To the people who use Wix, Shopify, or Wordpress...

[Charnell]

This entire post is bad, and you should feel bad.

Your trying to take a shortcut.

Damn right. Why would I create a custom solution to something that's already created when I can focus on, oh, I don't know, revenue?

Rather than learn how to engineer and build your online presence you would give control to CMS builders that generate bad html and seo structure and host your web services for you.

Ah yes, WordPress, terrible SEO structure and web host.

What happens if their servers crash?

The same thing that would happen if any other server crashes. I suppose you have your own server in-home?

What happens when they raise their hosting prices?

I pay more for not having to deal with owning a server.

Do you think search engines GAF what your website looks like?

Users do. Even as an SEO, there is more to the internet than SEO.

CMS systems

Just me being pedantic, but CMS stands for content management system. Do you say ATM machine and PIN number?

Do you think this forum was created with these systems?

It was created with XenForo, a forum software solution.

If you have an urge to validate your HTML and CSS skills, there are other ways. Just because Joe Blow down the street can get the same results as you in a fraction of the time doesn't mean he's wrong, you just haven't caught up yet. Don't tell me you're one of those devs that like to create custom websites with convoluted or absent documentation so you can retain clients.

 

[James Klymus]

Why buy a car? Build your own.

Why buy food? Farm your own.

Why buy a house? Build your own.

Why go out to eat? Cook for your self.

Why buy a phone? Build one your self.

There is no honor in doing things the hard way if you don't have to. A lot of bakers use boxed cake mix that you could buy at the grocery store. Why don't they formulate their own? They aren't chemists or food scientists. They're bakers. They have someone else formulate shit for them so they can focus on their business.

Most starting entrepreneurs aren't coders, and have no budget to hire people that are. They just want to get their idea out there and see if it works. These services remove that barrier and make it easier for people to innovate.

The point of services like this is to get ideas to market QUICKLY and not have to be bogged down with all of the technical stuff. Do you understand how hard it used to be to create a website, let alone an entire storefront with a cart and payment processing pre paypal? You give shopify $40 a month and they handle it all for you. When you build a huge company, then maybe you can worry about your own servers and custom solutions.

 

[Christopher104]

Stop.

Your trying to take a shortcut. You look like a money chaser.

Rather than learn how to engineer and build your online presence you would give control to CMS builders that generate bad html and seo structure and host your web services for you.

What happens if their servers crash?

What happens when they raise their hosting prices?

Do you think search engines GAF what your website looks like?

You have no say in the matter. Did these CMS systems make people money once upon a time? Yeah the first ones to use it.

Now these systems have saturated the market and now its really hard to make something that's exceptional.

Use common sense too. Do you think Amazon was created with these systems? Do you think this forum was created with these systems? Do you think IMDb was created with these systems?

Absolutely not. Because the owners of these businesses and domains knew that professional skillsets couldn't be replicated with a few drag and drops.

Stop trying to get rich easy. Hire a developer or learn to code yourself.

 

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[RussRussman18]

>Just spend 500 hours learning full stack development to test an ecommerce product for a week

Great idea

 

[biophase]

Stop.

Your trying to take a shortcut. You look like a money chaser.

Rather than learn how to engineer and build your online presence you would give control to CMS builders that generate bad html and seo structure and host your web services for you.

What happens if their servers crash?

What happens when they raise their hosting prices?

Do you think search engines GAF what your website looks like?

You have no say in the matter. Did these CMS systems make people money once upon a time? Yeah the first ones to use it.

Now these systems have saturated the market and now its really hard to make something that's exceptional.

Use common sense too. Do you think Amazon was created with these systems? Do you think this forum was created with these systems? Do you think IMDb was created with these systems?

Absolutely not. Because the owners of these businesses and domains knew that professional skillsets couldn't be replicated with a few drag and drops.

Stop trying to get rich easy. Hire a developer or learn to code yourself.

Spoken like someone who has never run an e-commerce business before.

 

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[Christopher104]

This entire post is bad, and you should feel bad.

I don't, You're just offended.

 

[LiveEntrepreneur]

Stop.

