Webdesign Fastlane or Slowlane?

[MJ DeMarco]

Webdesign Fastlane or Slowlane?

When you stop, does your income stop?

Slowlane.

However, that said ... by all means do it.

You will get paid to learn. And what are you learning? You're getting paid to build systems.

Fastlane.

Additionally as mentioned above, you can focus on creating templates.

Once you build a template, it survives time and will work for you IN TIME. Meaning, you can make money while sleeping!

For example, take a look at this:

https://wrapbootstrap.com/theme/unicorn-admin-template-WB0F35928

This template has been sold 2,430 times @ 18 bucks a pop. That's $43,000. (And I the template has been up for 5 months -- that annualized is about $100K/year -- FN passive. (Not counting the commission the website receives.)

This is how you leverage your work -- you build something the survives time and can be scaled.

 

[LeungJan]

What?! You can't be too young, you can just be too old for things.

Especially web stuff. You're young so you know the latest trends.

Dress well, act mature and you'll be respected.

Youth never stopped me from doing business deals and from being taken seriously. Go for it.

Totally agree with this.

Thanks again for the replies, it's definitely an angle that I didn't consider.

I'm only 19 years old and in college, I think a lot of credibility will be immediately dismissed because of my age if I were to attend a networking event like you mention.

I've done pretty well selling sites in the $350-$500 range, but I see quite a few people charging nothing less than $1,000 for sites that I can easily replicate. I've been thinking that "Looking Big, Acting Small" might be a good veil to hide my age and allow me to land higher-end clients.

Would you guys be hesitant or opposed to having a website developed by someone that is young like me?

I guess I am in the similar boat with you. I have been doing this for about 7 years now since I was 13 and worked my way through these hurdles... although I didn't commit much time to it throughout the younger years so all of that could be consolidated if focused on.

Right now I'm 20 and in some months I have brought in $10000... but average around $7800. This is really great and these numbers have really improved my quality of life but I realise that as soon as I stop working, bam no money coming in. It sucks and I really have to work my a$$ off sometimes. Thus I am trying to get into products such as templates (fastlane)

Anyhow I agree with MJ that the great thing about this is that you learn how to build systems, you also get an insight into how others are doing their business (right/wrongly) and you learn new languages etc.. (paid to learn ) and the more you learn / the higher your skill set the more you can charge.

You also have to find the right people. I wasted a bunch of time when I was younger hanging in the wrong places similar to craigslist with people who have a very small budget. I know trading time for money is a poor strategy but if you work it out you are probably putting many hours in for that < $1000 job so your not making much per hour. That said you are learning etc and if you enjoy programming its probably more enjoyable than working in an awful job at the same or less rate.

There are different tiers of customers who want websites.

Anyway back onto what I was meant to say is as long as you have a good portfolio (good clients) showcasing your work, act responsibly, be confident and let your age be a positive factor you will do well. If you don't, take on these jobs, learn as much as you can and do a great job. Showcasing what you can do, believe it or not - this is very subjective and just my opinion but I think for most people they just want their information online and design and copy is the most important thing as opposed to how well you can code. But if you get the more technical job then your code quality matters (this improves over time anyway..)

There is a chain of restaurant/lunch shops in my City, they are growing right now and have a 14 stores. I went in and I liked the shop so I decided to check out their website, turns out it was really outdated - So I sent them an email telling them how much I loved their shop but its a shame that their website didnt reflect how cool their shop was. I didn't expect a reply but a few days later they got in touch with me. They mentioned they had planned to re do it.. I was shocked that a big chain would answer a young guy like me.. A few emails (with portfolio ) went back and forth and then I met the owner of the company himself who was impressed that I was young and it became a positive factor - he mentioned: "You guys are up to date with all the latest tech", I got the gig! so dont let it hold you back!

Just make sure you are reliable and can do a great job and thats all that matters.

Hope my experience some how helps!

