What to do when your Web Developer has not Delivered x3

This is a very unfortunate situation to be in, especially nearing towards the end. How I feel at the moment, pitbulls ... me say no more!

The only person that came to the table was my graphic designer, at least I have that and from those, I can put together some really briefs and requirements for someone new.
 
This is a sad story indeed.

On one hand, a developer that is freelancing wants to make his mark and perhaps build a company. It is difficult to get funding and freelancing in the beginning is the only way to build a reputation.

Then you get the other side - dev houses between 5 to 20 people. Everyone feels safe with them but they charge an arm and a foot. Though, some of these companies are horrible and mess people around more than a single dev would. Some are great...

Point is, it depends on the person running the show. An honest and hard working leader (freelancer or CEO/CIO) would give one the great service they deserve.

Another sad thing is that good clients end up with ****ty devs that give us all a bad name. Then the good devs end up with ****ty customers. Trust me, I've ended up with some horrible customers that got good code for no pay.

You could probably ask for the code and get someone or a company to do a review. It is a small price to pay to have some sense of where you are. The project seems rather large as well and all development houses I know have never deliverd everything promised on time. Always account for an extra 20% to 30% of the total time towards the end. It is irresponsible of the dev not to at least communicate what is going on.
 
It is really sad!

It is however nice to see that everyone posting to the thread has been supportive and helped try guiding me through this mess I am finding myself in.

If I had probably gone with my 2nd or 3rd choice, I might not have found myself in this situation.

I have gained stock, a heathly client database and potential customers on social media. I put a video together for the launch and here I am starting from the beginning.

If he won't speak to me, it makes it quite hard to access anything. But I am going to try, it is the least I can do.
 
Ja, the whole not speaking thing kinda screws you a bit. Anyone in Cape Town you can get to physically go and have a chat? Or try the usual dept collector trick of using another number at a weird time.

I know this is a bit late but you should always insist on them devving to source control that you have access to.
 
Craft said:
It is really sad!

It is however nice to see that everyone posting to the thread has been supportive and helped try guiding me through this mess I am finding myself in.

If I had probably gone with my 2nd or 3rd choice, I might not have found myself in this situation.

I have gained stock, a heathly client database and potential customers on social media. I put a video together for the launch and here I am starting from the beginning.

If he won't speak to me, it makes it quite hard to access anything. But I am going to try, it is the least I can do.
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When you selected this developer, what made you think it was the right choice ? How did you evaluate the candidates? You should revisit that process to make sure you don't make the same mistake again.
 
Now you know why so many IT projects fail. The road to hell is paved with good intentions
 
nexxus said:
I know this is a bit late but you should always insist on them devving to source control that you have access to.
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+1. I recently sent a client a link to the bitbucket repo so he has it for safe keeping too. Just pop an email and ask him to send you the code. Maybe he will send it to you and then disappear again.
 
In future...

Agree on mini deliverables that you can view often. Say every 2-4 weeks, you should be able to see the current progress of the system. Try for a more agile approach in that you get involved early, rather than one big delivery at the end. You can still have a fixed cost project with more frequent deliverables. That way, you can be sure he is on track. And you can pay him per deliverable, instead of what you have done, which is paying for a whole bunch of stuff upfront.
 
Boggles my mind when I see devs do this.Im doing development on the side and I treat my client the same as I treat my boss at work.
 
I think the situation usually comes about when someone underestimates something, or something unexpected throws you off course. Then all of a sudden, you've got a ton of deliverables and no time. It's easy to provide good service if things are great, but if your boss suddenly demands that you put in a ton of extra time, then what happens to the side projects?

At that point, you either front up and say something like "Look, I'm really sorry but I'm in a big bind, {whatever} happened and I'm really behind and I'm gonna need some leeway. Here's my plan to get everything back on course with a {blah} delay. If that's not acceptable, then {some other option}." And you have to be able to accept that they might give you a really hard time.

I'd like to think, if your problem is genuine, most people will respond positively. That's gotta happen quickly though, if you start jerking around, you're not gonna get sympathy.

Not communicating though, is pretty much the worst thing you could do. That's going to build up serious aggro, suddenly things like lawyer letters and fraud charges come into the picture very quickly.
 
nexxus said:
I think the situation usually comes about when someone underestimates something, or something unexpected throws you off course. Then all of a sudden, you've got a ton of deliverables and no time. It's easy to provide good service if things are great, but if your boss suddenly demands that you put in a ton of extra time, then what happens to the side projects?

At that point, you either front up and say something like "Look, I'm really sorry but I'm in a big bind, {whatever} happened and I'm really behind and I'm gonna need some leeway. Here's my plan to get everything back on course with a {blah} delay. If that's not acceptable, then {some other option}." And you have to be able to accept that they might give you a really hard time.

I'd like to think, if your problem is genuine, most people will respond positively. That's gotta happen quickly though, if you start jerking around, you're not gonna get sympathy.

Not communicating though, is pretty much the worst thing you could do. That's going to build up serious aggro, suddenly things like lawyer letters and fraud charges come into the picture very quickly.
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Exactly. I am currently delayed on a project by a week. HOWEVER, I have provided constant feedback, progress updates and released a big change for the client to test and see that there is progress.

I think in this case, the dev is really jerking around by not having some deliverable to show. Even seeing a site up with half broken features would be better than no features.
 
zippy said:
When you selected this developer, what made you think it was the right choice ? How did you evaluate the candidates? You should revisit that process to make sure you don't make the same mistake again.
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When I started looking, I had over 10 developers that were willing to do the project. Through many interviews and work reviews, I had a shortlist of 3 developers. I then sent them through a much more detailed spec (14 pages), I asked that they provide me with their own interpretation of the website.

I choose him because he took the time to provide me with a full technical specification, breaking down each component and described how he would foresee each component working. No one else bothered and I really thought I couldn't go wrong.

His quote contained a lot of detail, start dates and end dates. He was wow!

shauntir said:
Exactly. I am currently delayed on a project by a week. HOWEVER, I have provided constant feedback, progress updates and released a big change for the client to test and see that there is progress.

I think in this case, the dev is really jerking around by not having some deliverable to show. Even seeing a site up with half broken features would be better than no features.
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I think this is exactly what had happened. He took on way too much, and at the end he couldn't keep up. I am not the type of person to shout or loose my cool, and with open arms I am still willing to hear him out.
 
I really would wanna know what your project is. For real....I mean there are web developers that do a lot crappy things. Maybe for some meaningful reasons or nothing at all. Just being silly. I worked with one recently and I guess I was satisfied with their service.
 
stan.Geek said:
I really would wanna know what your project is. For real....I mean there are web developers that do a lot crappy things. Maybe for some meaningful reasons or nothing at all. Just being silly. I worked with one recently and I guess I was satisfied with their service.
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Essentially the project is an end to end online village for crafters, markets, suppliers/stores and customers national and later international. I don't really want to say too much more, but I trust this will give you an idea on the project.

When the developer commits to your project and decides your's isn't priority over the others he has just released, well that says enough about the person's character and since my post, I have been grateful to the responses received. I thank you for your suggestion.

Yes there a lot of developers that do crappy things - unfortunately this one person has caused a lot of damage!
 
Have you tried other ways of getting a hold of the dev? I feel you must talk to him somehow. Get a friend to phone him from a different number.
What will you do now, going forward? Does this mean you're giving up your business idea?
 
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