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jms0717

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So, I joined about a month ago and I've been quietly watching and figuring things out. Before I joined, I wanted to start a (slowlane) business doing web design. I actually found FLF from a web design Facebook group (not sure of his name here, or I'd tag him). From there, I've been brainstorming about how to get going and make it fastlane. My main priority at the moment is just getting some income for me and so I can invest in better tools. I'm a stay at home mom, living with our in-laws. We're not too bad off, but still living paycheck to paycheck without me working. My biggest issues have always been imposter syndrome and analysis paralysis - so I go in circles of feeling like nobody will ever hire me, so I need to learn ALL THE THINGS, but where should I start?

I finally decided to cut the shit a few weeks ago and just start SOMETHING. I've printed sales letters on letterhead I designed, I'm finishing them up today and sending them off. Super exciting!

Last night, I came up with my Fastlane business plan. Nothing in-depth yet, but I'll get there. I've got 3 stages:
Hustle Mode
Here, I'll be building up my bank account so I can get rid of that anxiety for myself and my husband, invest in some tools I need (Premium themes and such), and just stop living husband's paycheck to paycheck. Be an independent woman again, and gain confidence and knowledge. I also want to work on learning a new code language to facilitate my longer term plans. I plan to be here no longer than a year, hopefully.
Diversify
At this point, I plan to start working on creating content that can be repackaged and sold (so I can be selling that $500 Wordpress theme package instead of buying it), and start working on my ultimate goals and saving money to level up. Outsource as much of the work as I can*, and stop being a slave to the hour. I want most of my income to be coming from monthly maintenance packages instead of new builds. Hopefully another year or so here, no more than 2.
Disconnect
Here, my goal is to fully get out of the rat race. I'd like to become something of a contracting agency - people come to me with their ideas, and I send the ideas to the right people, for a cut of the price. I also want to get into the web hosting business by buying my own servers & delegating the care of them. I have a particular niche market in mind to sell to for that. At this point, I also want to write a book or series. Not sure about what yet, I'll figure that out as I get there.

*I started outsourcing today on a whim! I'm in some random Facebook group I joined in high school, and we had a thread reminiscing on memories and talking about where we are today. Someone else mentioned that she does marketing. I reached out to her, and she's going to get her prices and get back to me so I can offer that in my web design packages! More value for the customer = more income for the two of us, and a faster entrance to fastlane! Maybe I'll be getting to Diversify sooner than I thought!

Always open to feedback.
 
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jms0717

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Just reached out to a graphic design friend! I can do graphic design (and it would be good for practice), but I prefer web dev, so why not go for another win win win?
 

jms0717

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I want to add an analysis I did on my ideas yesterday as well. Again, always open to comments or critiques.

Using the CENTS criteria, I basically looked at where things are currently and what I can to do make it work better for me.
Need:
  • There's obviously a need. I've gone down the street locally and found 40 companies with no website or a shitty website. That's like 10 minutes of driving around, writing down business names. I do live in a college + retirement city, but I'm pretty sure that finding would be applicable pretty much globally.

