Yesterday I had this crazy idea: People pay me $15, I make them a web design

by TheCoreh • 16 years ago

230 172 16 years ago

frazerb• 16 years ago

I like. I'm sure you are at least three times as good as this alternative, but I have enjoyed using a few different (similar) $5 services from fiverr: http://www.fiverr.com/

swombat• 16 years ago

Assuming it takes you at least 1-2 hours per design (and even with mad photoshop skillz it's unlikely it'd be much shorter than that), you're probably better off getting an office job somewhere, or even maybe a burger-flipping job. Given all the additional expenses of running your own business, this is probably not a viable business model (i.e. you will lose money on the whole).

The only way this would be justified is if you use this as a source of clients to up-sell more expensive work to.

steveklabnik4• 16 years ago

Or portfolio building.

earnubs2• 16 years ago

Please don't build a portfolio based on work you spent 2 hours or less on.

siong1987• 16 years ago

I don't know where this guy comes from. But, USD15/hour is a very high rate in many countries. Or, he is just trying to build up his portfolio and get his name out there.

This seems like a very good approach to attract people attention.

jefflinwood• 16 years ago

Looks like he's in Brazil from his paypal page. Not sure about the cost of living there, but that's probably a decent wage for a lot of people there.

jacquesm• 16 years ago

In Brazil a $ goes a bit further than in the US.

notyourwork• 16 years ago

Can we quantify "a bit"? How much further?

rgoddard2• 16 years ago

Although given that this seems to be run as an experiment, so far it seems to be rather successful. Granted, in the long term it might not be sustainable, but for the short term it can provide a number of benefits. First of all the designer will be getting lots of practice and making a number of contacts while building up a good portfolio of examples. Also the low price makes it a low risk for anyone trying it out, so it is the type of experiment they can be tried with little cost and quickly.

I would find it interesting to see what the designer ends up doing as a result of this experiment.

tlrobinson3• 16 years ago

I'd rather do something I enjoy for slightly less money than get an office job or flip burgers.

anigbrowl7• 16 years ago

You must have very cheap rent.

If you don't ask for money for what you do, then you are saying that what you do is worthless. You probably don't actually believe that, and the only reason to sell your work for less than the most basic labor is because you don't know how to get paid properly. But customers see your pricing and conclude that designers do not need to be paid even the normal minimum for other kinds of work.

If you keep working like this, you will find yourself unable to ever get a design job that pays well. Everyone who calls you will do so because you are cheap. When you go to visit clients who have money to spend, they will not want to hire you. Not because their is anything wrong with your design; but because they are not designers, and so they will try to estimate the quality of your work by the visibility of your financial success. If they notice nothing that suggests you can make money, then they will assume that you can't, and they will assume that the reason you can't is because your designs are no good, and hire someone else. Later, when you want to get married or have a family or just enjoy a better standard of living, but you can not afford to do so because you undervalued your work, you will realize that you designed yourself into poverty. It's true that some very rich/successful people dress or act like they don't care about money. This is because they have so much money that they don't have to care about what clients think. They have agents who take care of all that annoying business stuff for them. Agents only work for people whose work can be sold for high prices, because agents only get 15%, on average.

A lot of creative people fall into this trap, I have made this mistake on some occasions. It is a bad pattern, for you and also for your colleagues in the same profession. Also, it's insulting to people who work in offices or flip burgers. Maybe they would like to work at something creative, but when you price your work so low you are demonstrating that creativity is worthless, and that skill and hard work do not deserve a reward. Here's my advice: it's OK to do some work for free for your friends and family, but when you work for money your minimum should be 5 x the minimum for a 'boring' job. Some people will refuse to pay so much, and then you must refuse to work even if your bank account and your stomach are empty. Many will agree. You should use your price to drive bad clients away. Good clients will either pay or negotiate. If you do not make them work in negotiation, they will understand this to mean that you are not going to work on their commission, and hire someone else.

If you cannot make a living this way, then get a job flipping burgers. First you will learn some humility, second you will get free food every day, third you will have some more financial security and fourth you will be very tired when you go home every day. Now, do a few hours of design work every week too. Of course, it will be much more difficult now because you are exhausted by working in a hot kitchen before you draw a single line. Now you will start to understand the value of time, and charge accordingly.

brc• 16 years ago

But this will be a short-term solution. Getting paid a little for something you love will eventually burn you out. It might take a week, a month, a year : eventually you'll tire because of the need to keep feeding the meter.

