# Starting up my own business



## fooddestroyer (Sep 29, 2004)

Hi guys,
I am currently learning Dreamweaver, fireworks etc and am seriously thinking about starting up a small business selling affordable, effective websites for small local business.
I have caught on pretty quickly so far and hope to progress accordingly so that i may get more dynamic as o go along.
Guess i am looking some advice from possible some of your guys who already do this on a small scale. 
Has anyone and samples of websites that they have done for small business, and an idea of how much to charge.
Overall any advice good or bad about how i should approach this would be of great help as i have seen some amount of business websites that are super poor!


----------



## Terrister (Apr 18, 2005)

You may want to check out the building websites forum in the computer pro section. If you would like, I could move this thread there.


----------



## fooddestroyer (Sep 29, 2004)

yea that would be fine mate. Many thanks


----------



## v-six (Sep 12, 2004)

fooddestroyer, your best bet is to get to work putting a portfolio together. Even if you're a master at what you do, if clients don't see past results, they'll think you're a novice. This may involve lowering your costs at first to get customers. As for charges, keep track of how many hours you put into something. If you think you put a great product together, 10-25 dollars (US) an hour is more than fair. If its one of your first customers and your finished product dissappoints you, maybe lower that bit. _At the beginning stages, your goal isn't to make money_... you should be putting together a group of satisfied clients. If you do your job well, half of your future jobs will come from recommendations.


----------



## Skie (Mar 15, 2003)

You might also wish to offer basic web hosting to your design customers. Not all of them will have web hosting already taken care of and wouldn't mind having the same person do the hosting and design for them. If you wish to do this, you can get a simple reseller package with an existing web host which will allow you to set up your own accounts and you won't have to worry about the day to day administration of the server.


----------



## fooddestroyer (Sep 29, 2004)

Skie said:


> You might also wish to offer basic web hosting to your design customers. Not all of them will have web hosting already taken care of and wouldn't mind having the same person do the hosting and design for them. If you wish to do this, you can get a simple reseller package with an existing web host which will allow you to set up your own accounts and you won't have to worry about the day to day administration of the server.


This sounds promising. Can you/anyone tell me or guide me more?


----------



## Skie (Mar 15, 2003)

fooddestroyer said:


> This sounds promising. Can you/anyone tell me or guide me more?


I do offer reseller packages if you're interested. Basically, you would sign up, set up your own "packages" (i.e. 100mb disk space, 1gb bandwidth, etc), then create the account when needed, upload the files yourself and charge your customer whatever you want for the service and that's about it. Well... that's a good overview of it, there's a bit more to it then that, but not that much really.

Or, you could include the cost of the hosting with your design prices. Obviously, what you charge is up to you. Also, in most cases, you really won't need to offer multiple hosting plans, but it can come in handy for those customers that need more space/bandwidth. 

If you have any specific questions and you don't want to hijack this thread from your intended purpose, then either PM me or email me using the link in my sig and then clicking Contact Us.


----------

