Hello, dear habravchane! In this post I want to talk about how and at what price I ordered the site from freelancers, in what time frame I received the result and what I made of it myself. The task was to create a “landing store”: a one-page website for two products, with the ability to immediately place an order through a fully functional basket.

This post contains very few technical details and talks more about the workflow and interaction with people.

Technical task

As a developer myself, I understand the importance of the technical task and realize that if you miss something, it will not be implemented. A very small percentage of performers with significant experience and a customer-oriented approach will patiently tell the customer how and what is best to do if he does not take into account something. But it is precisely to such people that the greatest trust develops, and one wants to come to them with new orders.

I tried to draw up the most detailed TOR, posting all the information in the form of a layout with an approximate arrangement of elements and comments on what logic should work. But even with such a sufficiently detailed, in my opinion, description and actually ready prototype, people managed to ask questions, the answers to which seemed obvious to me. Hence the conclusion - the more detailed and accessible you “chew” what you want to convey, the more you formalize and clearly describe what the result should be, the less questions you will receive. If the thought that “this is so understandable” slips in your head - no, and again no! Do not be lazy and describe this moment, make a footnote or explanation.

Design

Next, I placed an order on one of the most popular freelance sites. I am quite critical of the visual component of sites, and a nice thoughtful design plays a big role for me.

In total, I received 61 suggestions, among which there was even “copy any landing page and change any elements in it (background, pictures, text, contacts, etc.) in 24 hours”. All offers can be divided into several price categories (plus or minus):

• From 1000 to 3000 - rustic, often not very professional, for my taste
• From 4000 to 8000 is quite a digestible quality, but not always stable. Large portfolios, and, I think, most customers will be satisfied with the result.
• From 9000 to 15000 - often one gets the impression of a slightly overpriced price, but looking through the portfolio, you can still see a stable result. This price category is popular. Basically, I personally did not like the style of the work. And when you doubt such matters, the risk is not very justified.
• Category 20 and above - often depends on the ego of the designer. Many talented artists work in this category - such sites are impressive, but for my task it was superfluous. It can be supplemented by a well-developed prototype, which creates the impression of an approach to working “with the head” and at least somehow justifies the high cost.

At first I liked the portfolio of the designer, who aimed at the last category. After talking and bargaining a little, he said, “I can do it without frills”, halving the price, but that pushed me away. I was afraid to pay for the “semi-finished product” from an expensive designer who condescended to make something for me, so be it, to pile it. Better it would be a full-fledged work with normal returns for the same money from someone else.

When I was ready to choose from what was, I received another offer from the second price category. Surprisingly, I liked almost the entire portfolio and immediately invited the designer to collaborate. With all my wishes, we agreed on 7,000 rubles.

To design the page, a high-quality photo of the product from different angles was required - I took care of this myself, which I even took offthis video . On the second day, the designer sent me almost finished work, which immediately exceeded my expectations! We made some minor changes, after which the mobile version was drawn.

Layout

The next step was to breathe life into the layout. In general, I myself love to engage in design and layout, but this is not the main direction of my activity. And if I had not delegated this work, I probably would not have finished it so far.

By placing an order, I received 20 offers. The most shocking was the offer for 19,000 rubles. To the question of what I get for such a price, the potential contractor replied: “There is a high-quality layout, a check list for verification , a description of the logic of the basket.”

There were several offers for 1500-2000 rubles, then several for 6000 rubles and a couple more 10000+ rubles.

One of the suggestions attracted me the most with correct clarifying questions (I asked to foresee the pictures in x2 resolution so that they were clearly displayed on the retina displays), and I suggested starting work. We agreed on 3,000 rubles. The layout designer provided the first results in a couple of days and said that due to the wedding anniversary of the parents it was slightly delayed.

Three days later he provided the finished result. I pointed out several shortcomings and expressed my wishes, after which he disappeared and appeared only a week later, complaining that he was sick. But most of my wishes were fulfilled, and moreover, a lot of what I did not initially ask for was done - the basket functionality and even the server part. All this I was going to do myself. There was only one not-so-significant wish, which I pointed out and suggested discussing a convenient payment method ...

Then for three weeks I periodically tried to find out how he was doing, and once again offered to pay, but to no avail. At the end of the third week, the typesetter appeared, wrote “Today I’ll try to finish it” and disappeared again ... After that, I spat, downloaded the file-ready layout, redid JavaScript as I liked, and made a backend.

Dear layout designer, if you are reading this article, please write where I could transfer your payment. I’m extremely embarrassed to use the result of your work for free.

Backend

I made the server part myself in 1.5 days. In principle, I could have ordered this part as well, but, I'm afraid that the labor costs for TK with a description of the nuances and my vision of the desired result, along with suggestions for the quality of the code, would be comparable to the resources that my own work took.

I used the Slim Framework by connecting several libraries to it:

• Illuminate Database (aka Eloquent - a component of Laravel) - for working with the database
• PHP dotenv - for configuration in different environments
• recaptcha - to guard against spam
• PHPMailer - for sending letters

The code is stored in the repository on Bitbucket , and runs on a shared hosting.

Why is this all?

Initially, I understood that the project itself is unlikely to be commercially successful. This is due to the current state of affairs in this niche, but first of all, it was interesting for me to put the idea into practice so that I would not reproach myself for not even trying to do it. So, I can confidently say that I achieved my goals, having received interesting experience.

If you have an idea, do not put it aside, but try to implement it. I was about to start a year ago, but I did it just now. Try to delegate the work to the maximum in order to deal with the project, and not with the nuances of implementation. Any idea can be implemented in a reasonable amount of time and money, even if you are very busy with the main work. And the finished result always delivers pleasant emotions!

Update , as they ask a lot:

Landing itself - http://tadiran-air.ru
Exchange - https://fl.ru