A great place to build a portfolio - Recensione dipendente - Designer presso Traction

Traction has employed some skilled designers in the past. All that I know of have moved on to bigger things, but they produced nice work while there.

Traction is a well-known design agency in the Lansing, MI area. I was excited to work with them when they contacted me for some contract web development jobs. After providing final files/code for two mid-sized jobs, I invoiced for the work to no response. After about a month, I contacted their accounting department to check on payment status. I was told that she couldn't pay the invoice at that time, but would as soon as possible. This was the trend for a couple months, until I finally received a message from the owner. He apologized for the lateness, and gave me a crash course on the complexity of small-business economics. Apparently, "Small business is all about cash-flow" and "...it seems simple, but it’s anything but." Valuable information, but not worth the cost of my services. He then assured me that money was on the way. At time of writing, it has been five months since that message, and ten months overall. The work I provided has been live and in use by their clients since fall of 2014. Bottom line: Traction was paid for the services I provided, and I was not. I would encourage anyone thinking about doing business with them to proceed with extreme caution. Their design awards and arrogance do not translate to proper business practices.