 

[Twiki]

Read "Built to Sell", it's in the bookstore here (but I'd get the Kindle version if yr stuck in bed sick, just get it now): Book Recommendations for Entrepreneurship Marketing and Success. It's very relevant to what you're talking about here

 

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[evoo21]

I don't understand ... are you saying that the web developer's website is lacking, so therefore, how could they do something for you? And yes, my impression of the website is that it's below average and looks dated.

I failed to mention that the women was a networking queen. she attended various events each week, tapped into her husband's network etc.

My point to liquid and elliot was that it's a relationship business, and that having the technical know how is not all you need to be successful in this or any business; this person has A-list clients through her relationships but offers a subpar product, that people buy because of their relationship with her not her technical abilities.

 

[joschi]

You can’t say in general if its fast or slowlane, it’s how about you build this. IF you can automate things, it could be “fastlane” . Maybe you should use your skills to earn some money to boost another project?

If you have time to spare just do it, or what I would do just read some good books and fuel your mind with new information.

It s all about what you need. If you need more knowledge read books, if you need some quick money, make websites. It doesn’t matter, with both ways you will learn something.

With kind regards
Patrick

Edit: I forget: You have to considder, that this i sa very crowded business space...

 

[tincho1492]

What about creating outstanding templates and selling them?

 

[tincho1492]

Take a look here: ThemeForest Top Authors | ThemeForest

Some guys doing more than 1M in sales! Obviously that the true Fastlaners here are the guys that built the platform

 

[FastNAwesome]

I'm only 19 years old and in college, I think a lot of credibility will be immediately dismissed because of my age if I were to attend a networking event like you mention.

What?! You can't be too young, you can just be too old for things.

Especially web stuff. You're young so you know the latest trends.

Dress well, act mature and you'll be respected.

Youth never stopped me from doing business deals and from being taken seriously. Go for it.

 

[FastNAwesome]

I met the owner of the company himself who was impressed that I was young and it became a positive factor

Exactly! If you're good at something, it just becomes more impressive that you did it so young.

Only a fool would discriminate you just because of age, so if someone does, they did you a favor. These are the people that don't believe in themselves either, feel sorry for them and rock on, do your thing Btw.what do you think why there are "30 under 30" lists? It's cool to be under 30

Best way to get web design clients:

Network
Write articles for specialty trade magazines
Give free seminars
Give free webinars

Didn't try the rest of these, but networking has definitely been a winner for me. Whenever I'm around business owners, usually at some point they ask me what I do, and it goes something like this:

"I create websites"

"Really!? I need a website!"

Literally, that's my whole pitch, and from that point on they insist on having my phone number. Because there is a need out there definitely.

 

[JoeV]

There are 2 ways that I see to make web design worth your time...

First, create and sell templates. This has already been mentioned and it is a good passive way to make income. So many people are building off of templates and just modifying them a bit.

Second, create designs that increase sales for a client. This can be landing page design, optimizing designs or designing entirely new sites with the promise to follow up to make sure the design is producing good sales. Today, people don't want just a nice design. They want a design that increases their sales. This is the direction things are going and any design firm that can't do this will fall behind.

Companies pay top dollar for landing page design and optimizing site designs. Optimizing is more data oriented. Once you get the experience, it is not too difficult if you have some marketing talents. Companies pay me $30k+ just to optimize their designs. They will not be willing to spend $30k+ on a new "look", but if you are optimizing their design to achieve x% more sales, then they will see the ROI.

Take some marketing and ad copy courses in school. Then work on some small sites on the side and offer follow up with optimization work so you can get familiar with analyzing the data to determine where design changes need to be made. It is not passive income, but there is big money paid for your time if you are good.

 

[JoeV]

Thanks for some great advice, I'm really interested in the concept of sites that convert, not just sites that look great - I've finished Maria Veloso's book on "Web copy that sells" and I'm just starting Ca$hvetising. I just need to apply it right now - any good resources you reccomend?

