Getting asked for free work is very common, especially if you’re just starting out. NEVER do it, read on to know why, it costs you much more than missed income.
In the beginning of my career, I wasn’t super sure of my skills, so I did some work for very cheap to get some pressure off of me.
Now that I’m 8 years into my career, I know I can deliver. However, during my transition from salary job to consulting, I ran into the same type of client I had run into 8 years ago, but this time I could…
And how something being disputed means nothing
TL;DR; Mostly everything is or can be disputed.
To put “This is disputed” warnings on only some of the things, you skew reality in favor of whomever you want, and control the narrative in a sly and cowardly way.
Something being disputed doesn’t mean anything, the scientific method exists precisely because of this. Everything can be disputed, and most things are.
Call it quits if your client shows too many of these traits
Ok, so, you land a new client, awesome! After communicating for a few days you sign the contract. Fast forward a few weeks, the entire scope of the work has changed, they cost you more than they paid, the stress keeps you up at night, and you simply cannot work with them.
Does this sound familiar?
First of all, let me clear up the title: there are no bad clients. Problems manifest in a relationship between the service provider and the client, a single party is hardly ever to blame.
Certain types of clients tend to attract certain types of…
This happened in 2016 but I never published it, so, here it goes.
I like to test things around me until they break, and figure out why they broke, and fix them. On a rainy day in Düsseldorf, when working for trivago, I started to see a lot of ads for web summit, the venue had changed to Lisbon, and, having lived in Lisbon a few years prior, I was extra curious to check it out better this year.
Out of curiosity, I signed up with my startup, a tinder for people looking for furniture, eg: “I am a man seeking a couch” and one could swipe right and left to find a…
So, you want to create a startup, well, sit down and let me explain how this works by telling you the story of Jane, a fictional startup founder created for this tutorial.
Finding your product
Jane could choose only one of the following ideas to pursue:
- A platform that uses AI to do something unspecified
- Food delivery by bike messenger platform
- Food delivery by bike messenger platform backed by blockchain
Every startup from 2020 onward needs to have either AI or blockchain, or else they’re obviously bound to fail.
Although she had other ideas, she heard that venture capitalists in her area were…
Do you want help or do you just want to feel helped?
If the self-help book you just read made you:
- feel capable of taking on the entire world
- feel very good about yourself
- feel super-duper optimistic
- feel like things are really simple
it was probably garbage. Why?
Because it told you what you wanted to read
Whenever you read something you already partially believe, you feel good about it. Turns out you were right all along, and all will be fine.
But then a month passes and you find yourself reading another vapid self-help book that just sounds like the first one with different words and a different cover.
You risk becoming a self-help addict because the dopamine kick you…
Imagine a gold rush. Many tell you that the best way to monetize it is by selling shovels. But then, doesn’t the shovel selling become a secondary gold rush? And so on and so forth?
At what point does the shovel-level become too deep, or does it not matter assuming the level of shovel-specificity keeps getting narrower and narrower? WeShovel makes very pointy shovels for harder dirt, and BananaShovel makes wide shovels for softer dirt.
Don’t we run the risk that at some point, those going for the gold realize that they’re just dreamers, and that maybe it’s best to…
You’re not wrong, but…
Stores throughout the world are hitting stocking problems as people are buying out food and other necessities. The people telling them not to buy stuff are the same people that didn’t believe the virus would reach pandemic status. So, who’s right?
Panic buying is done by those who didn’t believe that virus would impact things the way it has and then get hit in the face with reality, so, all the “you don’t need to panic buy” people are future panic buyers, or future people starving. Who in their right mind would take such a chance?
Panic is bad, but…
A short motivational story
When I was starting off my freelance work as a software developer back in 2010, I had a client that was a friend of a friend, we worked well together so he eventually hired me in a pretty close to a full-time arrangement.
He was very business savvy, and I respected him.
On a Saturday afternoon, I get a message from him.
“I’ve found a way to hack gambling sites”
He said.
I was curious, perhaps he found a vulnerability in the code or something, so I paid attention.
His magnificent idea was… *drumroll*
To place a small bet, like…
The most widely used development methodology
A new feature request arrives, and everyone feels that it doesn’t make any sense. It requires big changes to the current user flow, doesn’t seem to be a needed, and just adds onto the other unneeded features that make up 90% of your product.
Amando Abreu
Strong opinions, loosely held.
