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Yesterday I had this crazy idea: People pay me $15, I make them a web design

designfor15bucks.com

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Re: Yesterday I had this crazy idea: People pay me $15, I make them a web design

#71

Post by Pyrodogg »

tibix wrote: post #64
Sukotto wrote: post #40

You allow me to put a screenshot of the design on this page; ($5 extra if you don't) You could reword that clause so your clients feel they're getting something valuable for their $5. Please note that I post all designs to my public portfolio and this website. If you need the design to stay secret, it only costs $5 more Or you could invert your pricing. So you start off as "designfor20bucks" and offer a $5 discount i…

I don't think the $5 makes a huge difference: and this way, the designer has more chance that people will allow him to post the design into his portfolio. I'm pretty sure he is not doing it for the money, but rather to get some experience and build up his portfolio.

$5 out of $15 is 33.3% and $5 out of $20 is 25%

I'd say thats fairly significant.

Re: Yesterday I had this crazy idea: People pay me $15, I make them a web design

#72

Post by crocowhile »

jonknee wrote: post #60
crocowhile wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is. I used that for several years. However I don't anymore because if you work alone or small groups I strongly suggest to use a regular gmail/google account and forward your @domain.com email there instead of using the gmail/app. Otherwise you will be always be running an outdated version of all gmail services and there is no real benefit really in having gmail handling your MX.

That requires you to maintain a mail server of your own and everything that comes with that. I prefer to have pagers go off at Google's HQ instead of mine when something happens. What features are you using in Gmail that I'm not getting in Google Apps? I have priority inbox and all the latest Labs experiments. I haven't heard of anything I'm missing.

As I said, I closed down my google apps account a few months ago because things were missing or they arrived later compared to the regular gmail, so I don't know what you may be missing right now.

Also, if you have an android phone you cannot buy apps if you sign in only with your apps account, you must use a regular account. That is a PITA, believe me.

Re: Yesterday I had this crazy idea: People pay me $15, I make them a web design

#73

Post by Benjo »

user24 wrote: post #57
hoop wrote: post #41

Hitchhiker: Think about it. You walk into a design store, you see designfor15bucks.com sittin' there, there's designfor14bucks.com right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man? Ted: I would go for the 14. Hitchhiker: Bingo, man, bingo. designfor14bucks.com. And we guarantee just as good a design as the designfor15bucks.com folk. Ted: You guarantee it? That's - how do you do that? Hitchhiker: If you're not happy…

but on the web, there is no street on which to see sites next to each other. I knew a jewellery company once which had two sites. One was all red and gold and stars and flashing things, the other was all purple and white and curvy things. The items on the purple posh looking one were 15% more expensive. Same products on each - heck, it was the same database, product description and images on each site! Point is, this…

Actually I think that street would be Google search results.

Re: Yesterday I had this crazy idea: People pay me $15, I make them a web design

#77

Post by rgoddard »

swombat wrote: post #3

Assuming it takes you at least 1-2 hours per design (and even with mad photoshop skillz it's unlikely it'd be much shorter than that), you're probably better off getting an office job somewhere, or even maybe a burger-flipping job. Given all the additional expenses of running your own business, this is probably not a viable business model (i.e. you will lose money on the whole). The only way this would be justified i…

Although given that this seems to be run as an experiment, so far it seems to be rather successful. Granted, in the long term it might not be sustainable, but for the short term it can provide a number of benefits. First of all the designer will be getting lots of practice and making a number of contacts while building up a good portfolio of examples. Also the low price makes it a low risk for anyone trying it out, so it is the type of experiment they can be tried with little cost and quickly.

I would find it interesting to see what the designer ends up doing as a result of this experiment.

Re: Yesterday I had this crazy idea: People pay me $15, I make them a web design

#78

Post by wh-uws »

crocowhile wrote: post #39
bry wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a free version of Google Apps: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html

There is. I used that for several years. However I don't anymore because if you work alone or small groups I strongly suggest to use a regular gmail/google account and forward your @domain.com email there instead of using the gmail/app. Otherwise you will be always be running an outdated version of all gmail services and there is no real benefit really in having gmail handling your MX.

The second part of your answer isn't correct anymore. Google recently (about September) migrated all of the apps emails to the wider gmail infrastructure

http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=182034

Re: Yesterday I had this crazy idea: People pay me $15, I make them a web design

#79

Post by symptic »

soren_dahl wrote: post #12
steveklabnik wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or portfolio building.

Please don't build a portfolio based on work you spent 2 hours or less on.

His portfolio should be relative to what he wants to do in the future. If he intends to do full-scale designing, then of course he should focus on getting that into his portfolio. But if he intends on doing quick, small design deals, this is perfect.

Time invested is not a measure of quality.

Re: Yesterday I had this crazy idea: People pay me $15, I make them a web design

#80

Post by Luyt »

findm wrote: post #19

If you're doing the designs yourself you're doing yourself a great disservice by charging so little. Often times most people assume they have an endless well of creativity in them but in actually its a feast and famine scenario. Assuming you want to do this full-time you will burn out eventually.

But he can stop at any time. He can even send back the money for unfinished jobs.
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