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Any Advice for Starting a Web Design Business?
stizoked asks: "Although we both have full time jobs, my wife and I have been doing a little web design/development on the side for some extra cash. Since we've started, we've built up a nice little client list, one big enough for us to consider getting a little more serious about pursuing it as a business. Does anyone have any advice or experience that we can use to dodge young and stupid mistakes? Any advice on some open source project management software or other software that makes running a small business a little easier?"
Any Advice for Starting a Web Design Business?
yeah... dont !!
It's tough in the beginning. Heck, it's tough still.
;-)
To manage the projects I use a combination of Quicken and www.tutos.org.
Tutos allow you clients to login and view the progress your are making on their website.
A bonus for us is that we are also a small webhost so we provide the domain, the hosting, and the website all in one package. Most of our clients feel much better knowing they only deal with one team.
Here are some tips:
1) Get incorporated. I can't stress this enough!
2) Get insurance. You like your house right?
3) Give estimates first with a deadline. Without a deadline you will be in maintenance mode forever.
4) If things get too busy, you can always count on me to help you out
www.TTSIweb.com
Good luck!
Frank
This
Not about the technical or design parts of it, but about the Business parts of it. Assuming you are in the USA look up the Small Business Administration (www.sba.gov?) and go threw everything they have.
Another great resource is SCORE, which is the service corp of retired executives. My Grandfather used to work with them before he got too old. Its a lot of older folks who would love a chance to mentor someone young.
Oh and find a decent accountant.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Develop your portfolio. Do some pages for your church, a favorite local charity, a group like the Lion's Club, or some club you are a member of. Do lots of them. Include links to your own company's page. Oh, and while you are at church/lion's club/etc., make sure that you say "Oh, and if I'm going to do this for the church, what can I do for you?" It's called networking.
Others suggested getting a corp right away. I actually would suggest that it's a bit premature at this stage. If you get into stuff with DB backends with client/customer data, then it makes sense. If you are doing puffery advertising type pages for local groups and businesses, hold off on the expense for a little while until you see if it is worth it.
What is preventing you from holding down your regular job as well as your new design jobs? Plenty of people who start new businesses wisely wind up working two full time jobs until the new business can support you. Or, segue into it. You work both, but your wife leaves her regular job to focus full time on the web work.
It's a rough environment to enter feet first these days. Anyone with a cracked copy of FrontPage fancies himself a web designer.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Get a deposit! Many a time have I spent putting together proposals, drafts, or even finished projects only to have the client do one of the following: Die, disappear, decide not to pay, or emigrate to China.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
...is to give business. Look for opportunities refer business to your clients or anyone else. If you have a chance to bid on a large contract, consider subcontracting or partnering for the services that are outside your core skills. (I generally do this with the graphic design work when I have a web site contract.)
I've gotten some excellent referals from people and business who have received referals from me in the past, including one relationship that ultimately led to six figures in follow-on contracts.
I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve. BB
It seems like everyone else is doing it.
-- ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space!
As other's have said. Don't. It's a losing proposition.
However, if you do persist in the notion that web design is a profitable small business, some points to consider.
First, always always always get the requirements in writing and have the customer sign off on them. When the customer changes their mind 75% through the project (which they always will) you can then legitimatly charge them more.
Second, charge what you're worth. Remember when doing charge sheets that unpaid documentation/beancounting will take up 40% or more of your time, have your prices reflect that.
Third, learn php and SQL. Webdev these days is generally not about static pages. If you can design your own implmentations of some of the more common applications, you can roll out projects and get a much higher return on your time. Prefabbed components are worth investing and coding in.
Mock up the entire website in pencil, and when you're showing it to the client, let the client "interact" with the environment.
In essence, don't do web design. It takes too much time, your customers take forever to pay, and it's not worth the aggrivation of keeping up with the various standards.
here... my 0.02 cents.
I propose that we incorporate a small piece of East Austin (cheap land) as "India, Texas." One block could be India, the next block could be Ukraine, maybe a few towns named after cities over there like New Deli.