Your trying to take a shortcut. You look like a money chaser.

Rather than learn how to engineer and build your online presence you would give control to CMS builders that generate bad html and seo structure and host your web services for you.

What happens if their servers crash?

What happens when they raise their hosting prices?

Do you think search engines GAF what your website looks like?

You have no say in the matter. Did these CMS systems make people money once upon a time? Yeah the first ones to use it.

Now these systems have saturated the market and now its really hard to make something that's exceptional.

Use common sense too. Do you think Amazon was created with these systems? Do you think this forum was created with these systems? Do you think IMDb was created with these systems?

Absolutely not. Because the owners of these businesses and domains knew that professional skillsets couldn't be replicated with a few drag and drops.

Stop trying to get rich easy. Hire a developer or learn to code yourself.

Thanks for the post actually, I had a nice laugh, haha. I've seen this mentality before, "if you aren't taking the hard way then you are lazy, and want the easy way out" etc. This isn't always the case and it's not that cut and dry, and in your example, it's just plain stupidity. You said to hire a developer, by your own logic wouldn't that be classified as taking a shortcut because someone will not want to learn code and get someone to do it for them?

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

You couldn’t be more wrong.

Please go mine your own metal to build the server casing yourself while you’re at it.

There are many reasons to use a third party solution. And it doesn’t mean giving up all control over your business.

 

[BizyDad]

This entire post is bad, and you should feel bad.

Damn right. Why would I create a custom solution to something that's already created when I can focus on, oh, I don't know, revenue?


Ah yes, WordPress, terrible SEO structure and web host.


The same thing that would happen if any other server crashes. I suppose you have your own server in-home?


I pay more for not having to deal with owning a server.


Users do. Even as an SEO, there is more to the internet than SEO.

Just me being pedantic, but CMS stands for content management system. Do you say ATM machine and PIN number?


It was created with XenForo, a forum software solution.

If you have an urge to validate your HTML and CSS skills, there are other ways. Just because Joe Blow down the street can get the same results as you in a fraction of the time doesn't mean he's wrong, you just haven't caught up yet. Don't tell me you're one of those devs that like to create custom websites with convoluted or absent documentation so you can retain clients.

Hilarious. And I DO say PIN number.

Do you think search engines GAF what your website looks like?

Yes. At least Google does. There are several elements of what a website looks like that is factored into their algorithm.

I don't, You're just offended.

This is a weak response.

Offended by what? I thought he brought up excellent counter points.

Telling everyone who wants to have a website that they should learn to code or hire a developer. That's nonsense. And I run a custom development / SEO shop.

Telling people to avoid wix? That's something I agree with. But not for the reasons you laid out. Simply because there are better options on the market for everything wix tries to do.

You look like a money chaser.

To whom? How many people even notice if it's a wix or squarespace or WordPress site?

I could go on, but Charnell already dissected the post, and you don't want to hear it, so why bother...

 

[BD64]

landfill?

 

[Xeon]

So, John Adams, who wants to launch his own online biz selling handmade footwear for elderly folks with feet issues, needs to learn how to code (HTML/CSS/JS/CMS architecture/payment processing the whole shebang) and create a WooCommerce/Shopify clone FIRST?

 

[Kasual]

It's funny how many programmers circle jerk over WordPress vs. custom built websites. WordPress or any other CMS as a base for your project can be amazing tool for both you and the client. You can leverage the readiness of various plugins so you can bring the solution to the client quicker and cheaper and they will never have the trouble of editing anything on their end (if you don't maintain it), because there are literally millions of guides on the Internet.

Literally no one cares about custom code except those miserable programmers that are somehow trying to glorify their cUsToM cOdEd project. Get over yourself. Businesses are looking to solve their BUSINESS goals, not trying to get a custom website where you can drool over your clean, hand-written code.

 

[JByers210]

I don't, You're just offended.

You’re either clueless and just starting out or just a troll. Nothing to see here folks.

 

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[McAdam]

I work for a 5 year old SaaS company, with over 500,000 daily active users and 100 developers.

Our website is built in Wordpress.... Why?

