THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO RUNNING A

WEB DEVELOPMENT BUSINESS

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Section 1
Introduction

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Lecture 1
Course Overview

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Course overview

 Section 1 - Introduction

 Section 2 - The essentials

 Section 3 - Plan your strategy

 Section 4 - Setting up your presence

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Course overview

 Section 5 - Finding your subcontractors

 Section 6 - Building a portfolio

 Section 7 - Getting clients

 Section 8 - Building proposals

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Course overview

 Section 9 - Managing clients

 Section 10 - Best practices

 Section 11 - Internal management

 Section 12 - Contracts

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Course overview

 Course format

- Talking head videos

- Screencasts
- A real outsourcing project

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 Lecture 3
The Sprintkick story

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The Sprintkick story

• Before Sprintkick, I worked in a Venture Capital firm

• I noticed the inability to recruit technical people

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The Sprintkick story

• I started Sprintkick in India

• I moved to Hyderabad

• I put together the best team I could

• The goal was to turn cheap into good

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The Sprintkick story

• Hiring in India was difficult

• It took a year to build the core team

• I started growing backwards

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The Sprintkick story

• I accumulated strategy and skills

• Now we're a referral only agency

• We're almost 90% distributed outside the home base

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The Sprintkick story

• We have in-house designers

• Everything else can be contracted for the cost

savings and flexibility

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The Sprintkick story

• Started with web apps, expanded into mobile apps,

Blackberry and Windows Phone

• We also offer add-on services, graphic

design, help with launching and strategy
consulting

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 Lecture 4
7 reasons to start a web
development business

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Why start a web development business?

1. It's very rewarding work

• You see an idea go from nothing to a real product

• You stay up to date with the development world
• If you love tech, it's a fun way to make money

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Why start a web development business?

2. The bulk of money is in development

• Any project has multiple sections to it

• Design and development are usually outsourced
• 85% development, 15% design
• Development is where the real opportunity is

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Why start a web development business?

3. Margins in web and mobile development

are amazing

• They range between 25%-70% in development

• It's like you can multiply yourself, if you're a
programmer

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Why start a web development business?

4. You set yourself up for startup success in the future

• You put together an awesome team

• You create a system that can apply to other ideas
• Example : 37 Signals

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Why start a web development business?

5. You get exposure to a variety of online disciplines

• You learn project management, client management,

sales management, how to manage accounts, how to
hire, fire, vet people, recruit, how to figure out who's
good or not

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Why start a web development business?

5. You get exposure to a variety of online disciplines

• You're going to develop basic skills in product

management and UX

• Getting sales, prospecting clients, getting clients

and keep them

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Why start a web development business?

5. You get exposure to a variety of online disciplines

• Understanding technologies

• You're going to talk like a developer,

you’ll know what works and what doesn’t

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Why start a web development business?

6. An opportunity to set it and forget it

• Passive income business

• You can just get a couple of good clients and
make sure that you retain them
• You check on your projects only once in 2 weeks

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Why start a web development business?

7. You can add development as an extra service

you offer

• You offer your clients almost

a full service

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 Lecture 5
How to add development services to
an already existing business

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How to add development services

#1 Add it on your website, in a tab or

a separate section

#2 Add it to your branding, change your tagline,

make a reference to it on your business card

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How to add development services

#3 Attach development estimates to your other

estimates or bills

• Your estimates will save them time

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 Lecture 6
Who this course is for

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Who this course is for

 Anyone can start a development business

 You don't need to know how to program

 You don't need to work full time - only if you

want to grow very quickly

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Who this course is for

 It helps if you have an interest in web/mobile

apps or if you're into trends

 You learn quickly

 Programmers have an advantage

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Who this course is for

1. Programmers

- you are working as a freelancer

- you are working with other contractors or solo
- starting a web development business = transitioning
to part-time and multiply the money

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Who this course is for

1. Programmers

- you will learn how to go after clients and manage

them
- maybe you're passionate about a certain technology
and you can build your business around it

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Who this course is for

2. Non-technical entrepreneurs

- you want to start your own business but you

don't know how to program
- you have a marketing background, SEO, branding, etc.
- it’s an excellent business to start if you want to learn
- it’s great for making money and learning more skills

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Who this course is for

3. Anyone who is a freelancer or does

his own consulting work

- you offer auxiliary services around web projects

- you probably have your own clientele
- you can add an extra service: development
- adding development will bring a lot of money

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 Section 2
The essentials

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 Lecture 8
Understanding the
development stack

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Understanding the development stack

• Development stack = The stack of technologies

that go into making a website/application

• LAMP - one of the most common stacks

- Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP
- it’s describing the steps of the technology
and what is being used

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Understanding the development stack

• PHP is the first layer

• MySQL - 85% of the projects use it

- storage container
- user information

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Understanding the development stack
• Apache - it helps the server to handle information
- it allows databases to communicate
with each other
- the foundation for easily transmitting
information off of a server

• Linux - it explains what operating software does

your server use
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Understanding the development stack

• The top layer: Graphic design - a combination of

HTML, CSS, JavaScript

• JavaScript - running actions on the page, buttons,

pop-ups

• HTML + CSS - elements positioning, colors

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Understanding the development stack

• There are multiple ways of making a website:

PHP, Ruby, Python

• You have to decide what stack to use

• The stack is different for mobile apps

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Understanding the development stack

• You have to make a decision when you start

• You can choose to work with one stack, you can

choose to work with just one layer

• You can focus on what's past

the top layer: only programming

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 Lecture 9
How to pick a stack

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How to pick a stack

• People can have preferences about what you use

• If you're a programmer, work with what you're used

to, it doesn't make sense to learn a new language

• You have to hire specialists for some niche

technologies

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How to pick a stack

• You can make the same website in any of the

languages

• If the client already has something and wants to

change it, then he might require a specific stack

• The language doesn't matter, focus on the people

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How to pick a stack
• When you start working with contractors and building
the team, focus on the people that give you the best
results and ignore the technology they use

• In the beginning, it doesn't matter what it's made in

• What matters: done well, cheaply,

effectively and on time
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 Lecture 10
The startup timeline

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The startup timeline

• There's going to be a lot of work upfront

before you start bringing in clientele

• Think about strategy - what is your angle, what are

you selling, are you going to pick a niche, are you going
to be a generalist, are you going to pick a specific
technology, what your valued proposition should be?

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The startup timeline

• Choose what you want to work with

• Make decisions upfront

• Do your research

• Assess what your skills are and decide accordingly

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The startup timeline

• Establish a web presence - a profile on freelancing

websites, a website, a Facebook page

• Basic level identity

• Focus on how to capture clients and

how to piece together a good team

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The startup timeline

• People will always need development services

• It takes time to figure it out

• With time, you will get a better

idea about everything

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The startup timeline

• There are many ways to create a

development business

• It's easier if you have a previous network

• The next step is growing: eventually you get to a

point when you stop advertising and start charging more

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The startup timeline

• At first you will have to make discounts

• It gets easier

• We now pick 1/10 projects

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 Lecture 11
How does this work as a programmer
or a non-programmer?

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Programmer vs non-programmer

 Programmer

• it's a lot simpler

• you can subcontract work
• figure out what will be your role in what you build

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Programmer vs non-programmer

 Programmer

• You can - be the lead developer

- program part-time
- don't program at all, focus on
management

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Programmer vs non-programmer

 Non-programmer

• look for subcontractors and test them

• it’s a trial and error process
• you have to supervise everyone who is building
your projects

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Programmer vs non-programmer

 It's a little bit harder for non-programmers because

they have to search for both contractors and clients from
the beginning

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 Lecture 12
How do development firms
typically work?

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Specialize vs generalize

 Types of development firms

• Full stack vs specialized

- full stack covers everything you want to build

- specialized - they only do one technology layer

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Specialize vs generalize

 Types of development firms

• Custom vs platform

- custom: they do it from scratch

- they specialize in specific platforms

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 Lecture 13
Build yourself or subcontract?

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Build yourself or contract?

• Are you already a freelancer/programmer?

• You know exactly what you are capable of

• You can do your own projects and keep it small

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Build yourself or contract?

• If you want to grow or maintain a higher quality

of life, you shouldn't program 100% of your time

• If you spend all your time programming, there's

nobody else to bring in new projects

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Build yourself or contract?

• Contracts involve maintenance and add-ons,

but these don't come frequently

• You also have to do marketing and sales

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Build yourself or contract?

• Do you feel comfortable being the lead developer?

• If you are a programmer, you can have critical insights

and you will make much better decisions

• A non-developer will not have the same advantage

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Build yourself or contract?

• What you bring to the business can be different

than your programming skills

• The best thing you can bring is oversight

• You're much more useful to your

project when you are managing it

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Build yourself or contract?

• If you’re a programmer, you are the magic

combination that can use low cost contractors
to build high quality products

• You can also work with higher paid

contractors and get the ultimate quality

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Build yourself or contract?
• You need to be thoughtful about what you do
with your time

• Benefit from bringing in someone else to

collaborate with you

• Focus on oversight and delivering value

through management
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 Lecture 14
In-house hiring or out-house?

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In-house or out-house?

• Most web studios have employees

• At Sprintkick, we have both

• In the beginning, it wasn't worth hiring someone

for a year, because there were not so many projects

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In-house or out-house?

 In-house: Disadvantages

- harder to take on a variety of projects: one employee

doesn't have all the skills
- it involves a lot of paperwork and it takes time
- recruiting is very difficult and they ask for more money

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In-house or out-house?

 In-house: Disadvantages

- it's difficult to fire them

- housing is expensive
- off-hours are very expensive

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In-house or out-house?

 In-house: Advantages

- your project quality and your ability to meet

deadlines will increase
- communication is better
- they don't cut corners, they are more involved

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In-house or out-house?

• Big companies care more about quality

• Product quality doesn't necessarily

mean having employees

• Contractors are more flexible

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In-house or out-house?

• Flexibility vs ability

• Contractors = flexibility
• Employees = ability

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In-house or out-house?

• Full time or part time?

• Cash or brand reputation?