It's not the design work that will cause this; it's dealing with the people that will cause the problem.

DavidBishop• 16 years ago

I like the idea, and I believe you have a market, but your prices are too low. More importantly it won't scale with inflation. In 10 years, that $15 will be worth around $10 but you will have all SEO links pointing to a domain that is most likely in need of change (You are stuck with a particular price with the domain name you have now).

$15 is way too low. I don't know where you are located, but you need to do some market research to figure out what you want to make per hour, how long the average project will take you, how many projects you can do a week, and what your overhead is per week (to figure overhead per project). Once you have those numbers, you will have a better price point.

Also, keep have a plan for what you want to do if there is more demand than you can support. Do you hire others? If so, will others work for that price and if so, how much do you need to make to pay them appropriately?

I hope above all you do not find my post discouraging. Instead, I hope you continue on with what you are doing, tweaking it to make is sustainable for as long as you wish to do it!

ericd• 16 years ago

He can always do a 301 redirect to another page and send the google juice that way. He's getting a lot of advertising from this outlandishly low price.

ladon86• 16 years ago

It is crazy. I really think you should charge more.

bee• 16 years ago

I need a logo for my website, do you also make logos for $15?

joshfinnie• 16 years ago

I agree, logos for $15 would be a steal!

malte• 16 years ago

You can get a 'horrible' logo for five bucks: http://www.horriblelogos.com

venturebros• 16 years ago

those logos are better than what I can do.

Perhaps I should start a site called really horrible logos. I will guarantee all logos will look like a 2 year old on something did them.

slig• 16 years ago

You can try to contact artists on fiverr.com and see what they can do for 15 usd.

jeffclark• 16 years ago

Just out of curiosity: why did you buy the designfor15bucks.com domain and STILL setup a gmail account for contact?

Related: http://www.google.com/a

nuclear_eclipse• 16 years ago

Because Google Apps isn't free and gmail is?

bry• 16 years ago

There is a free version of Google Apps: http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/group/index.html

byoung23• 16 years ago

Where are you located? $15 doesn't sound like a lot of money for what could take about an hour of work (simple 1 page design). Unless you live in a country where money goes farther, or you can do designs much faster than 1 hour? Will this be profitable?

EDIT: I see that you are in Brazil, and a quick Googling shows that web designers make $4-$8

RyanMcGreal• 16 years ago

Is the "Hire my services now" button supposed to have a 2px blue border around it?

wmeredith• 16 years ago

I'd really like to see the quality of these designs. I sure they'll reflect the price.

marknutter• 16 years ago

HN, yesterday I had this crazy idea: People pay me $100 and I build them a car.

lhorie2• 16 years ago

Initial thoughts:

- the linked images have blue borders around them, look ugly

- you could put a couple of samples up if a design costs just $15 worth of your time

- I hope you don't live in North America or Europe, otherwise, you're undercharging.

Cushman• 16 years ago

Nice! Do you want to tell us something about your background? I'm thinking a lot of people will see this as absurd, but if you're not spending too long on each individual design, $10-15 and hour is great money for a student or hobbyist, especially since you're developing a marketable skill at the same time.

Also, the #1 recommendation here is gonna be to put something up under "latest designs", even if you haven't had any clients yet. The first customer is the hardest, and you can help that along by putting a few coins in the proverbial hat yourself. (Although I realize the site itself is an example of your design :)

findm• 16 years ago

If you're doing the designs yourself you're doing yourself a great disservice by charging so little.

Often times most people assume they have an endless well of creativity in them but in actually its a feast and famine scenario. Assuming you want to do this full-time you will burn out eventually.

Luyt2• 16 years ago

But he can stop at any time. He can even send back the money for unfinished jobs.

seanMeverett• 16 years ago

Great concept, love the branding, and love the marketing built into the concept. Not a lot of fluff on the page, just the necessities. And once you get busier and have a portfolio, you can start charging more, more, and more until you're getting a good return on your time.

