Don’t Get Screwed: The Contract Provisions Every Creative Needs to Know - 99U

A friend of mine, a very kind and trusting person who happens to be a freelance software developer, agreed a few years back to write some code for a young, charismatic pair of startup founders. The job was only supposed to take a month, and he agreed to it on a handshake.

Four months later, the job still wasn’t finished, and my friend still wasn’t paid half of what he was owed. The founders were constantly changing their minds about what they wanted, sending my friend additional “specs” long after he had started the work. Eventually, realizing that he had already spent more time than it was worth, my friend wrote the project off, never collecting the rest of his fee. * Source