• Full time + reputation = employees

• Cash + part time = contractors

 Find the perfect fit for you

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 Section 3
Planning your strategy

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 Lecture 16
Good – fast – cheap

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Good - fast - cheap

• Value proposition = your product/service offering,

what you can deliver to the
customer
= combination of skills and products

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Good - fast - cheap

• Good, fast, cheap: three things that can describe

your offering

• You can only be two out of the three

• It's impossible to be all of them

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Good - fast - cheap

 Fast

- it means you are cutting corners

somewhere, probably on quality

- you have to pay people more

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Good - fast - cheap

 Good

- it's hard to deliver quickly

- paying people more for their experience

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Good - fast - cheap

 Cheap

- cutting costs on quality/delivering time

- delivering later or lowering the quality

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Good - fast - cheap

 Sprintkick is good and cheap

 You have to optimize 2/3

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Good - fast - cheap

 Fast + cheap = maintenance work, people on a

budget
 Good + cheap = companies who don't care about
quick delivery
 Good + fast = people who don't care about
budget

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 Lecture 17
Planning for “the grind”

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Planning for “the grind”

• “The grind”: the period of time when you are not

bringing in any business or not a lot of business

• Every business is going to have this problem

• You have to figure out what works

and what doesn't
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Planning for “the grind”

• At first, you're going to fail more than you succeed

• What works depends on what you're trying to do

• Prepare for it

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Planning for “the grind”

• Do things that do not scale

• Scaling means growing

• Think about strategies

• Do them as cheaply as possible and manually

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Planning for “the grind”

• Growth hacking technique

• Test it to know if it's worth it, then scale it

• Concierge service - companies trying to validate

something

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Planning for “the grind”
• Don't burn money and time until you know
it's going to work

• Try a lot of techniques, try to minimize your

costs and time investment

• At the beginning, you say yes to scaling, but later,

you say no
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 Lecture 18
To niche or not to niche

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To niche or not to niche

• Picking a niche is an effective way of getting clients

• Focus all your efforts somewhere

• There are many types of niches

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To niche or not to niche

 Before deciding to pick a niche or not:

• Do you have a strong network/affiliation somewhere?

• You can just pick one niche

arbitrarily

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To niche or not to niche

 Before deciding to pick a niche or not:

• Is there some kind of technology or group that

you're passionate about working with?

• If you're passionate about it, it will be a lot easier

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To niche or not to niche

 Before deciding to pick a niche or not:

• How familiar are you with web technologies?

• If you're brand new to this, you don't know what's

popular, you should look into finding a niche

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To niche or not to niche

• People assume you're an expert if you

work in a niche

• Picking a niche is a good idea at the beginning or

if you're not very confident that you can get clients

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To niche or not to niche

• When not to pick a niche:

- You don't have strong affiliations

- You’re not passionate about something specific

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To niche or not to niche

• Pros of being generalized:

- It's much easier to receive interest from other people

- Later you can decide to specialize

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 Lecture 19
Types of subcontractors

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Subcontracting strategy

• Price and language skills

- there's a big gap when we talk about distance

- communication can be fluid or very bad
- a fluent English speaker that lives in the same
area as you will be more expensive

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Subcontracting strategy

• Price and language skills

- cheaper freelancers require more of your time,

better for margins - the key is to manage them
efficiently

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Subcontracting strategy

• Different strategies

- Focus more on sales

- Focus more on project management

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Subcontracting strategy

• Different strategies

 Consider your experience level. Do you speak another

language, do you have experience as a project manager?
- If you have, you can use the low cost option
- If you don't, you can focus more on sales and consider
a more expensive option

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Subcontracting strategy

• Firms vs freelancers

- If you're confident, you can turn a low cost work

into a quality product
- If you don't have experience, you can focus on a firm
or on someone that has the same time zone as you

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Subcontracting strategy

• After working with firms, you can transition

to working with freelancers

• Price/capability ratio - some people are really

cheap but good, or expensive but bad

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 Lecture 20
In country or out of country?

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In country or out of country?

 When you should outsource your

job or stay in your country?

1. What's your budget?

2. How much experience do you have?
3. Do you know how to program?

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In country or out of country?
 The more money you have, the more you'll be willing
to spend, so you can more easily find someone in your
country

 If your budget is tight, you might want

to outsource

 Less budget, more effort

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In country or out of country?

 Familiarity with tech can make a big difference

 If you're more familiar with it, you can outsource easier

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 Section 4
Setting up your presence

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 Lecture 22
Focus on 80/20 solutions for
web presence

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80/20 solutions

 People judge your proposal through

the lens of your website

 They assume your work will look similar to that

 Nice website: clients are more likely to believe

you when you ask for a price or give advice

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
80/20 solutions

 You don't want to spend all your resources upfront

 The 80/20 rule: you can get 80% of the effect

with 20% of the effort, but to get the rest of 20% of the
quality you will need 80% of the effort

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
80/20 solutions

• At the beginning you don't know exactly

what you specialize in

• Use templates: they look good and are cheap

• You don't have as much control on the

customization, but at first this is not important

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
80/20 solutions

• Later, when you have more money,

you can improve your web presence

• Start off with easy solutions and then improve

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Lecture 23-24
Looking at other studios

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Looking at other studios

• sprintkick.com
• thoughtbot.com
• sapientnitro.com
• akta.com

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Looking at other studios

• They all have the long page design

• Scroll down and see all the information

• People are pattern recognizing creatures

• If the majority of the firms have a certain type of
design, you can't go wrong by using something similar
• People associate this design with quality

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Looking at other studios
 Elements that are present on all good websites:

1. All websites have a "hook", one big sentence

that they want to get across to you
• What they want you to think about them
• Showing their best portfolio item
• Something interesting that gets your attention
• Slideshow images that keep you on the page longer

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Looking at other studios
 Elements that are present on all good websites:

2. It's easy to find their value proposition

• They describe what they offer in an attractive way

• We use a landing page design with
a call to action button

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Looking at other studios

 Elements that are present on all good websites:

3. Services / Products

• Make sure they are easy to find

• Show all the things that you do

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Looking at other studios

 Elements that are present on all good websites:

4. Portfolio

• Show the top 5-10 best items

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Looking at other studios

 Elements that are present on all good websites:

5. About us

• Information about who you are

• Culture, employees
• Give information about the people
• How you started
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Looking at other studios

 Elements that are present on all good websites:

6. Contact us

• Email address
• Forms
• Other ways to get in contact

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 25-26
Finding a template on
TemplateMonster or Themeforest

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Finding a template

 Templates are cheaper

 You can get your presence up faster

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Finding a template

 TemplateMonster.com - PowerPoint designs, flash

animation designs, templates for anything

• You can pick a specific platform you want

a template for
• If you're not using a platform, you can do
a generic search through categories

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Finding a template

 TemplateMonster.com

• The templates follow the usual pattern: long page,

a hook, etc.
• You should pick a responsive design
• Responsive templates are a bit more expensive,
but they are worth it

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Finding a template

 TemplateMonster.com

• Decide what color scheme you want and

what you want to put on the page
• Choose a template with a high impact
• Try to get the best quality possible at the lowest price

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Finding a template

 TemplateMonster.com

• Template Monster tries to sell you extra services, or

an exclusive license after the design has already been
used by other people
• Search for web design templates, instead of web
development: they look better

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Finding a template
 TemplateMonster.com

• Templates usually put in stock photography

that is not relevant
• Some templates includes statistics, testimonials,
a space to include a portfolio
• Pay attention to the template format you need
when you pick one
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Finding a template

 Themeforest.net

• You can search for templates for specific platforms

• You can search based on price, ratings, categories
• Choose a PSD (Photoshop) file if you want the
cheapest option

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Finding a template

 Themeforest.net

• You can add predefined tags to your search,

to find something closer to your needs
• You can't change every single part of the template
if it's very cheap

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Finding a template

 You can also search on Google for templates

 If you want to customize something from a template

and you don't have the Photoshop skills, go to
99designs.com and pay $19 for a task that a designer
will do for you in less than an hour

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Lecture 27
Selecting a name

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Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Picking a name
• The right name could help you sound
established, trendy, high growth

• There are a lot of subconscious

associations on names

• The name is the first thing people hear

• How does it make them feel?
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Picking a name

1. Use a literal name

• Literally describe something about your business

• Example: the name of the country, city, domain,
a certain technology you use

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Picking a name

2. Build your name based on its SEO potential

• If you have a good idea about who

your clients are going to be
• What terms are they interested in?
• Incorporate the keywords into your title (“cheap”)

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Picking a name

3. Use adjectives or feelings

• The feeling that you want the clients to feel

when they hear the name
• Focus on how the word makes them feel,
even if it's not something relevant

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Picking a name
4. “Brandables”

• A word that makes no sense, nothing appears

in your mind when you hear it
• You plan to expand in more areas and don't
want to be stuck
• You also do other things than development
• Downside: no SEO, hard to memorize and share
• Make it pronounceable
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Picking a name
 Suffixes

"Studio"

- it implies that you're small, boutique, everything

you do is done in-house
- a small group of people

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Picking a name
 Suffixes

"Labs"

- it implies that you're building complex technology

- algorithms, experimental things
- if you have other projects, it's a good name
- people assume you don't specialize in development
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Picking a name
 Suffixes

"Agency"

- it implies that you do a lot of things other than

development
- it's an established company
- it has all kinds of departments
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Picking a name
 Prefixes

"Digital"

- it implies that you do anything in media

- people will think you do animation work, video work
- it's a broader term
- it's good only if you work in different types of media
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Picking a name

 At first, we used the name "47squares",

a random name, making fun of 37signals

 Look at your domain availability

 Focus on things that are available

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Picking a name

 Tools that you can use:

namemesh.com

- outputs combinations of possible names

- option to check only available domains

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Picking a name

 Tools that you can use:

domainr.com

- it allows you to use nonconventional endings

other than .com

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Picking a name
 Tools that you can use:

crowdspring.com

- run a contest on naming your business

- describe what you want and get name suggestions
- we spent $180 and got 450 suggestions
- the Sprintkick name was chosen this way
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 28
Advanced: Upgrading your presence
with custom design

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Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Custom design

 After you have your template website up and

you have enough clients, you can actually barter off
your services to other people

 Barter development services

 We made a deal with a designer who

needed development work
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Custom design

 You can "reduce" your rates down to your cost

 We tag ourselves at the bottom of each collaboration

 We built Hubkick, he designed our website

 We posted a collaboration page and looked for people

who had an idea and wanted to get a reduced rate
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Custom design

 You can offer development services in

exchange for design

 There's a margin between what you charge

and what your contractors expect you to pay them

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Custom design

 Designers like doing this, they get to

use them as a portfolio

 You get a free website

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Section 5
Finding subcontractors

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Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 30
Where to find subcontractors

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Where to find subcontractors

 The big three:

 Elance
 Upwork
 Freelancer

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Where to find subcontractors

Elance is my favorite for finding high quality contractors

 Higher quality
 Better experience
 Fewer bids
 More expensive

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Where to find subcontractors
Upwork

 Better tools
 Medium prices
 Great for VAs
 Medium # of bids
 It's good if you're trying to put together a team
 People go to Upwork if they're looking for per hour work
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Where to find subcontractors

Freelancer

 Cheapest prices
 Maximum # of bids
 Low quality bids
 "The wild west" of sites

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 31
What makes a good long
term partner?