Helluva business model, love the thought that went into it. If there's anyway I can help, let me know. Tweeting commencing right....meow!

wccrawford2• 16 years ago

I just started a new blog and wanted a nice design for it. $15 is definitely a good price, if it's a decent design. (Note that I said 'decent' and not 'outstanding'. I know what design is really worth.)

But without some samples, it feels like I'm just throwing away $15.

calloc• 16 years ago

For $15 you can test the waters. How much do you make in an hour? How long will it take you to design your own web site? In other words, is it worth the $15 gamble to see if someone can come up with something to blow you away?

wccrawford2• 16 years ago

No, I don't think it is. I could give random people $15 all year long and still not end up with a decent site.

Now, someone who has a history of decent-looking sites is a good gamble.

And it is a gamble, since he says it's non-refundable and no changes can be made.

Maro• 16 years ago

Right now it says "Latest designs: COMING SOON". Put up a template or something!

Also, charge $30.

If the sample designs are actually somewhat good, $30 is worth the gamble, maybe $40-50. I'd probably pay $30. But I'd need to see at least 2-3 references/samples/templates.

Skywing• 16 years ago

The thing is, the more he begins to charge then the less and less he'll be able to say "first design is final, if you don't like it then buy a second one." At this point in time, anyone buying from him is just throwing away $15 since he has no examples of previous work.

mechanical_fish• 16 years ago

I hope this guy thought ahead and registered designfor30bucks.com and designfor60bucks.com.

forcer• 16 years ago

Just ordered design and looking forward for the outcome in 2 days :)

rkalla• 16 years ago

Great idea, good marketing. Hope this does well for you.

revorad• 16 years ago

Instead of penalising the customer($5) for not listing their design, offer it as a discount for listing their site. So, base cost $20, but with listing only $15!

Sukotto2• 16 years ago

  You allow me to put a screenshot of the design
  on this page; ($5 extra if you don't)

You could reword that clause so your clients feel they're getting something valuable for their $5.

  Please note that I post all designs to my public
  portfolio and this website.  If you need the design
  to stay secret, it only costs $5 more

Or you could invert your pricing. So you start off as "designfor20bucks" and offer a $5 discount if you can add the image to your public portfolio and post it on the site. People generally feel better about getting a deal than getting hit with extra costs unexpectedly.

TamDenholm• 16 years ago

Really good advice here, problem is, it'd require changing of the domain name. :P

mgkimsal2• 16 years ago

or two domains point to the same site, and have a $20 in the logo slashed out, replaced with $15.You're the creative one - make it work :)

Sukotto2• 16 years ago

  it'd require changing of the domain name.

So? He only started yesterday. If the domain isn't already taken then what's the big deal... it's not like he's spent a lot of money advertising it. :)

tibix• 16 years ago

I don't think the $5 makes a huge difference: and this way, the designer has more chance that people will allow him to post the design into his portfolio.

I'm pretty sure he is not doing it for the money, but rather to get some experience and build up his portfolio.

Pyrodogg2• 16 years ago

$5 out of $15 is 33.3% and $5 out of $20 is 25%

I'd say thats fairly significant.

bajsejohannes• 16 years ago

Or, you could simply make it a feature. I would certainly not mind another link to my new page.

khangtoh• 16 years ago

Don't worry about all that, run with what you have now. Spend your time on real customers.

hoop2• 16 years ago

Hitchhiker: Think about it. You walk into a design store, you see designfor15bucks.com sittin' there, there's designfor14bucks.com right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?

Ted: I would go for the 14.

Hitchhiker: Bingo, man, bingo. designfor14bucks.com. And we guarantee just as good a design as the designfor15bucks.com folk.

Ted: You guarantee it? That's - how do you do that?

Hitchhiker: If you're not happy with the first 14 bucks of design, we're gonna send you the extra dollar of design free. You see? That's it. That's our motto. That's where we're comin' from. That's from "A" to "B".

Ted: That's right. That's - that's good. That's good. Unless, of course, somebody comes up with designfor13bucks.com. Then you're in trouble, huh?

Legion• 16 years ago

No no, not 13. I said 14. Nobody's coming up with 13. Who makes a web design in 13 minutes?

14's the key number here. Think about it. 14 days in a fortnight. 14 - the atomic number of silicon. 14 stations of the cross. 14, man, that's the number.

user242• 16 years ago

but on the web, there is no street on which to see sites next to each other.