Because it allows our Devs to focus on our product, and our marketing team to go and make changes and stuff they need without having to put in a request. There's 1 Dev who implements non standard things....

As a business, you need to know where to spend your resources for the maximum impact. Manually coding your landing page is not one of them!

The whole public landing page is built in Wordpress - BUT we build it and serve a "cached" version to visitors.

Plus... Ask most developers and they will tell you HTML is not a programming language (thousands of memes about this)
Its considered a markup language

 

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[Charnell]

Just on another note, these comments have left me confused as I'm someone who is learning how to code (specifically Web Dev) on the side. I've spent the past month learning HTML/CSS/JS, PHP, etc, through an online bootcamp. If websites can be made much easily using Wix/WordPress, am I wasting my time? I thought I was learning something that would be useful?

What is your reason for learning web development? Are you planning on your income coming from designing & developing websites?

I have a number of websites I run, but I'm not a web developer. Everything I know about CSS I learned when I needed it, nothing more. The website isn't the business, it's just the medium for marketing.

If you're making something special, web dev makes sense. If not, most blogs or e-commerce stores can be improved out of the box with a 5-pixel rounded border & drop shadow on images.

 

[Charnell]

Can you elaborate what you mean by the phrase “something special“ because I am currently building an e-commerce peer to peer marketplace on Wordpress.However the plug-ins that I am using do not have the specific function that I need for my business. I am now required to customise the plug-in so I am now learning HTML,CSS,JavaScript and PHP for customizing and combining features from other plugins.

Would you say this is a case of “something special“ as using WordPress is sufficient so far, however it does not fulfill my main business idea at this moment of time. What would you suggest me to do if you have any suggestion?

Really a toss-up. Is it essential to create that specific function? Or will an out-of-the-box multi-vendor marketplace work for now, assuming that's what you're talking about making? Is it really something you need for your business or something you want?

If you have more time than money it makes sense to learn how to make what you need. You'll have that knowledge for the future. Depending on how complex the specific function is it could be much more advantageous to find a dev.

Some would argue that a viable product/service that gets sales is more important. You could spend weeks or months trying to build and configure for nothing.

Everything has an opportunity cost.

 

[woken]

>Just spend 500 hours learning full stack development to test an ecommerce product for a week

Great idea

Actually that’s another transferable skill you can then use. But it’s not for everybody and the drag and drop platforms thrive for a reason. It saves lots of time.

Since we should avoid shortcuts, I’ll start hunting my own food.
( don’t start me on the vegan side of things, you got my point)

 

[daivey]

lol good laugh

 

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[Devilery]

This is not just crap, but an enormous pile of fresh shit.

Just a few examples in my social circle,

- Owner of a real estate agency, why the F*ck would he spend dozens if not hundreds of hours learning to code when all he needs is a basic site that serves as a business card, and maybe feature some listings (can be done with a simple plugin). He's a sales guy!
- Owner of a car repair & painting shop. Should this totally offline business owner who has very little digital anything expertise also learn to code? Is that really the most sensible way if the goal is to paint more cars? A custom-coded site? He's not a tech guy and does NOT need to be.
- An infinite list of other businesses...

It costs me less than $200 FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR to have a website, and that's including a paid builder (Divi) with hundreds of plug-n-play templates. It could be done for less than $100, and if the pricing suddenly doubles (it hasn't in years), it's still an amount that an entry-level business owner couldn't care less about. The cost is so tiny that it's insignificant.

Tell me that you know nothing about running a business without telling it... Go and tell those looking to get started in e-commerce to start by learning how to code.

Edit: Oh, you're the guy/gal who offered to redesign the forum...

 

[srodrigo]

No wonder some people never make a dime.

 

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[Black_Mamba_427]

I worked for 6 years at my Dads website design/digital marketing company, so I completely understand the angle you're coming from...

but.....

I've also been using Shopify for my business since 2017 and not ONCE have the servers gone down. 24/7 Live Chat with really, really good customer service and their prices have never changed. It's also handled 7 figures of transactions flawlessly, whilst only taking ~1-2% as a payment processing fee and I've never missed a payment.