Then we could form a couple of consultancies, with guys named Bob like in that movies where they steal the fractions of a penny, you know the one with the stapler dude, and we could go into IBM and the other big corporations and tell them we will outsource their shiznit to "India" and "Russia" for real cheap !
With out of work programmers will to work for $15/hr around town now, and with those programmers being several times as productive as what they get in the real India for $6/hr, we should be able to scrape by. I have a friend who can talk just like that Apu guy on the Simpson's when he's drunk, so we can have him stay up late and do all the customer calls.
We'll be out-netbacking the netbacks !
What do you guys think ?
Get new clients
Sounds to me like you already have a business. I think that the most important thing is getting the word out. Since you already have a client list, you have a great start -- you have people who you have done work for in your community who can help you. I would suggest calling each and every one and letting them know that you are trying to turn this into a full time business. Ask them if they know of anyone who they know might be looking for web design.
Keep your existing clients.
Set up a quick php/mysql database or out look contact list with notes about each or your clients and the last time that they had work done.Set up an email to remind you three months from the last time you spoke to them, and give them a call. Tell them that you are just checking up, and seeing if they needed any updates to the site, etc. Make sure that you keep notes on the conversation that you have, so you can refer to the last conversation: "Oh, I tried that resturant that you reccomended, you were right, we love it." or "So how are those classes going?"
Advertise
It's expensive to get a full page advertisement in the local paper, but it might be worth it. It's not the only way, though: You can drive around and drop off mailers at small businesses, or offer to do a free seminar on how to use the internet to help your small business at the library or chamber of commerce or SBA, etc. It gets your name out and establishes you as a local "expert"
From what I understand, this is a very hard business to be in, with lots and lots of competition. You can do it, but your best product is your customer service and your best friend is word of mouth. Things like birthday cards help you stand out. Try as hard as possible to never to let anyone leave dissapointed with your service, or product: angry people talk a lot more that people who are satisfied, and it doesn't matter if they were wrong when they tell someone you "ripped them off", the person you told isn't going to take the chance.
good luck!RandomAndInteresting.comdefending the world from stupidity since 1979
d00d. n0 w0nd3r UR k4r/\/\4 sux0rz! U p0s7 l1k3 4 l4m3r.
Also, HOST! Once you've developed the site, that money's set, but if you also offer hosting (get a reseller hosting account somewhere), then you get that monthly check. The more you do, the more you get. A nice sideline that most webdev businesses forget, so the business goes elsewhere. Why send all of that money to someone else?
is not your friend. Ever.
Ferrari and other exotic car rentals in New York
Never say "no" to business, unless it just isn't something you do or you are uncomfortable with the character/solvency of the customer.
Instead, say "yes" with a price that makes it profitable. "Yes" may include the cost to farm it out to someone, too. This assumes you've made careful notes during discovery so you're quoting accurately on the scope of the project. And keep a list of those prospects who say no to your quote! As long as you've dealt with them in a fair and upfront manner, they're still potential customers.
Ask some other questions of the business customers, too. What's their industry? Who is their competition? How do they make their money?
A former boss once said "you have to make it hurt just a little bit, or the customer doesn't believe they're getting something of value." Not only is he right, he's still in the business of providing sitebuilding at a profitable level. I can't argue with that.
Amateurs discuss tactics. Professionals discuss logistics.
1) Learn everything you can
2) Make no assumptions
3) Stick with a standard
4) Offer alternatives
For 1, people will make weird requests ("You want the frobnitz gonkulator feature?") because they saw a four-colored glossy on it, so it is obviously a good thing. You want to know it at least on the surface so, if necessary, you can give an intelligent answer as to why the frobnitz gonkulator drop-in is a Bad Idea.
One common mistake I see people making fairly frequently is the assumption that everyone who views the site will be using Internet Explorer. Like I sez in 2, assume nothing - it's a universally bad idea to make assumptions. Remember what "assume" stands for, kids? It's why you have a few sites to this day that only come up if you identify yourself as MSIE.
