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Margins on website development are shrinking

chrishardie.com

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Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#51

Post by vlucas »

I agree with the premise of this article, but I was disappointed to see that none of the suggestions included focusing on web application development instead of website development. I started Brightbit (http://brightbit.com) 2 years ago with 2 other co-founders, and we have always focused 100% on custom web and mobile applications, and have referred 100% of the smaller websites to local CMS/WordPress shops around us who serve them.

With our focus on building more complex high-end web apps and startups, we have had no shortage of work or shrinking margins, and have in fact experienced the exact opposite. We have been raising our rates, and have continued to experience strong growth and have had very happy clients.

Long story short, there is another path away from general web development with pretty good margins if you're willing to learn more and do more programming work instead of frontend theming/customization work.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#52

Post by _k »

ahallock wrote: post #11

I've had no shortage of people looking for custom websites. Having a fully-customized identity throughout, warranted or not, is still very important to a lot of clients. You still integrate with third-party services, whether it's social media sites, blogs, or e-commerce--but even then, these clients want it to feel like their own, not some generic, off-the-shelf product. Also, I've shown clients pre-baked themes to s…

They feel offended ? When they buy a new car, how does that make them feel ? It's very similar, imo. You can buy a car as is or you can customize it somewhat but you never start from scratch. You start from an existing design.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#53

Post by belorn »

I wish that the article was true and no one needed to do all this web development work. I truly do not enjoy working with forms and xml.

As many others have commented, its true that the easiest and hastiest form of web development is now "done" through pre-made tools. Sadly, everything else isn't as easy. Building a rest api for cool new stuff X is not very easy, nor is it to present such API on a easy to use designed site. Nor is turning a horror of an XML standard to a useable form and presenting such things to end users.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#54

Post by _k »

gwgarry wrote: post #47
goostavos wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity (not being snarky), how's that working out for you, and how long do you think it will be viable to charge that amount? Web dev, as I see it, is undergoing a race to the bottom. As you say, "the stupid people" are generating good content for free. Yes, there are 1000s of lines of code behind WP.. but those 1000s of lines of code exist just so that the end user doesn't have to mess with them. Do people…

> generating good content for free They are not generating it for free. They sell themes at $50 pop to at least 100 people. They make their $5,000. They also charge $100/hr for support. > those 1000s of lines of code exist just so that the end user doesn't have to mess with the Until things break. The developer goes away, etc. > Do people really pay 1000 to adjust a word press theme? Depends on what level of adjustme…

When things break ... but websites for SMBs break less and less.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#55

Post by jiggy2011 »

goostavos wrote: post #45
Vivtek wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha. Scrubbing with a wire brush is worth a dollar - knowing what to scrub with a wire brush was definitely worth $130, right?

I know your joking, but I feel like this is an important thing that's often lost on people. The other day I got in a bit of an argument on oDesk because I turned around a job too quickly . The guy didn't think it was worth the price we agreed upon. I had to explain that that wasn't a 15 minute fix, that was years of studying in university, and years of trial and error, and hard won experience to know how to solve his…

The problem with these sorts of sites is in the reputation system, in that reputation is far more important to sellers than to buyers.

If you had left bad feedback on this guy's profile , it would be easy enough for him to create a new account and still get bids for his projects.

OTOH for a seller even neutral feedback is viewed as black mark and starting from scratch is difficult.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#56

Post by gwgarry »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #42
gwgarry wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Websites have become much more complex. It just appears that they are simpler. WP makes it seem like nothing to press a button and upgrade. Behind the scenes thousands of lines of code are doing work. When those lines of code break and you come to me to fix them. Fuck you for thinking I am going to charge you $100. You are going to pay me $1000 or you can do it yourself. - If you want to use a theme exactly as it i…

In the case of Wordpress, the cost of labour for development and bug fixes on those thousands of lines (to the client) is effectively free unless you are extending it.

Yes but when you are extending it... it's not trivial. So the price curve jumps from a few hundred dollar to thousands of dollars if you try to do anything significant.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#57

Post by jiggy2011 »

gwgarry wrote: post #56
jiggy2011 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of Wordpress, the cost of labour for development and bug fixes on those thousands of lines (to the client) is effectively free unless you are extending it.

Yes but when you are extending it... it's not trivial. So the price curve jumps from a few hundred dollar to thousands of dollars if you try to do anything significant.

I guess the point of the article is that WP and friends already offer a significant enough amount of functionality straight out of the box or with a very minimal amount of custom code.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#58

Post by _k »

bzalasky wrote: post #2

I understand some of the points the author is making, and will have to give it a closer read when I'm not at work. But I reject the thesis at a glance. Most clients don't have time to deal with everything related to their web presence, custom or not. If you're solving business problems, not training them to use WordPress, you can charge a premium.

Where I live I can clean my car for $ 8 if I drive to a place and do it all by myself. It will take me an hour to drive there, clean it and get back.

I can get it cleaned at the carwash for around $ 21, that will take me 40 minutes.

Or I can make an appointment and give my car to a guy who cleans it for me, the cost is $ 35 and it takes me 10 minutes.

They all make good money. Even the guy who charges $ 35. But none of it is 'premium'. There's a guy in Derbyshire, England. He charges £ 7200. Now that's premium. But the market's too small for premium. At least where I live.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#59

Post by bluehavana »

onemorepassword wrote: post #18

The title should be "the margins on bottomfeeding are shrinking". I consider this a good thing. Now if only these companies could stop calling themselves "developers" altogether, and maybe we wouldn't have to explain so often to potential clients why our software development is so much more expensive than their so-called "web development".

It's the starter-kit Walmart hobbyism. I can buy a bike at Walmart for ~$100. The bike will get me to where I want to go with reasonably light usage. Anything outside the first time, light usage model is a ever deepening pool of cost/value.

Walmart is great if I'm poor and my son needs a bike that he can crash (since he's just learning) and he will grow out of in the next 2 years; he probably couldn't put enough miles on the bike to break it within then.

If I want a bike to ride five miles to work everyday, I'm looking at $500 (used) to $1500 for something nice and dependable.

The Walmart model isn't bad as long as everybody understands the metrics involved.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#60

Post by kevincennis »

te_chris wrote: post #40
kevincennis wrote: post #32

Before I got into web development, I spent 4 or 5 years as a recording engineer. And people were constantly predicting the "end of recording studios". Certainly, there was a big shift. Pro Tools got cheap, companies like Behringer started making affordable large-diaphragm condenser mics that sort of looked like the nice ones. Line6 and Amplitube were making reasonably convincing guitar amp simulators. And some studio…

Exactly this. I've made a similar transition and I'll say one thing: we web people at least don't have to deal with declining customer incomes. The worst part about being in the audio (live and recorded) biz was not only the bottom up effect, but the fact that the ROI of the average recording was plummeting (at least from where I was sitting, for the artists I was working with). People/Clients still make money on the…

It'll be interesting to see if the web starts to follow the trend I saw in recording.

Basically, a lot of clients would come to me to track drums and maybe guitars. They'd pay for a nice room, good mics, lots of guitar amps, and someone who knew how to use them. Then they'd do vocal overdubs, bass, synth and occasionally guitars at home. And they'd usually bring bit back for me to mix.

I sort of like the model of "pay an expert to do the hard stuff, and do the rest on my own".

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