That's ridiculous. Collaborating with clients should almost always be free.
Just out of curiosity, what kind of collaboration are you doing with clients? I'm the CEO of a platform specifically for businesses and their clients, and we loosely compete with Airtable.
SEEKING FREELANCER | New York, NYC | Remote or onsite okay
Looking for an somewhat-experienced freelancer to make constant updates to SaaS wweb app built in Elixir/Phoenix, Postgres, and React (built using brunch).
Work will include integrations (Zapier, Filestack, Google drive, etc) , implementing product features, and overall product improvements (UX, UI, etc).
Bootstrapped business with high recent growth, so won't be able to afford high-priced consultants, but open to creative solutions.
Also, potentially interested in bringing on a CTO through equity (until revenue/seed raise can support in 1-3 months). Would have to be NYC.
Most successful SaaS companies operate on a payback period of less than 1 year. Aka spend $100 today, and you'll get $100 from the customer within 10-12 months. After that, it's all profit, which works out really well if your churn is low and users stick around for 48 months.
- Go from Sales Proposal to Project Management in one dynamic page
- Launched and post-revenue (just applied to YC)
- AppSumo featured us yesterday as the next deal (https://appsumo.com/recapped/), and it's been crazy hectic. Amazing feedback and revenue so far though.
I went through a similar situation when I created an Indie game studio with friends. We worked for a year and made a cool $5,000 but it was a "failure" by all sense of the word. We learned a lot and had a ton of fun. Some feedback:
Your website is god awful. Seriously.
The copy doesn't excite anyone to play the game
You make the user jump through hoops to play - if you already are writing it off, make it free to play in-browser without Steam (you want traction at all costs right?)
What did you learn?
Did you have friends or a community playing it as you worked on it? If you didn't, then you really need to look at the Lean Methodology
Rejected at first and then accepted into Advisor Track with www.recapped.io. I quit my full-time job about 6 months ago to focus fully on this venture.
Born in Russia, grew up in NC, live in SF currently, moving to NYC next week. Incredibly excited to leave SF, to say the least.
The good:
Innovation and energy everywhere. You can feel it in the air, especially since every billboard in SoMa is a tech startup.
I've met some of the smartest people in my life here, and have been really lucky to work on some exciting projects.
Neighborhoods are VERY divided and have their own feel, almost like separate cities.
Decent amount of high quality restaurants.
Availability to high paying jobs
The bad:
HBO's Silicon Valley no longer becomes funny, it's just a documentary at this point.
The homeless - they're everywhere and feel empowered to be aggressive on a scale I've never seen. I live in Nob Hill, and have been in a few altercations (though very much not the case when I was in the Marina).
Dating pool for a hetero male is meh at best. Most bars are filled with 75-90% guys, with few exceptions in the Marina.
Tech is everywhere - at first this was a good thing, but now it's unbearable.
Everyone seems to be incredibly sensitive and emotionally charged.
Weather isn't as good as SoCal, and is pretty "eh" majority of the time.
Expensive af.
TLDR:
Amazing career opportunity for young/mid-20's for a few years. You'll meet great people, work on exciting stuff, and raise your income level. Leave after a few years.
Just out of curiosity, what kind of collaboration are you doing with clients? I'm the CEO of a platform specifically for businesses and their clients, and we loosely compete with Airtable.