Mike Monteiro: F*ck You, Pay Me

Fuck you, pay me for those of you uninitiated, this talk by Mike Monteiro is awesome - about not getting paid in creative services: ▶ this video

I watched this video from Mike Monteiro and I always refer to it since. It's about getting paid for the work you do. ▶ this video

You really need to watch this (very famous) talk by Mike Monteiro, called "Fuck You, Pay Me": ▶ this video Especially the section where his attorney starts talking (at about 7:20).

Please watch this: Fuck You, Pay Me: ▶ this video The $1250 I spent once to have a business attorney draft up a template for my services agreement is the best $1250 I ever spent in the past 7 years. That $1250 makes me money , because I never have to harass clients to get paid, because they know I have legal recourse if they don't. Since then I've maybe paid him $1000 to deal with things clients wanted to redline in my service agreement. That $2250 total (which is a legitimate business expense) is a pittance compared to what I would lose for a single unpaid invoice. Meanwhile, I always hear from freelancers that don't get paid, but claim lawyers are "too expensive". You know what's really expensive? Getting $0 for the last N days you worked instead of $X. $X is a hell of a lot more money, and unless you have a contract in place, you expose yourself to that possibility every time you engage with a client.

I also recommend watching this talk if you have not seen it already. Mike Monteiro: Fuck you, pay me. ▶ this video

As a palette cleanser and loin girder: ▶ this video (You already guessed it was Mike Monteiro.) For this project: Did they refuse to pay actively ("We won't pay you."), or passively (No replies to emails.) The latter might be incompetence. As others mentioned, specific legal advice depends on respective jurisdictions, but an offical lawyer's letter sometimes wakes up legal when accounting is drifting. Did you deliver the final access to the code / server / credentials? If not, gently bring servers, DBs, platforms to a halt pending final payments. Future projects: Contract, always. Up-front commencement payments, always. Price yourself higher in the initial quote, and ask for staged payments, such that by the time your delivery schedule is 50-75% done you are 100% paid. You control the source code accounts, you control the server credentials, you control the database access credentials, you hand over final access after the final check has cleared.

Oh you just revived sweet memories of my times as a freelancer. As a freelancer, it's sometimes hard to get around the simple idea that you are your own company and that you must act like one: protect and defend your work at all cost. It took me months of time wasted, and thousands of dollars of work stolen to accept the fact I need to change my behaviour, as a freelancer you have roughly two approaches: - set boundaries early on, don't start any work with a predefined and agreed upon down payment, if the work is more than a few days long: set milestones as need be with payments required. - lawyer up, be flexible with clients (delays in payments are a common occurrence with any company) but don't be afraid to go after dishonest clients, if you can't afford it or don't feel like going this path then you need to set up as many contingencies as possible upfront (see previous point). A classic video that might help you get in the right mindset: ▶ this video

Very good advice for consultants and freelancers: ▶ this video TL;DR: Make good consulting contracts with a proper lawyer

You give people something cool for years at no cost and now they're pissed that they have to compensate you for your labor. The way that people value software these days is completely insane. People writing you hate mail are bad clients that you don't want and you can feel free to ignore them. Also watch this video that was doing the rounds on HN a couple of years ago: ▶ this video Your app looks neat - I'll go try it out.

That really depends; some company's legal department might go overboard with the stuff they make you sign 'or no deal'. Mike Monteiro talks about this in his "Fuck you, pay me" talk [1]. He says that a lot of companies have boilerplate contracts which have outdated provisions like requiring you to hand over printouts of source code, or delivering software on floppy diskettes. The proper response is to have a lawyer yourself who can review the contract and explain to the company's legal counsel that 1) these contract provisions are unreasonable and outdated and 2) that striking these provisions will not create additional liabilities for the company. The reasons these contracts go overboard is because every time the company gets burned, it adds some scar tissue to the contract to prevent that same eventually from occurring again, regardless of whether it's applicable to the task at hand. Maybe it works different in different parts of the world, but we signed some crazy things (which were dealbreakers if not signed) in the past and no-one ever sued us for it I will be extremely honest. You got lucky. You put your head in the mouth of the lion, and it didn't bite. It doesn't mean that what you did was a good idea, it just means that you got away with it. [1]: ▶ this video

This is some bad advice because there are people who will "Fucking sue [you]". If you want to learn about how a professional deals with contracts, payments, and contracting I'd say to check out "Fuck you. Pay me" [0] that gives a reasoned explanation of negotiations, what to expect, and reasonable ways to react/behave. [0] - ▶ this video

It's a little late for you, but Mike Monteiro's "Fuck you, pay me!" talk has a lot of good information. ▶ this video