As for standards and alternatives, it comes back around to one thing - what can most people use, and is an alternative feasible? Can you do a text-only page for textmode browsers/blind browsers/low-bandwidth/etc? Is that 2 MB flash animation really that necessary?
Back to assumptions. Don't assume anything on your finances. Like another user said, offer hosting as well.
This sig no verb.
I am a freelance editor and it briefly looked like one of my clients wanted me to incorporate rather than work as an independent contractor. Fortunately, they ended up deciding not to make me switch -- fortunately, because as far as I could tell incorporating would be nothing but hassle. My bookkeeping would get a *lot* more conplicated, and my taxes would go up (since I would no longer get to deduct half of my self-employment tax from my taxable income). So, I would really like to know what the advantges of incorporation are for people like me (and presumably the orginal poster). For a home-based, computer-based business, you're not going to be going into debt to fund anything, so what exactly are you being protected from?
jf
Seriously. Accessibility is the next big thing, and the design practices that result (cleaner code, even if it lacks semantics), are worth it in the long run, especially for maintanence.
A basic overview
Designing With Web Standards
_scope creep_ read as much as possible on this phenomena that put many a web shop out of business.
pretzel_logic
I agree that the market for standard web design is highly saturated but there are some things that have helped me as a freelance web designer:
1. Read a lot. Find out what is good and bad about the web. Use xhtml and avoid javascript and flash. Don't use frontpage (or dreamweaver)!
2. Be a Pro. Take graphic design (or hire a designer). Make you web pages look professional and user-friendly.
3. Become a web application programmer. Use PHP, sql, ASP, etc... and learn to write dynamic, remotely administered pages.
4. Don't over charge. Every client is a walking talking ad. Leave them happy.
5. Keep it simple. Don't get over your head and NEVER take a job with the intention of learning the required skills.
Good luck. There IS money to be made. Just not a lot.
I cannot stress the value of good contracts! A good starting point is http://www.proposalkit.com/ that has excellent boilerplate proposals and contracts. Think of the professional image you give with a 5-8 page proposal and a legal binding contract. It will seperate you from the amatuers out there that dont know anything beyond dreamweaver and give single page proposals. It displays professionalism and forethought, both of which are vitally important to your potential customers and safeguards you from a major fall.
Boredom's not a burden anyone should bear.
1. The market IS saturated at the moment, as there are still a bunch of .com refugees out there willing to write html for food.
2. Most medium to large companies want big solutions: they want document management systems, corporate identity stuff, you name it. Unless you have experience with that stuff and a staff of 5 or more, you probably won't get those clients.
3. Most small companies really can't afford a serious web site design. I've had a bunch of clients bug out on me when they saw the estimate. And I'm not overcharging; I'm charging medium-low in the range. But the sites they want are bigger than they can afford.
4. With a small company, you'll end up becoming their main tech support person. With a big company, you'll be nickeled and dimed to death.
5. There is simply no way to do it the right way and please a customer. The customer wants it to use every fancy new feature of flash and IE. You'll wind up wanting out after 2 jobs.
At least, those are my experiences. I don't do it anymore.
"As far as competing with the "whole world," we are currently, and plan to keep, serving a couple of specialized, niche business areas, capitalizing on grassroots advertising. We feel that this is a way of limiting the competition somewhat."
How about packaging a "solution" that you can turn around and sell to others, who will deal with the actual customers, aka franchise? Doesn't bring as much money in piece-wise. But it does scale, and takes some of the pressure off of you.
Remember the way to richs is the OP (Other People's)...[money, time, effort, etc] method.
1. Buy a Time Machine on ebay 2. Go back to 1999 3. Make off like a bandit!!!
Liberty.
1) Don't.
2) If you really feel you must, work out a coherent, intelligent business plan--one you can take to the bank if necessary to borrow money against. That means 1, 2, and 3 year projections, profit and loss statements, capital and other expenses. Be serious about it. Pay yourself a salary. Know precisely what your monthly living expenses are and how much you need to earn toward them.
3) Be sure that business plan includes (a) an exhaustive study of your target market; and (b) some realistic projections about how you're going to reach that market. Your list of contacts may be the best in the world, but you'll starve if you rely on referrals.
