Ask HN: Got hired to build a site/ what should I do now besides give a proposal?

Congratulations on your win. First off, I am by no means an attorney so... You can probably find some sample contract templates via a Google search. Critical to your success though you will want to make sure that no matter what you cover at least the following: (1) timeline to completion; (2) payment terms as far as milestones and when payment is to be made and what happens if payment is not made on time or within a grace period; (3) the deliverables and timeframe for them; (4) what the client's responsibilities are (will they pay for any photos, licensing of plugins, what content they need to provide, and payment obligations; (5) I would add a clause that final copyright and/or files will not be turned over to the customer until final payment is received and cleared. Depending on the customer all of this can be something as simple as a Word document just spelling everything out that both sides agree to. If you plan to move full on with freelancing I would suggest hiring an attorney to draft up a simple contract that you can easily amend with the above details on a customer by customer basis. It may cost you a couple hundred dollars, but can be a lifesaver down the road should you run into that one customer (and the chances that will happen are pretty good if you freelance full-time).

IANAL but.

Definitely get something in writing, as specific as possible in terms of what's expected, and when, and what's to be owed and when. Get an advance if possible, but DO NOT give up control of anything until you have money in the bank. I'm currently sitting on about a thousand dollars' worth of work for clients who have either disappeared or conveniently forgotten my invoices this year. Don't be stupid like me and do work for people you know without deadlines - it's a business, so treat it like a business.

Also, good luck.

Although I have never used it, you should check out: http://www.shakelaw.com/

I am a lawyer.

I have hired freelancers to build websites.

The first rule of deals like this is to not over-engineer stuff.

If this contract is for under $1,000, create some arbitrary project milestones. Get some money up front whether you quote a fixed price or hourly. (Hint. Don't quote hourly.). Get another payment midway through. Leave about 20% at the back end when you deliver.

You get cash up front because it is a psychological test of your customer. The way your customer responds when you say "Give me $100x now" is the way you will be treated forever. If there is negotiation, delay, etc. that is what you will experience forever. You have been warned. You will ignore the warnings. You will experience pain. You will learn. :-)

Make the milestones things that you control. Do not tie it to customer approval or decision. Sometimes people procrastinate. That delays your payment.

The contract can be simple. Bullet points. Signed by both sides because you're not going to sue if they stop paying you. And if they stop paying you then you are going to stop work.

The value of WIP should be something you can walk away from in order to fire a bad customer. This is your psychological threshold. Start playing with the idea that you only put forward enough work so they owe you $1,500. It will hurt to walk away but you won't die. And if you walk away from someone in this circumstance you are avoiding far worse results. The best decisions are sometimes the jobs you didn't take on. But we make mistakes so the second-best decisions are the assholes we fired quickly.

Welcome to owning your own life. :-)

EDIT: I guess I should mention that I follow this philosophy in my business with six-figure jobs. It isn't for small jobs only.

Do you really need a formal contract? Couldn't an email trail documenting the requirements, scope and fees be enough? I am trying to understand the need for formal contracts as recently I have been taking on more and more consulting projects.

My projects are typically high value and short term. I never ask my clients for a formal contract/NDA etc neither do any of my clients. After our phone conversations, I typically summarize the discussion in an email. I prefer to have most of our communication via email after the initial phone discussions. Only safeguard I take is with the new clients. I typically request shorter engagements (< $5K) with $1K-2K as advance payment which all new clients to date have complied.

I find that keeping things informal (avoiding or minimizing legalese) keeps my clients comfortable working with me and better relationships. May be it depends on clients, mine tend to be small investment firms (few partners) who most probably care less about legal stuff and more about value they are getting.