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Introduction and a request for feedback on my idea.


erikkritter

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Hello, I have recently decided to start a web development business. I say "development" because my artistic ability is somewhat lacking & I am refering to my role more as a space developer like a real estate developer. I may also develop some sites that I don't have a buyer for and then sell it to them.

 

My background from after college is about 12 years in sales and sales management & 5 years in production/general management.

 

I have been "playing" with code for years (I started writing code back in the 80s on a Apple IIe in BASIC) but have never earned any money doing it. I studied Fortran in college (*yuck*), learned a little Visual Basic & a few other things, but I never would have described myself as anything but a "power user" in the past. About a year and a half ago a friend asked me to help out with a website for a club we both belong to & I started learning html, css, & a little php. The next thing I knew I was updating sites for friends & did a couple from scratch.

 

Now I want to start a business doing it. I am humbly asking for a little feedback from you folks on my broadbrush plan.

 

Market niche- I have observed that the local web design/development firms tend to focus on the "big fish" located in the cities. I plan on selling to the small "mom & pop" businesses in the rural counties that are ignored by the established firms. I plan on selling them on "template customization" to keep the costs down and make the site design development more affordable for my target market.

 

sales door opener- a local community directory (I know clitche, but the ones around here suck). This is to be a very simple way for me to talk to the local owners and introduce myself to them with no pressure, as I will not be charging for a basic listing. If they want an image file or an advert I will charge for that. A long time ago I learned that it is not what you know, nore who you know, but rather it is how they know you. I have to have some way of getting the local small business owners to know me as a web developer. Plant the seed - kind of thing. I will also be going door to door for introductions and to ask how they want their listing to read... (Oh, & I will be imbeding a local news blog (with a few journalist wannabes writing) & a community forum). This will be based on one rural county per directory. Focusing on the county where I live at first.

 

networking tools- 1)I plan on starting a small non-profit to provide financial & economic literacy classes to people in my locality & ask other business owners to help by teaching, writing, & providing real world examples that people can learn from. I am naturally passionate about this & will do it anyway, but mention it because it has a great synergistic fit for my business plan. 2)my membership in other local clubs and organizations that I am truly interested in being involved with. This is something I enjoy & it will help me get people to know me as a web developer. (if anyone wants to do this it is a great way to network - just be genuine about what you do - don't do something like pick a church because the owners of your top three "wish that guy was my client" people go there, you will be transparant & look like a jerk, now if you truly are interested in the church because you think it is a great fit for you because you agree with their doctrine, like the people, etc.. & those 3 guys go there... by all means, JOIN! - just be genuine about why you are there!)

 

Workforce- There are several small colleges near me who have programs for web designers/developers but they .... suck at getting the kids internships and jobs. I plan on offering these students internships (pay them by the job). I am sure they write better code than I do & maybe if things go well I will be in a postion to offer them full time work when they graduate. Also, by using the students I can focus on my best skill, selling, and gain some benifit from skill specialization. I got this idea from some friends of mine who can do great artwork, design, developing, etc... but they can't sell the proverbial "fur coat to a naked man in the arctic". I can teach these youngsters how to sell (if they want to learn) & they can help me build a business while building a portfolio of work to help them get a job after college (& earn a little money).

 

Branding- I have chosen a brand & have worked up the whole deal based on what will appeal to local folks. It is based on local history that is fondly remembered by the locals.

 

hosting- I have looked at alot of hosting providers for a reseller account for shared hosting & I beleive I have settled on one. So I will be offering hosting services. I want to avoid the overselling business model & base my plan pricing on what the BW & data transfer really cost. Though I am not sure that many customers in my initial target market will require that much.

 

Pricing- I have gathered what data I could about my local competitors and picked a pricing plan based on my target market and by what my competitors are doing.

 

Personal Situation- my situation is very fortunate for starting a business. My wife is a successful CPA & we have structured our finances to live on one income. I have never seen a better time in my life to start a business. The income cut will be considerable at first but my wife is behind me taking the chance to build it back up and the chance to do what I want.

 

So far my "idea floating" with friends has resulted in agreements to do about 6 sites (everyone I asked about my idea) & I have quit floating my idea to people (I don't want to oversell myself). I was asking them what they thought about the idea for a business and they asked me if I would do a site for them...simple little static sties, but it is work!

 

I know how to sell, I am not really sure if my competitors have someone who has selling as their core competiency (one does I am friends with the owner, but he targets big fish & is more of a traditional marketing firm, with web as a sideline). Most of the others... it seems to be a skill of necesity & not something that they are necessarily good at.

 

Any feedback, thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I am really excited but want a reality check. This all seems... to good to be true...

 

BTW: Thanks to Stefan & all the posters here who have provided the info I needed in the past while figuring something out. I never found myself needing to post before because I allways found the answer somewhere!

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Welcome to the Killersites forums!

 

I think the challenge here is this:

 

Market niche- I have observed that the local web design/development firms tend to focus on the "big fish" located in the cities. I plan on selling to the small "mom & pop" businesses in the rural counties that are ignored by the established firms. I plan on selling them on "template customization" to keep the costs down and make the site design development more affordable for my target market.

 

Realistically, are you going to be able to convince these "mom and pop" type businesses that they need a website, especially in a rural area? Perhaps you should specify: how rural is "rural"? "I still use a dial up modem" rural? If so, it might be more of a challenge.

