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Personally, I think that it is not at all unreasonable to help out a potential customer for free.
In your case, since you try to behave as rational as possible it should be easy to establish a
point of no return. The potential project will make you X dollars, you charge Y dollars/hour so
don't work more than X/Y hours on it for free. Obviously you want to keep this ratio as small as
possible. But at least you have a hard number for reference, so don't do more than 10% of X/Y for free.
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In my experience - never work for free for a business.
If anything - it will make them appreciate you and your services LESS.
But like anything in life, there can be exceptions. You've already worked with this business for three years, but this couple of months they have a cash flow problem and ask to delay their payment by a few months? That might be fine.
But what you described doesn't seem justified.
If the business is just starting up then maybe it makes sense to give them a lower rate for a limited period (as long as it's still worth your while), or maybe take some of the compensation in stocks or stock options.
But don't work for free.
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What they are doing with the rest of their funds isn't really relevant to your conversation. I'm not at all saying it isn't aggravating, but building a plant is different than consulting work, and would generally come from a different budget item; certainly capital vs expense.
There are grant writers who get paid on a success basis contract, and they can vary wildly in terms.
From a consultant point of view, it's a tough call. We've gone as far as building an MVP and successfully getting a contract from it, but my general thinking is the doable concept approach. It's a statement of what we'll do, not a recipe of how we'll do it. Don't give away the store.
There's no generic answer and it's easy for us to go one way or another on principle, but only you can tell if you're being taken advantage of. I don't like the 12:01 AM line in the sand idea; it's better to talk it through with an explanation that time is your product, blah blah blah. See where that goes.
We recently did a POC for a client that required complex approval from several other players. It worked, but we did not get the approval from other players for reasons having nothing to do with us or our client. As it started to go south, I discussed with the client some reasonable cost recovery and got agreement on it. But again, only you know the feasibility of that. But again, don't let your view be biased by other operations of the company.
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MikeCO10 wrote: What they are doing with the rest of their funds isn't really relevant to your conversation. I'm not at all saying it isn't aggravating, but building a plant is different than consulting work, and would generally come from a different budget item; certainly capital vs expense.
The simpleton in me wants to summarize this as "if you have money for X, then surely you have money for Y" (especially when Y is a tiny fraction of X).
But I totally understand the idea of different budgets being allocated to different groups operating within the same company. Or even for companies making money hand over fist, but "not having something in the budget until next quarter" (or next year).
I forget whether I had a point to make at all or not...
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The business world has this idea of the lagniappe[^]. Think of the free pens you can get at a business convention. These are usually small, cheap items that help to remind the customer of your business.
In the art world, people always try to get free art by paying in "exposure" for the artist. Serious artists know that the "exposure" is never worth it and they should be paid fairly for their work.
As a tech producer, you are in the business world, so giving away something like a pen might be worth it, but a complete product is not. Some people think software engineering is a form of art. If you agree, then you shouldn't ever give any of it away for free.
In short, always get paid for your work. If you offer a fair price and a good product/service, then you have built the business relationship by being a trustworthy partner.
Bond
Keep all things as simple as possible, but no simpler. -said someone, somewhere
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Very valuable replies here with years of insight
My resume is not even close to yours except SP 4 U.S.Army and degree in Pharmacy
Here is a little suggestion based on the concept
"There is NO FREE Lunch in the world"
UNLESS someone steals your Lunch
So go to lunch and see who offers to pay
Brian C Hart is not a free lunch he just happens to be polite
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It depends on how replaceable you are. If your advice is generic, if any PhD in your field can give the same advice, then maybe you have to work for free now in order to maybe ride the gravy train later. If your client will have difficulty replacing your knowledge, and needs it to advance his business, then you can be more firm with him about payment. Since you aren't a regular employee working with them on a day-to-day basis, I suspect the situation may be closer to the former.
It's clear that your client is already riding the gravy train. There are thousands of small businesses sucking hungrily at the government teat, particularly in the defense and aerospace industries. It's reasonable that you get a taste of this.
One thing you can do is provide off-the-cuff, one sentence opinions for free, but suggest that a more careful analysis is called for, and ask him if he has money at this time for a study. There's a lot you can do to shape his response so that it makes you more money. Ask your business friend about how to do this.
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what other's have said. I've been consulting for nearly 25 years. The first rule of consulting or in business for that matter is not being afraid to ask for money. I can guarantee you the client had to pay the people who built the new office.
Your problem is your co-worker - set up the rules and live by them. Sure, there can be some slack. However, there needs to be a hard line between being flexible and being so flexible you go bankrupt.
oh, stay off linkedin. Cesspool. my personal opinion.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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I used QCAD software designed my drawings and export it into PDF file.
but when I give it to print shop, they ask for .cdr format since they use CorelDraw software. (I bought my license to get this .cdr format).
So I wonder how this .cdr format is used to print out my drawings?
I have several more drawings to print out, so try to get understanding of this printing process in print shop in large scale print work.
Thanks a million.
diligent hands rule....
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First thoughts are that a print shop that can't work directly with PDF files is not worthy of being called a print shop. If a print shop told me they needed a .cdr file, I'd ask if that was their only alternative, or if they can accept other formats. Your best bet is to talk to the print shop, and not a bunch of programmers who know nothing about their printing process.
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there is a chance that millions of programmers in CP can have all kinds of brilliant ideas![Rose | [Rose]](https://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif)
diligent hands rule....
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There is very little chance that one of these programmers has experience dealing with your print shop. If you want the input of anyone who might, you should give the name and location of that print shop.