I knew a jewellery company once which had two sites. One was all red and gold and stars and flashing things, the other was all purple and white and curvy things. The items on the purple posh looking one were 15% more expensive. Same products on each - heck, it was the same database, product description and images on each site!

Point is, this is the internet, you can do that kind of thing.

Benjo• 16 years ago

Actually I think that street would be Google search results.

rmc2• 16 years ago

Having multiple sites is genius. It's great market segmentation.

nhangen2• 16 years ago

Well in that case, Fiverr has this guy beat.

To be honest, if I see:

Design for $15

Design for $50

I'm choosing 50 because I'm hoping that he has fewer clients, values himself more, and isn't going to give me crappy design.

jtheory3• 16 years ago

It depends on what you're looking for.

I'm thinking of throwing $15 his way just to see what comes out, and see if it sparks some new ideas for me -- i.e., I'm not paying him for a polished final design for my site, I'm paying him for his thoughts (in PDF form) on how my site might look different.

I might not like his idea, and it might just offer a contrast that helps me suss out what I like about my current design. But as it was only 15 bucks (not much invested from me OR him), I won't feel bad about just chucking the results.

If I were paying someone for a real site redesign, I would lay out a lot more than $15, but I would also expect to go through whatever steps necessary to come up with a finished product that I would actually use (because if I'm paying real money, it had better not be a waste).

In any case, I'm waiting until he has some example sites online... so I can tell if he's a talented designer doing rapid/rough work (useful to me), or a weak/inexperienced designer who is just making bad designs (in which case I'll pass...).

coffeeaddicted2• 16 years ago

As psd file - so I would have to spend another few hundred $ to get a legal Photoshop to watch it?

lhorie2• 16 years ago

Or you could spend $3 by going to a local internet cafe (or Kinkos or whatever) and downloading the free 30-day trial vesion (Assuming they don't already have a copy there)

loboman• 16 years ago

Gimp will work

coffeeaddicted2• 16 years ago

Sometimes. I actually posted it because I had exactly that problem in the past with an artist delivering me .psd's while I'm using The Gimp for everything.

rgoddard2• 16 years ago

Or use Paint.net along with a photoshop plugin to open it for free.

indiejade• 16 years ago

A couple weeks ago I built http://www.hackeress.com with the crowdspring / 99Designs clientèle in mind (who seems to be your audience).

You could expand your site and add a section for designers who specialize in the code-writing aspect of design. Just a thought.

EDIT: Fixed. I'm still working on the site's content; got busy over the holiday. But the design of the site is done, as are the custom 404 error pages. :)

Huppie• 16 years ago

Since you're probably using that website to get clients, you might want to verify that all the pages work. (The link you used works, clicking on any of the links gives me a 404.)

mgkimsal2• 16 years ago

Closed already - dang it - was going to send in a request :(

grandalf• 16 years ago

This looks great. I'd like to submit a few designs, so please re-accept submissions. As long as they're done within a week or two that's fine.

zimro• 16 years ago

Good job, I think that it is a good way to earn some bucks while gathering experience.

Staydecent6• 16 years ago

I'm wondering, as I'm not making any money (devoting time to a startup idea) right now, if anyone would be interested in a similar service for the markup?

I'm really quite good and would charge $15/page. I can offer impressive turn around times and even CMS(WordPress) integration for an additional flat-fee($250?).

mdda2• 16 years ago

Would you be cutting it up onto a 'backbone' of our choosing (like 960.gs or blueprint) ? (Obviously this will depend on the overall design, but hopefully the idea is clear).

Staydecent6• 16 years ago

I was just thinking of something similar; Would everyone want HTML5 elements or rather not?

My thinking right now, is I would build an order form that has a few predefined options. I usually use my own CSS starting point but am familiar with 960.gs. Blueprint seems to be the other big one, so I could look into adding support for that.

But mostly, the markup and css would adhere to my standards. I would have to do this to make the development time minimal so charging to low price makes sense. I would of course offer example markup on the order website.

corin_• 16 years ago

Yes, definitely. If you offer it, I'll take you up on it once he's open for design applications again.

Staydecent6• 16 years ago

Cool! I'll setup a page for the service now.

