Ask HN: advise on starting up a web-development company

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=308259

by kuvkir • 18 years ago

1 1 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I've been thinking on an idea of starting up a web-development company. The main area would be providing websites development, design and support services for a reasonable cost (e.g. 10-15 $ per hour).

I saved up some money that can cover 2-3 developer-month work and am currently saving up more to cover other expenses (buying or renting server hardware, running ad campaigns).

Where do I find customers that are interested in our services on a regular basis? Sites like elance/odesk are overwhelmed with crappy "clone a facebook in 3 days for 500$" projects, so they're not a good place :( How can I make customers interested in long-term relationships?

As the company doesn't have a portfolio of finished projects in the beginning, does it make sense to offer a special low-cost program to make us more attractive than competitors? It looks pretty much like the first time I have a job interview when I have no experience and when I can attract employers only by being smart and asking for little money.

Where can I find out more on topics concerning these issues? Any books/resources/advise you can give to a wanna-be entrepreneur?

Thanks!

mechanical_fish• 18 years ago

You don't need to buy server hardware: Use something like Slicehost. You don't need to run an ad campaign.

The way to get a customer interested in a long-term relationship is to do a tiny short-term project for them, and do it well. Web sites are like engines for generating work. They will have more work for you sooner or later.

Don't compete on price unless you absolutely have to. That's a sucker bet. Your pricing sends a signal. Charging $10 tells me that you're either absolutely desperate, that you're located someplace very far away from my time zone -- possibly an uncharted backwater with pigeon-based internet connections and a really low cost of living -- that you're a student who has almost no time to spare and no business experience, or that you are such a neophyte that you can't be trusted to touch my website without breaking it. Possibly all four.

Undercharging your competitors will bring you business, all right -- you'll get deluged by offers from the kind of delusional people who think that Youtube should cost a couple thousand dollars to design and build. If you hate bottom-feeders, why are you aiming at the bottom of the market? Learn enough skills to justify a higher rate, and sell your quality, not your low cost.

Yes, if you charge $40 an hour or more (top developers with experience charge rather more than that) you'll have to actually convince people that you know what you're doing. To do that, you let them sign you up for a very tiny project that only takes 1 hour, then demonstrate competence on that. And you build a portfolio. Setting up a single website doesn't take long. You should build some site for yourself right away just to demonstrate that you know the basics -- or as a way to learn the basics.

Read: http://eikonoklastes.org/articles/2007/09/26/how-i-can-charg...