Business and Legal Pitfalls in Web Development: Notes from Chris Gatewood's Talk at Wordcamp Richmond

Last month I attended Wordcamp Richmond and saw a great presentation by Christopher Gatewood entitled The Seven Business Pitfalls for Wordpress and Web Professionals. The talk was informative enough that I took copious notes, and I'm publishing them in the hopes that others will benefit. I've since gotten Chris to help me draft some agreements and can tell you he's a great resource for this kind of stuff.

The Seven Pitfalls

1. Half + Half = Half
   • Getting half of the money up front doesn't track with the work
   • Always get money up front
   • Progress payments that track with feature deliveries
2. Scope Creep
   • Bullet point list of scope
   • Define client and dev responsibilities
     • If you don't know what's IN scope, you don't know what's OUT of scope
   • No silent accommodations
     • Don't let out of scope work creep in without speaking up
     • Even if you don't charge, let them know it's out of scope
     • "Agreement or approval in writing, for which email will suffice"
     • Inaccurate contracts or agreements that don't reflect the way you work can be worse than nothing
3. Subcontractor Cash Squeeze
   • Decide when payment takes place up front
   • Place this decision in agreement
   • Helps to decide not just timing but whether the payment occurs at all
4. Stay in range
   • Incremental approvals
   • Wait for an email
   • Who has authority to sign off? Get 1 or 2 people whom you can copy on all communications.
   • Due dates suck, make sure delays are not your problem
   • Iterative dates stemming from previous iterations to prevent hard-coded calendar dates
5. No free launch
   • Control and Rights
     • don't charge for delivery
     • make iterative releases to staging that YOU control
     • hosting not transferred to them until final payment
     • IP does not transfer until final payment (DMCA)
       • Your work includes a licensing component, be clear about it
       • Client doesn't "own" it until you're paid
   • After delivery, are you a priority?
     • Late fees
     • Interest charges
     • Attorney fees
     • Costs of collection
     • You can always use the carrot of waiving the fees
6. Work in Progress
   • It's expensive
   • Invoice the silence
     • claim the right to invoice without getting communication
     • define the calculation of what would be owed
7. Failure to Flex
   • Give recalcitrant or hard-up client options
     • Shrink scope
     • Pay in stages over time
   • Always good to work with client when possible to deliver and get paid
   • Get more money on the front end for risky, small clients
   • You need to consider that you may not get paid so try to limit exposure

Other stuff

• Building on GPL Platforms, what do I own IP in?
  • You can own IP in themes / software that sits on top
  • You're contributing to the platform if you get into the source
  • You don't give up rights to content
  • BE CLEAR ABOUT WHAT CLIENT WILL OWN AND NOT OWN ON DELIVERY / PAYMENT