Small Print-Issue 1: The conversation that started all of this
Louise Onikoyi, Founder, BeforeYouSign
I want to tell you about a conversation I have had more times than I can count.
Someone, usually a freelancer or a small founder, comes to me after something has gone wrong. The project has dragged on for six months. The client has not paid. The work is done but the invoice is sitting there, unpaid, and they do not know what to do next.
The first thing I ask is: what does your contract say? And the answer, more often than not, is one of three things.
"I do not have a contract." Or: "I used a template I found online." Or: "I signed theirs. I did not read it properly."
That last one is the one that matters most.
The document you did not read is running your business
Here is what I want you to understand. When you sign a contract, even one you barely looked at, even one that seemed like a formality, you are agreeing to a set of rules. Those rules govern when you get paid, what happens if the project changes, who owns the work when it is done, and what you are liable for if something breaks.
You are not just agreeing to do the work. You are agreeing to the terms under which the relationship ends.
Most people do not think about that when they sign. They think about the project. The fee. The start date. They think everything will go fine.
Sometimes it does. But when it does not, the contract is the only thing standing between you and a very expensive problem.
What commercial clarity actually means
I did not start BeforeYouSign to turn freelancers into lawyers. I started it because the information in your contract, the commercial reality of what you are agreeing to, should not be locked away behind £300-an-hour professional fees. When you read a contract with commercial clarity, you are not looking for obscure legal categories. You are asking four questions:
When do I actually get paid, and what triggers that?
What happens to the scope of this project, and who decides?
What am I on the hook for if something goes wrong?
Who owns the work?
Those questions have answers. They are in the document. BYS finds them and tells you what they mean in plain terms.
What I want this newsletter to be
Every month, I will take one situation, one clause, one commercial risk that I see freelancers and founders walking into without realising. I will tell you what it is, what it costs, and what good looks like. Not to scare you. To make you stronger. You just need the information. That is what this newsletter is for. If you have a contract sitting in your inbox right now and you are not sure what it says, do not sign it until you know. Upload it at [beforeyousign.uk](https://beforeyousign.uk) and find out in minutes.
Welcome to Small Print.
Louise