Hi,
I just released my second video for the Business of Web Design course:
Business of Web Design: Hardware and Software
It is about 14 minutes and it covers the basics on what hardware and software you need to start a web design business. Along the way, I discus a few basic business concepts that are crucial to any small business.
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I am also archiving the videos at www.studioweb.com
Thanks,
Stefan
Nice…
Stefan,
While I do appreciate your comments as they relate to understanding the start-up lag time, as well as the necessity of efficiently managing ones funds, I do want to make a quick point:
Design is not easily done on just any lame “Wal-Mart” computer. I find that in my work my high-end Macs are due for a good replacement every year or two. Running programs like Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, etc can be a drag on any machine. While yes, you can go the less expensive route, I do NOT recommend it. Such low end computing is bound to take you twice as long to complete remedial tasks as would otherwise benecessary.
Regards,
Jeremy H
Hi Jeremy,
I find it depends on the software you are using. So yes, if you are using the latest release of Photoshop and Illustrator, you might find a difference with a faster machine.
That said, please consider these few points:
1. Web design is about text manipulation, and that requires very little power.
2. Many web designers don’t create image heavy pages anymore.
3. Often times the difference between the top of the line $3000 PC vs. the middle of the road $1200 machine, is about 10-15% … in terms of processing speed.
Finally, over the last few years, with the wide adoption of the Web standards and CSS based layout, web design has become much … uh, lighter.
I appreciate your comments.
Thanks!
Stefan
Hi Stefan,
I’m guilty - I spent too much money when I started my web business last year. Your emphasis on reducing costs down to nothing is absolutely right on.
One example of overspending is that I hosted my website on a dedicated server @ $309 /month. It took me 9 months to learn that I didn’t need that much machine. A shared server now costs me $14.99 / month and there is plenty of headroom for growth.
There are a thousand ways to spend too much money but only one way to reduce costs: using “know how”. Experience and business cost are inversely proportional. The more you know, the less you spend. That’s why I subscribed to Killer Sites!
BTW, I have a question for you. I conceptualize and prototype e-commerce products. How would you charge clients for concepts? I spend a lot of time developing the ideas so that the implementation is simple and straight forward. In fact, the end design is so simple that I’m at a loss on how to justify how much time I spent working on it.
Cheers, Michelle
Hi Michelle,
The problem you are having, is one I had to deal with years ago: you’ve done the work, so now the implementation is trivial.
There is a moral issue and a practical issue as well:
1. You don’t want to charge clients for nothing.
2. But you want to make money for the time you put into developing your design.
I ran into this issue as a software developer. After years of developing web applications (mostly with Java,) I had developed a pretty cool collection of Java objects that took care of all kinds of common task:
- connecting to databases.
- validation
- building dynamic widgets like data-grids etc.
… and much more.
My ‘problem’ was my collection made jobs much, much easier. What once took days, took only hours! So what’s an honest web-nerd to do? You got to make a living!
My answer came from a very honest programmer friend of mine. This guy cared so little about money that I knew his opinion would be honest regarding this.
He pointed out that I had invested in my code collection, and that my ability to do jobs in a fraction of the time was the payout for the extra work of building the collection of Java objects.
… So it was very reasonable to still charge the for the time it would normally take you to build things.
My trick:
I charge about 75% what I would have to charge, if I had had to build something from scratch.
This way the client gets the deal and you get payback for your extra work.
Stefan
Thoughtful response. Now I just have to determine the value and get up the nerve to ask for it.
Thanks again, Michelle