[navalsaini]

I freelance with a lot of startups. I remember times when it did not work out well for people who hired me and I assume that they regretted hiring me. The problems were as follows :-

1. They had very vague requirements and they overcomplicated their MVPs. I had to charge them by the hour and because the requirements would change, their costs went up. It was quite difficult for them and I could not really do much - because they underestimated the development effort it takes and were overtly confident of their product market fit.

2. The other being that they were single business cofounders and overvalued what they brought to the table. Thus they were not able to get onboard tech cofounders quite soon.

This is from a very startup perspective where many times founders are very passionate and too optimistic about what they are building.

I think a good way to handle such situations for a developer is to mentor them early on and built trust with them; so that they let you help them simplify their MVP goals.

Also I think for the hirer, building trust with a developer who has the understanding of the product would be great. As a hirer, if you can gauze that s/he is truly curious about the product - would be good. You cannot expect them to buy into it; and it is more likely that they will have a lot of doubts about the product offering initially. It could take a while for a developer to buy into the offerings of a product vis/vis the risks involved.