Heathbits

First thing I noticed this morning was an email from one of my clients. We have been working on a custom web application for them. Looks like my main contact there has left for Iraq. He got activated when we first started working on things and had to go to Camp Pendleton for a month. We communicated via email and phone gathering and hammering out requirements. Yesterday he finally got shipped off.

In his email he introduced me to another person from his company who will be taking over responsibilities for this application. I’m kind of worried because we were 95% done when he left. Now, with a new person, I know they are going to want to have a whole bunch of new stuff added.

Actually, that’s fine, as long as he understands that this will have to be a separate project, with a separate bill. I’m sure it won’t be a problem - I’m pretty used to dealing with this kind of stuff after developing software for over 12 years now.

Ben and I have spent a lot of extra time working with this client. We way under bid this project, but that’s OK. It was mostly because of the legal paperwork. Man… I had no idea how time consuming this stuff is. You have to fax/refax, sign/resign, negotiate/renegotiate contracts with your lawyers and your client back and forth four or five times before everything gets worked out. We had to purchase business liability insurance and jump through a few other hoops as well.

The beauty of it all is that now that the hard part is done, we are in! We are their only preferred vendor for all IT work, so from now on, when they need something, its just a PO that gets created and signed – that’s it! They have several more jobs for us, so this has been well worth it. Ben and I plan to work hard to keep them happy, and hopefully, we will remain their single source for all IT issues from now on.