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Unpopular question: how much work should you do before someone pays you?
Half of this platform will tell you never work for free. Spec work devalues everyone, and the clients who ask for it never respect you.
The other half quietly does the work first anyway. They send the redesigned homepage, the mockup nobody asked for, the edited photo. And it lands, because showing is faster than arguing.
I've started doing the second thing. Build a small version, send it, no strings attached. It feels wrong every single time I hit send.
I genuinely don't know if I'm being smart or training people to expect free work.
Where's your line? Is it the size of the thing, who's asking, or do you just never do it?
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Thanks for the tips Natalia
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