Should I Work for Free?

http://shouldiworkforfree.com/

by areski • 11 years ago

283 127 11 years ago

shouldiworkforfree.com

yetanotheracc• 11 years ago

I wish they expanded the family / "mom" branch a bit.

busterarm3• 11 years ago

Right!

My brother has never let me work for free for his business, but there were times where he way overpaid me and I made sure to make it up to him.

GFK_of_xmaspast• 11 years ago

At this point in world history, the money flow goes from me to my mom, I'm not going to accept any cash from her.

spacecowboy_lon• 11 years ago

rayiner4• 11 years ago

One of the first bits of advice my old boss gave me: never work for free. I was surprised because I'd never even considered doing that. But it must be common enough for him to have mentioned it.

busterarm3• 11 years ago

Depends where you are. In creative fields in NY, there is tons of free labor, or people getting paid on a scale of Net-180 to Net-Never (proportional to how many times you say "Fuck You, Pay Me"). As well as a load of illegal "internships". Outside of finance, businesses here are often extremely cheap to the point of being dishonest.

I really don't understand why people put up with it. Nobody has any ethics either.

SilasX4• 11 years ago

Seriously? Six months to pay? :-O

Eric_WVGG• 11 years ago

As a note of perspective, this comes from a graphic designer (Jessica Hische), and their work has an even greater tendency to be devalued by potential clients. Just spend a few minutes browsing the Clients from Hell tumblr to get an idea their typical business relations…

Many graphic designers consider a little free work in exchange for future work or references as a good way to get one’s foot in the door. This usually backfires.

SilasX4• 11 years ago

To clarify, this was lawyer work? And if so, doesn't the ABA recommend some pro bono work every year?

rayiner4• 11 years ago

No, when I was working as an engineer. Charity work is of course different regardless of your profession. Nobody is making money off your labor.

teekert2• 11 years ago

I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. -John Galt (Ayn Rand)

sfk• 11 years ago

Did John Galt use free software?

lqdc1313• 11 years ago

Free software in its current state is basically communism.

pmhpereira• 11 years ago

Last submission was 2 days ago... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9787328

madaxe_again4• 11 years ago

Streamlined version:

Should I work for free? -----> No.

Not even if they're your bestie, a charity, or your mother - unless you want an unpaid support gig from here until the end of time, or want to never speak to them again.

Free is not a sustainable dynamic for non-transient (I.e. Serving soup) tasks.

Imagine if you were to work in a soup kitchen as a volunteer, but the terms were that you'd be liable for any food poisoning, and you have to come in at 3am on Sunday because the stove isn't working, and someone there thinks you looked at the fridge once, which is close enough.

lqdc1313• 11 years ago

This might be a cultural thing, but I think everyone should help their close relatives with computer problems.

Sometimes when their relatives need help, people literally give up everything and live with them and help them with everything. Spending 20 minutes to sign them up for email is not the biggest investment.

Basically if you think of yourself and your family as one entity, it makes sense to minimize overall wasted time. Since you are most efficient at computer-related things, it makes sense to do those things for them.

icebraining• 11 years ago

I think the problem madaxe_again is underlying is that the 20m task often leads to the person assuming you're the culprit of any possible problem the computer might have in the future.

I still help friends and family with computer problems, but I try to avoid friends-of-friends and such.

By the way, the idea of considering myself and my family as a single unit is bizarre to me, unless you're talking about just the immediate relatives. Each branch of my family has at least two "sub-branches" who don't speak to each other :)

moron4hire• 11 years ago

if you think of yourself and your family as one entity

That's nice if you have a nice family. A lot of people have really shitty families. I don't see any reason to treat people special just because they are family. I do things for my parents, but I actually like my parents. There is no way in hell I'm doing anything for most of my aunts, uncles, or cousins, because they are bad people.

madaxe_again4• 11 years ago

My solution to family tech support has been to buy an iPad for anyone who gets in touch asking which purple gorilla they should trust.

A child response to you refers to my point - which is that if I uninstall bonzi buddy for you, you then decide it's definitely my fault when you install malware next time, and instead of "please can you help?" it's "fix my fucking computer, why did you break it?".

No good deed goes unpunished. Introduce a financial exchange into the mix and it ceases being a good deed and becomes a commercial transaction, and peoples' assumptions and expectations accordingly change.

jschwartzi• 11 years ago

Once, I told my mom that she should install a hard drive herself. She has since moved on to setting up routers and at least one security DVR. By convincing her to empower herself I've freed her from the crappy support at the store, which has saved her lots of money.

isaacremuant• 11 years ago

I think there's a difference between working for free and doing occasional favors if you have the time and it's a two way street (no need to keep score, just in general).

