Starting a Web Design Business: Month Two

Posted by Crystal on Aug 2, 2010 in Management | 1 comment

Here we are already, the second post for our series: Starting a Web Design Business. It’s been a long and confusing month, both mixed with hard work dedicated to the business, and a bit of slacking due to some unrelated factors. (Life got in the way a few times.)

If you’ve missed my first post for this series, you can check it out here: Starting a Web Design Business: Month One. Also. you can check out the business I’ll be referring to throughout this post at the XHTML Shop.

A Strong Headstart

Like any new project I take on, I’m 110% dedicated and perhaps a bit obsessed. After month one, I was all set up. I was ready to get out there and get some clients. Within the first week, I got several leads, mostly through casual Twittering.

I’m held off on direct mail and other forms of marketing, and instead began to build my social media presence. I somewhat updated the Facebook fan page, although it doesn’t matter much since there’s not a wide audience over there yet anyway. I found most of my leads by searching on Twitter: “looking for web designer,” or “need a web developer.” I got a few emails and call-backs, but unfortunately none of them turned into true clients.

I also did the job-board thing, knowing that this was not the most efficient way of doing things either. However, I was at the point where we didn’t have many clients to go through more effective forms of marketing, like word of mouth or social media, so I had plenty of time to spend applying for jobs separately. What did I get through this? One very strong client lead.

The First Almost-Client and the Lesson Learned

I received an email from a bigger client that had a job board posted up on the FreelanceSwitch job board. It took them a few weeks to get back to me, and if I would have taken them on, it would have been well worth the wait. After several emails, two phone calls, a proposal, and a quote, we nearly had them won over. They had told us that they started off with 60+ applicants, and they were down to the top three, the XHTML Shop being in the top three.

We had an amazing chance, but suddenly they needed more security. That means more in the portfolio, links to our coded works, and even some WordPress themes. Just starting out, of course, we had none of that. I was hoping clients could look at the design work we did and would be convinced. If we knew we could code clean validated code, why wouldn’t the client believe it? So lesson learned: Always have fully interactive coded examples in the portfolio.

Because we really didn’t have much to show, we turned down this exciting client. The XHTML Shop ended month one with 7-10 leads, one very strong lead, and no clients.

Getting to Work without Clients

So actively looking for clients and convincing them was not working. We were getting to the point where our marketing work was so ineffective that we were getting bored. Who likes to market for hours a day and not do any actual web design work?

That’s when we decided to really get busy. Nobody likes to work for free, but it looked like we were going to have to do just that. Kayla Knight began coding our first WordPress theme for release, which will be available soon. It’s about 90% coded, so go check it out: Gabriola Theme. After a few free themes, I can see us releasing several premium themes, or creating premium versions of our free themes with customization options and back panels.

Next, we hired a regular blogger to get the blog going over at the XHTML Shop. Growth is coming along now, and we’re attracting an audience of both web developers, designers, and potential clients. Growth is slow, though, because we can only afford one post a week, but our goal is to get up to 2-3 posts a week by the end of the month.

Finally, we’re trying to up our post count here at The Free Creatives. I’m doing most of the writing, but I’ve put it at more of a priority knowing we’re using it now more as a marketing tool for the XHTML Shop.

In the background, we are doing some casual marketing still, and especially focusing on growing our social media presence. We’re hoping to get a strong presence by the end of the month, and are looking to gain our first few clients later on. Right now, we’re just changing our focus to something more productive in the long-run. For more ideas on how to freelance without clients and be productive when we don’t have any yet, we’re considering all of these ideas: Learning How to Freelance without Clients.

A Backup Job

If you’ve read last month’s post, you’ll know that debt is something I never want to get back into. This is why I’ve still decided to take on a part-time job, just enough to pay the bills. The job will be enough to cover my rent, food, and utilities. Otherwise, all my other income will be coming from the XHTML Shop.

Fortunately, I have enough freelancing experience to know that I will go crazy anyway if I stay in my apartment by myself for too long. So really, sacrificing my time and energy to a part-time job was not an issue, as I was going to be spending my time away from my place and running my business much of the time anyway. As long as I only keep it to a few days a week, that should be plenty of time to get things up and running.

I’ve also learned a lot of great ways to waste time as a freelancer, and therefore have gotten into habits that make me more productive with less time. I know that I’ll only get better and faster at what I do in the future, so I’m not concerned at losing a couple days a week from work, as long as I stay focused during my actual working time.

Accomplished So Far in Month Two:

• Stayed out of debt, moved, and got some savings going. (A personal goal that was also related to the business)
• Added a copywriting service to the XHTML Shop. It won’t be our main focus, but the service can go hand-in-hand with many web projects.
• Added the Gabriola theme to the portfolio, and working with Kayla, got it almost completely done! It may not be finished, but at least potential clients can see our work in action.
• Got to a more regular blogging schedule here on The Free Creatives.
• Got to one post a week on the XHTML Shop, which got us 4/5 posts we had originally planned for.
• Built a better social media presence via Twitter, Facebook, and even Flickr.

Goals Not Met:

• Getting official proposal and contract templates set up. However, we did write one great proposal, so we have an excellent start with that for next month.
• Getting our first client. That was a stretch for a business only in it’s second month. However, we are pleasantly surprised as to how close we got, and to how many leads we obtained.
• Adding six more pieces to the portfolio: not even close.
• Add two more WordPress themes for free release: again, we failed at that. Even though we did get one almost set up, it wasn’t up to our original plan to have two completely finished, released, and marketed. It could have easily been done though if we would have prioritized correctly starting at the beginning of the month. Oh well, lesson learned.

Goals for Next Month

• Get up to two posts per week at the XHTML Shop
• Get two WordPress themes released and marketed
• Code some of our designs into valid XHTML and CSS for clients to check out
• Get an even more regular and frequent flow of posts over here at The Free Creatives

Kayla is also a regular contributor to the XHTML Shop now, and her personal goal is to redesign her freelancing portfolio to focus more on her blog writing and redirect her web development work over to the XTHML Shop.

What Are Your Experiences?

Have any of you guys ever dreamt of going bigger and better, or would many of you prefer staying freelancers throughout your career? Either way, what were some challenges you faced when starting up your own business?