders are not
idiots, assholes and/or dodgy.

------
allendoerfer
Mine is simpler: Is it a project, that you would start by yourself anyway, you
do now with partners, who bring value, you trust and give you enough equity?
Everything else is a no.

------
anotheryou
what I find much more important: don't work for too little money.

I help friends for free and do a quick and dirty job, telling them what I have
time for and what not. But getting a little money gets you all the
responsibility, less thankfulness and still no real money.

------
spacecowboy_lon
NO

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yetanotheracc
I wish they expanded the family / "mom" branch a bit.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
At this point in world history, the money flow goes from me to my mom, I'm not
going to accept any cash from her.

------
kefka
The real answer is (Fuck you, Pay
me)[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U)]

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cmacpher
the z-indexing on this is maddening!

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izztmzzt
no.

------
jackmaney
Here's a simpler flowchart:

Start -> Should I work for free? -> No

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Mahn
Well that was a bit pointless, the whole chart can be summed up as "No, but
you may want to consider making an exception for a relative, a close friend,
or a non-profit you support".

~~~
michaelgrafl
A lot of things can be summed up in a boring way. That doesn't make the boring
summaries the things.

~~~
Mahn
My point is that there's no information the chart is adding to that.

~~~
mikeash
There's useful reasoning in there beyond your summary. For example, the fact
that "it's a good portfolio piece/exposure" is a big pile of BS is useful to
know.

------
teekert
I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of
another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. -John Galt (Ayn Rand)

~~~
sfk
Did John Galt use free software?

~~~
lqdc13
Free software in its current state is basically communism.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
Please elaborate how.

~~~
to3m
Please see page 129,473 of your copy of Atlas Shrugged.

