Being a business rookie and starting my own company - I guessed I would be making some mistakes, learn a lot of stuff and work hard, but yesterday I experienced something I never expected.
I implemented some stuff for a client back in March-May 2004. He did not pay, I did not have my proces for handling this ready (my mistake), but anyway summer went by with a lot of promises from the client about payments - also a lot of excuses, such as missing payments from other clients, wrong account numbers etc.
I attempted to get a meeting with the client, even this took quite some time and I had to listen to all kinds of stories about family problems and other things - but finally we succeeded and we had our meeting. We agreed the payments would come within 2 weeks and some of the payments would be in hardware. I received an older laptop PC on the spot.
So I left the meeting in a good mood - I was starting to think about my trip to Belfast for the YAPC::Europe 2004.
The 2 weeks went by and nothing happened - so I made a serious decision - I sent the client a reminder.
And here is what happened: Well the client called me in the afternoon and he was angry - I never expected this kind of response, so I was a bit taken aback.
The law in Denmark on reminders is that you have to send to reminder to your client before you send the client to debt collection. I thought this over and I guess this is what pissed my client of, because there is no turning back now - he tried to talk me out of it - but I think I have cut him enough slack.
I do not have any money, I am probably not going to Belfast and I own money in the bank. This whole adventure has started to cost me money - and the client makes a scene??? This is the client who told me, that it was business - it's not personal it just business... I guess the client forgot that somewhere along the way.
It feels good to have sent the reminder in that sense I finally feel I have drawn a line and I can start to focus on my other activities - such as the salary for next month. I have found out it is quite hard to focus on programming when you do not have money for your next rent.
I was hoping to give a lightning talk on the subject of running a business at YAPC::Europe 2004, but for now it looks as if I have to cancel.