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Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
What makes a good long term partner?

#1 Responsiveness

• if they don't respond in time, you're

going to have unhappy clients
• it’s an indicative of how much they value your
relationship and how good they are

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
What makes a good long term partner?

#2 Maturity

• some contractors will never admit that

they've done something wrong
• immaturity breaks down communication
• mature contractors put extra time to remedy
situations without having to argue with them endlessly

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
What makes a good long term partner?
#3 Similar standards of quality

• if they don't understand your idea of pretty

or good, it's impossible to collaborate
• you can trust them to deliver good quality even
when you're not managing them all the time
• they will never become autonomous if you have
different views
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Lecture 32-33
Intro to Elance

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Elance

• They make their money from featured postings,

they charge a percent from the freelancer of
about 8.75%

• Clean user interface

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Elance
Post your job

• Name, description, attachments, category,

specific skills you need
• You can select templates for posting jobs
• You can decide later on the price and people can make
their own offers

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Elance
Post your job

• You can pick a location where you want to find

candidates
• You can find people with certain skills in your area
• You can click "hire me" to invite people to your project

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Elance
Post your job

• Search for other people's projects to see if there's

something else you could mention in your job description
• You can add people to your team
• You can check if they are working during the billable
hours by using the tracker

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Lecture 34-35
Intro to Upwork

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Upwork

• Upwork merged with Elance recently but they still

keep two websites

• Upwork focuses more on per hour freelancing

• They are the second largest freelance site

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Upwork

• Upwork makes money from featured postings

and they charge the freelancer 10%

• They're making the most profit

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Upwork

Post a job

• Similar to Elance
• The duration of the projects is usually longer on Upwork
• You can select the desired experience level
• You can hire more than one freelancer per project

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Upwork

Post a job

• You can ask candidates to write a cover letter to

introduce themselves
• You can add questions for the candidates to answer
when applying
• Team feature

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Upwork
Post a job

• Freelancers have to use the system that tracks

the hourly work with screenshots
• You can find freelancers by selecting different
criteria - this is not available on the other freelancer sites
• When you want to contact a person, Upwork shows
you how fast he will reply
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Lecture 36
Intro to Freelancer

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Freelancer

• They make money from project upgrades and fees

• It's best if you have a small or auxiliary task

• Here, people can do almost everything

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Freelancer

• It suggests the best people for your projects

after many people bid

• They have integrated instant messaging into

their system

• When posting a project, you can pay to upgrade it

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 37
Finding freelancers elsewhere

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Alternative platforms

• Google

- Great for finding specific types of skills

- Search for what you need + "freelancer" + the

country you want

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Alternative platforms

• firmlist.com

- Index of all web studios and web

development firms in the world

- It shows you where they're located

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Section 6
Building a portfolio

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Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 39
Building portfolios upfront

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Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
How important are portfolios?

 Portfolios are very important

 Every firm/freelancer has a portfolio

 It’s the way to show everyone what you are doing

 You need to have some form of a portfolio

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
How important are portfolios?

 What clients look for:

1. Consistent high quality

- if the items are not consistent, clients don't know
what they're going to get
- it’s better to have slightly lower quality that's consistent

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
How important are portfolios?

 What clients look for:

2. Recognizable apps or sites

- a huge plus if you have some
- they perceive you as more capable than you really are

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
How important are portfolios?
 What clients look for:

3. Examples similar to what they're doing

- if you did something similar, chances are you can build
their project more effectively
- if you pick a niche, you will probably have
something similar
- you can show them a similar item from all you have
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
How important are portfolios?
 All big companies are showing 5-10 portfolio items

 Clients won't look at more than that

 Not all items are worth showing, no one

is going to look at all of them

 Pick the ones that have consistent quality

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 40
Use these tricks to grow
your portfolio faster

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Tricks to grow your portfolio faster

• Usually you have to show people what

you've built before

• It's hard to get contracts without a portfolio

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Tricks to grow your portfolio faster

#1 You can list your own projects, projects you worked

on in a team or you had built by someone else

- You don't have to say what part you

did exactly, clients will usually ask you
- Portfolios show what you're capable of making

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Tricks to grow your portfolio faster

#2 Use your contractor's portfolio if you're

subcontracting

- Show what you can do, not exactly what you

have built yourself

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Tricks to grow your portfolio faster

• Over time, you will have more projects and

you can only pick those made entirely by you

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 41
Thoughts about portfolios

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Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Deeper dive into portfolios

• People are going to judge you by your worst

item in the portfolio

• Keep only the best items

• Make sure that whatever you show is consistent

in quality

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Deeper dive into portfolios

• People are biased towards good graphic design

• Poor graphic design will make it look bad,

regardless of the good technology

• Pick items that look good over ones that show

off good technology

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Deeper dive into portfolios

• If a client asks to see the ones with

good technology, show them

• Focus on simpler but better looking items

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Deeper dive into portfolios

• As you improve, add more complex items but

keep the quality consistent

• Keep your portfolio small

• Be aware what the worst item is

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 42
Buying testimonials and case
studies with Catchafire

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Using Catchafire.org

• You can offer services for free for a

preset amount of time
• Use them as portfolio items
• People post small projects that they don't have
the money for
• Professionals can pick something to do and
message them

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Using Catchafire.org

• Select your skills

• You can pick a domain you’re interested in

• There are a lot of projects you can choose from

• Decide how many hours you want to put into this
• You can't go wrong with this work

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Section 7
Getting clients

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Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 44
Strategy: Email scrape and blast

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Email scrape and blast

• Find similarities amongst your clients

• Who is most likely to purchase from you?

• Who is your ideal customer?

• Graphic designers were an ideal market for us

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Email scrape and blast

dunked.com

• It helps freelancers set up their portfolios online

• They give you a template website
• You can search "Powered by dunked" on Google and
find all their websites

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Email scrape and blast

nerdydata.com - search in the source codes of websites

• Find who uses dunked.com system

• Compile the information and make a list with
people who are in your target group
• Contacting your list is the easy part
• You can do this for any potential clients

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Email scrape and blast

firmlist.com

• Look for already created directories

• Pick an area and get a list of companies of
design and web development

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Email scrape and blast

 Sometimes you can purchase lists

 Google: "Your niche + email list"

 Use the freelancer websites to contact people

based on their skills

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 45
Strategy: Offer adjacent services to
those trying to hire in-house

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Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Offer adjacent services

• There are people who might need

what you offer but didn't ask for it

• craigslist.org

• Look for people who have adjacent needs

• There's a great need for web developers in the world

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Offer adjacent services

• Adjacent marketing - people who need

the same thing but want it a different way
• Pitch your services to them

• Look in the job section, web/html/info design

• See if it's something that they need that you can do
• Established demand

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Offer adjacent services

• Take the name and find their website

• Contact them and describe what you can

offer (value proposition)

• If they don't have a contact info, you can search

for their CEO or other employees

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Offer adjacent services

• metricsparrow.com - email permutator

• You enter the person's name and the website,

and it shows the possible email addresses
• Email all of them and you will see which one was right
• Your response rates could be lower because it's an
unsolicited email

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 46
Strategy: Discount offers to groups

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Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Discount offers to groups

• Go after groups of people who might be

potential clients

• Sponsor or give discount offers to the group

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Discount offers to groups

1. meetup.com

• Groups from every domain

• Contact the groups that are potential clients
• "Perks" - anything you offer; it doesn't offer this feature
anymore, but if you offer to add a perk to the group, a
discount, etc., they will respond positively

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Discount offers to groups

2. Look for conventions

• Search for what you're interested in

and find conventions in that domain
• Offer discounts or free services

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Discount offers to groups

3. Aggregators for organizations

• careeronestop.org - list of groups by occupation

• Professional associations are easy to pitch to

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Discount offers to groups

4. Search for the chamber of commerce in your area

• They list out companies

• You can contact them

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Discount offers to groups

5. Google search for associations that you can target

• Offer sponsorship/discounts
• At the beginning, focus on things that have little
investment and bring in potential clients
• Compose a template email

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 Lecture 47
Strategy: Use your affiliations

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Use your affiliations

 Starting point to get your first clients

• College group
• City group
• Work groups
• Professional groups
• Companies you've worked for
• Memberships

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Use your affiliations

 People judge you based on affiliation

 I got clients from my college network

 People you have an affiliation with trust you more

 Focus on your affiliation when you contact them

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Use your affiliations

 Affiliation strength matters

 Think about all the affiliations you have

 Use them as a launching point to get sales

 The feeling of community is very strong

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 Lecture 48
Strategy: Tag your work

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Tag your work

 Tagging = writing your name

 People ask for a lower price and they get to tag

their work

 They can work for free but advertise themselves

by tagging

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Tag your work

 When you write your name at the bottom of

a website, people will see that and can find you

 It also works as a SEO technique, as a backlink

 Tagging works when you don't have

that many clients or a limited portfolio

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Tag your work
 Some tagging will work, some will do nothing

 There are tagging strategies

 Tagging works on small projects and unknown clients

 Larger clients don't like tagging, especially if it's

a well established brand
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 Lecture 49
Strategy: Selling things that
require maintenance

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Sell things that require maintenance

 Clients that have ongoing work: you can give

discounts upfront, because the work will require
updating, maintenance, etc.

