In our weekly installment of Clients from Hell, a hilarious collection of anonymously contributed client horror stories from designers, we present “More than a weekend project” For previous posts, click here .
This client was a co-worker of mine who I helped a few times with a small web application he was developing in exchange for free beers and food.
Three months after he launched his website, we had this exchange.
Client: Hey, I think there is a lot of potential with this app if I could add these [very long list of features] to it. I want to start a software company to sell it.
Me: Erm, OK. To be honest, implementing all those features is going to require far more time. It’s way beyond a mere weekend project. In fact, it would probably require a team of developers at least a year to do it all.
Client: Yeah, I was hoping you could help me with that part.
Me: Look, I didn’t mind helping you get the basic concept off the ground, but I really don’t have the time to put into doing this full-time, and I certainly don’t want to quit my well-paying job to start a software company consisting of basically you and me.
Client: So what am I supposed to tell all these investors?
Me: Investors? What investors?
Client: Oh, I told these guys in South Africa we would have this ready for them in three months.
Me: We?
Client: Yeah. So when can you get started?
Me: I think you just put a very big cart before a very small horse.