Experience. It is the best resource you can have.

Too many people make the mistake of reading books about how to do something instead of just doing it. If you already design for clients, offer to set up tracking for their sites and fix any issues you see.

- Use google analytics and set up goals. You just need to enter the "thank you" page (the page someone sees when they complete an order or lead) as a goal.

- Use google content experiments to run a/b/x tests on any pages that you think can be improved. Never be scared to make a drastic layout change on a page and test it out.

- See if there are any pages where visitors are dropping off. I did a detailed case study where you can read more how we found an issue with traffic flow. See the "Traffic Flow" section at Conversion Rate Case Study: Revenue Up Over 300% | Prodigal Solutions

- Make sure you get all of the basics down... have testimonials, customer reviews, security badge in footer and checkout, keep a simple design, easy to follow navigation, etc.

- Use services like Click Tale and watch videos of users browsing the site. You will get to see where they are reading and why they left.

- test, test, test.


Most conversion rate optimization firms and the information out there is garbage. I have had several companies contact me and tell me their bad experiences with other CRO firms. You will read articles how you should change button colors or change the text for a link and that will generate huge increase in conversions. It is never that simple, but many firms out there will focus so much on the wrong goals and then dance around because they got 137% more people to click on a button. Did it generate more revenue or just distract people before they were ready to buy?

The goal is always more revenue and profits. Always focus on the bottom line. Go out there and get involved in as many sites as possible to see how they are generating there revenue and how you can increase it through improving design / navigation / trust / etc. Every site is different, so don't think books or articles will help you out. The books and articles will basically tell you the same things over and over and over, but using different stories. They basically will tell you how to gain trust, keep things easy to understand for your customer, make things easy to find/purchase, keep the presentation clean, and give the customer value.

You might find a good tip here and there by reading, but getting hands on experience is the only way to move forward.

 

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[joschi]

What about creating outstanding templates and selling them?

That would work

I had made some webdesign to, but i think its not the right way to go for me... I want to trye different things, go out and trye some new stuff Thats wye i am not into it anymore. So i do it for my porjects if i need to but not anymore for clients.

Ps: i am still in a 9-5:30 job to.. at least for now

Edit: i used WP and one time Drupal. Was a hassle to learn it, but if you will use it often it is definetly worth a shot!

 

[tincho1492]

Top selling themeforest authors are not really 100% passive, they provide active support to clients + keep templates up to date.

Agree. But if you are making 1M in sales you can hire developers to do that. I guess. But yes, is not 100% passive, but not too bad either

 

[ubiquitous]

I was a web developer for a while and MJ hit the nail on the head.

You couldn't pay me enough money to build for anyone else ever again.

Templates or not...

Yet, I learned all of the little tricks for setting up a business online while getting paid: CRM, programming, SIP phones, gateways, blah, blah, blah.

I did have employees, but that literally just meant a new set of problems that I wouldn't want to go through again while being responsible for delivering a contracted product.

 

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[ubiquitous]

What are you up to now?

I have a line of products that I sell via direct response/e-commerce & soon to be retail.

 

[evoo21]

Elliot,

First of all, I want to point out that building websites and running a website design business are completely different. There are a lot of skills needed to run any business that you won't have gained from simply building websites.

Second, building websites is difficult to leverage. If you are the one developing, you can only work on one site at a time, and while you're developing you can't be out selling.

Webdesign and development CAN be fast lane if you use the right strategies:
- Maintenance Contracts: Have low entry prices with a monthly maintenance cost to update servers, make changes to the page, etc. Having my own business that offers this service, I can attest that the majority of people do not have many changes on a monthly basis and if they do charge accordingly. It is not uncommon for organizations like school districts to pay $1,000 - $2,500 a month just for maintenance on their site.

- Hosting: Everyone needs hosting and most businesses have no idea how much hosting costs. I charge $20 per site per month and cost to me is $25 per month. With ten accounts, I am making $225 a month from doing nothing.