 WordPress - 28% of the internet

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Sell things that require maintenance

 People go to people who have blogs and

offer to put it on WordPress

 They will want more customization than WP can offer

 It's easy to charge additionally

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Sell things that require maintenance

 When working with startups, establish trust and

discount the price

 Getting the client is the hardest part

 Look for ongoing projects

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 Lecture 50
Strategy: This sucks, let me fix it

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This is bad, let me fix it

• Experiment with different marketing strategies

when you're trying to get clients

• You will notice that most websites have something

that's not working or has bad quality

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This is bad, let me fix it

• You can contact them and offer to fix them

• Sending a personalized email to these people

can bring you more clients

• Point out things that can be improved

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This is bad, let me fix it
• Keep in mind things that are easy to do, popular
or time intensive, that people could be interested in

• When you encounter the same issues, you can send

the same message to a number of websites

• Even if they don't need your services,

you can get referred and keep in touch
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This is bad, let me fix it

• Getting clients is the hardest part in the beginning

• You increase your chances for repeated work

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 Lecture 51
Strategy: The perpetual discount

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Perpetual discount strategy

• The Udemy example:

• They display high prices and then make discounts

to make sales

• It creates the optical illusion that it's a good deal

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Perpetual discount strategy

• Offer rates based off of types of clients

• First you give a higher price and if they don't

accept it, you make a discount, which is a more
realistic price

• Higher anchor price raises the perceived value

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Perpetual discount strategy

• You can use it to get attention or to negotiate a

contract before closing the deal

• If you put a higher price you have room to lower it

• Don't exaggerate

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 Lecture 52
Strategy: Build something and
give it away

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Give something away for free

• Reasons why this strategy is good:

1. It establishes you as someone who is competent

2. It puts you in the door with tons of people

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Give something away for free

• Pick a tool that would be helpful

• Do research on something that could be helpful

• Create guides or ways to fix problems

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Give something away for free

• Build something around problems that developers

have and solve them

• Build tools that make people's lives easier

• It doesn't have to be something complicated

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Give something away for free

• It has to be simple but something that regular

people can't do

• Think about problems that can be

solved by a web tool

• Go after a problem that everybody could have

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Give something away for free

• Sprintkick example: Graphic designers are our

biggest customers

• We partnered with them and built

them a portfolio tool for free

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Give something away for free

• Identify a good potential client base

• People love free things, and you get attention

• It’s an advertising method

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Give something away for free

• Giving something for free = building trust,

less negative reactions

• You can put all your information on the free product,

so people know how to contact you for more work

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 Lecture 53
Strategy: Making tutorials strategy

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The tutorial strategy

• Similar to giving away something valuable for free

• Tutorials = screen casts showing you

how to do different things

• Great way of promoting yourself

and your brand

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The tutorial strategy

• Use them to drive traffic back to your site

• Pick something you're very good at and

create a tutorial

• You can write an in-depth blog post

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The tutorial strategy
1. You can pick something that you're an expert in

• teach people any generic technical skill

• it should be easy for you
• you can have your contractor do it
• it establishes you as an authority figure in that
specific skill
• people are going to trust you more
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The tutorial strategy

1. You can pick something that you're an expert in

• it generates a lot of traffic

• people come to your website for other reasons
than purchasing
• chances to actually buy from you increase

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The tutorial strategy

1. You can pick something that you're an expert in

• it lowers the barrier to purchase

• cold call vs warm call
• they already have positive thoughts
about you

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The tutorial strategy
2. You can pick something that clients could be
interested in

• think about your niche and the problems

that can happen
• create anything than can get the attention
of that specific group of people
• establish a warm context
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 Section 8
Building proposals

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Lecture 55
Types of proposals

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Types of proposals

• At first, everything about a project

is going to be vague

• After you get more details, you will give

them a proposal

• Proposals are very important

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Types of proposals

• The proposal is your final opportunity

to make an impression on them

• Show that you understand what they need

• Plan on it being shared

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Types of proposals

 1. Casual

• Not a very detailed estimate, good for small projects

• You do it on the fly, with no documentation
• You give a range of estimates
• A general idea about what it will take to get it done

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Types of proposals

 1. Casual

• Always match the client's tone

• Don't give overly formal proposals for small projects
• Casual = “Hey, it's no big deal. Pay me.”

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Types of proposals

 1. Casual

• Client's perception of the project size influences

how long they will take to decide
• Use this type to introduce yourself to the client
• You can use it when you've worked with
someone before

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Types of proposals

 2. Semi-formal

• You give an estimation in the email, and an

in-depth estimation attached
• You spend more time thinking about their project

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Types of proposals

 3. Formal / complex

• For large projects that require multiple

people to approve your offer
• It takes more time
• Multiple pages in a separate pdf
• Graphic design involved
• It contains an introduction to what the firm does
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 Lecture 56
Components of proposals

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Components of proposals

 When putting together complex proposals, these are

the absolute minimums that you should include:

1. About you

• information about who you are

• highlight the good things you've done
• not more than a page
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Components of proposals

2. Overview of the project

• pitching the project back to the client

• show them you understand what they need
• if it's too short, it can have the opposite effect,
like you don't understand much
• do some background research
• incorporate some questions about different issues
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Components of proposals

3. How you work

• explain what you use, what are the benefits

• describe the step by step process
• how often you will update them
• what your philosophies are about work
• your work schedule
• this is a sales opportunity
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Components of proposals

4. Timeline

• how long the project is going to take

• get as detailed as possible, but don't over promise

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Components of proposals

5. Price

• break it down to price per sections and tasks

• don't be vague
• explain why something is more expensive

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Components of proposals

6. Next steps

• tell them what happens after they accept the proposal

• deliver time
• what you need, when you need it
• make them feel as it's up to them when to start

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Components of proposals

7. Disclaimers

• tell them what happens when changes appear

or things are added
• what could change
• what might cause potential delays

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Components of proposals
 Optional components:

1. Case studies

• powerful tool for convincing your client what

you're capable of
• they make the proposal way too long
• they could be a distraction
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Components of proposals
 Optional components:

1. Case studies

• put them on the website, not in proposals

• exception: 1-2 case studies that are relevant
• don't add something that has nothing to do
with their project
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Components of proposals

 Optional components:

2. Development contract

• it doesn't really work well

• you double the length unnecessarily
• it distracts them

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Components of proposals

 Optional components:

2. Development contract

• discuss the contract after they accept the proposal

• contracts are complicated, people don't like them
• it takes them more time to read the proposal

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Components of proposals

 When giving a proposal, minimize friction

 Make it easy for them to read it and

get back to you

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Lecture 57
Types of estimates

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Types of estimates

 1. All together
- a price for the whole project

 2. Section by section
- an estimate for each section

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Types of estimates

 3. Piece by piece

- you break it down as much as you can

- estimates for each task
- agile methodology

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Types of estimates
 Piece by piece

 Pros
• more transparency
• it shows that you know what you're talking about
 Cons
• it takes more time
• you can face criticism from the client for every piece
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 Lecture 58
Our technique, in depth costs
of everything

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In-depth costs of everything

 Estimating each task - how many house it will

take, how much it will cost

 We won clients with this method

 Clients love piece by piece estimate

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In-depth costs of everything

 Not a lot of people do this

 It establishes trust

 They're confident you know what everything

is going to take

 It helps close sales

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In-depth costs of everything

 Clients can pick what they want to add or drop

 We estimate additional features and they can add it

 People like details

 You get noticed when you're

competing with others

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In-depth costs of everything

 Their idea becomes real for them when

they see so many details

 Break every large feature into separate small tasks

 Note down where you need more information
 Make a section where the client can add comments

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 Lecture 59
Going over tools for improving
your proposals

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Tools for improving proposals

 If you want to make complex proposals,

there are some tools you can use

proposify.biz

- cheap
- embedded templates

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Tools for improving proposals

proposify.biz

• Log in, create a new proposal

• You can set a due date for it
• Prices can change over time
• It gives you a theme that you can change
• You can remove the sections you don't want to
make it simpler

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Tools for improving proposals

proposify.biz

• You can add online signatures

• You can insert videos
• This is a web proposal
• It makes it look like you're a tech savvy
• You can keep track of who saw it

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Tools for improving proposals

proposify.biz

• You can do metrics

• See how many are accepted
• A way to improve what you're doing
• See how long they were looking at it
• How many people saw it
• It has a free trial

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Tools for improving proposals

nusii.com

• They have the feature to propose

multiple options
• Clients have to accept one of them

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Tools for improving proposals

• You can Google "proposal generator",

"proposal software tool"

99designs.com

• You can get a proposal designed specific for you

• Describe what you want and people compete
with designs
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Tools for improving proposals

99designs.com

• You choose what you like

• It's affordable, the minimum is $200
• Having a designed proposal makes you
appear professional

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 Lecture 60
How much do you customize?

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How much do you customize?

 How much of the proposal has to be

customized for a client?

 How much can be copy-pasted?

 It's not efficient to customize every proposal

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How much do you customize?
 Consider:
1. How big is the project?

• It takes longer to close large projects

• Decide what you want: many small projects or
a few large ones
• If you customize on small projects, it's very
likely to close the deal
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How much do you customize?
 Consider:
1. How big is the project?

• Customize as much as you can, especially

at the beginning
• Stick out from the crowd, get traction
• Large projects have more competition, it might
not be worth the time customizing
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How much do you customize?

 Consider:
2. 60/40 rule

• 60% is customized, 40% is copy-paste

• Some sections can be the same for all proposals
• Don't put too much irrelevant information
• The custom part will keep their attention

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How much do you customize?

