Ask HN: Say Yes or No?

Personally, I like simple things. Like my life; I like to keep that simple. I try not to lie or mislead people because I found that that leads to no end of complications and painful situations.

If I were in your place (from what you have said), I would not agree to misrepresent your relationship with this person and furthermore I would seriously reconsider whether I would want to continue to deal with someone who is willing to do this. It would be hard to believe that I was not being mislead by him. A reputation is easy to lose and hard to recover.

Allowing him to present your team as his company puts him in control with the client: he'll get more credibility with the client and he will probably be the main communication conduit with the client. If it were me I wouldn't do it: the same way he is misrepresenting himself in front of the client he could be misrepresenting the client's wishes in front of you. From what you wrote it's seems pretty clear that he sees a clear distinction between his interests and your team's interests and I'm pretty sure he'll be looking after his interests primarily.

Let's say you agree to his wish. What's in it for you? A promise for more projects in the future? Maybe, as long as you agree to present yourselves as his company. The only reason I see why you would agree to his wish is fear (of loss) and there's something I learned with great pain: when I act out of fear, I end up regretting it.

Then there's the fact that by agreeing with his wish you would essentially be lying. I read an essay on NH a couple of months back about an entrepreneur that had a golden rule: never lie! His reason for adopting this rule was that by lying you are telling your brain that things are different than they are in reality and so your brain starts operating with false assumptions and soon enough your thought patterns adapt to the lies and you disconnect from reality in various ways. After the disconnect occurs your brain cannot offer you solutions to the problems you face in reality because it has accepted the fake reality you've presented to it (the one created by the lies). That's it in a gist. Here's the link[0].

Best of luck!

[0] http://boss.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/11/the-surprisingly-la...

It sounds like it is his company.

He may have already been presenting you that way, without your knowledge or consent.

In the future contract dispute, how will you explain lying to the customer? IANAL, but it's usually not legal to lie so blatantly about business relationships.

You are his partner.

I get all the people saying "never lie" and what-not, and by and large I agree. But in this case, I'm not sure it is much of a lie. If you subcontract through this person, and through him only, and aren't making any effort to do independent work, you are effectively part of his company. OK, you can argue about the semantics of what words mean, but that's all you'd be doing.

In this world, it's not uncommon for people to present sub-contractors in this light. I personally don't think this is the optimal setup, and if I were in your shoes I'd not want all my eggs in one basket, so to speak. But as long as things are what they are, I don't see much harm in going along with this.

Why operate under a False Flag?

Sadly, the intermediary's request shows his true colors. Suggest you make it a top priority to find a new Strategic Partner/Rain Maker/Business Development executive to represent your team. Frankly, this could be a great opportunity to up your game. Adios Intermediary!

At least in the US, you would be giving him the right to commit your company to legal obligations by making a representation like this to the client. Check out the law of agency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_agency

NO. Imagine how betrayed the client is going to be when, not if, but when the client finds out he's been lied to. All it takes is one lie to set up an atmosphere of distrust.

I'm assuming the reason he does this is because he is either skimming money off the top beyond what you've agreed with, and/or he is building 'his' portfolio with intention of hiring more teams. Either way this is a bad long term proposition for you.

If you need the money now, you can say YES but eventually you will have to either replace this guy or look for projects yourself.

It sounds like he's getting paid by the client first and then he'll pay you? If this has been the arrangement in the past and he paid as agreed, maybe. But if this is a bigger project, as the client wants to visit, you should hammer an agreement to get paid promptly in stages. You don't want this risk of him simply running off with a big payday.

This is a pretty standard way of working in many other industries. For example when the cable person comes to install your service a good proportion of them are self employed contractors branded as the cable company being paid a fixed fee for every install they complete. The only dubious part of what you have described is how the other party has communicated this, should have really agreed these terms at the beginning of the relationship.

Say you're strategic partners, and you specialize in RoR development, and have a business relationship.

It's funny that no one mentioned the following:

This guy is going to lie to his client and wants you to lie too, but you feel like you can trust him (to provide you with more work).