- Mobile Sites: Mobile is all the rage, as it should be. Charge an upfront fee to create a mobile site for someone, and then charge a monthly fee to host and maintain it.

There are low barriers to entry in this industry - sites like oDesk have made it easy to outsource the majority of the work. If you can somehow reach a ton of people (scale) you may be able to make this a fastlane business.

 

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[evoo21]

Hi Logic,

Craigslist is tough. I bought an autoresponder that automatically responds to ads with certain keywords such as "wordpress" "html" "website" in the computer gigs section. I did get a good amount of leads, but none of them materialized exactly because of what you said: These are all people trying to get a deal and on a tight budget.

The website business is primarily a people business. Seriously, every singly client I have gotten has been someone I was friends with, acquaintances with, worked with, or a referral from a friend.

I used to think that making nice websites that were sleek would get me clients, and it can but it's mostly relationship based.

Case in point - I met this woman at a networking event a few years ago. She rattled off all the accounts she had; 7-11, University of Washington, etc. I was impressed by her client list and was expecting a killer website. Instead, I got this highdive.com

My best advice to you would be to think of a way that you are different from all the other web people out there and start networking. Let everyone know that you are now making websites for people and DON'T DO ANY FREE WORK! I made the mistake of doing a couple of sites for free, and it was a pain. When people have no skin in the game, they can become very demanding.

Hope this helps.

 

[Twiki]

I've done pretty well selling sites in the $350-$500 range, but I see quite a few people charging nothing less than $1,000 for sites that I can easily replicate. I've been thinking that "Looking Big, Acting Small" might be a good veil to hide my age and allow me to land higher-end clients.

Would you guys be hesitant or opposed to having a website developed by someone that is young like me?

Don't hide. Be professional but don't pretend.

I would rather hire someone your age than a "networking king/queen". I bet many high-end clients have had experience with such folks and understand what that's about. If there are A-listers she's worked with, enabling her to say "I've worked with ____", you know and they know it's just throwing her a bone, to maintain the networking relationship.

If you pretend, you would be doing the same thing as her, except she has more experience and expertise in the art of blowing smoke, so you'd lose right there. There's no contradiction between developing your relationships and also having actual technical skills. Everybody knows that the best techies are doing their best work in their teens and twenties. Everybody knows Zuckerberg wasn't a middle aged dude attending networking events.

If you're going to emulate anyone, be like the Zuckerberg of your local network, the young whiz kid, not like the networking queen.

The main thing is you have to make a bulletproof case for being reliable, not like one of those dine-and-dash website guys that burn people all the time. The fact that you charge so much less not only implies that you don't have the skills, it also implies that you are one of those "craigslist" looking-for-a-gig transients. No no no.

PS. It's nice you see existing sites you can easily replicate, but if that's all you can do, why bother? You need to do a lot better.

PS. #2 I see my brain mixed up Evo's post and yours between the page break... but anyway the point still stands. Also would definitely agree with others that personally doing this kind of work for local businesses is surely not the way to go in the long term.

 

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[elliot]

Case in point - I met this woman at a networking event a few years ago. She rattled off all the accounts she had; 7-11, University of Washington, etc. I was impressed by her client list and was expecting a killer website. Instead, I got this highdive.com

That site looks like it was made on the free version of frontpage that came with Windows 98!
I am not going to go ahead with putting energy into this now I have a couple of sites to make for people I know and I must admit sites take me time (maybe even a full day sometimes) to create so per hour price is low.

I will put my mind in other places and hopefully start something this year!

 

[Twiki]

What?! You can't be too young, you can just be too old for things.

Especially web stuff. You're young so you know the latest trends.

Dress well, act mature and you'll be respected.

Youth never stopped me from doing business deals and from being taken seriously. Go for it.

What you're saying makes me think about how "You remind me of me when I was your age" is one of the best things you can hear from a successful oldster. Once you stop hearing that it probably means yr getting old and/or you're hanging around the wrong set of people.