Edit: http://staydecent.ca/markup

jordanlev• 16 years ago

A service already exists for this -- http://psd2html.com . Not trying to dissuade you from doing it yourself, but you should take a look at them (I've used them in the past -- it's about $100-200 for basic pages, and was totally worth it as it saved me a few hours of work).

Staydecent6• 16 years ago

Good point, definitely aware. But, I have zero-overhead and am quit fast so $15/page is possible for me. And, of course it would be my intention to deliver equal quality work as those services.

winternett• 16 years ago

A PSD file does not a web design make.

blhack• 16 years ago

$15 does not a web design make either. This is why it is so cheap.

TeHCrAzY• 16 years ago

Just use a slice service like http://codingheads.com/. Then, if you like a design, total cost is $170, and if you don't, you're only down $15 instead.

jorisvoorn• 16 years ago

Well, as you said, you had "this crazy idea" sounds crazy indeed!

Hope to see some designs in the lastest section ;)

spoiledtechie• 16 years ago

Love the Idea. I know for my few websites I have, I would be willing to spend the $15.00...

tropin• 16 years ago

How do you convert the PSD files into HTML & CSS? Does Photoshop have an option for it or what?

alinajaf2• 16 years ago

You learn HTML/CSS, fire up your favourite editor and start slicing.

Luyt2• 16 years ago

I wish I could do this for application prototypes. But from experience I know that prototypes can take much more time than $15 justifies. Or maybe I could just accept the ideas which interest me. Hmmmm....

acangiano• 16 years ago

Somebody delivering the same service, but including HTML/CSS, could easily charge $150 and have more customers than they could possibly handle.

zabraxias• 16 years ago

Intermediate level front-end web developers are costly due to high demand and the work is arguably more difficult. I agree the $150 might be great for someone offshore though.

In any case I like the idea behind the $15 blind design since designers tend to suffer from "I like it but..." with indefinite tweaks and last minute changes. I wouldn't be surprised if customers end up going through several iterations...which would still be inexpensive in this case.

greyhat• 16 years ago

I find this extremely hard to believe. Have you visited freelancing sites to check this assumption?

petercooper• 16 years ago

There's a class of customer that won't even hit the "rent a coder" type sites for work, but will instead pay significantly more to someone with a full, proper site and a reputation.

prawn2• 16 years ago

Somebody could offer it sans HTML/CSS, charge $150 and still stay busy IMO. My basic mate's rates fee for that sort of job is $1000-1500 for a PSD.

That said, $15-20 is comfortably in that "If it doesn't work out, who cares" bracket. The problem will be that for many people, time is far more crucial than the cost. If I need a turnaround of 3-4 days, and the queue is 7+ days, it won't matter if it's $15 or 15 cents.

anon-e-moose• 16 years ago

Really? Where do they get clients? I'll start tonight!

tlrobinson3• 16 years ago

Not a bad idea if you can make the numbers work.

One variation would be to charge $15 per iteration. The first one might take you 2 hours, but each additional iteration might only take 15 minutes, in which case it becomes more economical.

LiveTheDream• 16 years ago

Then you're possibly incentivized to do subpar work the first time around to ensure a second round. On the other hand, if you push that too far it will make for a bad reputation. Also, if there is enough new work coming in then it's probably better to spend the time with new clients (with the aim in mind to up-sell later).

snorkel2• 16 years ago

I bounced out immediately due to lack of Latest Design samples. I get the concept, like it, but gotta have examples.

jlees• 16 years ago

I believe that's the reason this entire site exists. (Portfolio building).

snorkel2• 16 years ago

It's a visual product so you got to prime the pump with visual samples to entice the first customer.

oogali• 16 years ago

Uhm, how about you team up with one of the many PSD-to-HTML services and do it soup-to-nuts, or at least get referral compensation from said services?

Malcx• 16 years ago

I know you're not taking any more design requests at the moment - but could you put a reminder form on your site that emails when you are? By Monday I'll have forgotton all about you.

tlrobinson3• 16 years ago

I just came across this site, which lets people sell their services for $5: http://www.fiverr.com/

marcc• 16 years ago

I had never seen fiverr.com before. Interesting. I just tried them out, paid someone $5 to take a look at one of my sites and send me some feedback. I was honestly impressed with the comments.

mikegreenberg• 16 years ago

I think you guys are looking at this all wrong. This isn't $15 for a complete and polished design. This is $15 for Marco's inspiration and thoughts being invested into my product! $15 is nothing to lose out on if it falls on its face, but imagine the benefit you could be missing had you not tried?

jasonmcalacanis• 16 years ago

This is Genius.

