Devellopment quotation

[Marinus]

I am doing different electronic devellopments. The question I have is, When it comes to quoting a client.

1) For me to quote a client I must tell him/her that the design will work.
2) This means I must do designs or tests before the quotation, to let the client know that the idea is possible to create.
3) This means I will put in time in a project before I get paid.

How do I deal with this, how much time do I spent in this phase and how do I decide if its reasonable to spend time here.

Any people with experience, please help me on this one.

Marinus

[ltressel]

Marinus,

If you are a good electronic engineer ( just assuming that this is your line of work), you will determine straight off the bat that it is possible based on other similar projects that have been successfully produced.

Now on the other hand if this is a non-existent product and it would need further tests and research you can ask for money for that. This is a possibility. There might be contracts to be signed like confidentialities, letter of intents and such. I am not very versed on the legalities but some people here maybe able to help.

I hope this helps.

LT

[AstarothSolutions]

You can either charge a "proof of concept" fee after which there is no commitment to go on to develop the full product or alternatively simply factor in this initial prework in the bids that you make taking into account that you will only win x% of business that you are going after.

I am with LT on the case that you should have a very good idea from the outset if something is doable or not and it should be the minority of cases where checking doability is necessary.