 

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[ubiquitous]

Best way to get web design clients:

Network
Write articles for specialty trade magazines
Give free seminars
Give free webinars
Blah, Blah, Blah

If I had to start it all over today I'd advertise exclusively via seminars and local meetups...

I'd also only focus on being a performance marketing expert. There's better pay in the marketing and the client questions you less.

 

[LeungJan]

Yeah thats a good way to get some passive income! I do this too, I have a VPS though. Will you be doing shared hosting via a reseller? The only problem I have had so far (and friends) is that clients may need support, especially if they host their email on the account etc.. But for the most part for me I have had no problems and very little support! I'm pretty sure you could scale it up but I havent really pushed it that far and for me (correct me if I'm wrong) but it looks limited by the no. of clients you have. (Unless you were to set it up as a web hosting company)

But that isn't a solid reason not to do it.

 

[evoo21]

LeungJan, I'm going to start charging for hosting/maintenance on the next and subsequent clients that I get to start a passive/recurring income stream.

I'm just going to use Hostgator hosting and bill clients using PayPal, which will eliminate the need to handle credit card information. (If anyone knows of a better alternative, I'd appreciate any info!)

I don't know that using paypal billing is the best option. Sure it's free and easy, but in my mind it seems kind of amaterurish.

I think you'd be better off getting a Quickbooks account or something similar, and sending monthly invoices to clients. You can either accept checks or Quickbooks Online has an option where clients can pay you online and they take $.75 or something like that.

Lastly, you can have your customers fill out a form that has their credit card information and a release that says you are allowed to charge it if they do not contest charges on their invoice within x amount of days. Then, get a square (for free) and process payments that way.

 

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[LeungJan]

I know the topic has changed a little but I have decided to follow a course (videos) on how to create Wordpress and Dreamweaver themes and also HTML5, CSS3 with Dreamweaver even though I am not really up on this hopefully I can have a play around. I have made a site for my partner sophiebeeches.co.uk (personal training) which is very basic and I just let her type in the words but the problem that might be a worry now is that many sites offer these easy website builders so any business can use this? I have been reading this thread but am still not sure this is fastlane but not much else to spend my time on atm.

The website builders havent dominated the market yet and some people would rather give the job to you than do it themselves.

I somehow related this also to:

"The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time."
—HENRY FORD

 

[logic]

I'll definitely check out Quickbooks, evoo, thanks!

And the website builders (weebly, wix, etc.) still require a time investment for the business owner. Many folks are intimidated by the thought of building a website themselves. They're also limited in creativity and if they want something that is even somewhat unique, they would have to invest more time learning how to do it.

There's a fastlane need that can be solved; create an even better website-builder.

Still, there will always be a need for a custom, or semi-custom website (wordpress w/ templates) because many don't want to invest their time into something that is unfamiliar to them.

 

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[elliot]

I am quite good at creating websites and at the moment have no really good fastlane ideas but was wondering on if you guys would think its worth me registering a business and using my time making websites?
This idea sounds slowlane to me but would this gain me useful experience?
I have two weeks off work with sickness so am stuck in bed but also with a computer to hand so need something productive to keep me busy!

 

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[elliot]

Thanks, I have to admit the only thing holding me back is the fact its crowded!
I have no need to make money quick but living with parents, 8-5 job, .... you know!

 

[logic]

I was wondering this too, I do website design/development and have been doing pretty well. I'm thinking about incorporating and trying to attract higher paying clients to fund future ventures/pay off school debt.

How do you create your sites? Wordpress? (That's what I use) Custom? Joomla? Just curious to see how others do it.

Nice thread!

 

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[Gold777]

Slowlane.

 

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[FastNAwesome]

Some guys doing more than 1M in sales! Obviously that the true Fastlaners here are the guys that built the platform

+1

Top selling themeforest authors are not really 100% passive, they provide active support to clients + keep templates up to date.