 Consider:
2. 60/40 rule

• It's obvious when the proposal is a template

• The clients will recognize this and will go away
• Tailor the proposal to them
• Focus more on their project and less on you

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 Lecture 61
Ballpark estimates versus exacto

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Ballpark estimates strategy

 A full estimate takes a lot of time. During that time

they will be looking for other firms

 Ballpark estimates = Come up with a

range that can be very wide

 The client gets an idea about what you're talking about

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Ballpark estimates strategy

 Don't waste your time building full estimates

 Not a lot of other people do this

 You will be the fastest to give estimates

 Clients will hear from you first

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Ballpark estimates strategy

 It's a time saving technique

 You get ahead of your competition

 Don't come up with ballparks on the spot

 Saying a wide range helps you protect yourself

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Ballpark estimates strategy

 Clients usually don't know the range of their project

 Tell them that if they add something, the range

will change

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Ballpark estimates strategy

 Large ranges are accurate almost 90% of the time

 If the client accepts the range, they probably

have the budget for it

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 Lecture 62
Strategy: Introduce ideas and see
if they stick

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Introduce new features

 Ways to grow your business:

- same client base with more valuable projects

- focus on creating an engine that creates more clients
- focus on retention

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Introduce new features

 Constant estimation: Strategy for increasing the

lifetime value of each client, or each project

 Agile methodology: delivering chunks of work at a time

 Sprint = a chunk of work

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Introduce new features

 In every sprint we include constant estimations

of other features that can be added

 Clients have to prioritize what's most important

 They don't know how long it will take

for each one

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Introduce new features

 Help them re-prioritize

 Constantly estimate additional things

 Only pick things that they have mentioned or you've

seen other people use

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 Section 9
Managing clients

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 Lecture 64
How to keep the right amount
of distance

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Keep the right distance

 "Stand-up call" = short update call

 Over promising leads to overburden or break the

promise

 It's always better to under promise, then surprise them

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Keep the right distance

1. Gauge with each client what they expect and

what they need

• Some clients don't call at all

• Some need to be more in the loop
• Be aware of how clients react
• Needy vs relaxed

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Keep the right distance

2. Set the tone yourself

• 95% of the clients are going to default to your

judgement
• Excessiveness is negative for the project
• Make them feel like they're in the loop

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Keep the right distance

2. Set the tone yourself

• Enforce your own schedule

• Tell them upfront how you work
• You can customize the schedule for the project

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Keep the right distance

• Explaining that excessiveness is not good:

- tell them how much time it takes to give updates and

that it could be in the detriment of the project
- if you talk too often, you will have nothing to tell them

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Keep the right distance

• Judge roughly how much distance they need

• Be firm and explain your schedule

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Lecture 65
Confidence is key

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Confidence is key

• The way that you talk to clients is really important

• Confidence is the most important

• Clients are taking a high risk to hire you

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Confidence is key

• They are anxious about this relationship

• They want to feel as if they're in the right hands

• Be consistently confident

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Confidence is key

• Don't insert unnecessary questions/question marks

• They want you to feel like you know everything

• Keep them feeling assured

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Confidence is key
• Problems: miscommunication, scheduling, bugs,
delays

• Don't leave answers open-ended

• Let them know about the problem, how big it is,

and how long it will take before it's fixed, or when you will
know when it's going to be fixed
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Confidence is key

• Reword your communication in a way that is

always definitive

• Never say a problem cannot be fixed

• Always says it can be fixed and give them a timeline

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Confidence is key

• If it's a big problem, explain exactly what the issue is,

show them why it's hard and they can empathize

• If they believe you, you can keep trust

• You always have to seem like you have

a plan

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Confidence is key

• Usually problems can be solved

• If you don't know an answer, tell them how long

it will take until you figure it out

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Lecture 66
Just enough jargon

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The right amount of jargon

• Jargon: Technical words

• Clients don't understand 90% of it

• Don't use too much jargon: it confuses your client,

it makes you look like a poor communicator

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The right amount of jargon

• The way you speak to a developer is entirely

different than a client

• Too little jargon makes it sound like you're not an

expert, like the project is really simple

• They feel as your role is unnecessary

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The right amount of jargon

• Use a medium amount of jargon

• Use code names of things that are more common

• When you describe what's happening, use simple

words

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The right amount of jargon

• When you explain technologies, use specific words

• It sets the tone, it reassures them you know

something they don’t know

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The right amount of jargon

• Example:

 They try to save information and they get an error

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The right amount of jargon

 Answer 1: Too simple

“The site's ability to save isn’t working and the information isn’t going
anywhere. That's creating some issues on your site.”

• It doesn’t really say anything

• You sound like you're babying the client
• Clients like to feel like they understand the jargon

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The right amount of jargon

 Answer 2: Too complex

“Your app instance is experiencing server lock and it can't authenticate with
its connection. Your users are getting thrown a JavaScript exception that
might indicate that the build is incorrectly set up on Apache.”

• Don't introduce concepts that they never heard of

• Use words that are more common

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The right amount of jargon

 Answer 3: The ideal amount of jargon

“Your SQL database is experiencing a common issue, where if too much
traffic hits it at the same time, it will actually close its connection to the
database. This is common to the specific platform that we built your website
on. The error that you're seeing is just the system's way of letting us know
that none of that information is actually getting saved.”

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The right amount of jargon

• Using a little bit of jargon makes you sound like

a domain expert

• You get a little bit more respect and trust

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 Lecture 67
Sniffing out their budget

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Sniffing out their budget

• Minimize the process of estimating many

times in the beginning

• One of the main reasons clients decide not to work

with you is because they don’t have the money

• You can adapt to their budget

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Sniffing out their budget

• Some clients accept the price but then they don’t have
the money to continue improving it

• Don't ask what their budget is upfront

• Clients prefer people who are interested

in their project, not their money

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Sniffing out their budget

• Some businesses give estimates that magically

fit the client’s budget, they're not being objective

• There are some common things you

should look for to find out the budget

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Sniffing out their budget

#1 Do you have a client that is constantly assuring you

that something he wants to build is really cheap?

- probably their budget is limited

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Sniffing out their budget

#2 Look for how much specificity a client gives you

- if he goes into details, he is more realistic and aware of

how big the project is
- vague people have no idea what is this
going to cost, they might not have the
money

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Sniffing out their budget

#3 “I” vs “We”

- pay attention to how they speak about them

- groups of people statistically have a larger budget

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Sniffing out their budget

#4 Consider how much you know about the client

- what does he do for money, are they employed,

are they students?
- if this is a side project, they probably have
the money
- some might be too idealistic

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Sniffing out their budget

#5 How quickly do they go through the process?

- if they delay discussions, they might not

have the money
- if they respond quickly, they don't care about budget

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Sniffing out their budget

#6 Do they ask for additional features estimates and in

the end they don’t get added?

- if they're not including things, they

can't afford it

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Sniffing out their budget

#7 Use ballpark estimates

- if they accept the range, they have

the budget

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Lecture 68
Speed is important
with clients

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Speed is important

 Speed = Responsiveness

 How long does it take you to respond to them?

 Responsiveness is keeping the client happy

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Speed is important

 Clients are anxious about everything, they have

a lot to lose

 They want to feel like you're always there

 If there's a problem and they don't hear from you,

they spend time worrying

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Speed is important

 They assume you're hiding something or you don't

know the answer to what they told you

 It erodes trust and creates problems in the relationship

 If you need more time to research,

just tell them you will get back to them

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Speed is important

 Check your phone often

 Let them know if you're going away

 Set an auto-responder

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Speed is important

 It's ok to lag during the established times, like

weekends, if that's how you set the tone

 You have to be consistent

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 Lecture 69
Is the client always right?

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Is the customer always right?

• Some companies treat clients as if they're right

all the time

• Some businesses are combative,

it's always not their fault

• It's up to you

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Is the customer always right?

• Success lies in the middle of the spectrum

• Find balance

• Clients are never as highly technical

as the people building the project

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Is the customer always right?

• Do it on a case by case basis

• It's hard to make a general rule

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Is the customer always right?

1. You can make mistakes, and you have

to remedy the situation

• Don't be overly apologetic

• Be rational, explain what went wrong and tell them it
won't repeat

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Is the customer always right?

2. Clients can be wrong

• You have to make sure they understand things

beforehand
• Figure out what went wrong

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Is the customer always right?

• Sometimes both sides can be wrong

• Documenting everything makes it easier to figure it out

• Admit when it's your fault

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Is the customer always right?

• If there is a breakdown in communication, regardless

whose fault it is, the fact that it's allowed to happen is
your fault

• There's never an excuse for not

facilitating communication

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 Lecture 70
Don’t talk about problems, say
what’s happening

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Don’t talk about problems

• When talking with clients, don't talk about "problems",

say what is happening

• Don't be ambiguous, that means they have to be

worried about something

• Setbacks, not problems

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Don’t talk about problems

• A setback happens all the time

• A problem is something that everyone

should be worried about

• A problem shows that you don't know how to solve it

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Don’t talk about problems

• Tell them how long will it take to get solved

• Don't be vague

• Explain what happens and that it can be fixed

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 Lecture 71
Do you deliver what’s good
or what the client likes?

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What to deliver

• Some clients want something that

will not end up looking good

• We had many examples of these clients

• Evaluate your priorities

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What to deliver

• Are you doing this project for a portfolio?

• Will this project ruin it?

• Are you doing it for some extra money?

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What to deliver

• You should convince your client that they're

wrong and explain why you believe that

• Consider walking away from the project

• Try to cut losses

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What to deliver

• If it's a repeat project or a lot of money involved,

try to explain them what is bad and why

• Try to keep the client happy

• Minimize the damage
• Suggest other features
• Give them alternatives

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Section 10
Best practices

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 Lecture 73
Under promise, over deliver

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Under promise, over deliver

• It's better to promise less than what you're capable of

than fail to meet expectations

• Customer retention

• Realistic expectations

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Under promise, over deliver

• You don't have to lie or try harder to impress them

• If you under deliver, you will always be looking for

clients

• That does not cover all basis

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Under promise, over deliver

• In the beginning, it's not good to apply this mindset

because you won't get clients

• Three things that you can manipulate:

cost, timeline, expertise/ability

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Under promise, over deliver

1. Don’t exaggerate on your timeline

• it never works out in development

• you can't dictate how many hours people work

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Under promise, over deliver

2. Cost is the thing that you should manipulate to get

more sales

• this is only necessary in the beginning

• over promise on cost but don’t lose money

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Under promise, over deliver

3. Ability

• you can over promise but tell them what happens just
in case you can't make it for some reason

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 Lecture 74
What is Agile? Should I use it?

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What is Agile?

• There are two ways of delivering a product

• Give an estimate and deliver the entire project at the

end, in one piece

• The alternative is Agile

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What is Agile?

• Agile: Working on separate chunks of the application

• List tasks and features and give estimates for each of

them

• "sprints" = chunks of work

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What is Agile?
• Focus on making each individual chunk of work
fully tested and ready to be deployed

• Nothing should have dependencies

on other parts of the application

• Designers design it as it's being developed. As things

change, they should be flexible
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What is Agile?

• Sprintkick: we deliver sprints,

kick = acceleration, speed

• Code is better produced and better tested

• A modular way of looking at a project

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What is Agile?

• Agile makes it a lot easier to sell

• Estimate it out in hours

• Hours are much harder to argue with

• Apply hourly estimates for every single task

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What is Agile?
• They can pick what they want from the list

• They get to see the project progress

• You can only charge for the first chunk

• They can take that to other firm and continue if they're

not happy with you
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What is Agile?

• Clients feel better when they know

that they can back out

• Chunks make it easier to figure out if something's

wrong

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What is Agile?
• Should you use Agile?

