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Howdy. This might read as a strange problem. Let me give some background.

I have a profile on Fiverr with gigs offering my services. I offer services that might be called "DevOps Engineering" or "Site Reliability Engineering", as well as software development patterns (see it here: https://www.fiverr.com/sellers/boldandbusted/). I've got over 20 years of experience (with scars and all), and it is hard to sift that experience and skillset into 'gigs' for this noob! 😅 But I'm doing my best.

I'm enjoying talking with some prospective clients, and already have a consulting hour paid for under my belt. 🎉 A client who I've been talking with over several months has had his development team working on an app that they want me to help build the infrastructure in Kubernetes for, and they want to wait to start an engagement with me until February. (It has been pushed back a month.) I have some questions for their application developer team about their process for testing their app (if any!), the dependencies of that app, and how they are presently deploying it (if anywhere!), with the idea that this information will be an input into my recommendations on building their infrastructure and my implementation of the recommendations I will make.

I'm having a quandary at this point: should I charge the client for this list of questions to be sent to their devs? To create this list implies that I will be calling on my experience and expertise to make it, and to interpret the answers (or ask more questions). Or, is this just how you "build trust" with the client? Mind you, I've already had an hour's paid video consultation. Making this list seems like work - it may take me an hour or two to make it and it will integrate what I already know about the client's stated intentions.

Yes, I know the better solution overall is to... have more than a handful of clients so I don't need to fret so much, but I'm just getting started, I feel. Any considered ideas and comments around this quandary are most welcome! Thank you, and Happy New Year! 🥳

 

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