In today’s day and age, everyone needs to have a presence on the internet. Whether you’re a model on Instagram, or a mechanic shop, or sell jewelry, it is vital that you present your profession and personality in the best light possible.
It may not seem like such a big deal to some of you, but consider the fact that most Billion Dollar startups started with nothing more than a website and a waiting-list. Slidebean.com is one such example, in which the founders didn’t even have a prototype ready, before presenting a mailing list and then seeking funding using the traction they had received. Their website presentation was crucial at that point.
The difference between a nice looking website that shows tastefulness and elegance, and a website that “just works” could literally be billions of dollars in potential investment, revenue or market cap. It of course doesn’t guarantee it, but if the idea and business model are sound, and everyone is doing their job, the last thing you’d want is for your presentation to become the bottleneck.
In fact, in the tech-startup world, an investor wouldn’t even consider investing in a startup without a tech-savvy founder, as well as a marketing-guru, already on-board. If you’re asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars, building a nice presentation that is available to the public is obviously a no-brainer.
Despite this reality, as a Full-Stack Web-developer, I get hit with the most comical cries, typically from people who aren’t doing well in their business, and dismiss the importance of their online presence.
“I don’t really need something faaaancy, I just need something Veeeery basic. Can you do it for $50???”
No, I can’t. Building a website isn’t a one-and-done thing. You’ll want changes, maintenance, and lots of hand holding before it all starts working. I wish it was as easy as taking a paintbrush to the screen, so I wouldn’t have to study it in college for 6 years and work in the industry for over 15 years to be great at it. And even if it was, most people aren’t Picasso. Hell, I wouldn’t sell my paintings for anything less than $500.
Look. You can build your own website on Wix. It’ll cost you $16/month….plus a dozen hours of your time every week, updating the information, doing graphic design and moving things around…
If your business is too small and you have a lot of time on your hands, or that’s what you love doing, or it’s literally your “bread & butter” – like it was for me – by all means, go right ahead and do that.
However, the REAL question is:
Which one is more important to you? Your Time for managing things like:
- Product Development & Quality Assurance
- Inventory management
- Order fulfillment, Returns, Shipping
- Legal contracts
- Marketing Strategy, sales or just knocking on every door
- Billing & Accounting
- Hiring & Employee Management
- Vendor relations & negotiations
- Dealing with the IRS & Taxes
- Taking a walk or laying by the pool to relax…
Or…do you want to:
- Spend days on end on your website
- Update it manually yourself
- No integrations with your current system
- Feel frustrated that no one likes it, except maybe you
- Have it load slowly
- Can’t find yourself on a Search Engine like Google, Yahoo or Bing
- No one to call when you get stuck
- Cry about it to your mommy
Frankly, if you choose the latter, you have too much time on your hands as a business owner. This could explain why you’re not able to afford a dedicated web developer.
Yes. Most businesses hire web developers in-house, full-time. Why, you ask?
When a website never changes, it looks like a stagnant, abandoned shop, with dust all over it. It automatically signals inactivity to anyone who looks at it. You might think “well, nobody is really looking at my website anyway” in which case, you have the wrong mentality for growing a business using a revolutionary technology called the internet. Or maybe you want to stay small, which is ok. Let someone else have it, am I right?
If you want to get serious about growing your business, it must seem as if many are looking at your site, regardless of how many people actually are. If there are no new products or promotions to highlight, there’s no excitement. For people to want to buy your products, you have to make it seem as if they’re selling like hotdogs at a baseball game, and that you’re the “next big thing”. Even as a small business, you need to be trying new ideas, new marketing campaigns, new product line ups, new pricing, new whatever – which means you need to make changes quickly and spontaneously, and measure the impacts.
Many local business startups offered me a large equity stake because they were strapped for cash and wanted a website to “save” their company. Personally, I have found these offers to be a waste of time. What usually ends up happening is that they realize it is a lot easier for me to build a website, than it is for them to build their business. That shouldn’t come as a surprise; because I have been building websites since I was 16 years old, and they’ve just started doing what they’re doing. Once a nice website is up and running, it becomes apparent that even the best website in the world couldn’t fix the underlying issues with their business model or performance. So I’ve stopped accepting these “generous” offers. Now I either offer my subscription website service, or point them in the Wix’s direction. While a website can help the reputation and efficiency of a business, it can never guarantee results. It simply creates a larger bandwidth to accept incoming business.
You might think that sounds crazy. Who would give equity to a website builder? Well…there are several types of website builders:
Website Designer: A Website Designer is educated on the fundamentals of Graphic Design, not the engineering aspects that involve the code, nor the marketing aspects like Search Engine Optimization. In-house website designers cost $23-$40/hr, and they often create stunning works of digital art. But they’re not versed in anything else other than Design.
Website Developer: A Website Developer (or programmer) is typically focused on the engineering aspects of the website. This person works on the code logic of the website, doing things like integrations, functionality changes, and fixing errors and bugs. Website developers are usually not versed in anything except coding. Some are focused on Front-end implementing the Design done by the designer, some are focused on the Back-end, working on functions that don’t meet the eye at first glance.
Full Stack Web Developer: These guys do it all, Design, Code and Implement. A Junior Full Stack Web developer starts at about $50/hr for an in-house employee, and costs $75-$180/hr for a local contract freelancer.
Reputation Managers: This type of personnel does something entirely different from Web Designers and Web Developers. Reputation managers focus on affiliate marketing, reviews, ad campaigns, Search Engine Optimization, customer feedback, and other aspects that can boost the reputation of your business using your website as a presentation platform. These services often cost upwards of $3000/month, plus any additional overage fees that they need to pay to websites like Google, Facebook, Yelp and others, to get your business ad in front of your target demographic.