• It makes the experience more interactive

and makes clients happier

• Many developers know how to work in Agile fashion

• Look for contractors that have experience with it

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 Lecture 75
Client budgets and what difference
they make

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Budgets are important
• It's important to work with clients
that have good budgets

• At the beginning, you work with all types of clients

• Bigger budgets make better projects - better graphic

design, research, fixing things, additional features, radical
changes
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Budgets are important

• If you make money off of a project and it fails,

it's just the money you get

• A successful project is good for the

portfolio and it constantly gets you leads

• Good projects will get you better projects

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Budgets are important

• Budget is the primary problem

• Any bad project you make will have a low budget

• At the beginning you can't be picky, but try to focus on

clients that have good budgets

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 Lecture 76
Web presence clients aren’t
worth it

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Web presence clients

 Look for ambitious projects that have

development depth to them

 But at the beginning, this type of clients are welcomed

 Usually, they just want to get a web presence and

that's all

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Web presence clients

 Problems with web presence clients:

- design is more expensive than the development

- the projects are not very deep
- they're usually using a platform

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Web presence clients

 Problems with web presence clients:

- they're not looking for adding complexity, new features

- flat pages that have basic functionalities
- there's a lot of competition on what they're trying to do

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Web presence clients

 Problems with web presence clients:

- they have very small budgets

- there's no repeat work, so you're constantly looking for
new clients
- repeat work is small and a distraction

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Web presence clients

 Focus on projects that are trying to expand,

that bring novelty, uniqueness

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 Lecture 77
Price per project, price per hour

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How do you usually get paid?

 Two primary ways: price per hour, price per project

 Others: day rates, hybrid rates

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How do you usually get paid?

 Price per hour

- you charge per hour of labor

- also called “time and materials”
- give a projection of how many hours it will take
- some firms don't give an estimation

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How do you usually get paid?

 Price per project

- you take a chunk of work or a task and you give an

estimate for that task, regardless of how long it takes
you

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How do you usually get paid?

• As a developer you will want to work on time

and materials

• Estimations are hard to predict

without spending a lot of time

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How do you usually get paid?
Price per hour

• Pros - you get paid for your time

- you can't lower the per hour rate to bid
against others

• Cons - clients don't like time and materials,

they like to estimate the budget
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How do you usually get paid?

Price per project

• Pros - you can lower the price per project if it takes

you less time: you can be competitive
- you can estimate a range

• Cons - estimation takes time

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How do you usually get paid?

• We use Agile methodology

• We estimate a price per chunk

of work and how many hours it will take

• At first you will use the price per project,

unless you're recommended by other people

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 Lecture 78
Should you worry about competition?

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Does competition matter?

• In traditional businesses, you have to examine your

competition and the saturation of the market

• In development businesses, the answer is no

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Does competition matter?
• There are a lot of development firms and a lot of
development work needed

• Why do clients pick development firms?

• They can match their expertise, they have a good

reputation and a good portfolio and they can build a good
relationship
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Does competition matter?
• The market is highly fragmented

• The market lacks transparency

• Every firm is very different

• There's an infinite number of configurations for offers

and needs
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Does competition matter?

• No company can dominate the market

• There are a lot of different opportunities and offers

• Don't worry about competition

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Does competition matter?

• There is a lot of work out there

• You can learn from your competitors

• Your abilities are what matter

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 Lecture 79
Hedging your launch date

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Hedging your launch date

• The project timeline is like a road with landmines

• You never know how much of your time it

will take if you hit them

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Hedging your launch date

• Problems can happen:

• People can get sick

• Services can be taken down
• People you rely on can be late

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Hedging your launch date

• Avoid missing a deadline by hedging your launch date

• Don't say you will deliver on a specific date

• Set a range for the delivery - ex. first week of July

• If the client wants a specific date, he is unrealistic

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Hedging your launch date

• Always pick the range of dates, even

if you know the exact date

• Deadlines in development projects are rarely set

• Plan to launch early so you can give yourself some

breathing room

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 Lecture 80
Beautiful design makes
beautiful development

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Beautiful design = beautiful development

• Some projects don't look very impressive

• They don't reflect a high quality application

• The design is not suited for your app

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Beautiful design = beautiful development

• Ugly UI is ugly to everyone

• Ugly code is only ugly to the developer

• Great design makes a great portfolio

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Beautiful design = beautiful development

• Research before hiring a designer

• Keep a list of good designers

• Introduce designers to clients

• Offer design services yourself

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Beautiful design = beautiful development

• Design is more important than development

• You can't show off bad design

• Make sure you know more about the designer

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Beautiful design = beautiful development

• You can have your own designer, to make

sure of the quality

• Great design changes how many leads you get,

how many clients you get, how great your portfolio is

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 Lecture 81
Running without contracts

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Running without contracts

• You are working without signing a contract. Why?

- small work
- someone you've worked with and you trust them
- friends and family
- trying to close a client and you worry it will scare them
away

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Running without contracts

• I suggest you don't do it

• Make contracts easy and get them

signed quickly

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Running without contracts

1. Don't do this with someone who hasn't paid you before

• Trade money with them, people behave differently

when money is involved

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Running without contracts

2. Keep a paper trail as much as possible

• Try to get verbal agreements that are documented

• Screenshots, emails, written discussions

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Running without contracts

3. Make sure to include costs and features

• Always list out everything you're doing

• Make sure you have a record of them agreeing to
everything

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Running without contracts

• Written records can save you

• It's always better to have a contract

• In U.S., any type of verbal agreement in writing

is the same thing as a contract

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Running without contracts

• When is this ok?

- you have a contract saying that you are hired to do

some work for them, anything else will be additional work

- online platforms have their own contracts, so don't worry

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 Lecture 82
Red flags for bad clients

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Red flags for bad clients
• Your quality of life as a project manager, developer, or
business owner depends on the clients you're working
with

• Great clients are easy to work with, have the right

budget, understand things

• You can run into difficult clients

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Red flags for bad clients
 1. Do they disagree with your estimates?

• In development, you are selling something complicate

and technical, customized to the individual case
• Unless you're the one doing the estimate, you can't
know exactly what it's going to take to build something
• If your client thinks that it couldn't have taken you this
much, here's a red flag
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Red flags for bad clients

 2. Does their project idea make no sense?

• You're here to build whatever they want and do the

best job possible
• But you should have an idea if this idea is terrible
or good

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Red flags for bad clients

 2. Does their project idea make no sense?

• If they're giving you something that doesn't make any

sense or doesn't work, it's a red flag
• Worst case scenario - this project is an indicative of a
bigger problem with this client

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Red flags for bad clients

 3. Are they trying to haggle with your rates?

• Two different situations: they don't have the budget,

or they're haggling
• They probably only care about the price
• You can waste time with someone who doesn't have
enough money for the project

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Red flags for bad clients

 4. Are they giving you multiple proposals

at once?

• It might be a scatterbrain client who doesn't know

what he wants
• They might not be committed and focused, they could
get distracted.
• You need your client to be a serious person
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Red flags for bad clients

 5. Do they argue over trivial items?

• They argue about things that are not important,

they're not able to prioritize
• The client might be insecure or immature
• That client is going to drive you crazy

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Red flags for bad clients

 6. Are they being unprofessional?

• They throw tantrums, they say things that they

shouldn't, they lie about things, they miss phone calls
• They can't have been successful in anything they've
done
• Their project might fail and it's not worth it

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 83
Rich vs successful clients

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Rich vs successful clients

• You want to focus on the successful clients

• Rich clients: you don't know where they got the funds,
you don't know if they will be successful

• Successful clients: have a track record of successful

projects, have ideas that have potential to them

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Rich vs successful clients

• Large projects might not have long life expectancy

• Successful clients will get you consistent business

and similar referrals

• Best portfolio items are those for

companies that are successful

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 84
Tell when you’re getting “fizzled”

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Tell when you’re getting “fizzled”

• Getting “fizzled”: your client is not

interested in your project proposal

• Being able to tell when this happens will save

you a lot of time

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Tell when you’re getting “fizzled”

• Why they might be doing this to you:

- they don't have the money

- they not as serious about the project
- the idea got too complicated and they lost confidence
- they're looking at other offers

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Tell when you’re getting “fizzled”

• This process can go on forever, so you have to

recognize it when it happens

• There are four things you can look for

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Tell when you’re getting “fizzled”

1. Pyramid conversations

- they give you a lot of information at first, but then they

start responding in less and less words
- they lost enthusiasm in you
- backing off
- they still try to get information from you

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Tell when you’re getting “fizzled”

2. Slower and slower response times

- at first they respond quickly, then you could wait up to a

few weeks
- ask a simple question and see when they respond
- they're not serious if they don't respond

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Tell when you’re getting “fizzled”

3. Repeatedly asking you to clarify the same things and

asking the same questions

- they forgot what they asked because

they are talking to various other people

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Tell when you’re getting “fizzled”

4. Using vague timelines and referring to things like

"decisions"

- overly vague: not interested

- interested: they give you an actual hard deadline
- delaying a decision: backing away

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 85
Don’t quote off the top of your head

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Don’t quote off the top of your head

• Clients ask you for estimates on the spot

• Never give estimates on the spot

• If the second estimate will be different, you're going to

lose the contract

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Don’t quote off the top of your head

• The client thinks you're trying to rip them off

or you're an idiot

• No other development firm is doing this

• The ones who do are taking a serious risk

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Don’t quote off the top of your head

• Always say you're not sure but you will get back to
them in a short time

• Give them ballpark estimates or a full estimate

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Don’t quote off the top of your head

• If you have to answer the question, don't give them a

range with 2 ends, give them one end of a range

• Example: over 1000 hours, under 2000 hours

• The chances of getting it correct will increase

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Lecture 86
Meeting in person

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Meeting in person
• You can run your business without
Meeting anyone in person

• Reasons you might need to meet in person:

- to close a potential sale - the client wants to see how
you are in person
- larger companies have a culture around meetings,
they can't change that just for you
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Meeting in person

• If you have the opportunity to meet, you should

meet at least once

• Success depends on:

 Preparedness
 Composure
 Confidence

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Meeting in person

• It's hard to fail in a meeting

• Focus on presenting your past portfolio, explain

what the projects do, how long it took, how much it cost

• You can bring a PowerPoint to help you

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Meeting in person

• When you spend time on projects you

can easily explain the details

• They want to know you understand the project needs

• Be empathetic to their user problems

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Meeting in person

• Don't tell them what to do, just listen to their

ideas and requirements

• Insert your insight when you can

• Don't be too pushy

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Meeting in person

• They're looking for an expert who can insert some

useful information from time to time

• When deciding to meet:

- is the client worth it?
- is it a big company that does it by default?

