5 ms·

I need someone to build my website. My budget is $200 and I need it ASAP.

45 points by bdclimber14 16y ago

How many times have you been asked this by friends, colleagues, and referrals. The person generally continues to say... "I really don't need anything too advanced. Just a simple ecommerce/wiki/forum/community website. With a blog. It shouldn't take you more than a few hours. I actually could even do it myself no problem, but its just not worth my time. You know, I used to be the #1 COBOL programmer in the 70s." At this point, I sarcastically interrupt "Would you like me to program your website in COBOL so you can maintain it?" They never get the satire... "Oh, and really important. I like this website (shows random crappy website) that my friend has. Can you make it like this? You know, but different? We're ready to launch, all we need is the website, and we need it done ASAP. If you say its going to take 8 hours, I expect that you could get it done by tomorrow." I usually respond to this with "Sure thing, if you pay in full now, I'll have it ready tomorrow morning." I'm never serious, but no one ever pulls out their checkbook either. Usually this ends the conversation, as if the website were so trivial, it doesn't warrant compensation. My Analysis: This happens to me almost weekly. I never accept these jobs obviously, but I find the apparent, almost desperate, need fascinating. Despite the plethora of "do-it-yourself" website builders (weebly, SquareSpace, Clover, heck even WordPress.com) these "small business" minded people aren't having their needs met. In fact, they are generally so technology inept (despite their COBOL tenure) that they wouldn't be able to navigate the "3 easy steps of building a website" on any hosted CMS if their lives depending on it. I think this is where the hosted CMS market is failing. These companies are trying to make a CMS so easy, it's like making a Facebook fan page. The problem is, these small business people can't even make those! They usually hire a student to do that as well. What they really need is someone to hold their hand through the entire process. They demand the service of a $10k+ project budget with a top design firm, but have a $200 "I can do it myself if I wanted to" budget. If someone could figure this out, they'd be siphoning up a billion dollar market easily. I don't think technology is the sole answer. I think it's a combination of extremely lean business processes with technology. Get cheap labor to do the hand holding while using the 3rd party CMS solutions. The small business wants to send an email describing what they want the homepage to say. They don't want to use a website builder to edit text. They don't want to do anything but talk to someone. The cheap labor can do the transition, and margins can be high. I'd REALLY love to hear your thoughts on this. I never leave a problem as big as this just complaining. I always race to come up with a solution, and this one is a toughy.

drivingmenuts 16y ago
Well, one solution is to point them to that freelancers site. There's always people there who are willing to put together some sort of solution for the bottom dollar. I went digging around there the other day and was completely appalled at all of the budgets I was seeing. Some of them wouldn't even cover the cost of writing a proposal for the solution. In one sense, yes, they deserve a solution to their problems, but one can always hope they learn a bitter lesson by going with the lowest possible bidder on that site.
kls 16y ago
The margins are just too low on these, hell a decent copy writer is going to cost you half of that if not more. If it needs to have a polished look add a graphics person to that. And that's just to get all of the creative done. I just don't see how on the thin margin of $200 to $500 it can be done. Even with offshore labor the onshore management would eat it up to the point that it would not have a value proposition worth perusing. With canned text, stock images, and a stock template, sure it could be done. But these people never look for a just add water site. They want the "make it like x" twitter, Facebook whoever they want to knock off that week. I have a friend who owns a vending operation and I promised to sit down with him and show him how to design his own site with GoDaddy's tools and how to use Ad Words to market his service online. He was actually surprised at how easy it was to do. Now he wont win any design awards but for his market something that disseminates some simple info is all he needs. $200 is really a DIY budget and that is all I could really see that someone could do to service this market. It took me 3hr to teach him how to handle it himself. And if someone where instructing people how to do it themselves with these simple site builders they could make a decent freelancing salary. I just don't see a product here that could do better than the existing watered down site builders. Without professional a copywriter and graphic design you will get the same results, offshoring copywriting seems like a bad idea and offshoring graphics requires some management oversight. Until these can be automated I dont see the margins. The reality is $200 barely covers 2hrs labor for a good mechanic. Developers require a lot more knowledge and skills than mechanics. For some reason people get the idea that this should not be the case but $200 for professional services set's up unrealistic expectations.
- 16y ago

45 points by bdclimber14 16y ago

drivingmenuts 16y ago

Well, one solution is to point them to that freelancers site. There's always people there who are willing to put together some sort of solution for the bottom dollar. I went digging around there the other day and was completely appalled at all of the budgets I was seeing. Some of them wouldn't even cover the cost of writing a proposal for the solution. In one sense, yes, they deserve a solution to their problems, but one can always hope they learn a bitter lesson by going with the lowest possible bidder on that site.

kls 16y ago

The margins are just too low on these, hell a decent copy writer is going to cost you half of that if not more. If it needs to have a polished look add a graphics person to that. And that's just to get all of the creative done. I just don't see how on the thin margin of $200 to $500 it can be done. Even with offshore labor the onshore management would eat it up to the point that it would not have a value proposition worth perusing. With canned text, stock images, and a stock template, sure it could be done. But these people never look for a just add water site. They want the "make it like x" twitter, Facebook whoever they want to knock off that week. I have a friend who owns a vending operation and I promised to sit down with him and show him how to design his own site with GoDaddy's tools and how to use Ad Words to market his service online. He was actually surprised at how easy it was to do. Now he wont win any design awards but for his market something that disseminates some simple info is all he needs. $200 is really a DIY budget and that is all I could really see that someone could do to service this market. It took me 3hr to teach him how to handle it himself. And if someone where instructing people how to do it themselves with these simple site builders they could make a decent freelancing salary. I just don't see a product here that could do better than the existing watered down site builders. Without professional a copywriter and graphic design you will get the same results, offshoring copywriting seems like a bad idea and offshoring graphics requires some management oversight. Until these can be automated I dont see the margins. The reality is $200 barely covers 2hrs labor for a good mechanic. Developers require a lot more knowledge and skills than mechanics. For some reason people get the idea that this should not be the case but $200 for professional services set's up unrealistic expectations.

16y ago