[LouieG]

torontokid Wrote:

Why do you do hourly rates instead of fixed rates. How do you justify hourly rates?

Nearly all my projects are flat priced (meaning we agree on a number and that’s all my company gets, unless the client decides to expand scope). I find the flat price by assigning an hourly rate to my contractors’ work, estimating how many hours they’ll spend on the project, and multiplying that out.

Twice, I had a client come to me without a set budget and without a clear scope. In those cases I insisted on billing hourly against a monthly retainer. But generally clients require flat pricing.

And, even hourly clients want (understandably) hours estimates for each deliverable. Blowing those estimates will tank a client relationship, fast.

Earlier this year I had a messy breakup with an hourly client due poor estimates on my part, among other things.

Pricing really deserves a post of its own—gonna add that to the list.

torontokid Wrote:

Also, do you have the ability to be location independent at all?

I did this for ~10 months from Malaysia, working almost exclusively with American clients.

But not all clients area equal. I have clients now who expect regular, in-person meetings. Though it’s a time sink and ties me to NYC, they pay rates that justify that expectation.

I do have the flexibility to take lengthy ‘working holidays.’ All told, I’ve spent more than a month abroad this year.

Hotwheels Wrote:

What are JPG's and PSD's?

Image files. JPG—jpegs—I’m sure you’ve heard of.

PSDs are Photoshop files. Developers can open them and quickly get precise information on things like color, spacing, and dimensions of elements.

If I'm doing only design for a client (no dev), my final deliverable will be PSD files. Until that point, I would only show them JPGs.

saeta119 Wrote:

I can't see how you could have a full time job and doing this on the side.

Now, I couldn’t.

At the start, my project load was much less. I worked my full-time gig during Malaysian business hours and then handled this at night, during U.S. business hours.

saeta119 Wrote:

Also, most of your clients you meet them in person? How's your experience with clients in other countries? say you found them on elance, etc?

I see no reason you couldn’t work with clients in other countries. It might make meeting them and cutting a deal harder.

The main drawback is once you reach a certain price point, clients will start to expect at least some face time. Rightly so—bigger clients will have multiple stakeholders involved in decisions, and it’s hard to a have productive conference call with 5+ participants on the line.

I don’t use eLance. My understanding is the rates are shit. Tbh, I’ve never even looked into it.

Brisey Wrote:

Did you study or do any courses on stuff like this prior to getting in to it?

There are a few project management certifications. I believe the most common is the PMP.

I don’t have one and would never consider getting one. None of my clients would give a shit and, by now, my on-the-job training is far beyond anything a program would teach me.

I suspect it’s much more valuable if you want to PM in-house.

Not to open a whole ‘nother can of worms… but I have a liberal arts degree—English + history major—and think it’s been immensely helpful. Suck it, Aaron Clarey.

Frex, client meetings are nothing but broad, free-flowing discussions, very much like those I had during four years of history seminars.

Writing well; distilling complex ideas into simple sentences; listening to someone else’s idea and then expanding upon it, extemporaneously and on the spot—i.e., the things you practice as a liberal arts major—are not worthless skills.

You just have to leverage them to valuable ends.

bojangles Wrote:

I've applied to a few contracts but no luck, but it be better for me to spend some money creating a website and say that I worked on building that digital project?

My advice, as detailed above, is to put together a simple, quick-n-dirty portfolio. Do this as quickly and cheaply as possible.

Use that to impress low budget clients and get their business. Build them good websites, then go out and find clients with slightly higher budgets.

Build them good websites, increase your rates, and repeat.

There are alternative routes. Getting agency experience will only help you. But based only on personal experience, I don’t think it’s strictly necessary.

VincentVinturi Wrote:

What are you thoughts on the potential to sell your business, passive income potential, hiring out managers and payroll and basically taking yourself out of the picture with this business model so you own it but don't have to juggle it?

I can’t imagine anyone buying my business except in an acqui-hire situation. For now, I am the business… man. So while I expect I could find a buyer for my rolodex, current clients, and contractors, the price would be pennies on the dollar compared to what they are worth to me if I continue running the show.

Hiring managers is a more realistic way to step aside without demolishing the value of the company. I know of a couple dev shops where the founder still owns the place and is uninvolved, day-to-day.

Personally, my ambition—and I’ll say more about this later—is reaching a point where my expertise and reputation are such that an hour of my shop’s time is extremely valuable and salable at a massive markup.

That’s why I’m always shooting for more complex jobs, with cooler designs and novel UX/UI features or strategy innovations. I want to eventually be regarded as a guy who can design and build a site that few other shops could pull off.

It’s a long term plan, but if I continue down that road, I can envision a point where I make excellent money with a minimal project load, and only accept clients who want to do innovative and interesting work.

Btw, VV— really enjoy your posts on the forum.

kaka Wrote:

Do you think its wise to spend my time learning cs6? … I just figured that it would be good to know at least the foundations of the systems used. Or spend my time trying to get clients and hire people to make the websites?

Definitely—anything you learn will be useful.

My point is, don’t let learning get in the way of selling. If you’re an Adobe master, you will still have to prove that to people by finding clients, delivering great designs, and then seeing them through to launch. Get that process underway now.

If you’re interested in designing—which I totally understand; I've played around with Illustrator and love it—then develop those skills concurrently. By the time you’re getting good, you’ll already have a roster of clients ready to pay for your design work.

2014 Wrote:

As far as I could tell, anyone could do this... unless there is a hidden barrier to entry I can't see?

Oh yeah. The greatest barrier to entry of all: You gotta actually sack up, approach clients, and convince them to pay you.

Most people won't ever do that; most people will think about it for a minute, then go to the fridge and microwave another plate of frozen taquitos.

Then at the higher levels, you gotta approach clients and have the expertise to provide good work and good client service.

The pool of shops that can do both is tiny.

The pool of clients who hate their web dev shop and want to find someone good is—from what I’ve seen—boundless.

To my mind, there are many uncertainties about the future of web design and development. The possibility that the field might become over saturated with quality competition is nowhere among them.