Should I tell a friend that I'm disappointed in the way he's running his business which hired me?

Question

This is a long, complex situation, and I'm not sure how to proceed.

A bit of backstory, I made friends with a guy that I work with. He bails more often than not on hanging out, which is irritating after I've turned down other plans to hang out with him.

He's gone into website hosting, and I agreed to set up the server for him for beer, provided that he owned the business and the IP and didn't take on frivolous employees as is the temptation when one is new to business. This is my 4th or 5th "startup", by the way. I agreed to come over 5 times as the site is at his place, and twice he didn't contact me when we were supposed to meet. As he had just moved, I did not know where his place was. I saw him playing pokemon go the next day in the hallway at work with a collegue, and later I texted him to ask why he didn't get back to me after I'd cooled down a bit. He sited serious ongoing health concerns, which would have indeed prevented him from contacting me.

Finally, we made contact, I came over, then he asked me to leave, telling me that his father wanted to see him and he had to go over.

Then the next time, I came over, set up a number of services for him, but the SSH wasn't working correctly by the time he asked me to leave again at night. We set a time for me to come over and fix it, and then he bailed again, saying that his father asked him to come over and help him work on their house, which is his boilerplate excuse.

Now he's texted me that he's reinstalled the whole server and everything is "working correctly now," which I take to mean he can now SSH into the machine. He struggles with basic server-client, web concepts, so I want to wash my hands of the whole situation to cover my bottom, and I believe that the server was set up insecurely and in a manner that wouldn't even work, as this was the case the last time I came over. I had to walk him through setting up port-forwarding.

However, when I set up the server, he told me that someone else had created the website, who he was going to pay for it. I know they haven't worked out who's IP it is. Additionally, he listed off a number of employees he's paying, who basically consist of almost his entire friend group, some of whom are under 18 years of age, 10-20 employees, although I didn't count.

This isn't his fault that he's inexperienced, but these are not the terms that I agreed to help him free of charge. He's told me that he would pay me, although it was offhand and we didn't agree on a price. I'm not expecting to see any money, but I'm considering telling him my freelance rate, which is a lot more than just beer, and letting him know he's violated our terms, which are in writing. The other half of me just wants to let it be, let by-gones be by-gones, and just letting him do his thing, but turning down any help he asks for in the future, as I want to avoid the "zomg-we-haven't-done-backups-in-a-month-please-recover-our-wobsites-nothing-is-working" call and being on the hook again for that situation, when I've been giving him help to avoid that from the get go.

I also want to, as his friend, see him succeed in his business, communication shortcomings aside. And lastly, I don't want to have things be awkward at work, as it's distracting from the work I want to be doing.

Should I say something? Should I send him the bill? Should I not say anything and just pass over the entire situation? The gods know that I haven't been perfect either, and everyone makes mistakes.

Answer 1

From experience (mine and others): People value things according to how much they paid for them. Your "friend" paid nothing for your help. Guess how much he values you and your help: Zero. Because he didn't have to pay for it, your help to him is absolutely worthless.

You saw this - he didn't come to meetings, giving just some lame excuse. If he had been billed $100 for a missed meeting, you can be sure he wouldn't have missed them.

I suggest you cut your losses. If he asks for any work done, figure out a realistic rate and charge before you start the work.

Answer 2

• As soon as he can pay other people, you should stop working for beer
• The most important point is: figure out if he is professional enough to work with, even if he would pay you. I am not so sure about that.
• If you decide to continue to work with him (and he pays you), it is important to define responsibilities, and an open word could help.
• If not, say to him "sorry, to busy"

Answer 3

I think the most important thing for you to do is to get out from under any liability or legal responsibility for the damages to his business that will result from his server being set up incorrectly.

You need to document the fact that he did not allow you to complete the work according to your specification and design. This should be easy to do since your contract calls for 5 meetings and these have not all taken place. Just make sure that you have a paper trail showing that you tried to complete 5 meetings and it is his fault that they did not happen.

It can be very difficult to maintain proper boundaries with someone you would like to hang with, but in this case the lack of a clear delineation of responsibility for the server can end up costing you serious money and reputation.

Once you have protected yourself from unwanted legal association with the failure his web hosting business, it should be safe for you to go back to being his buddy and pestering him with sage advice that he doesn't want and will never thank you for.

Answer 4

You say he's inexperienced in running a business, and that's why he's running this one poorly? Well, now he can gain some experience-- by having a core employee leave as a result of his poor, haphazard management of his business.

He's going to learn a lesson either way, but it's up to you if that lesson will be that his behavior is acceptable and is enough to retain talent, or if it will be that operating this way will lead to problems (including, but not limited to, attracting and keeping skilled employees).

It's an actual problem for him if and only if you end your "professional" relationship here, and explain why you're doing so. It's not even really about him, it's about your time, skill, and professionalism. It's not that he's a bad person, just that you can't/won't work for a person or organization like this.

Answer 5

[Update] The answer below was deservedly downvoted for not giving advice as to what to in the current situation.

Answer: life is too short, just walk away, life's too short. By all means try to part on good terms & remain friends.

To address

Now he's texted me that he's reinstalled the whole server and everything is "working correctly now," which I take to mean he can now SSH into the machine.

He struggles with basic server-client, web concepts, so I want to wash my hands of the whole situation to cover my bottom, and I believe that the server was set up insecurely and in a manner that wouldn't even work, as this was the case the last time I came over

I would suggest sending an email which says nicely "since you set up the server and I had nothing to do with it, you don't need me any more, so I am out". It's probably enough to have it in writing that way that he set it up. If you want to you can add a bit along the lines of "since you set up the server ...it is your responsibility ...".

On a side note, after you quit there is a very good chance that he will ask you to come back or "just help out a little" ... "this one last time". It's your decision - and I would not, but perhaps you want to do it to keep his friendship - if you do, obviously do it with a contract (preferably compensated, since he is paying all and sundry), but with something in writing that says 1) he can't put it into service without inspecting & signing off on it 2) after that, it's his responsibility.

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Personally, I would stay well away from "mom & pop" start-ups like this one.

First question: "do you have a written business plan?". When you hear "no", politely decline.

The second question - if you get that far - should be about funding, then you discuss what you will do for what return and put that into a contract.

Stay away from hobby projects and find real startups, preferably your own.