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Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

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Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#191

Post by FatDrunknStupid »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #24
jason_pomerleau wrote: post #16

There is lots of opportunity out there, but it depends on what you mean by ‘small business’. Super small companies (under 10 to 15 people in this context) are usually best off with SquareSpace or Wix. Companies slightly larger than this invariably end up wanting/needing things that these platforms can’t offer, and have the kind of budgets that can support a solo operator or small team. At this level, you are competin…

+1 for pointing out that soft skills are as important as the technical aspects of what is mostly a small project consulting business. Self evaluation for soft business skills can be difficult but one (obvious) metric is how often do you get continued work from existing customers. I would also say that concentrating on helping current customers is usually a better strategy than constantly chasing new work.

Soft skills are actually MORE important. You have to get the gig first and at the end of the day there's a lot of people who get away with delivering code that works but should be on r/ProgrammingHorror.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#192

Post by mr_overalls »

I see a lot of people using Wix and Wordpress for this purpose, presumably because they've got so many ready-made components that can be "snapped" together. Is there any other stack - Python, .NET, etc. - that works as well for rapid web development like this?

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#193

Post by MrBra »

goatherders wrote: post #130
gremlinsinc wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whats your hourly? I'm more laravel/mobile/node/vue/react, and I find I under-charge, but I think if I were doing WP I'd need to charge even less... Currently my best-long-term client pays $40...but I feel I want/deserve 60-70 and trying to land that for my next couple clients... do people pay you more than $40/hr for wordpress or do you just charge per project?

You are grossly under charging. The first advice I give any dev is to up your rates by 25%. Period. You will not lose any clients. I promise. But $40 an hour for those skills is nuts. In the US WordPress providers typically charge $80 and I tell all of them - ALL - that they should be at at least $100/hour.

So how much will a finished WordPress website end up costing? Just considering 20 hours will make the website cost $2000, and after that work the client will usually ask for other features and little touches here and there. Are you sure that this is what you can ask for a smallish WordPress website? I've read many times that this segment is usually called the "$500 WordPress website" segment... I think that when you start going over $2000 people start expecting a custom built website with completely customizable design/structure/graphics... at least this is my impression regarding website market in Europe. Does anyone feel the same about it?

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#194

Post by goatherders »

MrBra wrote: post #193
goatherders wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are grossly under charging. The first advice I give any dev is to up your rates by 25%. Period. You will not lose any clients. I promise. But $40 an hour for those skills is nuts. In the US WordPress providers typically charge $80 and I tell all of them - ALL - that they should be at at least $100/hour.

So how much will a finished WordPress website end up costing? Just considering 20 hours will make the website cost $2000, and after that work the client will usually ask for other features and little touches here and there. Are you sure that this is what you can ask for a smallish WordPress website? I've read many times that this segment is usually called the "$500 WordPress website" segment... I think that when you…

There is a market that will pay 500 that I would stay away from unless you can also get ongoing revenue as well (hosting, support/updates, content creation, etc). There is also an segment that already knows "a few thousand" is the starting cost of a quality site.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#195

Post by wordpressdev »

goatherders wrote: post #144
wordpressdev wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you find clients? Can your mantra work from someone outside US trying to offer exceptional services? :)

Here's how we do it on the low end: - email a lot of business owners: "you're site could stand some help. Care for me to send some ideas?" - those that reply affirmatively, you send ideas and end with a CTA to schedule a call. - those that accept a call, you chat about their business and goals and how you might help - you now have a pipeline. My company targeting this kind of cold outreach can typically pull one or 2…

Good to know the old school way still works. Kudos.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#196

Post by CosmicShadow »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #135
davidscolgan wrote: post #95

I started out my career building these sorts of websites, making $3000 Wordpress custom themes. The secret sauce was my lead source who had super developed business sense and social skills, and went out and wined and dined clients and sold them these sites. He went on to build an agency and I was the first freelancer he hired. I'm pretty sure he was pitching wide reaching marketing and strategy help to these clients,…

I'm pretty frustrated lately, I've got one client and looking to replace them or at least fill my pipeline with higher paying ones and back burner the other client unless we can renegotiate rates (current is $40/hr -- all parties live in USA), I would kill for a $100/hr contract, but I have no clue how to land/pitch one. My primary stack: Laravel / Vue, though I've been playing with node (Feathers/express backends) a…

Dude, just don't charge hourly and don't do hourly work. Only charge by the project. Estimate how long it would take, times by $100-$200/hour, then set that as your fixed rate. Just make sure you estimate 2-3x the time you think it would take just in case.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#197

Post by lgregg »

jv22222 wrote: post #75
jason_pomerleau wrote: post #16

There is lots of opportunity out there, but it depends on what you mean by ‘small business’. Super small companies (under 10 to 15 people in this context) are usually best off with SquareSpace or Wix. Companies slightly larger than this invariably end up wanting/needing things that these platforms can’t offer, and have the kind of budgets that can support a solo operator or small team. At this level, you are competin…

> Beware though: success depends on more than just being able to build nice websites. You have to know how to sell yourself, manage customer expectations and a whole slew of soft skills to position yourself as a trusted advisor and expert. You need to understand your customers business, their challenges and pain points, how their customers think and behave, etc. Etc. Those skills are hard won. Sounds like you could c…

thefutur.com has a lot of content for designers selling services which can cross over into web design/dev.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#198

Post by sopooneo »

jv22222 wrote: post #75
jason_pomerleau wrote: post #16

There is lots of opportunity out there, but it depends on what you mean by ‘small business’. Super small companies (under 10 to 15 people in this context) are usually best off with SquareSpace or Wix. Companies slightly larger than this invariably end up wanting/needing things that these platforms can’t offer, and have the kind of budgets that can support a solo operator or small team. At this level, you are competin…

> Beware though: success depends on more than just being able to build nice websites. You have to know how to sell yourself, manage customer expectations and a whole slew of soft skills to position yourself as a trusted advisor and expert. You need to understand your customers business, their challenges and pain points, how their customers think and behave, etc. Etc. Those skills are hard won. Sounds like you could c…

I agree. Having started on the path to gaining those soft skills myself, I would now be more likely to pay solid money for a course on the topic. Hard won indeed.

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#199

Post by raihansaputra »

jason_pomerleau wrote: post #81
hanoz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If (I assume) your skills are on the coding and architecture side of things, how so you cope with the visual design side of things, for your "build me a web site" clients?

I do both, and I’m not actually super awesome at either. It turns out to be less important than many think. My design work is professional, but isn’t going to win any awards. My dev skills are pretty good within the context of WordPress - there isn’t much I haven’t done on that platform. But I’m pretty sure I’d be laughed out of the room at a Google or FB. I was a senior engineer at a BigCo but my role there was more…

If you're open to share, why did you decide to leave the leadership/PM role for freelancing?

Re: Ask HN: Is there any money in website design for small businesses anymore?

#200

Post by josefresco »

namanyayg wrote: post #101
josefresco wrote: post #88

Yes. I run a small, profitable web design and development business that serves small business. Biz owners who choose Wix/Squarespace are the very bottom of the market. We instead service those who have graduated beyond that level, who need more advanced solutions, and more importantly someone to do the work for them. We slot right in between DIY and a biz that has in house web team. Hilarious to read some comments he…

Are your clients local? Would you mind talking about the city you're located in?

95% are local, we live and operate about 1.75 hours from Boston.
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