How to Start a Home-Based Web Design Business, 2nd (Home-Based Business Series)

Rating:
Summary: I agree with you, Cal
Review: This is an excellent book for those contemplating or even in the early stages of creating a Web Design business, whether home or small-office based. Jim Smith's book is the mentor I wish I had found a couple of years ago, but the advice is just as valuable to me now. Come to think of it, maybe more so.

I bought this book while browsing for Web design ideas, but I didn't buy this book for Web design tips. I bought it because I want help with the business end of things, in drawing up contracts, in pricing my work, in figuring out how to make the work I love profitable so that I don't have to get a "real" job to pay the bills.

This is a second career for me. I spent all of my working life, up til now, as an employee (23 years as a radio news anchor), and now find that wearing all those hats, or costumes, as Jim describes them, of the self-employed is a daunting proposition.

Jim's book has answered so many of the questions that have come up for me, and covered so many of the challenges I have experienced in this first year, from clients who ask for dozens of redesigns to working for "friends" who unilaterally change the rules and then point to "no written contract, too bad". The book
offers suggestions for dealing with these challenges in ways in which everyone wins.

Jim Smith has a place on my book shelf, along with Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric Meyer, 37 Signals, Jeffrey Zeen, and all of the other design and usability experts, programmers and coders, I admire and respect. They all have something to teach me. I learn from them all.

Rating:
Summary: Amateur Book by an Amateur "Designer"
Review: I am a web design veteran and have decided to go out on my own to start a web design business. I thought this book might have some insight as to how to go about doing that.

As I read the book, it was becoming clear that this book should be called "Starting a Home Based Business For Dummies - with Some Web Stuff Thrown In"

I got about halfway through the book and I was curious to see this guys work, so I - like other reviewers here - checked out his website.
Yikes. It looks like a newbie's first attempt. All that was missing waas the blinking text and rotating logo. I put the book down after that. I can't take advice from someone I don't respect professionally. I wish I had more hands so I could give this book four thumbs down.

Rating:
Summary: Amateur Book by an Amateur "Designer"
Review: I have Jim's first book, How to Start a Home Based Web Design Business, and think it's worth MUCH MORE than the list price, not to mention the discounted price! My copy has underlines on almost every page. I bought it last year, and appreciate the time and effort he put into it. Every page has useful information.

In fact, I just went back to it today for a refresher, when I discovered he'd published a 2nd edition in January.

What REALLY surprised me were the negative reviews.

Those negative reviewers have totally missed the point. His books are about how to start a business in web design, not how to design a site. If they don't like his designs, so what???
He gives good, solid business advice based on experience.

If you gain from it and establish a profitable and fun business, and make even only $1,000 the first year, isn't that a great return for your small investment? Could you have done it without his expert advice? Not everyone has the business experience, and

this focuses on web design.

Based on his first book (which I found very readable, well edited, and interesting), I'm buying the 2nd edition.

It has ~50 extra pages, and even if it has much of the first edition's material, I'm sure the extra information will make it worthwhile.

Don't let the negative reviews keep you from buying a very good book on the subject:
"How to Start a Home Based Web Design Business"

It does what it claims very well!

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: I have to say that I had hoped this book would be more helpful than it was. I had hoped for recommendations on how to obtain clients via the internet and how to handle things like contracts (is a "check box to agree" acceptable on your webpage form, as many use, or do you need a physical document?) I also hoped for information on billing your customers online. Unfortunately, no help in these areas was provided. The focus was on in-person selling/presentations to obtain clients, which isn't feasable for many.

There is a fair amount of filler in this book. For example: the cutsy 10 page section on the need to wear different hats ("propeller head", "ponytail", "rainmaker", "green vistor cap", "business suit") along with the "duh" quiz to find out which of these types you are made me wonder just how stupid he thinks his readers are. I think the subject warrented covering...briefly...but the amount of time he expends describing these "hats", offering the quiz (in which you give yourself 5 points if you agree with statements like "I could spend hours tweaking a program just to see it run successfully"), then explaining ad nauseum what your quiz score means (four paragraphs for each type in addition to what he already wrote about the types) was just ridiculous. It was like reading Cosmo, not a manual for webpage design.

I was a bit concerned at his frequent mention of his previously failed businesses. I know the idea is that his current one isn't failing, so he learned from experience, but still...it doesn't inspire confidence.

