I am a web designer for 14 years and need some advice to build my own empire..

[kimbrown]

Hello,
I am 36 now..I resigned my job and now looking to establish my own online web designing and publishing business.
I am a web designer by profession and bored with making websites for 14 years and fed with my 9 to 5 routine.
I really appreciate any advise from any experience person about it..As i think books authors and writers are way more smart and experienced then a person like me who use to f*** his bust off in a small room 5 days a week.
You can p.m me for any reason, I would love to help others.
Thanks

 

[Stella_Omega]

I truly understand your desire to be free of the cubicle, but--. You had a job. And in this economy, you quit it? Haven't you been paying attention to the world around you at all?

Well-- some design school grad is grateful for the chance to have the job you left.

Working for yourself means you have to do EVERYTHING that your coworkers did around you, you have to be the marketing rep, you have to be the boss and the employee both. Four or five full time jobs. All at once.

My suggestion is that you go and see if you can beg that old job back, or get a job at Costco which at least, treats their employees like real people. Failing that, you can work at Walgreens. They will help you apply for foodstamps and medicare to make up for the slave wages they pay you.

my heart goes out to you and your family.

 

[sr71plt]

The advice apparently comes too late for you, but I think that the best way to transition into self-employment is to start freelancing on the side and building up a reputation/clientele/business while you still have a full-time job to pay the bills. And then only go self-employed full time when you can see a business building that will carry you. That would seem to be possible with your line of work.

Of course, the most stable way to do is to do that transitioning as you move into an annuity-support retirement. Luckily I could do that. I could retire (very) early at full annuity and during the last two years of my career employment I went back to university on the side in my new specialty to bolster my credentials for a second career that flowed out of my first one--and could wind up making more money when I transitioned rather than almost nothing.

 

[D_Lynn]

Hello,
I am 36 now..I resigned my job and now looking to establish my own online web designing and publishing business.
I am a web designer by profession and bored with making websites for 14 years and fed with my 9 to 5 routine.
I really appreciate any advise from any experience person about it..As i think books authors and writers are way more smart and experienced then a person like me who use to f*** his bust off in a small room 5 days a week.
You can p.m me for any reason, I would love to help others.
Thanks

Advise: Roll up your sleeves and prepare yourself for hard work. Put in at least as many hours of effort as you were while you were working for someone else. In other words, behave as if you could still be fired at any moment.

It just so happens that I am not thrilled with my current web designer. If you PM me with links to your work, maybe we can talk about doing business.

DL

 

[Exquisition]

I truly understand your desire to be free of the cubicle, but--. You had a job. And in this economy, you quit it? Haven't you been paying attention to the world around you at all?

Well-- some design school grad is grateful for the chance to have the job you left.

Working for yourself means you have to do EVERYTHING that your coworkers did around you, you have to be the marketing rep, you have to be the boss and the employee both. Four or five full time jobs. All at once.

My suggestion is that you go and see if you can beg that old job back, or get a job at Costco which at least, treats their employees like real people. Failing that, you can work at Walgreens. They will help you apply for foodstamps and medicare to make up for the slave wages they pay you.

my heart goes out to you and your family.

Isn't that the truth?

You forgot: accountant, sales director, web designer, graphic designer, PR pro, production manager, warehouse manager. Did I mention accountant? (Year end).

 

[Stella_Omega]

Isn't that the truth?

You forgot: accountant, sales director, web designer, graphic designer, PR pro, production manager, warehouse manager. Did I mention accountant? (Year end).

AND you have to walk the dog.

 

[sethp]

Hello,
I am 36 now..I resigned my job and now looking to establish my own online web designing and publishing business.
I am a web designer by profession and bored with making websites for 14 years and fed with my 9 to 5 routine.
I really appreciate any advise from any experience person about it..As i think books authors and writers are way more smart and experienced then a person like me who use to f*** his bust off in a small room 5 days a week.
You can p.m me for any reason, I would love to help others.
Thanks

These are steps I've taken myself for some of my businesses.

Build some free websites for Non-Profits so that you build up a portfolio.
Get business cards and start networking and going to events. Join the Chamber of commerce
Get a linkedin profile and start working it and posting informative posts daily. Give away your knowledge.

 

[DeeZire]

Put up an erotic site with a Hippie Chick theme. Communes, Free Love, hairy armpits, the possibilities are endless. I don't know how you would generate revenue, since there is so much free porn around the internet these days, but I'd visit a Hippie Chick site (if it was free.)

Actually, since veterans of the Summer of Love are so old now, you could probably pick up the same advertisers that buy space in the AARP magazine.

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Hi KimBrown.

There is no way you can make money through hard work. If you could do that, EVERYBODY would be extremely rich because EVERYBODY ALWAYS says they do a lot of HARD WORK.

Not only that, but there is this whole social/political push about the morality of being a HARD WORKER.

I once wrote a short book called 'How to Make a Million Bucks in 30 mins., just by Drinking Coffees,' but no one wanted it probably because they didn't believe it could be for real - and I didn't/don't have a reputation for a sense of humour or for being funny either so no one must have considered it was going to be really funny. So... I just kept the book myself and implemented its ideas and made a million for the second time in my life.

By the way, a million bucks doesn't go as far as people think and I think I'm about due to give the whole thing another go again...

