How to make a website and make money on it (for performers)

In a previous article entitled "How to order a site and not waste money" we gave recommendations to customers of sites. In the same article, we promised to give recommendations to developers - in fact, we fulfill our promises.
Let’s say right away that this article is not about business plans, marketing or sales plans. If you don’t have all this, we’re sorry, but you will have to read about it elsewhere. This article is about organizing work within the company. However, if now you do not have these things and you are not going to do them, you can no longer read, but simply find yourself a normal job.

So to the point. The main task of customers and developers is very similar and it sounds something like this: "Make money on the site." However, for customers this means - to make money on their business, which will help the site, for performers - to make money on the production site itself.

Now in the world there are a lot of the most diverse businesses related to the web. Therefore, we immediately identify those who may be interested in our article.

So, you will be interested if:

• The company employs less than 15 people;
• You do not sit on one product, but constantly carry out various, relatively expensive projects (above 150 tons);
• Your personal income is comparable to the salary of an ordinary, albeit a good specialist.

If the first two conditions are not fulfilled for you, then in your business the laws are different from ours. Therefore, our article may not only be uninteresting to you, but also harmful. However, decide for yourself.

If the third condition is not fulfilled for you, as a business owner (that is, you earn at least twice as much as an ordinary specialist), then everything is fine with you. And perhaps we need to consult with you, and not vice versa.

What needs to be done to earn normal money on website development?

As always in the hard work of making money, Mother Teresa will help us.
This undeniably wise and strong woman says the following:

What does this mean? And this means that you finally need to stop pretending to be scared ostriches, pull your head out of the sand and take responsibility - responsibility for the client’s business, for its sales and quality of service via the Internet, and not for the confusion of HTML and PHP that he alone is not needed. Not at all needed.

"What? How so? Why should we be responsible for someone else's business? ”- many will ask. And we will repeat, especially for those who are in the tank, because nobody just needs your site by itself. Not to mention paying good money for it. Remember this.

Believe me, as soon as you get away from the formal requirements in the style of "The site should be on the first page of the issuance of Google and Yandex" and go to the requirements in the style of "The site should attract 5,000 customers per day. The conversion should be 500 orders per day, which should be a profit of 100,000 bananas per year, provided that it’s blah blah blah. ” Why? Yes, because the same year is a very good payback period. In serious, large companies, the payback of a project in less than 3 years is considered a miracle. Any businessman is able to calculate that if he receives 3,000,000 bananas in a year, then paying 500,000 bananas for the site is damn direct benefit.

If you feel that your team is not ready to answer for the client’s profit, go to low-budget sites up to 50 tr. There, for the most part, the client will do everything perpendicularly and perhaps it is there that you will occupy your niche.

Also, do not forget that the main way to make monthly income more or less stable is through repeated sales to established customers. If there are none, you will be wondering every month whether you have enough money to rent. And you can re-sell something to the client only if he earns real money from your work.

In addition, Mother Teresa says:

There are no keys to happiness. The door is always open

And damn right. Because there are a bunch of obvious things that in the hectic balancing between income and expense are simply ignored. But this just leads to the fact that income is less than or equal to expense. Which again forces you to score on these things. And you, like a squirrel in a wheel, cannot escape from this hellish circle.

The project cost should not be calculated from your costs for it.
“How so?” You ask. “This is such a simple, obvious, convenient scheme. I consider how much I spend, distribute my profits and voila! I’m in plus! ”
If you thought so, then you look like the underpants gnomes from the series“ South Park ”. They also had such an impressive business plan:

• Collection of underpants.
• ???
• PROFIT !!!

By the way, calculating the real cost of a project is very difficult. Do you take risks? And the depreciation of technology? What about holidays? What about sickness care? Do you know how much one day of illness of your employee of your company costs? Unfortunate 150 rubles that you pay him under the labor code? Yeah of course.

Given that, most likely, in your web studio, the positions of estimator or economist are absent as a class, then you consider the cost of the project with a certain error. And then voila - it seems like you have good income, the cost of sites is high, and the studio has earned a lot of money.

But learning to calculate the real value of a project is half the battle, and we are not talking about this in this article. So wait, don’t run to the economist yet, we haven’t yet revealed one important secret. When your customers see the cost of work, calculated according to all the rules, they will bleed from their eyes and jump out of the nearest window.

What do you ask? Unfortunately, a universal solution does not exist. Actually, selling your services at the price you need is business, and if there were some simple formulas here, everyone would be successful businessmen.

