This Sounds Suspiciously Like Work

“We’d love to have you advise our start-up” said the supposedly well-heeled investor from Europe. “Maybe you could jump on a call for a couple of hours, two or three times a week.” He said.

“The start-up has these stand-ups at 9AM each day and it’d be super helpful to have you in on those too.”

Remember this is a European start-up, so about 2AM my time. I had hardly gotten a word in edge ways.

“You think you could do a review of the code too? And fix some of the bugs you find there? Work some of that magic and make it go faster?”

Me: “I thought you were just looking for a 15 minute call and some free advice. This sounds like work. I can introduce you to my agent and he can negotiate a pay rate.”

Investor: “We’re just looking for advice. We don’t pay for people to just be an advisor. We’ve found it to be a waste of money.”

At which point I impolitely hung up.