 

Sounds like you don't have to depend on money from this to make ends meet though -- a situation that I'm sure some would be jealous of!

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I agree.

 

by rural, I mean - Franklin County, VA which is adjacent to the largest city in SW Virginia (Roanoke) & is the fastest growing county in Virginia. It still identfies itself as a rural county but the growth rate is phenom. There are quite a few parts of the county that people must use dial-up, but for 70-85% of the population broadband is available.

 

One of the guys who I "floated my idea" with & expected a negaitve response has a little handyman business. I pointed out the photo book he carries in his truck and suggested he try putting the same thing on the web (before & after job pics) as a permanant example of his work. He thought about it for about 2 minutes and asked me to build him one. This guys is a simple guy but he recognised that his best sales tool was his book of before and after photos. When I asked him why he said that he had noticed that the more people that saw the "book" the more jobs he got & he figured having one on the web would help him grow his business (which he needs since his son started working with him). I know it is anecdotal but... it is positive data. It suprised me as I know the guy but wouldn't call him a friend & expected a negative respones. I figured he would say "now why would I need to be on the web". Another example is a guy who does yard maintenance. He called me after a few days of talking with him & asked me to put one up for him. I asked why & he said he thought the website would a better use of the money he spends on newspaper ads.... I will know more after I start selling. Right now, I am building the framework of the directory site.... sigh....

 

I had planed on the "mom & pops" as my initial target, but ... I know a whole lot of business owners (some through me and a lot more through my wife) who will be receptive to being approached after I have a portfolio of work they can look at. Right now they know me as "Erik Kritter", plant manager for "widget" company. They will not seriously consider using me untill I have some sort of proven track record. I also would not dare ask them yet because I know what they want to see in any vendor or supplier (& I don't have it, .... yet). I also need to get personally a lot better with php, os-commerce, & joomla or hire someone who is. I can do simple static sites fairly well but the dynamic ones drive me a little crazy... maybe I should get one of the college kids to help me with the dynamic stuff, my being stubborn & wanting to do the directory on my own is kinda silly when I know I want my role to be more of a sales & management kind of thing....

 

Thanks for the reply.

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I also need to get personally a lot better with php, os-commerce, & joomla or hire someone who is. I can do simple static sites fairly well but the dynamic ones drive me a little crazy... maybe I should get one of the college kids to help me with the dynamic stuff, my being stubborn & wanting to do the directory on my own is kinda silly when I know I want my role to be more of a sales & management kind of thing....

 

As far as the directory goes, perhaps you should look for preexisting code to save you time? For example:

 

http://www.phplinkdirectory.com/articlescript/

 

It does cost between $25 and $75, but it may save you a lot of time. (Just to clarify, I haven't used this -- just found it doing a quick Google search -- so I can't vouch for it, but it looks reasonable and looks like there are a good amount of support/customization options).

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:rolleyes:ok, now I am laughing at myself! I don't know why I insist on reinventing the wheel.... (I do this far too often). I will try it and see how it works!

 

Thank you! & oh there is a free version I am going to experiment with first! But I probably will buy the full monty if it works well for what I want!

 

google is my friend, I must remember to google everything....it will save me time in the long run!

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Hello and welcome, Erik!

 

It surely sounds like you've thought things through. :) I just wanted to chime in and say that in addition to your ideas, you can also market yourself to graphic designers who need help with coding. I work with two of them myself - they create the design and I code it and/or integrate it in a CMS.

 

Do you have any samples of your work we can see? :cool:

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Stefan, yes I did & nicely done! I would like to point out one thing though on your blogpost about the recession. Some of the business owners recognise that in a slowdown of business the one area where they need to spend more money on their marketing and sales budget. It is counter intuitive (kinda) but if you need more orders the place to put your resources is into sales and marketing. There is a direct correlation between input and output here. The smart business owners will recognise this & react accorgingly. The trick is finding the smart ones!

 

I will have to post my links for comment later. Sorry, but the ones that are "all me" are down (or changed), except for one (my first which is horrible & I really should redo). If you really want to see it .... look here http://home.jetbroadband.com/~ekritter/index.html I did it with SeaMonkey Composer & the code is not compliant it is about a year and a half old .... I did revise some stuff last summer (but not much) & looking at it I need to stick back the link to Andreas Vinklund because I used his template.... I don't know why I deleted that (I think I was moving it out of the footer and never put it on the links page)..... Please don't expect much though....You might learn a little more about me though.

 

I should have the new stuff up in another week or so.

 

Benjamin, Thanks for the phpld. I think I can make it work for what I want by using some of the plugins. I also looked at Noah Classifieds and might try that.... it seems like less monkeying around with plugins....I guess I just need to pick one and move forward.

 

Susie, thanks. I know quite a few graphic designers. My sister has a masters in graphic design from George Mason Univ. She is an artist, but works full time for the Smitsonian as some sort of business manager, so I have a fantastic resource there. I also know a few folks from other places & my mother is also an artist (painter type: oils, watercolors, etc...) & she knows alot of other artists as it is one of her main activities now that she is retired. I actually thought of building an os-commerce site for her artists club to help them market & sell their paintings.

Edited by erikkritter
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