Work often implies responsibilities and demands. There can be none in a favor.

it makes sense to do those things for them.

I try to "teach them to fish", not just "give them the fish", though. Unless it's too complex or we're too pressed for time.

fredkbloggs• 11 years ago

"Computer-related things" isn't a thing, any more than an evolutionary biologist who works with fruit flies is well-qualified to work on a particle accelerator (despite both being "science"). I'm an engineer. I'm not a Microsoft help-desk staffer, a GMail support center, or an Acer repair technician. If my family members don't use the same equipment, software, and services that I do, I'm unlikely to have any special knowledge that will help them more than what they'll get from tech support (bad as it often is). Half the time I can't even understand what they're talking about and just end up reading the manual to them until everyone is too angry to continue the conversation.

If you work on a consumer e-mail app, sure, by all means get them using that and help them with it. But many (most) of us don't work on products that are targeted at consumer needs, or have any special knowledge about the products our family members use. Let the people who do, do their jobs; everyone will get a better outcome that way.

tomjen3• 11 years ago

I think it is about respect. Like my grandparents who will copy any error message down by hand and ask me about them later, but who actually listens and care what I have to say. If they kept asking the same thing and didn't listen I would feel very different about what I am doing.

lenocinor• 11 years ago

I usually help close relatives and long-standing friends with computer problems. I felt funny charging them money, but a nice compromise I settled on after a while was asking for food as payment. They felt good about giving me something (many good people will actually feel guilty about getting something for free), I felt good about getting awesome food (often homemade), and it discouraged the worst leeching.

afarrell• 11 years ago

Both my grandmothers are nurses who have given me and my parents remote medical advice for years. I actually really wish that I was better at remote computer support.

madaxe_again4• 11 years ago

Ah, but when you get ill, do you phone them up and ask why they made you ill, and fit in three or four digs about how the medicine they told you to take last time is definitely causing this, and potentially also your dog's illness?

That's the difference between computers and pretty much anything else... For some reason all ration just goes clean out of the window.

Kluny• 11 years ago

Eh - my parents are pretty good. I'm not going to let them pay the Geek Squad $700 to remove viruses from their computer (again). I can do that. You do have to draw boundaries - like I'll say "yes, I can help you, but I'll have to block out 2 hours next week." So if it's really an urgent problem they'll get the message and go pay someone, begin to understand that what I do isn't trivial, and become respectful of my time. YMMV - my parents are dope.

namplaa• 11 years ago

In the 90s in my first business I did support at home for people who thought they could get unpaid support from their friends, neighbours and neighbourhood kids. We were expensive and never lacked clients who had gotten unpaid support which had only made things worse.

dvirsky2• 11 years ago

One branch that isn't covered here is joining a non-funded startup as the technical co-founder.

pc862• 11 years ago

But then it's not free. Just because most equity is worthless doesn't mean the work is done for free.

dvirsky2• 11 years ago

True, but you still bet your future and work many many hours for no pay, and in some cases it never even gets seed funding, so you end up just wasting a ton of time, even though no one profited from your work.

Also it should be mentioned for young/inexperienced people, that you do this only if the equity is significant (don't join if they have 5 non technical founders, no product and offer you like 5%), and if the founders are not idiots, assholes and/or dodgy.

dagw• 11 years ago

The pay doesn't have to be in cash. If you're joining as a co-founder and aren't offered at the very least a decent chunk of equity with a nominal non-zero value, then you probably should say no.

franze• 11 years ago

i have a one hour free for (early stage) startups.

and it's great. i give them all the input (i'm a consultant, so basically i talk smart) i can in one hour. hold nothing back. sometimes it's all they need. a push in the right direction. i don't want to sell them anything (yet). sometimes i don't hear back from them for months, years. sometimes never.

why do i do it:

reason 1) data - (in my case access to their google search console and google analytics). this helps me to adjust my benchmark of how i see the different verticals / businesses.

reason 2) leads over time

2a) most startups fail. the people move on. this is how i got a "foot in the door" to germanys biggest media-houses.

2b) some startups succeed. if they do, the usually come back to me. quite often for very different topics than the one we actually talked about.

reason 3) ideas

it's great to talk to people with a fresh perspective. it's a give and get. they learn something from me, most of the time i learn something from them.

all of this together is worth something. in my case: 1h of my time, 1h of their time. so is it really "1h free" well, more like "1h non monetary" but that doesn't sound as catchy!

is there a second-hour free? no

is there a one hour free for big companies? no, because it costs already lots of time to sell big companies anything.

is there a one hour free for assholes? no

carlmcqueen• 11 years ago

This makes a lot of sense but I would argue that having access to their data no longer makes it an hour for free.

