One-Man Team
Although I’m a one-person outfit, my unique blend of skills makes me a one-man team, without the costs, communications and personality challenges of a typical project team. For example, my degree is in fine art, but I’m a lifetime techno geek with an engineering background and plenty of coding skills, as well as a savvy online marketer.
Experience
In 2011, I completed my 30th successful web project. Projects include new builds, rebuilds/updates and marketing.
High Quality
I build sites to official web standards and produce pages that do validate in professional code testing programs. It’s true that many amateurs can produce web sites (of a sort) at little cost – but will those meet the goals of your business and your marketing? You do “get what you pay for” (if you’re lucky).
Fees
My fee for web services is $80 per hour. That’s less than many professionals charge, but I do live in the San Francisco North Bay and living here IS expensive. Don’t let that scare you though.
Saving Money
There are many ways in which I save you money, such as using pre-designed, tested and validated “templates” as the basis for new web sites and pages, or installing professional menu systems, slide shows, catalogs, and other web functions – rather than building my own from scratch.
Cost Controls
Also, I can do projects in “Phases”, so that you pay-as-you-go, authorizing new work only after approving previous completed phases. And I can produce proposals with cost estimates for you.
From my many years of project management experience, I realize how important client communication is. With me, you always know how things are progressing and what costs to expect. You can always review and approve major tasks and proposed web page concepts, or request changes to those parts of your project which you have not yet approved.
Project Management
You can get web sites on the cheap, or even for free, if you’re willing to sacrifice control over what you get. Before I started this business, I had many years of project management experience as an engineer.
Your 2 Choices
You really have only 2 choices. Either spend what it takes to get a professional job done, or save money by spending the time required to learn to do-it-yourself.
Please remember that when you choose the DIY route, your first attempts are not likely to be good enough (how many beginners reach a high stat of perfection on their first try?). So be sure to include 2 or more complete re-builds and lots of learning time in your DIY estimates – plus the costs of good software tools, books, etc.
Do It Yourself?
I don’t mean to discourage those who want to do everything themselves – I’m one of you. There are great opportunities. If you have the time and chops I encourage you to learn to at least be your own marketer.
The DIY path is especially good for those who dream of a “labor-of-love” website. That is, a site on some topic they are passionate about – but which is not necessarily a money-maker.
Nobody understands a business and a market as well as the business owner. Nobody is in a better position to take advantage of the tremendous opportunities of the Web than a business owner empowered with their own web skills. But if you decide to take on all that, plus running your business, you’d best forget about having a life outside your business.
The Reality of Work-for-Hire
It’s important that you know what to expect when you hire work done. If you naïvely ask for too much, at too low a price, some people may promise you what they can’t deliver – and you’ll both end up disappointed.
My diagram below shows what IS practical
Project Choices
For example, if you want high quality at a low price, be prepared to wait. High quality work can’t be done both quickly and cheaply.
Likewise, if you want work done both quickly and cheaply, don’t also expect high quality. Finally, if you want high quality work done quickly, then expect to pay more.
And so it goes…