I have very little printing experience, but everywhere I've printed has wanted and used flattened PDF files. The fact that your printer doesn't seem to doesn't speak very highly of them. Your best bet will still be to talk to the printer and ask them about your options as to what they can accept, and why the PDF you submitted is unacceptable.
Have you talked to them about using a flattened PDF?
> So I wonder how this .cdr format is used to print out my drawings?
Obviously, they open it in CorelDraw and print from there. No great mystery.
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Corel...
They're local to me, I've worked there one summer during my second-to-last year of college, and made some great contacts there, to whom I probably owe the start of my career as a software developer. But as a company? They lost my respect a long time ago. I don't know how they're still in business nowadays.
Remember, this is the company that still pushes WordPerfect, for gawd's sake.
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My dad swears by WP. I had forgot everything I knew about that program years ago. Tried to help him, and figured it had to have some way to apply a style. Nope - only copy/paste formats from paragraph to paragraph as far as I could tell. 
Tried to show him the ease of Word. Nope! No learning anything new, even if it would save bunches of time.
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There was a good reason WordPerfect reigned supreme (in its days), but there's also a good reason it got displaced.
I've been told on more than one occasion that WP is still the standard in lawyer offices. You'd think both Word and WP would have seamless import/export capabilities by now.
OTOH, I wouldn't be surprised if the Canadian government didn't require WP to be used--entirely for protectionism reasons. Since Corel is a Canadian company. And I'm sure they pay a lot more for their licenses than they could get for the entire MS Office suite. That's the sort of thing our government wastes our money on.
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My dad does paralegal work. WP used to be the standard, but from watching him, it appears the US legal system is slowly moving over to Word.
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Gotcha. Seems to pretty much confirm what I've kept hearing.
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I'm about to wipe my iPhone 11XR something or other I got "free" from Sprint as part of their bundled offering, yada yada. You know the drill. To be honest, I would be completely happy with a flip phone. I use computers, I do not do face time on my phone and the vast majority of my calls/text messages are 2FA. The calls I get are 90% or more spam. The only other useful feature is being able to take a picture before I take something apart. I could do that with a $20 camera.
The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf?
Going out to buy lottery tickets. $500 for a phone plus $40/month give or take for service. This is absurd.
Back to shopping.
Charlie Gilley
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” BF, 1759
Has never been more appropriate.
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charlieg wrote: The cheapest phone I Can find on Amazon is $499. wtf?
Searching on Amazon for "NUU A23Plus Basic Cell Phone" returns quite a few less than $200. That search string is for a specific one.
charlieg wrote: completely happy with a flip phone
Pretty sure they have issued some new flip phones. Calls and text. Although my first flip phone only did calls.
Searching on Amazon with following produced even cheaper deals than prior one: "Senior Flip Phone Unlocked"
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I got an old S4 Galaxy from son, years ago, had a broken screen that cost me $165 to have fixed and had it until they no longer supported it.
Funny story I went to Wally World to get a protector for it and I asked the associate if they had any. He asked what I had and when I told him he called to the other associate in the store and said; "look you ever seen one of these". 
So I upgraded to a S19 that I bought used online for $200, not sure exact price. I had it for about 4 years and then Verizon offered a free upgrade to an S23, that ended up costing $100 but was a good upgrade. I'll keep it until I die or they stop supporting it.
I'm like you I rarely use the thing, so it doesn't pay for me to spend a bunch of money on one. It was different when I ran my own business, but the S4 served me fine for many years.
If you can't find time to do it right the first time, how are you going to find time to do it again?
PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.4.0 (Many new features) JaxCoder.com
Latest Article: EventAggregator
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Samsung Galaxy A20e. < $50. Prepayed, no abo. I use it 99% only as an alarm clock  
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Samsung Galaxy J2 Core (2020)[^]
I like it because it's small and light and it runs a not too old (as of yet) version of Android. (I'm a Win/Android C# developer).
/ravi
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I'm not really an old white guy, but I am phone averse.
I got a little $40 e-moto on prepaid and I liked it fine until updates slowed it down to the point of being unusable after a few years. It was indestructible though.
I now have a $100 Samsung Galaxy A25. I like it okay. Samsung's android extensions can be a bit annoying, like it notifies you a bit more than I'd like, but other than that, the phone is snappy, the camera is nice. It feels well constructed, all of that.
Check out my IoT graphics library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
And my IoT UI/User Experience library here:
https://honeythecodewitch.com/uix
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Probably going against the tide here but I'm an old white guy with an iPhone 12. Got it 4 years ago and I'm quite happy with it. I use computers for complicated, work related stuff so I want a phone that, as much as possible, just works: makes phone calls that are sufficiently clear, receives texts and email and takes a few pictures when I'm out in the field. I don't want/care to root my phone, get to alternate stores compile stuff or what not. I still have the old fashioned concept that a phone is (mostly) for phoning.
In the interest of complete disclosure, I also have a Apple family plan that I share with kids. In return they let me play with grand-kids  . If you are going to call me an Apple fanboy, I'm going to say that I also have a Microsoft 365 subscription (also shared with family) so at least I'm not partial to only one big tech company 
Mircea
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Old guy in UK here. I had an ancient Samsung Young (oh the irony) that I purchased from the O2 store for £9.99 about 12 years ago. On pay-as-you-go, spent about £10 every two months. But it was on Android4 and eventually didn't support security protocols that almost any website used (via WiFi).
So last year reluctantly bought a Pixel 7a from Tesco. £12/month for two years for the phone, plus £12/month for data (10gb/month) and very happy with it. Use it as much as the laptop now, and good camera.
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