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Comment by decadentcactus | Hacker News Reader

So about 30 minutes ago I decided it may be a good idea to look into (local) consulting, for businesses or people who don't know much more than "I want a website". Has anyone done this/any advice?

I figured to start with (aside from occasional freebies) maybe $500 for 3 hours. No idea where I came up with that number but it gives me something to start at.

But maybe I'm not set on what I _do_. My plan was to walk them through options, advise whether they need something custom built or hacked wordpress or use a hosted shop. Then take it from there/work with them to find developers (or do it myself).

Good? Bad? Any tips would be good.

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Depends on who the client is and what you want. If it's just about making some cash, find some local businesses (restaurants, etc), charge $400, then set them up with a wordpress blog with a theme from theme forest, woo themes, or ??. Spend an hour customizing it and your done.

If you want to build a more sustainable web development business, find some larger corporate clients, and do basically the same thing but instead of the off-the-shelf theme, pay a designer $500-$1500 for a custom theme then charge $5-$10K per site. Get an intern or temp worker to do the data entry.

Also, I've found that "I want a website" type people really like to work on their own website once they have it. So don't be scared to let them have a go at the Wordpress (or whatever) backend. Just be ready to clearly explain the limitations when they inevitably make ridiculous requests.

How have you had success finding larger corporate clients? I've been working at 20 person agency as Director of Engineering for 5 years, but we generally run $500k+ year long webapp builds in Rails, not $12k corporate sites. I'm trying to catch up on some debt, and have the client and team management experience to put together some "mini-agency" projects like, but am not sure how to go about finding the sort of client who needs this type of site.

Thinking back, I realized that all my larger contracts have been with companies where I had an inside contact (friend who was working there). Also, look for companies in fields outside of internet technology. They certainly won't be spending $500K on webapps, but do want a modern presence online.

I'd recommend asking friends/family if there company is unhappy with their current website or other technology services. The market rate for design agencies is probably $15-50K, so an individual who can do it for slightly less than that and in a friendly manner is highly attractive.

Have you been able to grow beyond the "inside contact" deals? And by "look for companies in fields outside of internet tech" can you give some examples?

How did you go about finding these 500K+ web apps? What kind of clients are they? What kind of apps do you do for them? If you dont mind me asking

The guy who founded the company, and with whom I've been working closely for over 5 years, is technical with a design background, but also happens to be a bizdev god. He's in SV (I'm in Portland, along with several of our other employees), and knows a lot of the right people. We do some startup builds, but also a lot of projects that add directly to people's bottom lines - for example, an admissions and course management system for a university, which will contribute directly to them being able to get an accreditation rating they're seeking, and which will return the cost of the work to them (conservatively) at a 10x multiple.

Of course, these aren't lump sum, flat bid projects - they're paying for an agile team over the course of a year or so.

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