neerkumar

I started doing some consultant work in the bay area and I am shocked by how hard is to get companies to pay you at the end of the work. In my case, that means 50% of the total.

Many companies just stop replying and, even when I get the money, it often takes a significant amount of time (and stress).

Is there any good company that can take care of this? By for instance giving you X% of the money up front and then they take care of collecting the 100% and keep the delta. I tried to look into debt collection agencies but seems a very messy world totally unfamiliar to me.

To clarify: I often heard about building a great product and how that would lead to word-of-mouth advertising from your early customers. But in many cases, I feel customers are competing with each other and don't have any incentives in doing it. Say you are selling something to small restaurant owners and that actually drives sales up. I doubt they will go and tell other restaurant owners about that. And I feel this is actually a very common situation I never hear discussed.