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"My budget is really tight, can you get the project started and show me what to do to finish it?" -- Yet another request from several different prospective customers.

"I just want a web site to do memberships, events, and e-commerce. How come you can't tell me how much it's going to cost? I just want to know the price, like when I buy a car."

I've long been a Bitcoin skeptic, not necessarily seeing the point of it. While I've kept passing tabs on its progress, I did not think it was viable, or worth much beyond pure speculative game play, a forum for making bets that today are up quite a lot.

Clients love fixed-price projects, because they have transferred the risk of the unknowns to the vendor. Even so, if the vendor cannot fully handle those risks, the entire project might fail.

Ask any contractor the most economical way to get a job done, and the answer will be "Time and materials." The reason? You are taking on all the project risk.

It goes something like this:

(Client): I want to add a shopping cart to my site. I heard that xyz cart is free, can you add that for me?

(Developer): Sure! That looks easy.

Whether you realize it or not, you're doing CRM already. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has become a hot buzzword that all kinds of businesses desperately want.

There's a little controversy in the Drupal world, a fork by Nathan Haug, aka QuickSketch. Last week he tweeted:

What are the results you are trying to achieve? How can your web site help you get those results? These are a couple of questions we're starting to ask all our clients, and what we're finding often reveals some very easy things we can do to drive more results, quickly and easily.

There's a few problems with setting up shop on the web. All of your competitors are right next door. You're in the worst neighborhood, with crooks inventing new tools to break in every day. That parking lot you just built now has to accommodate scooters and semi trucks.

1. EMBRACE YOUR INNER PESSIMIST...

This doesn't mean you can't be your usual, happy-go-lucky self! In fact, it's absolutely vital that you approach any project with a healthy 'yes we can' attitude.