Barriers to Entry:
  • For web design specifically, you have to at least know the basics of HTML and CSS to throw a shitty website up. PHP helps if you're using Wordpress, and that's next on my list to learn. It's easy to learn enough to be dangerous and make shitty websites, but harder to be fluent in these languages and make good websites. At this point, I have about 10 years of HTML and 5 years of CSS as hobbies, so I'm already doing better than some others. I definitely have a lot to learn still, but I have my foot in the door.
  • The other hard part, which is what I struggle with a little more, is the creativity required to make a pretty website. What colors go together, what fonts are best for what situation, etc. I'm pretty new to that. I never took visual art classes in school beyond what was required in grade school, always preferring music. That said, I took a graphic design college class and it's really changed my mindset. As I study sites I like and don't like, as well as trends, I can learn to mimic if necessary and eventually create for myself. For a lot of it, I can contract with a graphic designer, like I just did.
Control
  • The biggest issue is getting licensing on creative assets. That can be expensive and things change - if I buy a single license for me, and something happens to my computer, I run the risk of not having access any more. Easy remedy though, I can create myself, or use my graphic designer to do custom stuff as much as possible, and use trustworthy open source stuff as much as possible.
  • Another thing is web hosting. A big issue is that hosting providers have rules about what they'll host, which can be problematic for the niche I want to go into (the main reason I want to own hosting). Also, as long as I'm using someone else as a hosting provider, I have to deal with bullshit. So, when I get bigger, I'll build servers and start my own hosting company.
Scalability
  • As long as I'm taking new projects, I'll be trading time for money. I figure I can probably do a project in about a week (depending on scope of course, but I've been purposely sniffing out easy projects to get a portfolio going). That limits me to ~50 projects/ year, which sucks. I plan to try to upsell my clients into long term site maintenance contracts, for a couple hours of my time per month, which will get some good, more passive income than the beginning.
  • I can also outsource anything I don't personally want to do, as long as the other person is good enough at what they do for me to feel good with that representing me and my company (not that I'd personally take credit, I'm just the one giving these people customers). That frees up my time, and at this point in time, I'm thinking I quote customers a package price, which will be whatever I want to make for my part, and then whatever anyone else wants to make + a % cut for me.
  • Then comes Stage 2. Once I get some good designs under my belt, I make them easily customizable and make templates (WP, Bootstrap, and other HTML/CSS) and Wordpress plugins to sell. There are a lot of templates out there, but they mostly suck.
  • I also want to start working on creating a Wordpress alternative, customizable to each client and more intuitive. This is still way in the baby stages, but I got the idea because I'm making a website for my family's car lot and I live in another state, so I can't be the one to constantly update cars as they buy and sell. But wordpress is too complicated for them to learn, so I want it to be something really simple and obvious. Maybe even integrate with other parts of the business besides just web site, but we'll see as it gestates how it grows.
  • Stage 3. I build hosting servers. Obviously scalable. As I need them, I buy more.
Time
  • This was mostly covered in Scalability. Basically, just get as much passive income as possible, and outsource the busy work as needed.
 
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Xeon

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The other hard part, which is what I struggle with a little more, is the creativity required to make a pretty website. What colors go together, what fonts are best for what situation, etc. I'm pretty new to that. I never took visual art classes in school beyond what was required in grade school, always preferring music. That said, I took a graphic design college class and it's really changed my mindset. As I study sites I like and don't like, as well as trends, I can learn to mimic if necessary and eventually create for myself. For a lot of it, I can contract with a graphic designer, like I just did.

For the aesthetics part, I believe it can be trained to a certain extent over a long period of time but a lot of the designers I know kind of have this innate ability to know what goes well and what not. If you want to create functioning AND visually pleasing websites, I would say to either partner up with a web designer (who doesn't know much coding) or search for lots of references, take the one(s) you find the best, and use that heavily as a visual reference.

The biggest issue is getting licensing on creative assets. That can be expensive and things change - if I buy a single license for me, and something happens to my computer, I run the risk of not having access any more. Easy remedy though, I can create myself, or use my graphic designer to do custom stuff as much as possible, and use trustworthy open source stuff as much as possible.

To cut down on the design costs, use free resources where possible. If by "creative assets" you mean artwork and vector assets, try places like freepik.com for vectors and places like pixabay/pexels for stock photos (you can also buy Shutterstock photos for US$2 each but that's a questionable tactic LOL, up to you).

Also, check out those mega design bundle deals (google "design bundles"), where they have like 1000+ assets for US$39 - US$120 that kind of crazy prices, time limited though (each asset on its own would already cost US$10+ if purchased outside of this bundle). Subscribe to the newsletters of these websites so when good deals come, you're on it. I could have save hundreds of thousands if I discovered these earlier.

Another thing is web hosting. A big issue is that hosting providers have rules about what they'll host, which can be problematic for the niche I want to go into (the main reason I want to own hosting). Also, as long as I'm using someone else as a hosting provider, I have to deal with bullshit. So, when I get bigger, I'll build servers and start my own hosting company.

From what I understand, most web hosts are very liberal to most type of content, unless it's those dark-web sort of thing, or anything which can harm national security (*cough*) or adult content. Some of the web designers I know would sell design services + managed web hosting for the clients.
This is a natural upsell, because then, you become a one-stop shop for the client. These guys don't own the servers, though. The hosting is hosted elsewhere such as GoDaddy and the web designer marks up the fee and this way, he gets guaranteed $$$ monthly even after the design is done.

