451–460 of 789 posts
Will also add that based on the happy conclusion of your story the title is almost clickbait — and highly effective clickbait at that, since you've now gotten 1000s of targeted HN eyeballs. I can't imagine how much that would have cost you!
I am not in the position to spend 46k on... anything but I would like to think I wouldn't be duped in the same way. All this "you're a small client" stuff is BS imo.
$46k for those changes holy fucking shit. I’ve charged less than this to design a whole 200m² house. I built a detailed 3d model, secured all the permissions and technical approvals, produced 30 A1 drawings, written a 200 page spec, coordinated engineering, tendered to contractors negotiated the tender, visited the site every two weeks for two years to check they were building it correctly and signed off on thier inv…
I recently left a boutique agency of 5 years and I can definitely resonate with this one. Our agency aimed to catch big fish, and we did, but since they are hard to land we'd pick up small jobs in the meantime, just like the project that you're describing here. In my perspective, this isn't someone deliberately ripping you off. I imagine they intended to ship at the cost they quoted, but the team didn't adjust their…
A lot of the comments seem to take the view that this was some deliberate ploy to overcharge. In reality, it was just poorly managed.
> Small customers become "nuisance" customers as soon as a something better is landed.
My guess would be that when quoted, the project was expected to be completed by a certain date. Because the team failed to adapt, the project overran, new projects took over leaving this one to languish.
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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?
That seems to be the point where sunk cost fallacy strikes hard in the post to me. They had paid $X for "80% of the first milestone of work" and that sunk cost locks them in to everything else that happens. They seemed too fearful from that point onward that if they fired the agency and brought in a new agency or freelancer that they would start from square 1 and do all of the previous work (and spend) over again. Th…
I don't want to rub salt in the wounds here, but that design is extremely mediocre. The primary mistake here imo was to think you needed professional web design in the first place. You didn't. Professional web design is best suited to companies with a strong brand or websites with complicated UX/UI that needs wireframing. You're just a small business selling KVMs D2C. That doesn't need anything fancy. There are some…
This reminds me of when I worked for a B2C company in the healthcare space. We hired a freelance designer to redesign our checkout flow and we wanted it done in time for Black Friday, which was by far our biggest day of the year. Of course the project ran long and we crunched so that we could ship the redesign exactly on Black Friday. I think we shipped the Tuesday before (because Thanksgiving) and everything seemed…
Apple gets a lot of flack for keeping design constant over the years, but this is the reason why they do it. People hate changes to their workflow.
I am not so sure, they are turning system preferences into an iPhone app on macOS.
$46k for those changes holy fucking shit. I’ve charged less than this to design a whole 200m² house. I built a detailed 3d model, secured all the permissions and technical approvals, produced 30 A1 drawings, written a 200 page spec, coordinated engineering, tendered to contractors negotiated the tender, visited the site every two weeks for two years to check they were building it correctly and signed off on thier inv…
Author here. Happy to take any feedback or answer any questions about this post.
I liked your original design. Simpler, to the point, and lower contrast so my eyes don't bleed. Also I am utterly floored at how long programming a web page takes even for these "professionals". Yet another profession that pays way better for way less work than mine (scientist).
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I'll rub a little aloe in that wound. I actually like the redesign. The illustrations are great, and overall it's a big improvement over the original. Worth the price? Perhaps not, but at least you have a better website now, and more experience dealing with agencies.
Thanks for the aloe! Yeah, that's how I feel as well. I was expecting people to not like the new design but it's been surprising to hear how many people prefer the old design and logo. I think the new one is way better, and it's not even close. Not perfect, but certainly an improvement.