Data is a major currency.

crusso3• 11 years ago

Yeah, but so are experience, connections, and ideas - and they're all of varying values depending upon one's lack of (and ability to utilize) each.

martin-adams• 11 years ago

I really like this and have thought about doing something like this myself. Not really to drum up new business, but to have an inspirational chat about what they are doing and help them get pointed in the right direction.

Spooky23• 11 years ago

Free isn't free in your case. You're doing presales engineering plus learning stuff that would be difficult otherwise.

iolothebard• 11 years ago

Misses a huge point, if you're doing a startup with friends, typically you're all working for free.

Keep your day job, do some work on the side, retain all rights to your code. Make sure the person or people you're working with are equally dedicated. Have clauses that cut people out for non-delivery on their parts.

A startup is only 25% the code in my experience, it's the most critical part (unless you're selling vaporware) but it's just ahead of sales which then quickly takes over. Unless you're doing the facebook model (which I've never been able to grasp personally).

pc862• 11 years ago

The company (because there is a legal entity, and not just three guys hacking in a garage, right?) absolutely needs to retain ownership of the code. If the CTO decides he'd rather work for Microsoft 6 months in you can't have a legal structure that allows him to take all the code with him and dump everyone else back to square one.

If you've got two or more people working on a business/startup/project, everything done toward that goal needs to belong to that entity, not the person that created it.

tokenizerrr• 11 years ago

You have licenses and contracts for that.

nvader• 11 years ago

I think the original article deals with working under contact for a start up, not as a founder. The context seems to be people with specialised skills who are approached by start ups for specific items of work (graphic design projects), with an expectation of free our cheap labour.

I agree with other commenters that if you are a cofounder, the situation is different. Since you are getting equity in consideration, as soon as it matters to get these legal protections, you must provide a license, and preferably, attribute ownership of the software to the company.

theorique2• 11 years ago

The context seems to be people with specialised skills who are approached by start ups for specific items of work (graphic design projects), with an expectation of free our cheap labour.

What's the potential benefit to the contractor, to do free work for a startup? Is it an actual thing to ask service providers or solo practitioners to work for no cash and no equity?

Pxtl• 11 years ago

Misses a huge point, if you're doing a startup with friends, typically you're all working for free.

Working for shares is not "free". It's a gamble (if it busts you get nothing), and if you want to gamble that's your call, but whatever the deal is for your compensation, get it it writing.

marknutter• 11 years ago

I learned this the hard way in my early days of freelancing as a web developer. The main reason I think it's important not to work for free isn't the fact that you're not being compensated for your time (which of course sucks) but that your client doesn't actually feel comfortable giving you honest feedback about the work your producing because they know you're doing it for free.

So what happens is you end up with a sub-par delivery because the client often feels too guilty to look a gift horse in the mouth and you're not properly motivated to make it better than you might if you were being fairly compensated on top of it.

marvel_boy• 11 years ago

Good point

didgeoridoo• 11 years ago

However, it's often better to work for free than for peanuts. The client who's paying you a few tens or hundreds of bucks will often treat you like garbage, AND give you poor feedback. Stick with your rate (if you don't have one, decide what you're "comfortable" charging... and triple it) and explicitly provide a "one-time discount" for the client to land on what they can pay. Clients treat you better the more "expensive" you seem — which seems to hold true even if they aren't actually being charged all that money.

hwstar• 11 years ago

I learned this early on in one of my side businesses: "The one who pays the least complains the most". Charge enough to communicate that you are a professional. Don't take clients who are low bidders. Let your competition take those and watch them suffer.

tonyedgecombe• 11 years ago

It's worse than that, most people value things by their cost, if they aren't spending any money then how much will they value your time.

EarthLaunch• 11 years ago

Exactly, it's enjoyable working with people who value my time, not wasting it on boring calls or long emails. With a high rate, clients are VERY careful not to dick around.

omegaham2• 11 years ago

that your client doesn't actually feel comfortable giving you honest feedback about the work your producing because they know you're doing it for free.

I call this the "friends moving your furniture" problem. You aren't going to complain to your friend that he's damaging shit because he's volunteering with a tedious task for free. You need all the help you can get, right?

Of course, in your friend's case, he's not making a business out of moving furniture. But in a web developer's case, the bad habits you'll inevitably create but won't get corrected will end up hurting you later when you do decide that you're going to charge for your work.

hippich• 11 years ago

This is very on point. I will also add that client who is not paying is usually care way less. Also, if client can not pay this quite often in my practice meant that what they are working on is not good idea to start with (there are exceptions of course!)

