BTW, why haven’t you put a placeholder site up yet?

One thing I’m not clear on is how much input Elliot will have on the app. Will he be starting from scratch with just an idea or is he building it to a tight specification?

What happens if the development effort needs to be stepped up?

All that being said we are not clear what his motives are, perhaps he doesn’t need the cash, perhaps he wants to become a web celebrity? There’s no doubt he’s getting good exposure thus far.

I do commend the openess of the deal though. It wouldn’t suprise me if Elliot was now flooded with slightly more lucrative offers on a similar basis.

This app is most definetly a risk for both parties involved. It is a risk for Elliott and the Carsonified team because both are putting their time and effort on the line to develop this app. Elliott is lucky to be working with the Carsonified team because he can have the peace of mind to know that the app will be managed correctly.

You have to be able to look at the opportunity presented to you and analyze the risk-reward. Is it risky for Elliott to work on this project? YES because the app might fail. But the potential reward is huge and considering the partner Elliott is working with, the reward is much more likely to be in Elliott’s favor.

Ryan: Would you sign a dozen of these agreements? Well, of course. Anyone who’s been in the field a few years like yourself has a drawerful of business ideas, and that’s all you have to contribute. You could sign a thousand and come out ahead if 999 never turned a dime.

That’s why folks are calling this a bum deal. Elliot’s the only one taking a risk and, at best, he’ll get less than 25% of the return.

Elliot, you said you’re young and can take a afford some risk to work with good people. There are a lot of good people out in the world to take risks with. The time you have ahead of yourself in life is one of your most valuable assets, don’t shortchange yourself spending it on risks for other people.

You can’t make a guy redundant, and then offer him something like this. It’s mental I tell you. I was made redundant recently, and all that goes through your head is, ‘Am I going to make rent this month, or next’, if someone approaches you, saying, hey, in a few months, you’ll be on $1,500 a day, its hard not to get excited. But you need to see through the smoke and mirrors, and realise there might be better opportunities out there.

All this controversy all over again, its all a bit too much for me. It might good PR or whatever for Elliot, but I would recommend moving on. Go chill on the beach for a few months and think things over…

I think it’s great that you posted the main points of the contract – I can now use this as a starting point for a contact I need to build for my new project. So, thanks!

You’re having a laugh right?

Anyhoo. Good luck with it all. I realise you’ve not posted the exact contract but my thoughts would be Carsonified should commit to a minimum marketing spend to justify Elliott’s time and if Carsonified decided to cancel the contract at any time before the product is marketed there should be some form of payoff to him.

But of course, there’s no success without risk. That goes for all parties involved. No-one could argue Elliott is naive about the risks considering the public way this is being debated.

I wish you both a successful 2009..

When I do consultancy work, I charge around £1,950 + VAT per day, so I costed it at £800 per day based on the fact it was an internal project.

Maybe there is a factor of name recognition here pushing up the market value?
That being said, as a freelance consultant I know the market intimately, and in the current climate a Project Manager would struggle to get more than £350-400 a day in London, considering rates in the rest of the country tend to be much lower, you can draw some conclusions.

Of course, that’s not the only factor to take into account, Ryan surely has “alternate costs/revenues”, for instance if he spent that day doing something else, it is possible he would get revenues in excess of that £800.

I would personally just raise two concerns regarding the contract, one is on behalf of Carsonified, the other on behalf of Elliott (Pleas note, I AM NOT A LAWYER):
- First, considering Carsonified laid off Elliott recently, writing a contract like this exposes Carsonified to a risk of being sued for unfair dismissal. It seems to me the parties of the contract are a bit confused whether they are entering an employment like relationship, or a business partnership relationship (it seems to be somewhere in between).
- Second, the notice clause seems wildly unreasonable, either Elliott should get paid for his work and have a traditional notice clause (as is the case). OR there should be some sort of vesting or earn-out for him (for instance, even if the contract is terminated by Carsonified after delivery, he will have “vested” 5% of his “ownership” unless he has been in breach of the terms).

The thing that really throws me off is the termination clause, which is the cause of both my first and second point – the rest of the contract is that of a business partnership, whereas the termination clause is that of an employment relationship, it doesn’t make for a good combination.

If you want to keep the agreement as is, fine, but If I where either party, I’d revisit the termination clause, as it puts both parties at some legal and financial risk.

Contracts if agreed by both parties – are good contracts. End of. But seriously, £800?

On a random note…

I walked to the Carson address (19c Charles Street, Bath, BA1 1HX) on Friday night to put a Christmas Card through the door.

Does anyone know which post box to use?

19c’s post box is blocked by a white message saying to put post in the adjacent door. I couldn’t find Carson Systems (or anything similar) listed on door buzzers, or post boxes of 19, or either of the doors adjacent to it (18 and 20).

The only businesses I could identify were a recruitment company (http://www.staffofdistinction.co.uk/) and a related childcare recruitment type company (http://www.imperialnannies.com), both on the ground floor. The next floor up has a “to let” sign in the window.

From what I can see, there’s no Carson branding anywhere on the building or in the windows (visible from ground level). I’d half expect given they do nice design that something would have been put up.

I can’t really tell if they’re at the address at all. Does anyone know which box to use?

DJ

By being slightly controversial and creating a debate on said topics the name Carsonified has been mentioned 100s of times a day on Twitter recently.

That said, I think the brand has been damaged slightly because of it – but not enough to make a difference. For such a relative small company the exposure outweighs the negatives.

But I certainly wouldn’t want my employer explaining business deals so openly, and I certainly wouldn’t consent to it.

I wish Carsonified, Elliott and the other ex-Carsonified employeers all the luck at this difficult time.

This is similar to the cast of Star Wars. Harrison Ford was the only person to take a cut of profits rather than a set wage

Not true at all – Alec Guiness was savy enough to take a cut even though he loathed the films and it made him very rich.

Good luck with this new venture!

I like it.

All the best!

and @elliottkember you still owe me a beer from FOWA.. :P

Cherish him and be the same father to your kid as he was to you. The world will be a much better place!

:-)
anna

The bottom line is; programmers are not stupid. They are capable of making their own decisions and the majority can smell a good business plan.

Elliott has weighed up his options, weighed up the potential rewards and made a good decision in my book. I would have probably done exactly the same in his position.

I’m sure Elliott will get his teeth into this and make it a success, probably working overtime in the process.

I say Good luck to you, I hope you at least cover your costs!

I am from Colombia and I think you are going to be success, that is becouse you guys have all the successful entrepreneur characteristics.

I am happy to read this post, good luck.

These sorts of contracts invariably don’t work well with larger companies. The reason for this is the same problem that cloud computing creates by converting capex to opex. Large companies tend to have serious difficulties when it comes to variable budgeting.

Anyway, I’ve dug up a tongue in cheek post on worth based development.