One of the toughest things to do is to fire a client. Sometimes a particular client may pay their bills, but they may cause all sorts of havoc for your startup. We have been unsuccessful at purposefully firing clients. I am not sure if our decision-making has been right or wrong, but these are some of the issues that have arisen with clients we have contemplated firing:
- They are mean. They treat our people with disrespect.
- The work is overly boring, uninteresting, and not exciting for our people. The work is not enriching.
- They are overly cheap.
- They are dishonest, not true to their word, or bad at communication.
We have run into all of those types of clients. A few times we have found clients that exhibit most of the above factors.
Yet it is hard to fire clients. It is sometimes easier to put up with the headache and keep the revenue. I don’t know what the right answer is for startups.
Where do you draw the line on firing clients?
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