Rayyaan Nauman @fixedbyray - Twitter Profile

I lost around $21,000 from just one client and this was one of the biggest mistakes of my career. I was working on a mobile app for a client for the last year. Everything was fine and all the payments were clear. Then the client told me they were going to sell the app in the next 6 months, so instead of paying me monthly they asked me to take equity. I had been working on the app for quite some time, it was growing every day and we were profitable. So I thought when we sell the app I will make a lot of money. I signed the equity offer and basically worked for free for 6 months. After 6 months we sold the app, and that’s when I found out the payout was not in cash, it was in private stock. On paper it was worth around $8-10k. If I had stayed on my monthly model, I would have made around $21,600. Now those stocks are locked. I can’t sell them unless someone buys them from me or the company goes public. And if the company goes bankrupt in the meantime, I’m sh*t out of luck. Looking back, the red flag was simple. If the app was making money and the founder really believed it would sell for a lot, why not just pay me? When someone asks you to work for equity, they’re asking you to take the risk they don’t want to take themselves. If they won’t put their own money on the line, why should you put your time on the line? That’s when I decided I am never going to work for equity again.