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Starting A Web Design Business - My Journey

A detailed account of a Fastlane process...

hexelbyte

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Hello Everyone!

This Thread is primarily entries of my journey in web design / sales.
From accomplishments and through hardships follow along and learn along with me!

If you find anything insights / comments feel free to share them! If you prefer, you can PM me as well.

Thanks @Capitalist_Cat for the inspiration of the thread and thank you FTL and MUG for ignited my daily drive!
 
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Last edited:

hexelbyte

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So far in the journey, I have spent the last few weeks:

  • Learned HTML/CSS and Wordpress for knowledge
  • Built my website for clients to see / reach out
  • Searched for leads and cold emailed
All while asking for insight and critique from @Capitalist_Cat , @Black_Dragon43 , @Madame Peccato and others (Thanks guys!)

There were a few obstacles that I have came across that I would like to make note.
  1. Your email needs 'warming up'. The reason is prevent email hosts from marking you as spam.
  2. If you just started your domain is blacklisted temporary via 'SEM_FRESH'. I'm unsure if this causes not sending some emails out as I tried to send emails to my personals to warmup.
  3. I spoke to a few clients and what sucks is that when they thought about web design they associated it with UpWork. Honestly, UpWork to me is cheap labor that doesn't have heart. Maybe it's just one data point. I'm just moving forward reaching out to local businesses here in Texas.
  4. Copywrite. Copywrite. Copywrite. This is currently my biggest challenge at the moment. I need to work on this skill. Been looking at resources for improvement and it's just been rough understanding the abstractness of copywrite.

That's all for now!
Hasta Pronto!
 
Last edited:

Vinz

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So far in the journey, I have spent the last few weeks:

  • Learned HTML/CSS and Wordpress for knowledge
  • Built my website for clients to see / reach out
  • Searched for leads and cold emailed
All while asking for insight and critique from @Capitalist_Cat , @Black_Dragon43 , @Madame Peccato and others (Thanks guys!)

There were a few obstacles that I have came across that I would like to make note.
  1. Your email needs 'warming up'. The reason is prevent email hosts from marking you as spam.
  2. If you just started your domain is blacklisted temporary via 'SEM_FRESH'. I'm unsure if this causes not sending some emails out as I tried to send emails to my personals to warmup.
  3. I spoke to a few clients and what sucks is that when they thought about web design they associated it with UpWork. Honestly, UpWork to me is cheap labor that doesn't have heart. Maybe it's just one data point. I'm just moving forward reaching out to local businesses here in Texas.
  4. Copywrite. Copywrite. Copywrite. This is currently my biggest challenge at the moment. I need to work on this skill. Been looking at resources for improvement and it's just been rough understanding the abstractness of copywrite.

That's all for now!
Hasta Pronto!
Great to see you starting man. I started a week ago
Be sure, as Fox says, to do your first sites for people you know(family friends etc) even if they are for free

I just pretty much finished my first ! I liked the result and I'm going to leverage it as much as I can

-What do you mean with warming up your emails ?
- I have my domain (a site) and didn't encounter blacklisting issues. Are you talking about a SITE domain or and EMAIL domain ? I suppose its the latter
 
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Last edited:

hexelbyte

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Oh man, some hectic stuff has developed within the last 24 hours.

Initially, I was sending out emails just fine without any issues.
When I linked a CDN to my domain, things were falling apart in a short amount of time.
The issue was that there was a conflict between the MX Records in the DNS.

To list it out:
  • Brand A: my domain provider
  • Brand B: CDN
  • Brand C: Website + Email
There was a conflict between Brand B and C due to MX issues.

I reached out and spoke to @Black_Dragon43 and they provided an awesome solution; Use a separate email host to the website host. This way, if the website provider goes down, the email host is still up.

Over the course of an hour, I set up my email host with Brand D.
Now my emails are doing just fine once again.

TLDR:
Use a separate email host to the website host
 

randompik

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hi
i just bought a secondhand laptop and I HAVE NO IDEA what to do next
i also want to study cumputer languages to build websites
where do i start
 

hexelbyte

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hi
i just bought a secondhand laptop and I HAVE NO IDEA what to do next
i also want to study cumputer languages to build websites
where do i start
I suggest you reach out to @Fox

His youtube channel and his book is a fantastic resource to get started.
 
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hexelbyte

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Wanted to share this conversation I had after sending out some cold leads on Yelp.
The person reached out to me as I was the cold lead.
I then reframed the conversation to where he became the prospect.

Any feedback of how I did would be fantastic!
Note: I was the one sending Blue text.
msedge_aadCtsGkDa.png


At this point, I gave him some advice on how to improve his website to give him more clients and have yet heard back from them.
 

hexelbyte

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May 31, 2021
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Some interesting insight that I wanted to share with you (Yes, the one reading this).

I was providing value on some other forums that I was targeting as my client and got banned!
Too much value right?
Fortunately messaged the admins and they unbanned me (phew).

Lesson is to make people more comfortable around you. Build rapport and trust (as always).
Revised my approach and made it more about providing value and just helping people (looking like Goodwill).

Currently have a warm lead from that convo that I shared above and haven't gotten anywhere yet.
From what I've seen, the lead's English is not their first language so I have to simplify the communication a bit.

TLDR:
Provide value to your target first. Thanks @Andy Black for this great advice!
 
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Andy Black

Help people. Get paid. Help more people.
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Some interesting insight that I wanted to share with you (Yes, the one reading this).

I was providing value on some other forums that I was targeting as my client and got banned!
Too much value right?
Fortunately messaged the admins and they unbanned me (phew).

Lesson is to make people more comfortable around you. Build rapport and trust (as always).
Revised my approach and made it more about providing value and just helping people (looking like Goodwill).

Currently have a warm lead from that convo that I shared above and haven't gotten anywhere yet.
From what I've seen, the lead's English is not their first language so I have to simplify the communication a bit.

TLDR:
Provide value to your target first. Thanks @Andy Black for this great advice!
Good work.

It might help to not use words such as “target” or even “lead”. It makes it harder to remember they’re people just like us.
 

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