[consulting] Business questions

[Boris Mann]

On 2/13/07, Larry Garfield <larry at garfieldtech.com> wrote:
>
> Hi all.  I've a few questions for the various Drupal consulting shops out there that I hope is appropriate here.  (I'm sure I'll get smacked down if not. <g>)  While I'm interested in the answers myself I figure they could be useful to others, or at least interesting to compare.

It's a good, interesting, on topic question. There is also no right answer :P

> How do you get most of your clients?  Do they come to you asking for a Drupal solution specifically, or do they come asking for a web solution and you sell them on Drupal?

We specifically market ourselves as a Drupal company, so it's clear
from the outset that solutions. Part of our engagement process is to
determine early on whether Drupal is, indeed, a good fit. I'm unlikely
to say yes to build a purely document management solution built on
Drupal in the near term, for instance.

> Since Drupal is open source with a strong community behind it, how do you handle warranty support for a site?  Do you offer support yourself, or do you fall back on "there's a community, use it"?

This depends on the client. Typically, larger clients will want
support directly from you. This is billable time, however. Think about
an ongoing retainer or other arrangement.

> If you have to build a completely new module for a site, or make significant changes to an existing module, how do you handle billing the client for that time?  How many places bill hourly vs. flat rate?  Do you include "submitting and refining" time for patches (contrib or core)?

Hourly. Getting something patched is VERY high value (since it means
the community maintains that codebase over time)...you should scope
this as part of your estimate. Building a new module means a
sponsorship link on Drupal.org. ALSO very high value.

-- 
Boris Mann
Vancouver 778-896-2747
San Francisco 415-367-3595
Skype borismann
http://www.bryght.com