Verify the GC license and insurance and ask them to provide a sample of Scope of Work for similar projects - structure your contract with the GC that the payments are contingent upon successful completion of milestones to be inspected by a third party such as a home inspector.Overall, it was not the most pleasant experience, I did a lot of mistakes for sure but I learned so much and I don't regret it.

You gotta start somewhere, so my first milestone is to replace my housing costs with passive income.So that's a bit of my what and why, but more importantly, how might I be valuable to the people with the knowledge I'm looking for?

For large projects (+40K), I have done contracts with 10% down upfront, then phased it out by milestones, paid the portion of the phase once is completed. 

Our team will work with you directly to create a tailored plan to help you reach the next milestone.

@Ming Lim Ha well I think my little success was a big personal milestone, but I still have a lot of learning and growth before I catch up to many of the other active investors around the BiggerPockets community!

Two open ended questions:  - Looking back how do you define the the major milestones along growth path?

Yay to us both for making it over the milestone!

Maybe even a weekly call to discuss checkpoints and milestones.

So it appears they are looking at certain mile-stones as to what they will accept when IE - looking at how close they are able to get to asking prices as it relates to DOM..... 

Also, we usually pay at the end of each day for small gigs and after milestones for larger projects, because some of them need to eat and that's all they have.