You should only do one a day, and if someone wants to jump the line they can big higher than $15!!!

I'm going to put the Launch conference www.launch.is/conference and ThisWeekIn.com up for $50 each right now. $100 is no risk... if you have one good idea in each design it would be worth it.

i love this idea!

NHQ• 16 years ago

HN, I will make your psd into html/css and even javascript for $200.

cloudhead• 16 years ago

Indeed, a crazy idea. Considering any decent design would take at least 3 hours of work, you'd be making $5/hour.

To make it worthwhile for you, you'd have to spend at most 1h per design, in which case it wouldn't be worth the $15 for the client, or a spot on your portfolio.

fido• 16 years ago

viral/discount/link juice - Offer a $5 discount for anyone who tweets/blogs your site

NxguiGui• 16 years ago

Thats why i quit making colorful pictures for "blind" people with small pockets long time ago. Time (effort spend) to return (money) equation is terrible. Its shameful that todays perception on web design is PSD layered file. Web design is a process of communication of an idea/marketing concept to a consumer. Web design is UX thinking. Than: Web design is UI doing. Than: Web design is a illustration.

I don't see how the Client will perceive this low price PSD oriented service with less expectations. The price is so low that its not serious, it's a joke.

Advice:

Make some sassy layouts, put them online in portfolio section. Than put up your price per hour. Give a client full service, feedback, comments on their ideas, professional advice etc.

But: Value in web design is not in pictures. It is in successful conceptualization of your professional view on clients problems.

Years ago i stop offering cool pictures, and start learning more about technology in front-end (html.css.js), UX, marketing, communication with customer and now i perceive the web design process as a whole of many valuable parts.

If you are in desperate position, do some freelancing or get a routine job and invest in your self in your spare time:))

alinajaf2• 16 years ago

I don't understand why so many replies assume that this was intended to be long-term, sustainable business model. It's a brilliant marketing exercise, nothing more, nothing less.

nhangen2• 16 years ago

So true. Look at the comments here...has HN in a frenzy. I hate it, but it's brilliant. Seems like something Tim Ferriss would do.

dpcan• 16 years ago

Everyone watch as this fellow goes from zero to burn-out faster than any web designer ever.

yosho• 16 years ago

Just a thought, you can consider teaching design which allows you to meet customers and give back to the community. http://skyara.com shameless self plug :)

run4yourlives• 16 years ago

He doesn't say anything about the design being unique. Odds are he'll make 50 templates at a loss and just reuse them.

Eventually, he turns a profit with an automated muse and everyone is happy.

DistortedRhymes• 16 years ago

You could probably charge double, triple or quadruple and still get customers.

kunley• 16 years ago

After 18 hours, still no example designs.

lsc• 16 years ago

Relevant to my interests. I'll probably be giving it a go shortly. My buddy (who has taste) suggests toning down the front page, though.

While others say 'raise your prices' my suggestion is to keep them low, at least until you have more work than you want to handle. at $15, I might as well give you a shot. at $150? eh, I'm much less likely to blow that on something I have no idea if I will like or not.

Oh, also, if I like the design, it'd be pretty cool to slip you another $100 or something and get the html/css, I mean, if it's possible to get that sort of thing at that price.

DanielStraight• 16 years ago

You know... most of the comments in response have been negative. Some have said the $5 charge for keeping the design off the portfolio is phrased wrong. Some have said the price is too low. Some have criticized the site design, but you know what? In about an hour, this guy got more customers than he could even deal with.

He now has a collection of email addresses he can send an announcement to when he launches a "real" web design company. He has a bunch of examples he can show of real customers using his designs. He has the experience of actually having someone pay him for his work. Heck, he even got over 200 HN karma out of the deal.

How can this be a bad thing?

luckydip• 16 years ago

he's loaded some designs

Yesterday I had this crazy idea: People pay me $15, I make them a web design

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