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I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

idiallo.com

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Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#401

My parents had been running their own tailor shop in the 80's, barely making ends meet, pulling in less than $20K a year. It wasn't for lack of business, father was a master tailor trained in Italy and capable of elite bespoke craftsmanship. They had as much business as they could handle. The problem was that they were charging what they thought the work was worth rather than what their customers were willing to pay.…

It is a rule of thumb in any client or contact work that the less you are charging them, the more difficult and demanding the customer will be.

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a classic example of a Veblen good [1]. "Veblen goods are types of luxury goods for which the quantity demanded increases as the price increases, an apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve. Some goods become more desirable because of their high prices." The suits are expensive, so they must be good. It's also a status signal to others that you can afford such g…

As the Director of Technology at a non-profit organization, how am I supposed to staff software engineering resources when these pricing practices like these are commonplace in the for-profit world? How am I supposed to make an argument to the board that a single technology staff member, let alone a working team, is 5x-10x more valuable than the rest of the workforce? I'm going to admit it - it's hard to see stuff li…

My sister works for a non-profit, and we've discussed tech projects there a few times. I think the issue from a business perspective is on the demand side of things. The problem is that the market rate is set by the companies that are in a position to pay it. Everyone else has no say, they're just shut out. You're competing for staff with startups and enterprises that are capturing enormous value.

There's no easy solution, in market terms at least. Maybe you get lucky and catch someone who doesn't need the money and thinks your cause is good enough to put effort towards, but that's not reliable. I wish I had a better answer. Upskilling someone else is potentially viable, depending on what exactly you need. The problem is that things such as static sites and basic sysadmin stuff that are (relatively) easy to skill up in, are also quite cheap in the marketplace for that exact reason. So I'm guessing that's not exactly what you're talking about.

There's quite a bit of effort these days towards upskilling people into more web app developer roles. Lots of bootcamp graduates and a few self taughts floating around. And in my last hiring exercise I found there's quite a large pool (in my area, ymmv) of devs looking for their first real FE/BE job. There's probably some real good value there but the trick is in sifting through the mud. The quality varies wildly, and some of it is shocking. You could get lucky though. I think the go is university graduates, but I hear a lot about grads in the US going straight into high-ish paying jobs so that may be area-specific advice. I was on $45k my first job out, which I thought was fair at the time. But now that I understand the market better and can see just how sub-par a lot of the work out there is, it's obvious that that was a bargain.

The other problem with that is that you're at a big disadvantage when building a team from scratch. A lot of the new devs coming in that will accept lower wages will turn out to be great coders and deliver great value, but a much smaller subset is going to be able to do that on their own with no guidance. That's part of the reason I suggest looking for graduates. I know it's an unpopular opinion here but I think a strong theoretical understanding of software development will help a self-starter more than the equivalent practical knowledge, since without a lot of mentorship they're going to get much more of the practical side from working for you. My first job was straight in the deep end, full responsibility for everything and very little help (one back-end dev who was in the same position with only a tiny bit more experience). I'm super greatful for it, and I think it made me a far better dev than I would have been if I went with a different (bigger) company. Maybe that could be a selling point?

tl;dr if you can't compete with the market then you need an edge that gives you more value than you'd otherwise get. That means people that aren't in it for the money (needle in a haystack, as I'm sure you know, given your position), and people that will rapidly (and successfully) upskill above what the market expects.

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any examples?

I was shopping for flights last Christmas and got price X on every site. I started checking out and the price became X+50. I got angry and left and came back later to find the price, on all sites, was X+80. Since I had no choice but to travel I paid X+80. Then for kicks and self torture I checked the price on my Android phone and it was still around X.

Jacking up prices when revisiting the site from the same browser is a separate thing. It’s there to encourage you to buy ASAP as prices appear to be increasing rapidly.

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a classic example of a Veblen good [1]. "Veblen goods are types of luxury goods for which the quantity demanded increases as the price increases, an apparent contradiction of the law of demand, resulting in an upward-sloping demand curve. Some goods become more desirable because of their high prices." The suits are expensive, so they must be good. It's also a status signal to others that you can afford such g…

As the Director of Technology at a non-profit organization, how am I supposed to staff software engineering resources when these pricing practices like these are commonplace in the for-profit world? How am I supposed to make an argument to the board that a single technology staff member, let alone a working team, is 5x-10x more valuable than the rest of the workforce? I'm going to admit it - it's hard to see stuff li…

Have you heard of freecodecamp? The idea is for non-profits to work with currently self-teaching devs.

Non-profits get free labor and the devs get real world experience.

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#405
post #391

My parents had been running their own tailor shop in the 80's, barely making ends meet, pulling in less than $20K a year. It wasn't for lack of business, father was a master tailor trained in Italy and capable of elite bespoke craftsmanship. They had as much business as they could handle. The problem was that they were charging what they thought the work was worth rather than what their customers were willing to pay.…

One day randomly in the 80s IIRC, Rolex tripled their prices, and they haven't lowered them since. The same watch cost three times as much at retail one day than it did the day prior.

According to ABlogToWatch, you're completely incorrect.

https://www.ablogtowatch.com/rolex-prices-past-60-years-reve...

It's a pretty stable increase, and adjusting for inflation it's actually a fairly low increase for a product that has improved over time.

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#406
Years ago a company similarly contacted me for some "emergency" tasks. I flied all the way to Japan and realise they haven't got the tasks ready, more than half of the time I wasn't doing anything. I honestly (stupidly?) charged them with my actual working hours, they seems surprised. A lesson learnt and the next time it'll be a different story.

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#408

The author basically just had a job for a while. They aren't charging 18K for a web page, they're charging 18K to commute/be there for 7 weeks. A lot of big companies aren't paying for output, they're paying for butts in seats. Why they do this has been discussed somewhat already in these comments.

Yeah this doesn't seem like such a great deal when you consider that plenty of companies will pay that much, plus full benefits, for a full-time employee. And two months with only one small deliverable isn't that strange at a large company.

Re: I Charged $18k for a Static HTML Page

#409
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you determine whether a price is targeted/individual? Do you check in different browsers / on different devices?

I think he means prices where the webpage just says "contact us for a consultation". Here they'd probably google your company and see how much they can get away with charging you.

I mean that if a webpage just says "contact us for a consultation", I'll first try to find a company that shows their prices publicly - and if I find such, I'll stick to them. I hate "contact us for a consultation".

As for dynamic pricing on-line, AFAIK only airlines do that to significant extent so far. Once other people start, I might start opening in different browsers or not keeping cookies or whatever.

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