Managing your project

Submit your requirements first

This is the step that decides how the project goes, and it is the one clients most often postpone. Straight after funding, give the expert what they actually need: the specifics, the access, the examples, the field names. There is a grace period of 7 days by default for this — it exists because an expert cannot be held to a deadline for work they were never briefed on.

• Access or credentials go through the workspace, never by email — and use least-privilege accounts you can revoke.
• Real examples beat descriptions. One sample record answers questions a paragraph cannot.
• Say which parts are fixed and which are the expert’s call. Experts are usually happy to decide; they just need to know they are allowed to.

The milestone cycle

• Each milestone has its own scope and its own portion of the payment.
• The expert submits it for review when it is ready, with deliverables attached.
• You approve — releasing that portion of escrow — or request a revision with specific notes.
• Approval is per milestone. The rest of the money stays held.

What the workspace is for

The project workspace holds the messages, files, deliverables, requirements, time logs on hourly contracts, and the activity timeline. It is not just convenience: it is the record a dispute is decided on. Anything agreed outside it effectively did not happen, because nobody neutral can see it.

• Messages and file sharing, timestamped.
• Deliverables, so there is no argument about what was sent and when.
• Time logs you can review on hourly contracts.
• An activity timeline of every state change on the project.