Ask HN: Deadbeat Client – Owes us 25k – What are my options?
1. Talk to an attorney. Good attorneys will usually be happy to have an initial consultation with you for no cost unless you decide to move forward.<p>2. The next time a member of the C-Suite in a VC-funded startup calls you to try and draw a false equivalence between them not getting paid and you not getting paid for sympathy points, call them out on it by reminding them 1) that they have equity for that risk, 2) that you don&#x27;t, and 3) that you&#x27;re insisting on restitution. Be forthright and assertive about the terms they agreed to in the contract (since you&#x27;d been at this, I assume you have contracts in place), but do not be the one to escalate the situation further.<p>3. Make sure you&#x27;re communicating in writing everywhere (email is fine). For calls, send follow-up emails summarizing the calls while they&#x27;re fresh in your memory. Take notes on the calls. Prefer written communication to calls where possible. Record calls if you&#x27;re in a one-party state (based on another comment, you seem to be).<p>4. Don&#x27;t be antagonistic and don&#x27;t be passive aggressive. Especially don&#x27;t do anything that makes you feel good emotionally but causes your client to become a more sympathetic party, and potentially sever some of their contractual obligations. For now, consider the remaining invoice balance a loss and be dispassionate about it.<p>5. Going forward, make sure your contracts have the following clauses, if they do not already: 1) all work is exclusively owned by you until the last invoice has been successfully deposited in your account; 2) invoice payments are required for your time according to the agreed fee schedule regardless of ultimate deliverable completion, while both are true: a) the deliverable is being developed in good faith, and b) neither party has yet provided a clear and explicit communication that the work must pause.<p>Point 5 is important. If you are working on the project and they do not tell you it needs to pause until mid-way through your next invoice cycle, they are contractually obligated to pay for the time they didn&#x27;t intend to use but for which they did use and failed to notify you. Even more importantly, the work is not transferred to them until they pay you, which means they legally have nothing until their obligations are paid.<p>In the worst case scenario under this template, you will not recover your money. On the other hand, they won&#x27;t have your intellectual property and they won&#x27;t be able to sell it off to pay other creditors. You should realistically prepare for the possibility that you&#x27;re never going to see the money your client owes you.