Start A Web Design Business

My first recommendation, is don’t; Just don’t. Stay as far away from computers as you possibly can. You either have to hire lots of people starting out, or wear a lot of hats. Consider that if you’re not the person hands on building the site, then you’re the “go-fer”, or better known as the Project Manager. It is your job to get all the stuff everyone else needs to do their job, and you’re also the businessperson who has to dole out the checks. You’ll have to sell services in five major areas of web development:

Engineering

Anyone can learn HTML in a week, and be considered an expert within a month. Many people start out here, because you can’t make anything work on the internet, without knowing some bit of code. You may have been even started out with MS Office software, and built a database, or an excel spreadsheet. Over time you have branhed out to learn the basics of what makes a website work.

Be prepared to change your business cards, as fast as your underwear. - Jeff Knooren

This training, combined with computer networking is a good foothold to have. If you’re trying to branch out from this environment, I bet you’d need help, because it takes a very analytical mind to understand the minutia of efficient programming concepts. This is not typical of other positions, as perfection isn’t required.

Creative

If you are a creative and artistic person, you are probably thought of as artistic. Or, autistic, depending on how you look at it. You create logos and graphics, or pre-press print work. But, you work as part of a larger team that takes care of the analytical programming tasks for you. You will probably find it tedious to work on lines and lines of code, and debug error messages.

Manager

Probably the most obvious, and overlooked hat you will be wearing in this business. Middle management sounds glorious, but your basically the person who makes sure people have what they need, when they need it. Is the client supposed to supply stock photography? Then YOU are the one to make sure the creative people have it on time. This position is quite a juggling act. Because you probably interact with clients who know nothing about the web. So you have to explain it to the uninitiated.

Business Owner

If you don’t have any business, then it doesn’t matter how good you are at the other occupations. If you can’t stay profitable, or bring in new business, you simply won’t be in business very long. I’m not saying you need to be an accountant, but knowing what technology to invest in, and what NOT to spend money on is critical.

It is reasonable to expect that a certain amount of manual intervention is required in tracking the inflow and outflow of money. How do you monitor billing of clients, take care of refunds, etc. You must make sure that all billable time is tracked to an invoice, and submitted to the client.

Customer

There are times when you must make tough decisions to further the business. So, would you buy your won services? Do you need to take on some low level jobs to log some experience? Do you need to charge more for your services? If you do, how can you justify the increase in cost? What can you improve to make the process of web site development smoother for a client?

Your life, as you know it, is over once you ask the question “how does that work”. - Jeff Knooren

Some people love the stress and tension of making hard business decisions. Most of us would rather avoid them. But not matter how you feel, three are many times when a detached, unemotional opinion is needed.

Putting It All Together

My experience has proved that these five services need to work together. There may be times when you want your creative talents to take center stage, and other times when you need to sharpen a pencil and do some math. It’s definitely worth it to pay an expert for a few hours of consulting, just to help you go down the right path in your research, so you don’t fiddle away your time on the internet.

By no means am I an expert PHP programmer. But I understand programming logic, and can modify it with no problem. I’m also not an SEO expert, however I know how to structure pages properly, and have bought keywords on the major search engines. Many of my clients have made me realize the benefit of having a wide area of knowledge. Being able to adapt quickly, and fill in the gaps of your knowledge will often land you contracts you could have missed otherwise.