I’m tired of working for low end jobs that my minimum job wage is $7.85 an hour washing dishes. I certainly dont want to be doing this for the rest of my life untill im 50 years old.
I want to start my own company and become successful. My step mom runs her own X-cart Design company called - http://2techchicks.com/
Shes in her 30’s or so and making a good living. When she started it, she was in her 20’s I beleive? Running your own company cant be that hard is it?
I know theres alot of work involved into building a good foundation of clients, providing your clients with positive results. What are ways that I can seperate myself from hundreds and thousands of other developers to staind out?
Some of the online marketing I see is complete garbage. I was thinking about setting up a small ad in the newspaper for my web design services to kinda get my name out there. Do you think this is a good idea?
I’m not intrested into online marketing scams so dont waste your time directing me to them.
What are some key rolls into starting your own company?
Being a one man shop isn’t difficult at all and that is where you would be starting off.
What you need to figure out is what you are good at. Are you a coder? A designer? A usability guy?
If I were starting off, I would probably start out on Elance and the such to build a reputation, you’re not going to make any money to start out but you don’t in any profession until you build up your skills and experience.
Like tke said, first define your skills. Then, I think you should concentrate on either what you do best or what you are happiest doing.
I would start out reading Andrew Neitlich’s Article, “Write a Business Plan That Works”. It’s a good guide for all the things you should consider to make your business a success. It will also help you learn how to set reachable goals for your business.
Next, choose your target market. Do you want to stay local only, within your region, go nationwide, or tap the International market? What types of businesses use the services you want to provide? Which market will best support the kind of money you want to make?
Get your business documentation (proposal forms, invoices, policy statements, etc.) in order.
Before you have a website you also need to ensure you have all the documentation you need, ensure your registered as a freelancer with the tax people (if required), make sure you have all your forms for proposals, contacts, etc all written so you can just hand them to the client when they chose you. You next need to establish you brand, decide upon a name, get a website up and use it as the central hub for your business, you want people to visit your website and after reading about what you offer, choose you as their designer / developer / whatever. Once all that is done it’s all about getting your name out there, take on some portfolio work (perhaps through word of mouth, friends, charities, other groups) to build up your portfolio to make future clients see you have some experience and business should pick up gradually as you become more established. This is a pretty rough guide so take it as you see it but I also recommend the following website.
LOL if it wasn’t difficult then everybody would be a successful business owner. The SBA states that only half of all new businesses last 5 years (pdf). The truth is it’s a lot of hard work, and you don’t have to just know about your field (i.e. web development, programming, etc) but also about finances & accounting, sales & marketing, customer service, and a host of other areas.
As a one-person business you have to find the time to do everything (and figure out how to do it too).
Offer solutions to your clients’ problems, not just cookie cutter web design or low-priced development. You’ll never have the lowest price, be the fastest or have the “best customer service.” So the only real way you can differentiate yourself is to become an expert in a niche and sell that expertise. You might be an expert with Wordpress sites, or a particular industry like making websites for recording artists.
Depends on the circulation of the newspaper, the number of people in your area, the demographics of the newspaper (do business owners read it?) etc. But in my experience I’ve found that local print media doesn’t work well at all for finding clients.
You might try attending local networking events like Chamber of Commerce events (business after hours, early bird breakfasts, etc). You’ll find a lot more business by getting out there and meeting people than you will by putting ads places. In fact, we don’t advertise at all. All of our business comes either from current client referrals or from our network of people we know.
There is no real point in setting up a company until you know what that company is going to do. You will probably do best to actually operate initially as a sole trader type business to see whether you can make it work before spending the money on setting up a company to operate through.
Another thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet … be sure to find some kind of fallback plan for when you get ill or are unable to work for a week, month or longer. That is one of the great downsides to working alone; when you get sick your business is dead for that period of time, if you do not have someone to jump in during those times. And that can break your neck.
I work on average 98 hours a week. It’s up to you how successful you want to be. Those who run successful business doesn’t work 9-5. Nothing is ever as easy as it seems or you’d like it to be.
You need to create a value proposition. What do you do better than anyone else? Building websites is a commodity - You need to provide value beyond building websites.
I suggest building a local client base. Clients you can have lunch with, and have meetings. These types of relationships turn into referrals. You also need to build passive income, because you’re not going to get a big job every month, and you’re going to need a steady stream of income, even if it’s small, put everyone on some kind of maintenance retainer where you give them reports, etc, people appreciate that, and you can do it for $100/mo. Figure out what niche you can work within. Build your site, work at it, advertise yourself, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there, don’t be afraid of success. Read lots of business and marketing books. When I am not working, I read. Then I sleep. Then I get up at 4:30am and go to work. I repeat 6 or 7 days a week. If you want it, you gotta work for it. Nothing comes easy.