As for starting your own hosting company, isn't that going to be more trouble than using some other hosting provider?
You've to buy the servers, manage the server technical mess and get someone to look over it 24/7/365 (otherwise how will you use that 99.9% uptime in your marketing?), provide chat/phone support, server backups, server security, data center outage......

The web design business pie is getting smaller and smaller though, plus since more folks are more tech-savvy compared to those in the 1990s, many are using online builders like Wix, SQUARESPACE (this one is good) or themes from Themeforest (only US$59~ average, and they've really awesome quality themes), so some folks specifically focus on only a tiny niche, guess you gotta factor all these in.
 
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jms0717

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For the aesthetics part, I believe it can be trained to a certain extent over a long period of time but a lot of the designers I know kind of have this innate ability to know what goes well and what not. If you want to create functioning AND visually pleasing websites, I would say to either partner up with a web designer (who doesn't know much coding) or search for lots of references, take the one(s) you find the best, and use that heavily as a visual reference.



To cut down on the design costs, use free resources where possible. If by "creative assets" you mean artwork and vector assets, try places like freepik.com for vectors and places like pixabay/pexels for stock photos (you can also buy Shutterstock photos for US$2 each but that's a questionable tactic LOL, up to you).

Also, check out those mega design bundle deals (google "design bundles"), where they have like 1000+ assets for US$39 - US$120 that kind of crazy prices, time limited though (each asset on its own would already cost US$10+ if purchased outside of this bundle). Subscribe to the newsletters of these websites so when good deals come, you're on it. I could have save hundreds of thousands if I discovered these earlier.



From what I understand, most web hosts are very liberal to most type of content, unless it's those dark-web sort of thing, or anything which can harm national security (*cough*) or adult content. Some of the web designers I know would sell design services + managed web hosting for the clients.
This is a natural upsell, because then, you become a one-stop shop for the client. These guys don't own the servers, though. The hosting is hosted elsewhere such as GoDaddy and the web designer marks up the fee and this way, he gets guaranteed $$$ monthly even after the design is done.

As for starting your own hosting company, isn't that going to be more trouble than using some other hosting provider?
You've to buy the servers, manage the server technical mess and get someone to look over it 24/7/365 (otherwise how will you use that 99.9% uptime in your marketing?), provide chat/phone support, server backups, server security, data center outage......

The web design business pie is getting smaller and smaller though, plus since more folks are more tech-savvy compared to those in the 1990s, many are using online builders like Wix, SQUARESPACE (this one is good) or themes from Themeforest (only US$5 average, and they've really awesome quality themes), so some folks specifically focus on only a tiny niche, guess you gotta factor all these in.

  • I wasn't quite honest. I used to be a good artist for my age (in elementary school), but never trained because I went through a very very heavy depression for awhile (hormones in puberty + my parents' deaths + a series of shitty relationships left me broken). Just got out of that over the last year or so. I do have that innate talent, I'm just re-finding it. I've just been telling myself I'm not an artist for so long, sometimes I forget it's not really true.
  • I have been using free resources. Unfortunately, a lot of them are "free for personal use only", which doesn't work out for what I'm trying to do. And realistically, you're 100% right. I'm just broke enough at the moment that $10 seems like a lot of money to pay for something I could build myself. I need to change that mindset, because I know it's going to end up hurting me in the long term.
  • I'm wanting to work with adult content. I want to work specifically with cam workers. I had a short stint in the industry and just saw a lot of problems that could be solved if the performers had more autonomy on the technical side of things. As it stands right now, the hosting companies that are willing to work with them charge crazy amounts for very little value provided, and the middle companies are just glorified pimps - taking most of the money and giving just enough to keep their performers. That's been a dream of mine for a few years now, so more of a personal thing than a money thing there. The successful performers would be able to afford a web design + maintenance + hosting deal, so it would be enough money to keep me motivated.
  • I'm thinking for the hosting, just start out with maintenance contracts I already have at that point, and then start marketing and growing as I can. I'm sure the costs will be pretty high, but I feel like it might be worth it. That's a few years out though, so nothing I'm too worried about immediately. Also, the main reason I like working for myself is that I'm only responsible to myself if something goes wrong. If one of my contracts is going to have hosting issues, I want it to be something that I can take responsibility for instead of it all being out of my hands. Maybe I'll revisit that idea later. We'll see.
  • I am planning on setting up some reseller hosting with my first clients. That will help a lot because I think the people I'm selling to right now will be the type that want to have it all taken care of, as hands off for them as possible.
  • While it's true that people are learning more, there's still plenty of people like my aunt and uncle that I'm building the car lot website for who barely know that there are multiple Internet browsers. For the record, my aunt graduated with a double major in accounting and programming. That was when mainframes were the computers though. And they're still the main demographic of small business owners and up for the next few years at least. And there's plenty of the next couple generations who might know the basics but don't care enough to DIY, or as @Andy Black talks about in one of his threads, just sees the value that I can provide that they can't compete with and don't know of others who can.
I'm trying to think of exactly how to market things in the future. I guess I'll get there
as I get there. I fully intend on this to be just my first business to get experience, learn something, and make some money. I don't want it to be a 40 year career, even though I enjoy the work. I want this to be a stepping stone to bigger and better things.
 
