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?"

Comments

Portfolio

[gmhowell]

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.

One thing I do everytime...

[Captain Splendid]

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.

Actual advice?

[annielaurie]

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