If a Company Wants a Detailed Proposal for Free, Run!
While I appreciate it when founders ask what I’d do for their startup rather than extrapolating based on my past work, I noticed that it only turned into a healthy working relationship when these unpaid discussions took less than an hour before transitioning to paid agreements to go deeper. Early stage startups can’t predict their needs for any role months in advance, not the ones nimble enough to meet funding metrics. At larger companies, roadmapping takes weeks. So, what does it mean when a founder or hiring manager asks for a detailed proposal before deciding whether to work with you? A career coach told me it means they want to exploit rather than work with you, and based on my experience, it tracks.
One lead offered to pay me for two hours of work to write up a community proposal. When I told him I’d see what I could put together in two hours and we could discuss from there, he said he wanted something substantial as he was considering two other clients as well. I put in six hours of work for the two hours’ pay and never heard back from him.
Another founder remarked that my rate was senior level (1. they weren’t and 2. I would’ve been willing to negotiate) and that he’d need a fleshed out growth proposal to justify paying that rate. When I asked what rate felt fair for the work he needed done, he said he wanted the best person for the job and that he had to go. He didn’t respond to my text asking for more information to base my proposal on. The next I heard from him, he invited me to a hackathon to, uh, build a feature for his startup for free, a supposed honor considering his status as a VC, influencer, and 3x founder.
As someone who likes to give people the benefit of the doubt, I kept second guessing myself until I saw this dynamic play out a couple times. If you have a hard time developing your own opinions about fairness in a sea of everyone else’s, it might help to ask yourself what intentions would make the founder or hiring manager’s collaboration style actually make sense for their company. A granular proposal from someone who lacks context about the company and in my cases, hadn’t even seen the product yet, is useful as a data point for crowdsourcing but not as a guide for collaboration. If voicing when an ask doesn’t seem to fit the organization’s need leads to dismissal rather than discussion, I’d recommend walking. Sure, you might miss out on some truly well-meaning, clueless bosses while filtering out the scammers, but you deserve a better chance at your hard work seeing the light of day anyway.
