You've had him working for you for 10 months without payment. People have to eat, and unless you've done some deal with him (equity?) this is a clear path to ripping him off.
Saying he doesn't have to worry about payment on time is one thing, but he has to worry about all his expenses. And the longer he works on this without payment the less likely he is to get paid.
Hey buddy, your feelings of right and wrong impress me, because I think its very important to have that. But you would have impressed me more if you had read the post in its entirity, before making a statement such as "I hate you".
No hard feelings, i have done that too, we all have growing up to do.
I pay after the close of each phase. For larger phases, I usually break it into 70% after completion of the phase on the testing server, and the rest after completiong on the live server.
When a phase takes too long becuase of some technical problems, i make sure that I pay amounts in between so that he doesn't start worrying about the payments and he doesn't get stretched too thin financially. I still peg a major chunk in such cases to the completion, 50 - 30% of the phase amount, so that his motivation stays high for solving the problems.
It has worked very well, so far. He even has made some really great suggestions on his own, which I value very much. And I usually give bonuses for such good suggestions with the phase payment.
If you want to ensure others are fair to you, you have to ensure that you are fair to them.
Too bad, he couldn't join me full time even after an offer that was good in his own words. I was planning on giving him ESOPs later along with my other employees(didn't tell him at that though).
I hope you will be able to sell the site for which you worked and didn't get payment.
I don't know what your state is now. But things change, so persevere.
There was a time after completing my MS, i used to think 10 times before buying a $1 burger, had to mop floors and clean restrooms. But now my state is far from that. As they say, "This too shall pass".
There may be a misunderstanding here - I got the distinct impression that the commenter (skowmunk) pays early and often for interim deliverables, just not up front.
You've had him working for you for 10 months without payment. People have to eat, and unless you've done some deal with him (equity?) this is a clear path to ripping him off.
Saying he doesn't have to worry about payment on time is one thing, but he has to worry about all his expenses. And the longer he works on this without payment the less likely he is to get paid.
Why is he working for free(at the moment)?