The Future of Growing Startups
When I decided to start freelancing for startups, people kept advising me to always ask for the client’s budget right at the very beginning.
So I asked.
“Hey man, oh yeah, thanks for asking. Well, as you know we are a startup and we don’t have a budget yet but we’ll give you a lot of exposure.”
A lot of exposure? What does that really mean?
“If someone asks you to work for free “for the exposure” you can tell them people often die from exposure.”
— Paul Jarvis
While I was spending the early days of my freelancing journey sending out pissed-off emails to free riders, I noticed those free riders were at least being honest.
I’ve seen clients disappear without paying right after I sent them the final project files, while some others pretended to be upset so they could still disappear with the files.
According to some close friends, the reason I couldn’t make freelancing work was obvious:
“Stop wasting your time trying to target desperate entrepreneurs and startups. Go offer…
