How to Start a Home Based Web Design Business 3rd Home Based Business Series

User Ratings and Reviews

4 Stars Good book for a startup webdesign business- a little bit dated though
When I was thinking of starting my own freelance web design firm, I looked around for books and courses for furthering my knowledge. This is pretty much the only decent book that I found that addresses this subject comprehensively, there is one more book I recently found, havent read it yet. I read this book from cover to cover and it is well written and covers all aspects of starting your own small web design company. The author has “been there-done that” , so he talks from his practical experience. He could have provided more info for followup reading and resources for further reasearch and also some of the info he has provided is a bit dated though considering the 3rd edition was released on Jan’2007. But the basic information is still relevant and useful. I wish the author would release another updated edition in 2009, that would be nice and useful!

3 Stars Valuable document samples and insight into the business side of Web design
This book has useful information for Website design beginners that have none to little experience working as a freelance Web designer. It contains good information for the absolute beginner that needs some advice and direction as to how to start his/her website design business.

PROS

Chapter 4, Starting Your Web Design Business, under Business Contracts, emphasizes the need for a signed contract for every web design project and discusses how you could be Using a Contract as a Selling Tool. It teaches you how to draft a contract and provides you with a sample Contract for a Web Design Business in the Appendix.

Seems like Smith regularly talks to his attorney and this is reflected in the book as you realize Smith has legal insight about different aspects of a website design shop.

Chapter 7, Attracting Customers, contains a good list of tips for Establishing a Good Reputation as a Web design business even if you don’t have some sample Websites that illustrate your design skills. The subtitles How to Get That First “Real” Client and How to Turn Skeptical Leads into Happy Customers defines steps for helping your potential clients realize their need for a website.

CONS

The author is not an expert at Web Development. In Chapter 2, Deciding What Services to Offer, he admits he considers himself “programming challenged” and that he “prefers to hand off most of my programming work to others”. He also states that “if your strenghts are not in these areas either, you may want to become proficient at being a “copy and paste” programmer and scriptwriter”. Personally, I completely disagree with this advice and I’m sure many experienced Web developers would feel the same about it. If your sole source of income will be your Web Design shop you have to learn as much as possible about your trade. Learning a server-side programming language such as ASP, JSP or PHP is a necessary skill. But well, this book is not about programming, is about how to start your home-based business, and it does conduct you in the right way.

4 Stars Sample Contract is Worth the Price of the Book
This is a good book for someone who may know more about web design than they know about business. Like others have said, the example web designs aren’t very good and look dated. This book is definetly a business book, and a wordy one at that. I found myself skimming some of the paragraphs for just the major points.

The author relates some of his best practices in his approach to running the business. The sample contract alone is worth the cost of the book and is the reason I gave it 4 stars. The contract seemingly covers all the bases. Because there is no CD, the FAQ in the book gives you the location of the link to download the contract for your own use. The author cautions you to seek an attorney’s help before leveraging the contract for you own use though.

Overall, it is a good business resource with a few technical pointers as well.

5 Stars Easy to read, good hard facts
The first time I even casually flipped through the book I was pulled in by good hard practical business advice. I was fascinated because it broke my delusion about what having a business would be like and presented me with real world issues I would face. Given today’s competition of automated web building tools and the power of blogs and social sites for the little guys, I don’t see web design as making anyone rich, but if you’re ok with that, this book might point a business in a more realistic direction. Most of the book’s content is relevant to any small start up, not just web design. In fact the only reason this book probably references web design is for marketing value. There are obviously a lot of people thinking they can be home based web designers. The web design tips are too basic, but the business advice is awesome.

5 Stars Great for ideas to get started with – business minds!
This is an excellent book. I borrowed v2 from the Library and thought it was well written, an easy read, and packed with great ideas. In fact, so much that I purchased v3 from Amazon the day I finished reading it. There were many places I wanted to highlight and obviously could not with the Library’s book! NOTE – This is not a book to learn how to build great sites for people!!! It is to give you good business ideas and for me it definitely has. In fact, I was a little weary about starting a web design business but now that I have read this book (twice!) I definitely plan to!

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