I think you have my email? You can contact me anytime for advice Blake.
If you are working an average of 98 hours a week, I wouldn’t consider you successful in business. Your claim that those who run a successful business [don’t] work 9-5 makes little sense. I think many would agree that ‘success’ in a business means that you work less, not more. When my business was riding the dotcom wave in 1999-2001 I found myself in position to ‘run’ the business in only 10-15 hours a week. That seemed successful to me! Time is precious and working 98 hours a week on just about anything doesn’t seem worthwhile.
You should expect to work hard and long hours to START a business and get it off the ground. When you are successful, the business will continue generating income without you, allowing you more personal time, not less.
This is excellent advice and really supersedes all of the other advice on this post. Too many people get excited and ‘start a business’ without any idea what the business will do, for whom, etc.
Figure out what you are good at, what you like to do, how you could make money doing that, etc. Then try operating as a sole proprietor/trader for a bit and see how it feels. When you have a coherent plan including details about exactly what your service/product will be, who you’ll do it for, how you’ll get business, etc. then consider formalizing the business.
Don’t listen to those who give you specific advice about how to run your business when your business isn’t even defined yet. It doesn’t work like that! Think about what you have to offer and who might want it, and look for a good scenario that could be profitable for you. Then try and fill in the details based on your specific goal. You can do it!
Not if you love what you do. 98 is pretty high, I would say the average is around 80, but certainly weeks where I work more
You are right that success is defined differently for everyone though. I love working, and I spend a lot of time doing it - I work harder because I want to achieve more, I don’t settle into a comfort zone because I make X amount of dollars
I think you need to consider the balance in your life. Even if you love your work, spending most of your waking hours working leaves little time for other things. That is not a recipe for a successful, happy life.
Really? I live and breathe web design, when I’m not doing paid work I’m on here posting, reading a good book on the subject or listening to podcasts on the industry. Granted I have some time off in which I don’t do any work but I could happily do a week-long stretch without having any “free” time. When writing my book that went into practice as there was a lot of long hours to keep to the tight deadlines. I wouldn’t have a problem with running off a 24 hour stint either
That might work if you aren’t in a relationship and don’t have kids. But if you have other people in your life, working 80-90 hours a week can have a serious impact on your relationships and personal life.
Just like you, I love what I do… When I’m not at my 45-50 hour a week job at an agency, I’m running an e-commerce business, writing the Tribune, going to a meetup or conference, etc.
But I also understand that downtime is important and try to take time to spend with my family and friends, and especially my kids. And for me, the downtime helps me recharge my batteries so to speak, and I’m usually far more productive when I limit work than when I go full-steam and work 80-90 hours in a week.
Sure, there are times when you just have to get the work done… but there have been countless studies on overtime and how it affects productivity and it’s been proven time and time again that although you may think you’re doing better work, you’re actually getting less accomplished (or at a lesser quality) than those that only work 40-50 hours.
That’s true, if you have other responsibilities like kids it’s understandable to need the time to be with them. I tend to work in cycles of productivity, I always make sure I have several things going so if I run out of steam on one project I move immediately to the next one on the list, that way I can keep my attention straight and get a decent amount of work done without recycling over the same task. For example currently I’m working on my new look website (launched but only at the basic stage of it’s evolution), a possible software product, a client (who I am awaiting files from), marketing my book (early stages) and I am currently buzzing about for additional clients and work (whilst posting here and now Twitter, LOL). Lucky for me I really enjoy my job so I don’t wake up dreading having to drag myself into an office
PS: I run my time using one of those GTD (Getting things done) systems so everything falls into place based on it’s priority, MyLifeOrganized is a lifesaver app!
Just go for it and see if you can make it. Then only invest if you think it’s good.
It also depends where you want to do that.
I have made businesses in Belgium, Spain and the USA.
While Spain and Belgium will just open their arms to new businesses with tons of free help and money, the US are not so open and it takes times and money.
Just to set up a company in the US cost $400-$500 and a couple of weeks.
In Europe,it’s free and it takes 45 minutes: 40 minutes waiting your turn and 5 minutes to set up and you’re good to go.
But before all that, make it happen first and see if it worth…
That’s some wild advice. Make the business first, then if you think it’s ‘good’ then invest! I think you might want to consider evaluating the business idea more before you invest the time to get it going, though.
Fear the fear itself. If I had to consider evaluations, especially from other people, I would have done nothing…But I stand for what I wrote: go for it and see. Don’t invest hundreds of thousands at first. Just see how it goes…