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jms0717

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Anyone else have weird a$$ moments where you just realize how different things are than they were a few months ago? Just a mindset thing.

I realized that instead of driving around town, I could just go down the list of yellow pages in my town to get businesses and basic research.

Then I realized I could pay someone a few dollars an hour and save myself the time and effort so I can be doing something better with it - either spending time with my daughter or working toward my business goals. Pretty much equal value, imo.

Earlier this month, I was looking for work on Upwork. Now I'm creating it. That's F*cking crazy to me.

On the subject, anyone interested? I'll build you a simple website (you need hosting though) in return.
 

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Good job on doing something and getting out there.

The first step is to just get your bills paid and food on the table. The "Fastlane" stuff can come later. When your basic needs are met, it's much EASIER to focus on building the life you want.

I actually found FLF from a web design Facebook group

That's @Fox 's group.

I could just go down the list of yellow pages in my town

They still have those in your town? Your town all 92 year old people?
 
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jms0717

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Good job on doing something and getting out there.

The first step is to just get your bills paid and food on the table. The "Fastlane" stuff can come later. When your basic needs are met, it's much EASIER to focus on building the life you want.



That's @Fox 's group.



They still have those in your town? Your town all 92 year old people?
.

Wow! I feel special getting a reply from you! Thanks for the encouragement!
Yeah, that's who it is. I knew I'd know it if I saw him again.
yes we actually have a phone book company. Mostly retirees and college kids here. Great town for raising my daughter, if a little boring. I've been looking at the trending searches on yp.com. I know if I were a business owner in one of those trending searches I'd want to have a good presence.
 

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So, I joined about a month ago and I've been quietly watching and figuring things out. Before I joined, I wanted to start a (slowlane) business doing web design. I actually found FLF from a web design Facebook group (not sure of his name here, or I'd tag him). From there, I've been brainstorming about how to get going and make it fastlane. My main priority at the moment is just getting some income for me and so I can invest in better tools. I'm a stay at home mom, living with our in-laws. We're not too bad off, but still living paycheck to paycheck without me working. My biggest issues have always been imposter syndrome and analysis paralysis - so I go in circles of feeling like nobody will ever hire me, so I need to learn ALL THE THINGS, but where should I start?

I finally decided to cut the shit a few weeks ago and just start SOMETHING. I've printed sales letters on letterhead I designed, I'm finishing them up today and sending them off. Super exciting!

Last night, I came up with my Fastlane business plan. Nothing in-depth yet, but I'll get there. I've got 3 stages:
Hustle Mode
Here, I'll be building up my bank account so I can get rid of that anxiety for myself and my husband, invest in some tools I need (Premium themes and such), and just stop living husband's paycheck to paycheck. Be an independent woman again, and gain confidence and knowledge. I also want to work on learning a new code language to facilitate my longer term plans. I plan to be here no longer than a year, hopefully.
Diversify
At this point, I plan to start working on creating content that can be repackaged and sold (so I can be selling that $500 Wordpress theme package instead of buying it), and start working on my ultimate goals and saving money to level up. Outsource as much of the work as I can*, and stop being a slave to the hour. I want most of my income to be coming from monthly maintenance packages instead of new builds. Hopefully another year or so here, no more than 2.
Disconnect
Here, my goal is to fully get out of the rat race. I'd like to become something of a contracting agency - people come to me with their ideas, and I send the ideas to the right people, for a cut of the price. I also want to get into the web hosting business by buying my own servers & delegating the care of them. I have a particular niche market in mind to sell to for that. At this point, I also want to write a book or series. Not sure about what yet, I'll figure that out as I get there.