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Meeting in person

• Calculate the loss of time when you decide on meeting

• Meetings can be redundant

• There's rarely a reason to meet in person that

can't be fixed through a call or Skype

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Meeting in person

• Always be prepared to talk about yourself, but

only if they ask

• Explain how your process works

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Meeting in person

• What do you wear?

• Be like a mirror of what the group is

• People naturally trust people who look like them

• Wear something in the happy medium

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 87
Is there a benefit to delivering early?

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Is there a benefit to delivering early?

• Delivering early doesn't really benefit you

• If I still have time, I usually test it some more or

improve it until the delivery

• The only benefit is that you appear as a good vendor

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Is there a benefit to delivering early?

• It's not going to matter if you deliver a few days earlier

• It only matters if you saved them money or gave them

an extra feature

• Spend more time on bug testing

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 88
Repeat customers are the best

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Repeat clients are the best

• New client vs repeat client

• When you're looking for new clients you spend

a lot of unpaid time

• You chase projects that you don't always get

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Repeat clients are the best

• It's easier when they come back to you

• You cut out the searching time

• Having repeat clients means you're doing

something well

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Repeat clients are the best

• They are very strong referrals

• Focus on momentum if you want to grow

• We only work off of referrals, this is the ideal way

• Focus on keeping your clients

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Lecture 89
Avoid “assumers”

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Avoid “assumers”

• One of the biggest problems in development is that

some people speak in very vague terms

• Vague is not helpful

• They use imprecise language to

describe something precise

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Avoid “assumers”

• People have an idea and just assume

you know what they need

• They think you understand, but they don't actually

explain what they want

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Avoid “assumers”

• They describe it in a simple way but there should be

more details to it

• Example: They don't say exactly

what the button will do when you click it

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Avoid “assumers”

• Ask the details, ask for more information,

get every bit of specifics out of them

• Don't agree to something vague

• You can spend hours doing something that's

not even what they want

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Avoid “assumers”
• You need specificity

• Try to avoid people who assume and are vague

• These people are probably lazy

• Make sure you have basic documentation

or instructions for the work
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Section 11
Internal management
is crucial
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Lecture 91-92
Intro to Asana

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Asana

 My favorite project management tool

 It looks like any web administration panel

 It allows you to list anything you're doing

 Asana is commonly used for "to do" lists

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Asana

 Create a project

 Add a description

 Add a task

 You can mark it as completed

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Asana

 You can check what got finished yesterday

 It's useful if there are many people editing the project

 You can assign the task to someone

 Any person who has been assigned a

task will be notified
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Asana
 You can invite people to enter the project, you only
need their email to add them

 Getting your contractor on board could be difficult, but

it's a great way to see if they're good contractors to work
with

 You want to work with people that are open to change

and transparent
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Asana

 On the right side, you can manage each individual

task, where you can describe and explain it

 Every time you change something, you update

the task and all the people involved will be notified

 You can add attachments

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Asana

 Let the freelancers set a due date for tasks

 Check the calendar to see when the

tasks will be ready

 All the files for the task are included in the

Attachments tab

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Intro to Asana

 Break down every page into small tasks

 You can see the progress over

the last days

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 93
Making Asana work for you

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Making Asana work for you

 Invite contractors to your project

 Divide your work area in 3 different sections

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Making Asana work for you

1. Build tasks

 Describe what the section contains

 Add tasks that are user centric - what the user sees

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Making Asana work for you

2. Additional tasks and features

 Features that you want added

 Describe the feature
 You can have a discussion about it and
get an estimate

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Making Asana work for you

3. Bugs

 List out issues as they happen

 General bugs
 For bug feedback for a specific task, you
can add a subtask to it about the bug, in the first section

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Making Asana work for you

• Load the wireframes into your project

• If you are paying a premium amount of money

to your contractors, you can set more strict due dates

• Keep logs of what's happening; Asana keeps logs

• Always have more documentation rather than less

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 Lecture 94
Turning Asana inside out

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Turning Asana inside out

• Asana is usually used to manage people internally

• We can also use it to manage clients

• It helps to make clients feel like they are in the loop

• Clients like to ask for updates and to know
what is happening all the time

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Turning Asana inside out

 Turning Asana inside out to use it externally:

• Copy the project that you're using to

manage the developers
• Uncheck "Assignee" and "Project Members"
• Convert the copy for external purposes

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Turning Asana inside out

• Make the tasks easier to understand for the client

• Delete the things that don't make sense

for someone outside the team

www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
Turning Asana inside out

• Add just one member of the team in this new

project, so he can deal with the client's questions
and update the project regularly
• The best person to do this has to be
a good communicator

• The client will see the progress without having

to call you every time he wants to check
www.CompanyName.com
Web Development Business
© 2020 Companyname PowerPoint Business Theme. All Rights Reserved.
 MUTUAL NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT

This Agreement is made and entered into as of the last date signed below (the “Effective
Date”) by (your_name) and between (name of other party) (the “Second Party”).

WHEREAS (your name) and the Second Party (the “Parties”) have an interest in
participating in discussions wherein either Party might share information with the other that the
disclosing Party considers to be proprietary and confidential to itself (“Confidential
Information”);
NOW, THEREFORE, the Parties agree as follows:
Confidential Information of a Party is all information of a confidential or proprietary nature it
may disclose to the other party, whether or not in writing and whether or not so marked or
designated. Confidential Information shall include, but not be limited to, the disclosing Party’s:
(1) business plans, methods, and practices; (2) personnel, customers, and suppliers; (3)
inventions, processes, methods, products, patent applications, and other proprietary rights; or (4)
specifications, drawings, sketches, models, samples, tools, computer programs, technical
information, or other related information
1. The receiving Party (“Recipient”) shall refrain from disclosing such Confidential
Information to any third party without prior, written approval from the disclosing Party and shall
protect such Confidential Information from inadvertent disclosure to a third party using the same
care and diligence that the Recipient would use to protect its own proprietary and confidential
information, but in no case less than reasonable care. The Recipient shall ensure that each of its
employees, officers, directors or agents who has access to Confidential Information disclosed
under this Agreement is informed of its proprietary and confidential nature and is required to
abide by the terms of this Agreement. The Recipient of Confidential Information disclosed
under this Agreement shall promptly notify the disclosing Party of any disclosure of such
Confidential Information in violation of this Agreement or of any subpoena or other legal
process requiring production or disclosure of said Confidential Information.
2. All Confidential Information disclosed under this Agreement shall be and remain the
property of the disclosing Party and nothing contained in this Agreement shall be construed as
granting or conferring any rights to such Confidential Information on the other Party. The
Recipient shall honor any request from the disclosing Party to promptly return or destroy all
copies of Confidential Information disclosed under this Agreement and all notes related to such
Confidential Information. The Parties agree that the disclosing Party will suffer irreparable
injury if its Confidential Information is made public, released to a third party, or otherwise
disclosed in breach of this Agreement and that the disclosing Party shall be entitled to obtain
injunctive or other appropriate relief against a threatened breach or continuation of any such
breach and, in the event of such breach, such remedies as may be available to the disclosing
Party in law or in equity.
3. The terms of this Agreement shall not be construed to limit either Party’s right to develop
independently or acquire products without use of the other Party’s Confidential Information. The
disclosing Party acknowledges that the Recipient may currently or in the future be developing

CONFIDENTIAL
Non-Disclosure Agreement

information internally, or receiving information from other parties, that is similar to the
Confidential Information. Provided such similar information existed prior to the commencement
of this agreement and is first identified and disclosed to the disclosing party in writing by the
recipient, nothing in this Agreement will prohibit the Recipient from developing or having
developed for it products, concepts, systems or techniques that are similar to or compete with the
products, concepts, systems or techniques contemplated by or embodied in the Confidential
Information provided that the Recipient does not violate any of its obligations under this
Agreement in connection with such development.
4. Notwithstanding the above, the Parties agree that information shall not be deemed
Confidential Information and the Recipient shall have no obligation to hold in confidence such
information, where such information:
(a) Is already known to the Recipient, having been disclosed to the Recipient by a third
party without such third party having an obligation of confidentiality to the
disclosing Party; or
(b) Is or becomes publicly known through no wrongful act of the Recipient, its
employees, officers, directors, or agents; or
(c) Is independently developed by the Recipient without reference to any Confidential
Information disclosed hereunder; or
(d) Is approved for release (and only to the extent so approved) by the disclosing Party;
or
(e) Is disclosed pursuant to the lawful requirement of a court or governmental agency
or where required by operation of law.
5. Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed to constitute an agency, partnership, joint
venture, or other similar relationship between the Parties.
6. Neither Party will, without prior approval of the other Party, make any public
announcement of or otherwise disclose the existence or the terms of this Agreement.
7. This Agreement contains the entire agreement between the Parties relating to the subject
matter and may not be changed or discharged in whole or in part except by an agreement in
writing between the Parties.
8. This Agreement does not create any obligation for either Party to disclose information to
the other Party or to enter into any other agreement.
9. No delay or omission by the disclosing Party in exercising any right under this agreement
shall operate as a waiver of that or any other right.
10. This Agreement shall remain in effect for a period of (number of years) from the
Effective Date unless otherwise terminated by either Party giving notice to the other of its desire
to terminate this Agreement. The requirement to protect Confidential Information disclosed
under this Agreement shall survive termination of this Agreement until such time as the
Confidential Information becomes publicly known and made generally available through no
action or inaction of the Recipient.
11. Each provision of this Agreement shall be treated as a separate and independent clause,
and the invalidity or unenforceability of any provision shall not affect the validity or
enforceability of any other provision of this Agreement.
-Page 2 of 3-
CONFIDENTIAL
Non-Disclosure Agreement

12. This agreement shall be governed by the laws of the state of (your state or country)

IN WITNESS WHEREOF the Parties, each intending to be legally bound, have executed
this Agreement:

(Your name)

______________________________________

(Date)

(Their name)

______________________________________

(Date)

-Page 3 of 3-
CONFIDENTIAL
 Development Work Agreement
Company name

You, Client, have asked us, Official company name, with a principal place of
business at full address, to create custom software for you. This is our
Agreement for this project:

What we agree to do:

1. Scope of Work. The scope of my work for you is listed on Exhibit A to this
Agreement. We will start working on this project within 3 days after we receive a
signed copy of this Agreement and specify the amount of the down payment if
any. If the scope of work changes after we sign this Agreement, you and us
agree to negotiate and sign an amended Exhibit

A.
2. Project Milestones. We have agreed that we will work on this project in
phases. Exhibit B to this Agreement lists the milestones that we’ve agreed will
apply to each phase of my work for you. If the scope of work changes after we
sign this Agreement, both parties agree to negotiate and sign an amended
Exhibit B.