I also found myself shocked at his sample start up budget. Wow. I am assuming this is a part of the book he did not update for modern times. Two thousand to six thousand for a laptop? Two hundred to eight hundred for a "Read/write CD-ROM"? This book was supposedly updated in 2004...even if it was 2000, prices should be set much lower in his budget listing. This unrealistic budget may deter some from starting a business believing the costs to be too great, when in fact the costs are significantly smaller. (Example: Nice laptops go for around twelve hundred, "Read/write CD-ROMs" have been included standard on even cheap (sub-thousand dollar) laptops for years.)

There were some helpful parts, though. If you don't know how to start any kind of business, a basic "for dummies" approach is provided to get you started with tips that apply to starting any business. I found this informative and consistant with other texts I've read on the subject.

I appreciated the attention paid to offering hosting in addition to webpage design, though I wished there was more detail. One interesting, helpful fact was that he bills quarterly rather than yearly. His explaination as to why he does things this way really made sense, and made me consider a short billing cycle as he suggests.

The most helpful thing in the book is the sample contract with explaination. He also offers this sample contract on his website, which I found very useful as a guide to developing my own contract.

I do not mean to be rude, but after visiting the author's webpages I do have to say...if he can get enough work building poorly designed sites like these, just think of what someone with a talent for clean, attractive designs could do.

Bottom line: worth checking out from the library, not worth owning.

Rating:
Summary: A great place to begin ......
Review: If you're thinking of starting a Web design business, then this book is a great place to begin. Smith covers all of the basics of starting a Web design business, including writing a business plan, buying equipment, establishing a legal structure, services you can offer, and making customer presentations.

Additionally, he offers a few pointers that even some experienced designers might find useful, like "charging by the site instead of by the page" and a sample contract that can be explained to your customers. This is the type of information my small business Web designers might find useful.

My only criticism is that it could be a little more detailed. For instance, the index is very shallow and there is not much actionable information that Web designers can use to promote their businesses. Lastly, I wasn't able to locate the URL for Smith's site (which may have been intentionally omitted by the publisher). My apologies if it's in the book.

Rating:
Summary: Don't expect this book to answer many of your questions.
Review: The book offers up some good practical business advice that could help anyone looking to start a home based consulting business. It gives some helpful ideas to think about for anyone just starting out, such as looking at your own strengths in a real way, deciding what it is you want to do, strategies for attracting clients, and keeping your business thriving in the long run.

That said, I think Jim Smith knows his stuff when it comes to the business side of things, having run several small businesses before this. If you are looking for advice on the particulars of web-design then perhaps a different book would suit you better, such as "Web Redesign : Workflow that Works ". A simple Google search for Jim's business "Blarneystone LLC" brings you to his website that, quite honestly, seems amateurish. In his book he talks about how you need to wear many hats to run your business, one of which was "the ponytail" which was the designer hat. He reiterated many times in his book that he was a designer more than anything else, but a look at his website reveals otherwise. Having looked at his site leaves the questions in my mind as to just how authoritative this book is.

Rating:
Summary: Home based web design business!
Review: This book is awsome. "How to Start a Home-Based Web Design Buiness" has helped me set up my home based business web design business. It covers all the essentials and will get you on the right path quickly. I've read this book few months ago and I've developed a business website at www.procreative.ca. I suggest you make this your first step towards starting a web design business. The next step is obviously picking out a good development language for database driven websites. ColdFusion is easy to learn, but it costs money. On the other hand PHP is a little bit more difficult - but its free.

Rating:
Summary: Informative, but please read with caution.
Review: This book may point you in the right direction if you've never worked in the web design field. However, our of curiosity, I searched for author's "business" on the internet and found it.

The "design" of his site is quite horrible and made me second guess anything published in this book.

That being said, I'd like to warn you to use this book with discretion.

Rating:
Summary: A good start, but could have gone deeper.
Review: While the author did a good job of putting a large amount of information into a small amount of space, this book may have been more effective if he had gone into greater detail in the areas he covered. The chapter on business plans is helpful, but there are a ton of other books dedicated to the subject. What is most important to people who would like to start a web design business are questions such as "How should I set my rates?", "How do I find contracts?" and "How should I proceed through interviews?". While all of these topics are covered, they aren't covered with quite enough depth to give readers all of the information they need. The basics are great, but what book do you turn to when you need more? Anyhow, it's definitely worth picking up if you're just getting started and need the absolute basics and some pretty good advice, but if you've already started your business and you need some more detailed and specific information, I suggest you keep shopping.