*I started outsourcing today on a whim! I'm in some random Facebook group I joined in high school, and we had a thread reminiscing on memories and talking about where we are today. Someone else mentioned that she does marketing. I reached out to her, and she's going to get her prices and get back to me so I can offer that in my web design packages! More value for the customer = more income for the two of us, and a faster entrance to fastlane! Maybe I'll be getting to Diversify sooner than I thought!

Always open to feedback.

Hey thats my group - I am pumped you joined. You are in the right place here.

Great plan. I highly recommend checking out a book called The Compound Effect along with of course MJs Book and all the great threads on here.
Feel free to tag me in a post if you want.
 

jms0717

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Hey thats my group - I am pumped you joined. You are in the right place here.

Great plan. I highly recommend checking out a book called The Compound Effect along with of course MJs Book and all the great threads on here.
Feel free to tag me in a post if you want.

I'll add that to my reading list! Thanks!
 
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jms0717

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This is a more personal update, but still related (also gave me insight to pinpoint my goals a little better. After reading @fauche65's thread about journals vs planners, I downloaded the Passion Planner pages and did the Passion Roadmap. I also recently did a values inventory, so it's interesting how those two worked together. Anyway, here's my goals:
3 month/1 month: Improve health
Not really a specific goal, per se, but just a process I want to continue to follow. I recently decided to start losing weight, so I've been following the keto diet (low carb, moderate protein, moderate to high fat). I'm down 15 lbs from my highest measured weight (looking at pics, I think I might have been higher before I got married, which is scary to think about). That also puts me below my pre-pregnancy weight. Which really isn't that big of a deal since I actually lost weight during pregnancy thanks to HG, but still feels like a win. With that diet plan, I also need to work on eating cleaner - right now, I'm primarily doing meat and dairy. I need to work on integrating more keto-friendly veggies and weaning off dairy a little. Also, I have to make sure to keep up with my vitamins and electrolytes. It's easy for me to be way under on salt if I don't eat out for a day. I've also started lifting weights (5x5 program) and doing yoga twice a week, which is making me feel awesome. So I need to keep up with that. After another week or so, I want to transition from straight 5x5 to the ketogains workout based on it, but with some other target muscles added, and HIIT twice a week. I haven't been any hungrier since starting working out, so that should really speed up weight loss. Also keep up with my supplements as needed.

1 year/3 months: Own a successful business
So for this, I decided that success means having a steady stream of clients/money coming in and operating at a profit. To get there, I need to finish my volunteer sites to get referrals from those clients, and get more clients. Also need to start seriously planning/researching my ultimate goal with this business.

3 years: Start a women's health non-profit.
For years, it's been important to me to work toward education and empowerment for women. There are so many issues with the way we are treated in the medical field specifically, and I want to do something about it. Learning fertility awareness changed my life, and I want to bring that awareness to other women who might think there are no options beyond hormonal changes. I really love this TED talk, and feel the same way, especially after seeing all the misinformation and bad care that happens routinely while I was pregnant. So my goals here are create a directory of FAM teachers, and doctors and orgs with a rating system based on user feedback. It would be cool if this generated some money for me, but that's not the priority. I think this would be a good use of my ultimate goal for my design business, which is why I want to get that started ASAP. Once that gets popular, I want to do more personal stuff with women across the country.

Lifetime/5 years: I want to visit all the countries in the world.
First, I need to get my passport updated. Then, I need to have enough money to be able to support my family and I while we travel. At that time, I'll start working to disconnect myself from needing to be physically present to run my business. When I get to a good point, we can jump in and go places! It helps that I intend to homeschool my daughter, so this would actually be a great opportunity for her to learn a lot of different things by experiencing them in person.
 

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