You're doing the right thing, KimBrown. Stepping out on your own will take a lot of courage and you will get a lot of criticism but it really IS the only way to start an empire.

Building an empire largely consists of conquering a lot of things.

Go where the money already is. And today, this is very easy to discover as not many people have any money to speak of at all.

If you want to get a boost up, head straight for the HFT (High Frequency Trading) world and anyone who says they want to do something in that environment. If you know such things as API or how to get interactivity going on a website/webspace, you are a valuable person to people in the HFT world.

I know a couple of bright young Indian kids in Sydney who started an HFT business and they raised 2 million in about six months and quite literally made more than 300 million inside of a year after that. And that is a fact and has a lot of press about it in Australia. The main guy's name is Danny Bandhari.

Most HFT and trading algorithm companies advertise regularly seeking young people to join them. This really is a field where money is being made today. I would certainly try to get a role with some existing group in this field if I were you and see what is going on there.

Depending on how good you are at web-designing and programming you might even be able to do this kind of stuff all by yourself - which can be pretty scary too of course. But it's not impossible.

Anyone with a decent algorithm can stick a robot program to work and make stacks of money very quickly - but I would try and get together a few partners so that you can spread a bit of the risk in case you have to make a few adjustments and your relative inexperience means it will take you longer than an experienced person would take.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Back in 2008 I started growing veggies, and just harvested my, what?, 17th garden. After 5 years my stuff is superior to 90% of what most stores sell. I learn from every garden I raise, and the quality rises. This Spring maybe I'll start harvesting peachs I planted last April, In August I may harvest pears, I already harvest blueberries and guavas and citrus.

I could prolly create a business from it if I bought some land to frow more. But the idea is to master something people want, and keep getting better at it.

 

[jomar]

Call me a cynic, but 2 posts and a plea for help and a plea for pm's cause they love to help others. Might be legit, but hold onto your money while you talk.

 

[Exquisition]

Back in 2008 I started growing veggies, and just harvested my, what?, 17th garden. After 5 years my stuff is superior to 90% of what most stores sell. I learn from every garden I raise, and the quality rises. This Spring maybe I'll start harvesting peachs I planted last April, In August I may harvest pears, I already harvest blueberries and guavas and citrus.

I could prolly create a business from it if I bought some land to frow more. But the idea is to master something people want, and keep getting better at it.

I was reading your post with not a little trepidation JBJ but that's actually a nugget of gold.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I was reading your post with not a little trepidation JBJ but that's actually a nugget of gold.

It truly is the route to self sufficiency and contentment. Do what you love and get better at it.

 

[ChrissieLecker]

I am 36 now..I resigned my job and now looking to establish my own online web designing and publishing business.
I am a web designer by profession and bored with making websites for 14 years and fed with my 9 to 5 routine.
I really appreciate any advise from any experience person about it.

Having been there, and done that, and gone back to a (though quite well-paid) steady job, I have one major advice:

There's a distinction between successfully starting a business, and starting a successful business. The first one takes hard work, loads of planning, lots and lots of hours, and rigid scheduling. With that, you can get your business off the ground and (slowly) start returning your investments. Though, if you don't want to work yourself to death or get a stroke from the stress, you'll have to make the jump to the second one. A successful business is all about networking, which means having the people who advertise your business to others and, most importantly, having the people that aid you in everything that comes up. A number of good programmers that you can call in an emergency, good writers and designers that can take over parts of your work on short notice to meet deadlines, helpers to whom you can delegate menial tasks like entering a few thousand rows of printed data for a small fee, etc.. And, most importantly, networking also means that all those people around you need to feel they are part of something big, otherwise they'll desert you in the most inopportune moments.

Or a bit condensed: business is about work, success is about people.

I wish you all the luck you can get. It takes a lot of courage to let go of the security of a steady job and start from scratch, and I hope we get to read a big "yay, it worked for me!" message from you in a few years time.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Having been there, and done that, and gone back to a (though quite well-paid) steady job, I have one major advice:

There's a distinction between successfully starting a business, and starting a successful business. The first one takes hard work, loads of planning, lots and lots of hours, and rigid scheduling. With that, you can get your business off the ground and (slowly) start returning your investments. Though, if you don't want to work yourself to death or get a stroke from the stress, you'll have to make the jump to the second one. A successful business is all about networking, which means having the people who advertise your business to others and, most importantly, having the people that aid you in everything that comes up. A number of good programmers that you can call in an emergency, good writers and designers that can take over parts of your work on short notice to meet deadlines, helpers to whom you can delegate menial tasks like entering a few thousand rows of printed data for a small fee, etc.. And, most importantly, networking also means that all those people around you need to feel they are part of something big, otherwise they'll desert you in the most inopportune moments.

Or a bit condensed: business is about work, success is about people.

I wish you all the luck you can get. It takes a lot of courage to let go of the security of a steady job and start from scratch, and I hope we get to read a big "yay, it worked for me!" message from you in a few years time.

Networking is essential! And I offer the caveat that there are many human obstacles to networking. Even a request for an interview by an interested client may not get you thru the door, because of gate-keepers. Wives are the worst road-blocks.

The other thing is, war breaks out in the network occasionally, and innocent people become casualties.