I regret my website redesign • Hacker News Board

Re: I regret my website redesign

#351

Post by paxys » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 6:37 PM UTC

Kinda weird that their conclusion contradicts the whole post.

> If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t. But despite all the missteps and stress, the results might justify all the pain. I expected the new website to increase sales by 10-20%, but it’s been closer to 40%. In July, the TinyPilot website hit an all-time high of $72.5k in sales, 66% higher than before the redesign.

A simple website redesign increased sales by 40-66%, but you wouldn't do it again? Is the fact that it took longer and cost a few thousand dollars more than expected really that bad? That describes literally every software project in existence.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#352

Post by onionisafruit » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 6:39 PM UTC

encryptluks2 wrote: post #271

latortuga wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was ready to fire the agency the moment the author mentioned they were going off script and building whatever they wanted. This was a huge, blinking red flag for me. Why would you keep paying someone when they're doing work you didn't ask for, doing work that doesn't align with your goals, and ignoring what you say?

I call this the being too nice mistake. It is like the customer that would watch an employee spit in their food and say thanks to them. Effective leaders do not fear confrontation.

In this case it might be a case of being intimidated by a big agency. Isaac telling him that he was their smallest client had a "you're lucky we are willing to work for you" feel.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#353

Post by nibbleshifter » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 6:40 PM UTC

bbreier wrote: post #251

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can pay a guy $60/hr in India Man, you’re really overpaying if you think an Indian designer would be $60/hr. That would be more than the annual salary of a senior FAANG engineer.

wait what? 50 weeks * 60 / hr * 40 hr weeks = 120k yearly. what senior faang engineer is making less than that?

Ones in India.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#354

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 6:41 PM UTC

mtlynch wrote: post #175

fourseventy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya but your philosophy cost you $47k for work that could have been done in 2 weeks by a competent developer...

I'm sure there's a dev who could have done the same work faster and cheaper, but they're extremely hard to find. Everyone wants to hire a frontend dev who can design and code. They'd either be outside my budget or they'll only take jobs from people with a personal recommendation. There's also the problem that until you hire them, you can't distinguish between a talented developer and someone just pretending to be one…

[deleted]

Re: I regret my website redesign

#355

Post by ErrantX » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

I'd say the author is being generous to the agency and Isaac.

There is easily a version of this where the agency has landed on an excellent strategy for milking 7K for 6x their spend.

At best (generously assuming the agency's retro is all true) the CEO, Isaac has been greedy or naive in taking on work they clearly weren't set up to deliver.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#356

Post by atwood22 » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 6:42 PM UTC

ErrantX wrote: post #350

atwood22 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only goal of a company that has billable hours is to rack up billable hours. This is only true if the contract doesn't have a maximum budget. Often, the goal is actually to reduce billable hours because there is a maximum amount that can be spent (cost-wise) and you need to make sure you have enough hours left to actually finish the job on time.

Well in this exact case; the agency quite successfully structured things so that the billable hours were grown significantly beyond what was originally contracted...

Yes, definitely. I just wanted to point out that you should really include maximum amounts in job-based contracts. A professional should be able to accurately guess how many hours it will take.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#357

Post by christkv » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 6:43 PM UTC

KingOfCoders wrote: post #29

I have seen many outsourcing projects with my coachees and with founders, I've managed my own and cancelled several when I was called in to fix them. The key to this kind of work is to understand: The agency is not your buddy, they have very different goals than you have. Too often do I seen people who have nice chats with the agency over a coffee. They are not your friends. You need to write the contract to align th…

I’m dealing with this right now where it’s clear one of the engineers is burned out and needs to be cycled off the project for awhile.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#358

Post by eightysixfour » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 6:43 PM UTC

I have worked in and out of consulting and agencies for many years and I have a simple rule for hiring them when anyone asks:

1. Are you going to be one of their three biggest clients? If not, find a smaller agency.

2. If you can't find an agency small enough to be one of their three biggest clients, you want a contractor, not an agency. Put them on retainer for more than 50% of their time.

Firms will bend over backwards for their largest clients because they do a poor job of tracking that it is costing them money when they need to fix a mistake. They just see one of their biggest clients is unhappy and they will lose them.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#359

Post by jwpapi » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 6:45 PM UTC

I think the biggest thing that could’ve been done differently here is hiring through a platform. If you hire through a platform there is a third-party that controls that both parties behave as they should. All agencies and freelancers have tons of incentive to do good work and make the client happy. They basically live off their reviews. Also those platforms have escrow, milestone payments and many more useful things. I know people hate the 30% extra, but in my experience those 30% are actually worth more than the 70%.

A good book on these kind of situations is "Skin in the Game - Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

WebAgency never had an incentive to make you happy…

Re: I regret my website redesign

#360

Post by tootie » Thu, Jul 21, 2022, 6:46 PM UTC

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #290

tootie wrote: post #57

Man, you get what you pay for. If you actually want a thoughtful design based on user needs and strategic goals with an actual rise in conversion rates, $46k is not even close. I've never seen it done for less than $200k. Agencies I worked for in the past wouldn't pick up the phone for less than $500k and we had clients tripping over themselves to hire us. That being said, we did take on smaller clients from time to…

Another sign that we are in tech bubble. The guy was asking for the redesign of 3 pages + a logo. Landing page, shopping cart and checkout for one (!) product he sells. This is such a standard, run off the mill application why wouldn't a decent agency have something ready in their drawer where they just have to adjust the CSS to make it look unique. How isn't this process completely tried and figured out after 30+ ye…

Probably the opposite actually. The first victims of a recession will be consultants. The agency in question is probably used to much bigger clients, but was willing to do something much smaller because the sales pipeline dried up. And then they brought a heavyweight approach to a tiny project and failed.

The heavyweight approach is absolutely mandatory when dealing with larger corporate clients or when you're trying to really bring something unique. You may be surprised who hires agencies for this kind of stuff, because past agencies had keystone accounts worth millions per year from giant tech companies like Microsoft, Apple and Google. They don't ask to put a template on WooCommerce, they ask how to find, engage and retain new customers and differentiate themselves from everyone else.