4) How/why should people find and pick you rather than one of the bazillion and one other Web designers out there?
5) Where did you attend art/design school? Know anything about color theory? The color wheel? How color is perceived by a human viewing a monitor vs. a human viewing an actual sunset? How about navigation? Typography and typefaces? Accessibility? Web standards? Any background in fine arts? Advertising? Marketing? How about computers themselves? Networks? ISP's, hosts, e-mail? How does a moitor work? How does HTTP (vs HTML) work? Do you have concrete resources for getting to the information you don't know?
Best to know the answers to all this and more. People who pick up a mouse and a copy of Frontpage make truly unfortunate websites.
I'd have to say that if you haven't puzzled your way through all of this and a whole lot more, you're probably getting ready to waste a great deal of time and money.
I've actually had my business for almost three years, and I earn enough money to contribute my half to a two-income household--most months. I didn't thrive until I did my business plan. I know precisely how much work I need to do each month to survive, and I know how much selling and marketing I need to do to gain that work.
I hope this doesn't sound too grouchy. It is realistic.
Anne
DUCT TAPE: The Election Supervisors' Secret Weapon
Go back in time about 10 years.
Nowadays I fear that large companies will require snazzy flashy "professional" sites that will require more than 2 people's spare time to create. And if you're not doing web design for those companies, just do it in your spare time as extra cash, not as a company.
I was going to post EXACTLY the same reply. The landscape is covered with the decaying remains of many others.
If you do want to continue, find a niche, a niche that no one has thought of (unlike Real Estate, which everyone has thought of). Maybe plumbers. Maybe sanitation engineers. It's a very competitive business, and no one could fault you for failure in this market (unless you're like Razorfish or Sapient or Verbindand just blow superbucks on luxury accomodations, then you're just retarded).
Mistake #1: Making things Windows I.E. only. Sure its easy just to validate for the most popular browser, but your shutting anywhere from 3%-10% of your customer's customer base out. What would your boss say if you said "I have this great idea, first we tell 3-10% of our customer's to take a hike..."
We did what you're doing. The highs are better than you could imagine, the lows much, much worse. You can avoid a lot of the latter by thinking ahead (which it sounds like you're doing, so you're one up on nearly everyone else).
We took slightly less than half that advice, and we recently celebrated two years on our own. It would have been a lot less stressful if we'd done all of the above. Dogged persistance and being good at what you do will get you a long way, but dogged persistance stops being fun quickly.
Finally, good luck! Despite all the posters telling you not to do it, despite me telling you that you'll work and suffer for years before seeing the big financial payoff, if ever, it's a huge adventure. There's no feeling like knowing you're the one making the decisions, you're the one deciding what the right way to do things is, and knowing that you're the one that will reap the rewards if you pull it off.
This is the voice of World Control. I bring you Peace.
Yeah, Flash SUCKS! Also, provide text-based alternatives for people using Lynx.
- People that have a website with another company and want to go with someone cheaper and more responsive. These are a major hassle. We call them hostage situations because what you usually find is the that old company has the domain registered in their name and they're not hot to give it up. You end up spending hours and hours fighting registrars to get the domain or trying to convince the customer to change urls. If you do go for this business, find a helpful registrar to fight for you.
- People that have no idea what they want on a website. That's why they don't already have one. They also have little idea what it should cost. This sounds good, right? But they often know a nephew that can build them a crappy site for free, so they expect you to be slightly more expensive than that. Much more than $500 and they'll just keep waiting.
- Customers that want a very complex site. This sounds good, but you can easily get in over your head, or much worse, agree to something that just isn't going to work. They often have grand plans that involve using data or a service available somewhere else, usually violating the rights they have to the data or service.
- People that want to start a new company. 95% of these will die before a real launch, leaving you with unpaid account receivables.
The best customers we've found are churchs, realtors, friends with existing businesses and no sites, and non-profit organizations with budgets. We often barter with small companies and that works great. Some realtors' companies have a set budget for web sites and you can milk those.Find a profitable place to host accounts. Don't try to host them yourself. You'll hate the work. Go somewhere like Hurricane Electric or ValueWeb and let them do the majority of the work while you collect $5/month or less on the accounts. You'll be milking those accounts for several years without touching them.
