mairving — Sun, 04 Aug 2002 11:36:20 +0000

You just have to be smarter. Instead of charging someone a one time fee to do their website design, why not charge them a one time fee and a monthly fee to host/maintain it. I usually charge anywhere from $50-150/month to host the site and keep it updated. That way if your design business is slow, you will still have some money coming in. You can make money at just hosting but you have to have many more clients and spend much more time babying them.

Lukster — Sun, 04 Aug 2002 10:00:02 +0000

Ive been running my own Web design business for 8 months now. Im 19 years old. My advice to you younger guys would don't try and start your own web design business 'parsee'. Try and contract yourselves out to people to do work. 1 major thing that most people don't understand when they start a business is that they have to run a complete business, you can't just be a web designer.

This includes things like accounting (a MAJOR aspect of the business), Promotion & Marketing & Customer Relations(trust me you need these skills, especially when a client searches for their website on a search engine the day after you complete it and get angry when they cant find it). Of course if you have all these skills then by all means go for it! But please think twice before you do.

Just my 2 cents.

companyreviews — Wed, 31 Jul 2002 23:38:43 +0000

Quote: Originally posted by zollet
One thing I don't understand is why teenagers these days all want to start a company? There is plenty of time later in life for working and making money, but you will never be 14 again! Go out and have fun, play games, spend time with friends, tease the girls, I don't know.. Do things teens do.. As you get older, life gets more complicated and you have many more responsibilities. You'll have to work to pay for your family, food, car, house, loans, etc, etc..

that is soo true zollet, but i cant say anything, im 14 and i love webdesign etc and id start my own company right away heh

îþÐ — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 17:25:59 +0000

I dont even want to step near web hosting.. I am a programmer, not a buisnessman in that respect...

Even when I become an adult I dont want to start web hosting...:batman:

zollet — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 15:47:36 +0000

As I mentioned before, I don't really see anything wrong with teens doing smaller websites, logos and programming scripts to make a few extra dollars. However, what I worry about is teens that get into web hosting. They don't understand what kind of responsibility that is involved. You are responsible for making sure that i.e. Joe's business website is online at all times or he will lose customers. You have to manage the servers, take care of new customers, provide fast and helpful support to existing customers, etc. What many people (mostly teens, but even adults) do these days is they get a dedicated server for $150/mo and set their prices like $20/yr for 2GB space and 20GB bandwidth. Now maybe they sell 50 accounts in the first month and make $1000.. What they don't understand is that these $1000 has to last the whole year! So after 3-4 months when the $1000 is gone, now they're stuck with 50 customers to support, servers to pay for and the next payment period is in 8 months. What do they do? They disappear and their poor customers (who usually have themselves to blame for this) are left without a webhost. Most likely, they don't have a backup of their site either.

îþÐ — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 15:07:45 +0000

Quote: One thing I don't understand is why teenagers these days all want to start a company? There is plenty of time later in life for working and making money, but you will never be 14 again! Go out and have fun, play games, spend time with friends, tease the girls, I don't know.. Do things teens do.. As you get older, life gets more complicated and you have many more responsibilities. You'll have to work to pay for your family, food, car, house, loans, etc, etc..

Its easy... we dont have money and we want it. All teens dont have a continuious income source and as so, they must find other ways to earn money. And in my opinion, I'd rather work online and sell my programming than go to a grocery store and be a bagger. Programmming is something I love and I've been doing it for about 4 years and my HTML has quite advanced in that time. I'm trying to branch out into other languages like PHP and get into databases like MySQL. As for the

Quote: Do things teens do..

thing, I still do those things, and those things require money as well. Its not like a teen who wants to sell a service is not having fun and hanging out with friends as well. Over the summer, there is quite alot of free time. Why couldn't a teen try to sell his/her code during this time? There are some cases but most teens enjoy doing 'teenish' things.

zollet — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 12:22:28 +0000

Mark, very funny. By pay for your family, I ment providing for them. Lets see your posts at 6am when you have been working for the past 30hs and can hardly see the monitor anymore..

nike_guy_man,
I'm not saying all teens are bad in business or their work lack quality. Anyways, that is a long discussion and I don't want to take this thread more off topic that what it already is.

Mark Hensler — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 06:24:42 +0000

completely off topic

I have to ask..
Zollet, you have to pay for your family?!?
Man, maybe I should start charging my people to call me family.

More off-topic here:
http://webmaster-forums.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18879

nike_guy_man — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 04:41:40 +0000

Ahem... aren't we getting off topic??
Set the CHMOD numbers so that users can execute and read... but not write... 755, I think????

To continue the off-topic conversation:
I'm 15... I have had an internet business since I was 12 (yep I went through the .com mess and got out... sort of) and so I was able to put away for life ahead... so that I can do 'things teens do'
The reason I have an internet business is so that I can go out and have fun and do things etc etc...
And by the way, all my work comes between 12AM and 4AM...
'Teens' mask their age because of people that don't think quality work can come from people who aren't over 18

Back on topic (almost):
Kyle, pay the $2 a month, get a better host... I was with HM for a while... then I got my own server, from money I made during the .com boom... hehe

Off-topic again:
The best part about being young and having a business is that you have 0 startup costs, normally... I used my old computers to learn everything and make new things... If I had to buy all my computers and all when I was 12, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have made it.

Quote:
You'll have to work to pay for your family, food, car, house, loans, etc, etc..

Working is a pain... why work later when we can take our spare time now and put off working later? I've got a real job during the day during the summer... Work 9am-3pm, work 12am-2am, screw around the rest of the day... rethink it zollet
On and off topic, oh well... I thought up more and more as I went on..
Sum it up:
Kyle, pay the $2 a month
Zollet: Don't discrimate against age
îþÐ: Go for your business... good luck

zollet — Fri, 19 Jul 2002 02:49:24 +0000

A lot of teens hide their real age to get jobs on the Internet. I personally think it's wrong towards the person you're working with because if something happens, they can't for example take legal action against you since you're under 18. However, they can take legal action towards your parents.

One thing I don't understand is why teenagers these days all want to start a company? There is plenty of time later in life for working and making money, but you will never be 14 again! Go out and have fun, play games, spend time with friends, tease the girls, I don't know.. Do things teens do.. As you get older, life gets more complicated and you have many more responsibilities. You'll have to work to pay for your family, food, car, house, loans, etc, etc..