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I regret my website redesign

mtlynch.io

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Re: I regret my website redesign

#411

Post by designium »

deltarholamda wrote: post #89

You know how, during a big programming project, you have to keep the devs from going "this codebase has a lot of technical debt, let's rebuild the whole thing using Rust and Kubernetes and Deno and move the hosting to Azure and switch databases and use microservices and..."? Designers are exactly the same way. Just as technical fiddling is fun and interesting, making new designs from scratch is just as fun and intere…

I think it's important to establish clear goals before reaching out to freelancers and agencies. The agenda from each one is different than yours.

I learned to get the team focus by writing a brief (commonly used for Brand Managers in big companies) to keep focus on the deliverables. That helps to avoid these type of issues.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#412

Post by system2 »

ErrantX wrote: post #355

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.

He is making so much money and forgot the reality. He received a $2,000 website at best and kept dumping money to the "agency". It is sad people are getting scammed like this and think it is normal.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#413

Post by porter »

mtlynch wrote: post #402
kypro wrote: post #119

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…

Thanks for reading! > There are some really good (free) AI logo generators out there you can use to generate logos very similar (perhaps even better) than this. In recent years I've used them almost exclusively to generate some initial logo ideas then either made minor alterations myself (where needed), or paid someone a little to do it for me. I've tried AI logo generators and didn't like the results. Last time I tr…

I run a similar sized software business and found generatepress.com. I set up a wordpress site using their visual builder tools and pre-made components, hosted on wpengine.com so everything is always up to date. Took a few weekends, but this is more than adequate these days. Logo came from upwork.com

I also feel your pain. I've had a bad experience with a top python/django agency that turned out to have a CEO "incubating" several startups to compete with Amazon, while also running an agency. I got bad vibes early but kept pressing on, and learned my lesson the hard way.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#414

Post by allenu »

bequanna wrote: post #383
WorldMaker wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Which absolutely makes me think this was a well thought out con designed to prey on those types of fears and maximize the value extracted from the mark. Those lottery phone scams out of Jamaica which target the elderly in the US are almost the exact same scam as what was described here. Promise something, get them to send money, don’t deliver, tell them you need more time/more money. Keep repeating until the mark wal…

Maybe "well thought out con" is a little strong here. I see it as more likely the consulting firm has learned this behavior over time and it has rewarded them well. I imagine that if they're normally dealing with large contracts, those companies footing the bill are probably easier to string along like this. Just do enough and promise enough that they keep you on and only budge when they get more serious about potentially terminating the contract.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#415

Post by bradgessler »

NomadicDev wrote: post #304
bradgessler wrote: post #296

These days when I build a website, I design them with the mindset that I want to subtlety troll the web design zeitgeist. As such, most of my designs these days are inspired by resources like https://motherfuckingwebsite.com/ and http://modalzmodalzmodalz.com/ Let’s look at how I applied those towards my sites: https://legiblenews.com/ is just a mother fucking website, with dark mode. It’s responsive, accessible, and…

I like your philosophy. In fact, I think it helps in more than one way. When I'm comparing multiple projects, and they all have the same bland "MicroGoogFace" looking style, I feel like I've wondered into OpenAI's secret bot farm pumping out generic copy & paste versions of the same thing. When I see a page deciding to be unique with their design, I'm more drawn into giving them a deeper look. By the way, I like your…

Yeah, I looked at that but don't want to go full-on pencil & sketch for the design of the thing. I'm actually planning on switching the CSS framework from Bulma to Tailwind because its much easier to deal with.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#416

Post by werds »

hey since looking at your site, i have seen about 10 of your TinyPilot ads. I am certainly not in the market for one of these and probably not that many other people who viewed the article site are, so i suggest you dial back on the retargeting budget following this hacker news traffic, save yourself some money. The hacker news readers who are in the market have already seen your best piece of marketing for the product today, this article.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#417

Post by koide »

I disagree with the cheap developers point. I've just hired a Pakistani designer/web developer team. They were committed, fast, cheap, wrote high quality code, and delivered more than what was agreed at the start.

It was a closed price project though, which I think is a better way in general to get a better deal for everyone involved.

It wasn't perfect. But I can fix the rest.

How cheap? $950 for a new logo and branding guide plus two responsive html pages with custom graphics.

Re: I regret my website redesign

#418

Post by gabrielizaias »

duckmysick wrote: post #366
skilled wrote: post #37

I am pretty sure there are a handful of good (based on Tailwind CSS) template generators which will produce results superior to the pages you received. Sure, you'd need to hire someone to do the logo and the custom icons, but I am certain that would not cost you anywhere near $46k. Furthermore, I cannot comprehend how this actually happened even if you shared all the details. Holy shit, for $46k you could have gotten…

> I am pretty sure there are a handful of good (based on Tailwind CSS) template generators which will produce results superior to the pages you received. Where are they?

Here: https://tailwindui.com/templates

Re: I regret my website redesign

#419

Post by mtlynch »

ezekg wrote: post #129

Always love your writing, mtlynch. FWIW, I really do like the redesign. The logo is great, as are the illustrations. They obviously had a talented bunch, even if mismanaged. This is one of my fears with hiring freelancers, and why I really haven't done it so far. I could use the help, but I feel like it'd suck my time and wallet to get the results I'm after. Probably just haven't talked to the right one yet, if such…

Thanks for reading!

Yeah, I agree about the talent, and that's something I didn't talk about in the post. I thought their design and engineering work was really good. If they had just kept pushing junk on me, it would have been an easier decision to walk away early. But they clearly had good people, and I wanted to figure out a way to work with them.

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