Part of my business is web design, but that's really an offshoot from doing print and video design work. Here's my advice:
1) Don't
2) Look for clients that got ripped off for a site 5-10 years ago, they paid $50k for some junk, so they think $30k for something good is a bargain.
3) Everyone and their dog can write html, so you need a speciality. Incorportating bits of Flash where it is actually beneficial is my trick, you need to find your trick.
4) People are inclined to buy their headed paper, business cards etc from the same source as they get their website. You can get business put your way (and pass on business for a mark-up) by forming close relationships with local printers/copy shops.
5) See all those people saying Don't? Listen to them!
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
If you are going to be successful at web design, you have to have something that makes you stand out from the rest. I know of many people that have tried to startup web design companies, but have failed miserably. Most of the reason for this is that they have absolutely no skill, and expect to create a $500 website using the most advanced of tools (ala Microsoft Word and occasionally Frontpage).
... It is best if you ignore that last step.
If you plan on starting a business, first perfect your skills until you are sure that you can actually COMPETE. If you wish to design web pages, I highly suggest you (create/purchase/steal) some sort of nice administration/templation system that will allow:
(1) You to easily make site-wide changes without editing every single file.
(2) Allow your customer to easily edit pages
(3) Allow hackers to easily deface your site
Erm
But, seriously, if you wish to start a company, wait until you believe that you have a service that stands out. Get a nice, easy-to-remember company name, and then start creating services that people can use freely, and just have little links to your site, to draw people to it. An example of this might be a free e-mail service, clip-art gallery, or some other service that might draw users to your site. Even a simple informational site that you create to help people, and to draw attention to yourself. This is not necessary, but in the long run, will give your site much more attention.
Hope this helps
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Orppf urp mf y.ppcxn. yflcbi otcnnov C am yflcbi yr n.apb Ekrpatv (Dvorak -> Qwerty)
Suggest you version everything you do--everything. Every page, every object, every database schema, every java class, every graphic.. all of it.
CVS is good and free.. Perforce is a pro tool for a reasonable price.. etc.
You'll thank me later, even though you'll curse me for putting you through the initial learning curve. You'll be able to track who did what, where, when, and (hopefully) why. You'll be able to roll-back changes you made simply by clicking a button and typing in a date. You'll be able to make incremental changes to a live website without bringing everything online all at once (and watching everything break.)
Plus you'll be able to prove you did the work, when you did the work, and how much work you did in all its gory detail.
Trust me, if you ignore all the other crappy advice in this thread, don't ignore your versioning.
Incorporating a small corporation that is all owned "in the family" is fairly easy (at least in my part of the world, BC, Canada). You can probably do it yourself with an inexpensive "How to Incorporate" type booklet + package from Staples or Office Depot.
... safely.
Since it's all in the family, you don't need to get a lawyer to teach you about dispute resolution, director selection, etc. Besides, if in the future your company grows, you can rewrite the rules of your company (and pay the associated lawyer fees) later.
Incorporating early will give you (some) liability protection. So do it. Who knows what kind of nonsense will happen with your first client!
Yeah, taxes will be extra work. But the flip side is that you can write off expenses a little more
"Web design is deader than MS Word skills. It is deader than putting MSDOS 4.2 on your resume. HTML is so easy, there are too many high school kids who can code in W3-standard HTML + PHP + CSS + Javascript, which is getting out of web design already."
I should point out that while many may have the technical skills ("MS Word skills"). Few have the "other" skills required to make a good web site.
Does knowing how to use a word processor, make one as gifted a some of our present authors? Does knowing HTML+PHP+CSS+Javascript mean that your web site is well done, pleasing to the eye, and functional?
When I did that sort of work, I used to run into people who have no idea what they want on a web site all the time. My solution was to have them give me all their printed literature and have them sort through it. Then as a prerequisited to starting, I'd have them deliver it in electronic form.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.