But don't be upset! We know what needs to be done to find your secret formula:

1. Find a normal estimator and find out the real cost of an hour of your specialists. Thus, you will do a good deed and finally stop dumping prices. Let them earn money for themselves and others;
2. Determine the average cost of the project. And to do this based on how much you can sell your services to a client. Or from market prices, in your price segment. But in no case do not proceed from your project costs!
3. Sit down and finally do business. That is, you just need to figure out how to make the difference between your project costs and its cost really interesting for you.

Actually, the recommendations to business owners ended there. However, we still have something to say to the performers. We have a warm word for almost every role. Readers! Do not forget to make a discount on the fact that each company has its own structure, therefore the roles and their relationships are abstract.

Sales and project managers

Gentlemen, finish shoving your nose where you don’t need to and push the performers. Start using a strange substance between your ears to do your job. You should use your communication skills to the benefit, and not crawl with stupid attempts into the already complex process of forecasting dates.

Why are you really going to do this for a week? You're a cool specialist - you can do it 100% in a day! C'mon, this is just one button. We did it in the last project - you just have to transfer it!

The case of a technical contractor competently and efficiently carry out the task. And only he can determine the potential deadline for its implementation. Your business is to sell the service or effectively manage the project, and not torment the head of colleagues.

Not enough qualifications to sell a service for its real value? Or to arrange the work so that the project was completed on time? Well, the “great” idea is to force the contractor to underestimate the term by deceiving himself, and thereby deprive the company and the contractor of justified income.

However, it is never a hindrance to normally discuss the reason for a given deadline with a contractor. Because any person can make a mistake or forget about something. But do not dare to push and go beyond your competence!

Technical specialists (Layout designers, Programmers, Integrators, main, leading and ordinary, and to all all those who evaluate the deadlines)

Guys, please take your pride and shove it where no one sees. Seriously. All perpendicular to how much the task should be done. Or how much it can be done. It is important for how much you really make it. Feel the difference?

C'mon, it's just that, I quickly bang it. According to the method of herak herak and in production.

Yeah of course. It is because of this attitude that salespeople and other managers are forced to multiply your terms by two, or even three times. Do you know what this leads to? To the fact that when you calculated the term correctly, the manager multiplied by two, and the client saw the price tag two times the market price. And ran away in horror. Well, cool when a company without interesting projects? Probably from this your salary grows.

Your analytical thinking must be lying somewhere. Break the task down into components. A small task can always be fairly accurately estimated. Add up deadlines. Take into account the time to organize the interaction between the parts. And so on and so forth. And yes - check your deadline with the assessment of a colleague, if your manager is not smart enough to do it yourself.

For designers

But for you, you are our creative, we have two secrets. Here they are:

• You design interfaces, not pictures. Remember this as it should.
• Your profession is no less technical than creative.

That is, any designer who pronounces phrases in the style of "I do not care, I - drew, you - do it." I must not understand your layout ”let him go draw Chinese porn cartoons. They say they pay well for this. Why? Because you drew some uncontrollably beautiful crap, and with this you are then tormented in turn:

• Layout designer looking for custom solutions;
• An integrator who then integrates these custom solutions;
• A tester who, in these non-standard solutions, finds a ton of bugs for certain browsers;
• A salesman who, in connection with this, increased the real cost of the service two-three-four-ten times;
• PM, whose project release dates are shamelessly prolonged;
• The director, whose business is not gluing now.

In short, one such designer, without proper control and close interaction with other specialists, can very quickly put the entire company on its side. No matter how beautifully he draws. Even if his pictures will want to lick.

If what he draws will be very difficult to implement and as a result a very uncomfortable interface is obtained that the customer will not accept, the whole office will have to lick his work. Instead of a salary.

Analysts and other technical writers

Do not write in one. Seriously. If you do not know how to work with a group, this position is not for you. Be sure to approve all decisions and concepts with designers and technical performers. Better invent them with them. Why? Because shitty TK, difficult to implement, where it is not necessary, will put the whole company on its side even faster than an illiterate designer, an immensely puffy programmer or a salesman-hack. Even faster than a director who is not able to build a business.

Because even if an awesome, well-developed team, led by a seasoned director, begins to work on such a ToR and the project will fix it. And the jambs will have to be fixed on the go. And then you won’t find the ends. Unless of course, they don’t have enough brains to just throw your TK in the trash and sell the client a normal service.

Conclusion

We wish all web studios to eliminate internal conflicts, establish contacts between specialists and make many high-quality and mutually beneficial projects!

Good luck, colleagues!