[singleauroa]

Thank you so much for the great insight! Good advice as well with the only hire on a contract basis. Thought of that as well. Yea it did sound like they would pay me upfront.

I just don't have any idea what the condition of the contract will be and where I have to be very cautious... The source code thing is great advice.

The charging on an hourly rate sounds interesting and new to me.

Also, this is not the first time I have read that multi-b companies screw over small rising startups. Sounds horrible but as you said – nothing to do about it.

[prirun]

I read their contract carefully but didn't have a lawyer review it. My experience with lawyers is that most are expensive but not that great. I've had one really good lawyer out of 5-6 that were pretty sloppy with details, like putting together corporate formation papers with some other customer's personal info.

You can negotiate terms that are important to you on a contract. Start with the most important changes you want to make, because at some point they may get impatient and just say "Okay, now we need you to sign this", because they will get sick of having to deal with their own legal department.

For example, there was a clause in my contract about indemnifying them. Guess what - I was not in a position to indemnify IBM if Ford decides to sue them because of my work. So yeah, stuff like that I had struck from the contract. If they had said I had to agree to it, I probably would have stuck to my guns and said no, because it was so absurd. Another option would be to get umbrella insurance, but I was too dumb to know that then (I was 29).

I think a key thing is that you understand the contract. If you don't understand something, ask them and/or do some research or hire some legal help until you are comfortable with it. At some point, you either trust them or don't, because in the end, they have all the money and power and you are at their mercy. Keep that in mind.