3. Final Deliverables. We will deliver to you, via electronic mail [or a

downloadable hyperlink], within 4 days after you approve the final deliverable(s),
digital files containing my work for you under this Agreement.

Specifically, we will provide you with the following:

4. Original Work/Conflicts/Confidentiality. We promise that, except for

anything that you give us to incorporate into the software we will create for you:
(a) my work will be original and will not be copied in whole or in part from any
other work; (b) we are the sole and exclusive owner of all intellectual property
rights, including patent, copyright, trade secret and other proprietary rights in
and to the software we create for you, or we have secured such rights to any
third-party content incorporated into my final code; and (c) our work does not
violate the patent, copyright, trade secret or other property right of any person,
firm or entity. We promise that this Agreement does not conflict with any other
contract, agreement or understanding to which we are a party. Finally, we
promise that we will hold and maintain in strict confidence any confidential
information that you provide us (such as proprietary technical or business
information), and we will not disclose such information to any third party except
as may be required by a court or governmental authority.
5. Pay Us For My Work. You promise to pay us the total sum (“Fee”) of $total
dollar amount in total number of payments. Down payment percentage of the
Fee will be due when we sign this Agreement and before we begin. The
remaining percentage of total remaining of the Fee will be due incrementally
every amount of time between delivery or updates and before we send you final
files containing the software you approved. Payment will be made using payment
usthod. If you ask us to use any third-party content (such as stock photos or
third party software that must be incorporated in the software we are creating
for you), you promise to pay us the actual cost of licensing that third-party
content for work under this Agreement. You agree that until you pay us for each
increment, you will not acquire the rights or license to use or transfer ownership
of that section of software that we have created for you under this Agreement.

6. Pay us For Extra Work. We agree that the Fee you owe us will cover in full
all of the work listed in Paragraph 1/Exhibit A of this Agreement. You agree that
if you ask us to make changes or do other work for you that is not covered by
this Agreement, you’ll pay us an hourly rate of specify hourly rate and this
payment will be in addition to all other amounts you owe us under this
Agreement. You also agree that if you ask us to do work outside the scope of
this Agreement, we may take extra time to send you the final files.

7. Feedback and Acceptance. You agree that we cannot complete my work

for you or meet the milestones to which we’ve agreed unless you give us timely
feedback. You agree to provide timely feedback so that we can understand your
concerns, objections or corrections, and you promise not to unreasonably
withhold acceptance of the deliverables we provide you at each milestone.
Feedback will be expected during each iteration as well with 48 hours of after
each showcase.

We’ve agreed to the following acceptance process: we will test the software that
we create for you to make sure that it’s working properly. In turn, you promise
that you will evaluate the deliverables we provided to you at each milestone
listed in Exhibit B to this Agreement and let us know in writing, within two (2)
calendar days after you receive each deliverable, whether you accept or reject it.
If you reject a deliverable, we will correct any errors and again ask you to accept
or reject the corrected deliverable – which you promise to do within one (1)
calendar day after you receive the corrected deliverable. This process shall
continue until you accept the deliverable or 4 calendar days have passed and you
have not accepted or rejected a deliverable (at which point it will be deemed
accepted). Once you’ve accepted a deliverable, we will proceed to do work on
the next milestone.

When we deliver the final files to you and complete our work for you under this
Agreement, you agree that you’ll test the software in its entirety to determine if
we completed the work we promised you. You promise to let us know in writing
within fifteen (7) calendar days after we deliver the final files whether you accept
or reject the final files. If you reject the final files,

We will correct any errors and again ask you to accept or reject the corrected
deliverable – which you promise to do within fifteen (15) calendar days after you
receive the corrected deliverable. This process shall continue until you accept the
deliverable or 15 calendar days have passed and you have not accepted or
rejected a deliverable (at which point it will be deemed accepted). Finally, you
agree that our work on this project will be complete and the Agreement will end
after you’ve approved the final files.

8. You Have Rights To The Client Content. You promise that: (a) You own
the rights to use anything you give us (“Client Content”); and (b) using such
Client Content does not violate the patent, copyright, trade secret or other
property right of any person, firm or entity. You grant us a nonexclusive,
nontransferable license to use, reproduce, modify, display and publish the Client
Content solely in connection with our work for you under this Agreement and my
limited promotional uses as allowed by this Agreement. You also affirm and
represent that this Agreement does not conflict with any other contract,
agreement or understanding to which you are a party.

9. Rights Before You Pay Us In Full. You understand and agree that any
code created by us and properly paid for is of the sole ownership of you. For
each iteration, assuming it has correctly been paid for, you will own the sole
product.

10. Rights After You Pay Us In Full. After you pay us for each payment
section, we assign to you my right, title and interest in the copyrights for the
according section software that we created for you under this Agreement. You
agree that we may use your name/company name and trademarks as a
reference in my promotional materials. You also agree that we may include,
when referencing our work for you, a general description of the work under this
Agreement. If applicable, you agree to allow us to properly document our
participation within the appropriate area of this project’s work.

11. Right To Make Changes. We agree that after you pay us us in full, you
may make any changes or additions to the software we create for you under this
Agreement, which you in your discretion may consider necessary, and you may
engage others to make any such changes or additions, without further payments
to us. You agree that if you ask us to make changes or additions to the software
after you approve the final files, we will negotiate a separate additional payment
for our time to make such changes.
12. Rights To Know-How. We may incorporate into the software we create for
you various preexisting development tools, routines, subroutines, programs, data
or materials (Know-How).we agree that after you pay us in full for each section,
you’ll receive a nonexclusive, perpetual, worldwide license to use the Know-How
in the software that we created for you under this Agreement. However, you
shall not resell or make use of that Know-How in any other manner other than in
connection with the software you receive under this Agreement.

13. Warranty. We promise you that software we create for you shall perform
substantially in accordance with the specifications listed in Exhibit A and that it
will not contain significant material defects. In the event the software does not
perform in accordance with Exhibit A, we will, within fifteen (15) days from when
you give us written notice, correct the software so that it performs substantially
in accordance with Exhibit A. We also promise you that to the best of my
knowledge, the software will not contain any virus, worm, trap door, back door,
Trojan Horse, timer or clock that would erase data or programming or otherwise
cause the software to become inoperable or incapable of being used.

EXCEPT AS SPECIFICALLY SET FORTH IN THIS AGREEMENT, THE SOFTWARE

WE CREATE FOR YOU IS PROVIDED WITHOUT ADDITIONAL WARRANTY OF
ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND ANY ORAL OR WRITTEN REPRESENTATIONS,
PROPOSALS OR STATEMENTS MADE PRIOR TO THIS AGREEMENT. WE HEREBY
EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY REPRESENTION OR WARRANTY OF ANY KIND WITH
RESPECT TO THE SOFTWARE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND
PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE IS WITH YOU. THE REMEDIES PROVIDED
IN THIS AGREEMENT ARE YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDIES.

14. Limitations of Remedies. WE SHALL NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES,

BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR CONSEQUENTIAL, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL,
PUNITIVE, OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES OR LOSSES ARISING OUT OF OR
RELATED TO THIS AGREEMENT, EVEN IF WE ARE ADVISED OF THE
LIKELIHOOD OF SUCH DAMAGES OCCURING. MY CUMULATIVE LIABILITY FOR
ANY DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR IN ANY MANNER RELATED TO THIS
AGREEMENT (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, CLAIMS FOR BREACH OF
CONTRACT, BREACH OF WARRANTY, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, OR
TORT, SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE AMOUNT OF THE FEE PAID BY YOU TO us
UNDER THIS AGREEMENT.

15. Entire Agreement. This Agreement constitutes the complete and exclusive
agreement between us concerning the work on this project, and it supersedes all
other prior agreements, proposals, and representations, whether stated orally or
in writing. We can modify this agreement in writing, if both parties sign that
modification.

16. Termination. Either party may terminate this Agreement, in addition to any
other remedies available to us under this Agreement, if: (i) the non-terminating
party has failed to perform or meet any material obligation, condition or term in
this Agreement and failed to remedy the default within twenty (20) days after
the receipt of written notice from the terminating party; (ii) the non-terminating
party becomes bankrupt, involuntary, voluntary or adjudicated, or shall cease to
function as a going concern by suspending or discontinuing their/its business for
any reason except for periodic shutdowns in the ordinary course of business and
interruptions caused by strike, labor dispute or any other events over which the
non-terminating party has no control.

17. Your Responsibility To Review. You promise to review all deliverables we

provide you to confirm that the representations, express or implied, about your
company or organization, business products or services are accurate and we do
not mischaracterize your or your competitor’s products or services, we do not
violate proprietary or personal rights of others, and we are not libelous.

18. Controlling Law. This Agreement and performance hereunder shall be

governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of [your state or
country].

19. Severability. In the event that any provision in this Agreement is found
invalid or unenforceable pursuant to judicial decree or decision, the remainder of
this Agreement shall remain valid and enforceable according to its terms. IT IS
EXPRESSLY UNDERSTOOD AND AGREED THAT EACH AND EVERY PROVISION
OF THIS AGREEMENT WHICH PROVIDES FOR A LIMITATION OF LIABILITY,
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES OR EXCLUSION OF DAMAGES IS INTENDED BY
THE PARTIES TO BE SEVERABLE AND INDEPENDENT OF ANY OTHER
PROVISION AND TO BE ENFORCED AS SUCH. FURTHER, IT IS EXPRESSLY
UNDERSTOOD AND AGREED THAT IN THE EVENT ANY REMEDY IS
DETERMINED TO HAVE FAILED OF ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE, ALL LIMITATIONS
OF LIABILITY AND EXCLUSIONS OF DAMAGES SHALL REMAIN IN EFFECT.

By signing below, both parties agree: (a) to all of the terms and conditions of
this Agreement and (b) that we have the full authority to enter into this
Agreement. The Agreement is effective as of date.