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Margins on website development are shrinking

chrishardie.com

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Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#61

Post by ilaksh »

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…

For single page applications, take a look at applications like Zoho Creator or Wufoo or Weebly. Or QuickBase, Knack, Grubba, probably dozens more.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#62

Post by _k »

ypeterholmes wrote: post #25

"Instead of having us create an administrative interface for updating your web content, you could just install Joomla, WordPress or Drupal and do it yourself." hahaha who? Is your client Stephen Hawking?

True. But you're competing with Foursquare and GoDaddy websites for $ 1 / month. I don't recommend people use those services but in the end that's what you're competing with. Compare that to setting up a website with Drupal.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#63

Post by ypeterholmes »

_k wrote: post #62
ypeterholmes wrote: post #25

"Instead of having us create an administrative interface for updating your web content, you could just install Joomla, WordPress or Drupal and do it yourself." hahaha who? Is your client Stephen Hawking?

True. But you're competing with Foursquare and GoDaddy websites for $ 1 / month. I don't recommend people use those services but in the end that's what you're competing with. Compare that to setting up a website with Drupal.

So you're either severely constrained by a cookie cutter CMS, or completely overwhelmed by a more flexible platform like Drupal. Ultimately I'm not hearing anything convincing about why web development has become obsolete.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#64

Post by _k »

ChrisHardie wrote: post #50

Hi, original article author here. Thanks for the great comments and feedback. I just appended my post to say: I probably should have used a question mark in my post title instead of an asterisk. I don't claim to know the future and I get that I'm talking about an industry and an area of tech that's unpredictable. I've no need to be "right" about this and am just glad to have started some conversations. I probably als…

I disagree somewhat because lots of people I know have a broad range of experience and deep knowledge but the market for it is shrinking. They do get calls when things go wrong but other than that, there's not much going on. Some made the jump to app development but the market's just not there anymore. That may sound strange to those living in the valley but that's just the way it is. Some are now teaching others and that seems to be profitable.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#65

Post by dkrich »

I think this is a lot of perception and to be perfectly blunt, complete bullshit.

People who think that just because tasks have become easier for experts in that field that they are easier for everyone are just plain wrong. I know this through personal experience. If you are just making static websites for small businesses and trying to compete with 1&1, then sure, you're going to have a hard time getting rich. But that's always been the case.

You will never make a lot of money selling services to people or businesses that are highly price-sensitive or just don't need (or see a need) for a more sophisticated product. I wasted a lot of time selling services to these types of customers and I can tell you it's a mistake. Choose your customers wisely and go for one's that have money to spend. That type do not want to spend any time splitting hairs to get a shitty product. They want something that is great and will pay handsomely for it. The challenge in that is proving your worth, but as I said before that's always been the case and there's nothing new about that.

EDIT: I realize that is a little vague, so let me add some hard numbers. On my first large web dev contract I built a custom website (not incredibly complex) for a guy who had a $250k budget. I met him through the local Chamber of Commerce. I went back-and-forth about how much to charge him for the specs we discussed and in the end went to him with a quote of $15k (quite a lot of money for a single project for me at the time) and his response was something along the lines of "Okay, that sounds great!"

Fuck me for not realizing that I could have charged more. Moral of the story is one that is becoming trite at this point: people who know how to code and sell are rare but for some reason seem to undervalue themselves a great deal. That's a huge advantage for those that do not.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#68

Post by te_chris »

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…

How did I say anything worth being downvoted here?

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#69

Post by te_chris »

kevincennis wrote: post #60
te_chris wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "pa…

Yeah I've definitely seen that as well, get a couple of days in the studio to get a great drum sound then beg, borrow enough gear to get passable synth, gats etc. It makes sense, I just hope more models emerge to recoup some of the lost CD earnings, but they don't really seem to be.

It's quite sad actually, the number of my friends who are now considering retraining as developers because the state of the music industry is so shitty.

Re: Margins on website development are shrinking

#70

Post by ScottBurson »

dkrich wrote: post #65

I think this is a lot of perception and to be perfectly blunt, complete bullshit. People who think that just because tasks have become easier for experts in that field that they are easier for everyone are just plain wrong. I know this through personal experience. If you are just making static websites for small businesses and trying to compete with 1&1, then sure, you're going to have a hard time getting rich. But t…

You seem to have missed the part where they were successfully running a web development business from 1997 to about 2008, when things started to change.

The point about choosing your customers wisely is certainly true, and I'd expect the OP would agree with you on that, but it doesn't invalidate the rest of what he's saying.

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