I have been self-employed since around 92, I have more failed startups under my belt than some you have had sex. My current business is 13 years old but it still makes me just a living,

I grew it from me and one bloke to 13 employees. Now here is the thing, when I had all those employees I earned less than I did when it was just 2 of us.

I didn’t get to do much except sales, admin and fixing stuff those 13 Guys fucked up. After doing some sums I let attrition do the job and reduced back to a solo outfit.

Now I am tired before I start my day, my back hurts and lifting stuff that just two years ago was a breeze is no longer as easy. This is an age thing, I realised the other day that my pension plan is good for just about 3 hours. https://dustfactory.co.za You can look at my website here and until about 3 years ago it was supplying too many leads for me to reply to. COVID broke that., but I am tired more than not getting enough work. .

I ran a web dev company before this one in a small town in Africa and clients were limited, too much competition, people offering work at stupid low prices and I got tired of counting cents, so I went back to my trade.

I used my skills developed during that period to out perform all my opposition on the web for the woodworking business. The most important thing that I learned in the business was saying no, or even fuck off. You cannot offer value and quality if you are too cheap.

I have moved to a big city, reduced overheads and can now retire about 3 hours before I kick the bucket. I really don’t want to get back in the death spiral competing with people charging too little for their service, mainly because I am convinced that a website that doesn’t bring results is not an investment for any business.

I have started updating my skills again, updating the CMS that I built and have been using. also have registered a few domains to build sites on as test beds.

The numbers below are based on exchange rates and are in no way accurate, they are just an example. My question is as follows, let’s say the cheap blokes are selling web sites for $100 and they place them, charge for hosting about $7 a month, but are doing no SEO, no forward planning, just put it up and forget it, How much should I be charging a month for full service?

Would you be willing to pay $250 a month for a site that includes all the SEO stuff like semantics, includes me sorting out your local SEO stuff, creating content regularly or would that seem like too much of a difference. I am assuming small businesses as clients.

Next check out my website and tell me if it creates confidence. Note not all the content is complete yet, but check out these pages please.

https://centuriondesign.co.za/

https://centuriondesign.co.za/pages/SEO.html

https://centuriondesign.co.za/pages/web-design.html

Tell me how I could improve them, What could I do that would help you make a decision?

  • Routine-Ad-2840@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    when i see stuff like this i really wonder why i have not taken the plunge into something… i think i poke way too many holes in everything i do and nothing ever feels finished because i am always thinking of something to improve… i need some of that confidence OP has lol

    • otakudayo@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I started looking at web dev/design companies in my area. Then in my country. As far as I can tell, almost all of them use WP, Wix or jQuery. The sites are, often, not great looking. Found a web design company’s homepage with a performance score of 31. Companies in my target demographic usually have either no website or a terrible website lacking even the most basic SEO (Found a company website that doesn’t even mention where they operate), with poor UX and outdated designs.

      Like you, I’m always trying to think of things to improve, but I’m good with complex stuff so I’ve made myself an app that lets me build highly performant static sites incredibly quickly. Design and content takes time, but the actual code and deployment takes me virtually no time at all, unless I need to expand on my app to accomdodate some new design feature.

      I spent about 2 months building the app and learning about website design, and how to operate a website. I’m still finishing up some touches before I start actively selling but… If you have technical skills, there’s no reason not to give it a shot. The competition is abundant, but held back by poor quality and their outdated tools. I’m trying to leverage my high technical competence to save time so I can offer a (far) superior service at a better price.

    • eattheinternet@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      YES!! JUST FUCKING GO ALREADY WHAT THE FUCK!!!

      There’s this disgusting realization I’ve gotten at different spots in different businesses that I’ve run over the years…. It’s this dense almost dark feeling that NO ONE IS DOING ANYTHING AND THERE IS NO COMPETITION

      I’ve been in certain niches for over a decade and it’s beyond shocking how little innovation there is… people don’t do anything and there is no competition. Those who succeed DO! They’re doers not thinkers. That’s why they say the low iq entrepreneurs who blissfully go into things are more likely to be successful compared to the smarter pants who overthink everything and never take action.