I am a consultant. I consult. People contact me because I architect advise and write code for the iPhone. I receive quite a few phone calls on a daily basis, some interesting, some absolutely off the wall, and most are legitimate.
A recent phone call left me a bit bewildered. I got a phone call from a company in Atlanta asking me to bid on a contract. “No problem.” They gave me the scoop, told me that the client needed this ASAP (they all do) and that they wanted to move on this pretty quickly. “No problem.”.
The contract was to be completed in a month with a bunch of features, that I detailed and outlined. I have been writing iPhone applications for three years and am pretty adept at estimating and have yet to miss a deadline on any project I have ever worked on. Needless to say, I am fairly confident about my estimating abilities.
I provided the estimate and the client (who was subcontracting me) replied and said that his client (the main client) was shocked at the price tag. “Yep, they usually are when it comes to iPhone”. I was then asked to participate on a conference call to explain to HIS client why the cost was so high. I felt this was a bit odd, but I wanted to help them get the business as they are, well, not very informed when it comes to the iPhone.
I get on the call early, the team in Atlanta isn’t on the call, and apparently didn’t get the invite from their client…yet I did, and was introducing myself to the team of 8 people who were on the call. Finally the team in Atlanta gets on the call and the first thing out of the client’s mouth is “[Blank], I am really unsure how we can pay [X] for this application.”.
Let me explain.
“Blank” is the company in Atlanta Prinicipal on the call, and “X” is the dollar amount the client was quoted. Wanna know what X was?
“X” is the amount the client was shocked by…the amount that “Blank” had come up with…and “X” turned out to be 2.5 TIMES my estimate for a month long project.
Huh? So, this project which was to take 30 days and 1 developer (me) was costing 2.5 times my estimate. So where’s the beef?
What could the company in Atlanta POSSIBLY be charging the client? Let’s think, maybe Project Management fees? Well, I am the only one working on the project, and the project is fairly simple, so that can’t be it. Well, it can’t account for 2.5 times the price!! Maybe they just padded and were making some money on the development hours which I can certainly see as a possibility…ok, but maybe they make 1/3 of my cost? (surely not 2.5 times my cost).
Keep in mind, the client is SHOCKED, and NOT going to move forward….
So I get an email from “Blank” asking me if I had learned anything else from the call that would cause me to LOWER MY ESTIMATE!!! Umm…My estimate, or do you mean the 2.5 times bloated estimate you are offering the client?
I was stunned.
So I replied, asking how he came up with his numbers, and mapped out a project cost estimate including padding for development, project management, etc. and it came to about 1.5 times my estimate. (reasonable eh?)
He replied and mentioned that “my company has bills to pay, and electricity bills and advertising, and salaries, etc”…
Ok…but I want a Ferrari, should I charge the client $350k because I want it?
This is scary. Really scary.
In conclusion, I really hope there are not too many companies out there that are charging extremely ridiculous rates for iPhone development just because their client hasn’t a clue what is going on. This is similar to the mortgage crisis in NJ when load officers were charging the elderly 10 points on their mortgage…just because they “could”.
How do people sleep? *sigh*
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