How to protect the intellectual property with RapidMiner ?

lionelderkrikor

Dear all,


I will eventually work with a client who is very curious. He has a data sample but he refuses to entrust them to me so that I can work.
He absolutely wants to come to my house and see how I work for an afternoon, the goal being to create a first iteration of the model (an experimental model / POC).
My fear is that he will appropriate the know-how that I show him and that he will continue the project without me. My goal is of course, on the contrary, to work with him over the long term and to develop a model and ensure its maintenance over time as he collects new data.
Have you experimented such situation ? Can you give me some advice(s) ?
If I develop a model and then I deploy this model, is there a way to "lock" the RapidMiner process(es) to keep me essential and only master of the RapidMiner processes ?

Thanks you for your listening,

Regards,

Lionel

[Deleted User]

@lionelderkrikor

Hello

I had some situation like the one that you explained so I asked them to change the data state or if the data is with number(numeric) they can change the name of headers  then send them to me.( I mean that they should translate the data) or some times I say: this is a kind of private class so they should spend more for that. Also RM is open source.

best
mbs

sgenzer

oh I had this all the time when I was consulting. I see this differently...I was always happy if the client actually wanted to see how I did something. They often had the domain knowledge that I lacked. Sometimes you just have to give the client what s/he wants, not always what you want. If a client just wanted to "watch me work", that was cool with me. I call this tutoring. It was $250/hour. And that price comes with asking as many questions as you want. Otherwise we went into some kind of contract negotiations where I work for x months for a fixed price of $y with option to renew, etc.. That would include me teaching her/him what I'm doing (the price goes up if explanations are required - they're paying for more of your time).

[Deleted User]

@lionelderkrikor

Hello

1. First you should know if this is a big project for a company you should write a contract before working for them FREE.  

2. Before they come for free part of work you should ask them about all part of the project ( may be with learning to run a process free so after that they will not pay)   

3.You should ask them: why they want that you do free part of work for them?( this is very important) so if they only want to see an example of your work or understand that you are able to do their project you can show them your CV also the result of your previous works( only result not all process in your lap top) .  

 



All the best
mbs

sgenzer

hi @lionelderkrikor so of course I, like all consultants, had to invest some "free" time and energy into landing a client. This is standard and in essence is built into consultant pricing. It's the same costs as advertising, networking, and any other efforts to attract new clients. Companies do the same thing. I sometimes invested more than 10-20 hours building a PoC for a client because the upside was worth the effort. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. That's the nature of the beast. If you have a very hard line where you refuse to do anything "for free" before signing a contract, you will likely never get any clients. Remember that every prospect also knows other people; even though you may not land this client, s/he may help you get others.

The key here is to do some kind of mental calculus of how much time/effort to spend with a prospective client before a formal engagement is signed. It all depends on how much upside there is. If it was a very small fish, I would spend very little time (say 15-30 min) showing basic PoC or whatever. If it was a big fish, I spent a lot more time.

This isn't contradictory to what I was saying above. Just be straight with people. If they want to sit by your side and learn from you, charge by the hour. If they seem like they could be a big client, sure it's worth a couple of hours. It all depends.

Scott

hbajpai

@lionelderkrikor.   
I agree with @mbs that you have do some due diligence before you can offer free services. However, in my consulting experience, I have seen that customers initially tend to go for a free POC to validate the technology in their ecosystem. They have read and know about the pitfalls of Data Science and Machine Learning and are cautious in terms of spending $$$ unless they can visualize how these technologies can give them an ROI. Thus, a free session if meant to educate and mature the understanding of the customer in DS and ML projects could work for you and ease the sale at a later stage.

hughesfleming68

@lionelderkrikor, thank you for bringing this up. This is a very important topic. It would be great to be able to encrypt but still run a process.

regards,

Alex

lionelderkrikor

thanks for your answers @hughesflemings68, @mbs, @sgenzer ...

I forgot to mention something essential : the client want to do this afternoon session of work for FREE !!!!!!!!!! (he does not want to pay)

Scott, during your consultant experience, have you ever experimented to do a free session of work to win thereafter a strategic project ?
If yes, was (were) this (these) experience(s) successful ?

Thanks you for your listening,

Regards,

Lionel

lionelderkrikor

Hi,

@mbs, @sgenzer , @hbajpai ,first thanks you for your detailed answers. Your answers and the description of your experiences help me a lot and confirm my first intuition.
Moreover, I have the feeling that the project proposed by the client is particularly exciting...
So I will perform this session of work with him and i will do the maximum to build a first relevant model / POC with the data he will provide. Then we will see what happens...To be continued ....

Once again thanks you for sharing your experience,

Regards,

Lionel