I think for people starting out, it's an amazing tool at a super affordable price. People don't have to take a risk of investing say £5-20K building a website to see if their idea is successful or not.

For ecommerce sites, hotels/bookings, photography portfolio, blogger type websites - it's great. But yeah, if you want to build something as big as Amazon, or if you are dealing with millions of customers/huge amounts of data, then yeah - a private web agency would be better.

 

[Hitch-hiker]

Most starting entrepreneurs aren't coders, and have no budget to hire people that are.

Exactly, or there is no time to code your every website.
To build a website with WordPress it takes 1 day, how long it takes to build the website from scratch?

 

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[KushShah9492]

Wow.

This is bad on so many levels. Would you code each and every website for a client? If yes, learn full stack development for years, build a website from scratch (which would take a long time as well). OR you could take the easy approach: learn webflow/wordpress/wix -- get good enough at building basic websites using those tools -- speed-up your process.

I'm not saying learning those would be easy, it just takes a lot less time than learning how to code.

 

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[Jerma]

Thank you for the entertainment!

The second line tripped my bs detector, even before the bad arguments.

Stop.

Your trying to take a shortcut. You look like a money chaser.

You didn't say, "You are chasing money", you said, "You look like a money chaser". That's your hook. When I read that, I thought, "Why should I give a shit about how I look?".

I think that's a pretty widespread problem. If you are always thinking about how other people perceive you, you might start doing dumb things that looks good instead of focusing on what works.

 

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[BizyDad]

What is your reason for learning web development? Are you planning on your income coming from designing & developing websites?

If I had a nickle for every time you take the words out of my mouth...

...I'd have at least a dozen nickles.

 

[Ivan Koretskyy]

Sir, just use this statement for everything.

“It doesn’t matter how you get there, people care about results”

Yes it’s important to get the most control, but if getting it done 100x faster means giving up some control then I’m up for it.

You should might as well build your own computer from scratch, go to the forest or whatever and harvest some material to build your new graphics card because with your logic you don’t have control when Nvidia changes something.

 

[Alin Farah]

What is your reason for learning web development? Are you planning on your income coming from designing & developing websites?

I have a number of websites I run, but I'm not a web developer. Everything I know about CSS I learned when I needed it, nothing more. The website isn't the business, it's just the medium for marketing.

If you're making something special, web dev makes sense. If not, most blogs or e-commerce stores can be improved out of the box with a 5-pixel rounded border & drop shadow on images.

Can you elaborate what you mean by the phrase “something special“ because I am currently building an e-commerce peer to peer marketplace on Wordpress.However the plug-ins that I am using do not have the specific function that I need for my business. I am now required to customise the plug-in so I am now learning HTML,CSS,JavaScript and PHP for customizing and combining features from other plugins.

Would you say this is a case of “something special“ as using WordPress is sufficient so far, however it does not fulfill my main business idea at this moment of time. What would you suggest me to do if you have any suggestion?

 

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[Alin Farah]

Really a toss-up. Is it essential to create that specific function? Or will an out-of-the-box multi-vendor marketplace work for now, assuming that's what you're talking about making? Is it really something you need for your business or something you want?

If you have more time than money it makes sense to learn how to make what you need. You'll have that knowledge for the future. Depending on how complex the specific function is it could be much more advantageous to find a dev.

Some would argue that a viable product/service that gets sales is more important. You could spend weeks or months trying to build and configure for nothing.

Everything has an opportunity cost.

In my case this specific function is essential to create as it is the foundation of my unique selling proposition. I am already using a multi-vendor Marketplace system, however this will not be sufficient in this moment of time. So to answer your question, it is something the business needs.

I would say I have more time than money as I happen to be fairly young and I do not have the budget to hire a developer at the moment. I do not mind spending weeks or months on trying to build this even if it results in failure, since it would be a learning curve for me and I will attain skills and experience along the way.

Thank you for your time and I appreciate this advise you have given me.

 

[IronyIsTacky]

Posts like this are why I disagree with the "don't lurk" advice - you gotta hang around and soak a minimum of knowledge in before you start talking all that good shit

 

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[Raoul Duke]

landfill?

@MJ DeMarco
@Andy Black