It all boils down to client should have some stake in the game.

brianmcconnell• 11 years ago

25 years of experience as a small business owner here. Always start high, and only lower your rate in exchange for a guaranteed amount of work. Also consider charging different rates for different types of work as part of your agreement. Always get everything in writing, and keep relevant communication.

All I'll say it is almost a law of physics that lowball clients will abuse you, constantly change the scope of work (after all, you're cheap!), and generally treat you like a cheap whore.

Don't be a cheap whore, be a high class and expensive escort!

Mandatum• 11 years ago

OT: If you're ever in Auckland, NZ or Vancouver, CA let me know. I'd like to buy you a beer.

Mahn2• 11 years ago

Well that was a bit pointless, the whole chart can be summed up as "No, but you may want to consider making an exception for a relative, a close friend, or a non-profit you support".

michaelgrafl• 11 years ago

A lot of things can be summed up in a boring way. That doesn't make the boring summaries the things.

Mahn2• 11 years ago

My point is that there's no information the chart is adding to that.

chaostheory3• 11 years ago

There's one huge thing that the author missed: working for free on an open source or creative commons project, as well as the advantages of just getting your work out there on those licenses even if it doesn't directly benefit you financially immediately.

saint_fiasco• 11 years ago

I think that's covered in the non-profit branch.

chaostheory3• 11 years ago

Not really. The non-profit branch implied that the completed work will belong only to the non-profit. With open source and creative commons, ultimately the intellectual rights still belong to you; you're just letting other people use your work for free.

You also don't have to release open source or creative commons work for someone else. If you look on github, most projects are the work of individuals, and released & maintained primarily by them and not a separate non-profit entity.

TDLR the author has forgotten that you can also work for yourself for free and not just other people

kefka• 11 years ago

The real answer is (Fuck you, Pay me)[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U]

pkaye• 11 years ago

At times, it feels like, the more someone is paying you, the more they will respect you. Don't work for free unless they have a good respect for you otherwise you will be used. My own experience was trying to help out two non-profits with some IT work and they ask you for the world and treat you like shit.

hessenwolf• 11 years ago

He who works for free, never gets thanked, as a wizened truck driver once told me.

Your work and your input will not be respected without a consideration.

aantix• 11 years ago

Spot on.

The higher I push my rates, the more respect I get. It's been a surprising finding coming from a programmer that came from a pretty broke family.

But it gives me courage to constantly push my rates higher and higher. Courage in that single negotiation moment seems to generate professional respect that even great work doesn't generate.

"Here's my rate. It's non-negotiable. <blank, cold stare accompanied by dead silence until the client decides to speak>"

I've always found this list incredibly useful when preparing to negotiate with a potential new contract. http://note.liudas.eu/v1/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Negotiat...

In an age of where an half-way descent engineer is thrown a job offer, you should be able to generate enough leads to continuously try out new rates.

Prepare like hell for the negotiation. Know their favorite sports team. Know that they graduated with honors from Caltech. Tell them exactly how you're going to help their company, unapologetically give them your rate, and then be absolutely quiet waiting for their response. "First person to talk always loses", so STFU. Don't flinch.

shubhamjain• 11 years ago

There has been only one time I was willing to work for free, to establish some credibility as a freelancer when reaching out wasn't working that well and I didn't had anything to show in my portfolio, plus I didn't want to go on bidding wars on Odesk, Elance. I think that (desperation) might be one of the major reasons why someone might want to work for free.

ac1662• 11 years ago

I was thinking this was going to be one of those websites that just says NO in big letters. Sadly it's not.

ac1662• 11 years ago

I thought this was going to be one of those websites that just had NO in big letters on it. Sadly it's not.

cmacpher• 11 years ago

the z-indexing on this is maddening!

jackmaney• 11 years ago

Here's a simpler flowchart:

Start -> Should I work for free? -> No

dspeyer• 11 years ago

I notice that once you go down the "is it for a legitimate business" branch, the answers are all "NO". They could have omitted all the follow-ups.

adrusi• 11 years ago

Ah, but then you'd lose the explanations for why each scenario is not appropriate to work for free in.

allendoerfer• 11 years ago

Mine is simpler: Is it a project, that you would start by yourself anyway, you do now with partners, who bring value, you trust and give you enough equity? Everything else is a no.

asgard1024• 11 years ago

You should work for free as in freedom, not for free as in beer.

izztmzzt• 11 years ago

no.

jacquesm• 11 years ago

Funny how one of the branches leads to nothing but 'no' and still has a whole bunch of extra questions to ask. That could be optimized!

anotheryou2• 11 years ago

what I find much more important: don't work for too little money.

I help friends for free and do a quick and dirty job, telling them what I have time for and what not. But getting a little money gets you all the responsibility, less thankfulness and still no real money.

Should I Work for Free?

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