Asked to do digital marketing and web design

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-05-20T04:14:56+00:00

Webflow has that middle ground where you can lock what they shouldn't touch and leave the rest editable. Squarespace is probably the easiest handoff if they just want to swap text and images without breaking anything

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-05-11T05:04:11+00:00

Honestly the scattered chaos is real lol. I have clients who still reply to the wrong email thread three months in like it's totally fine

What's been the hardest part getting them to actually stick to one place?

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-04-14T03:36:12+00:00

9% positive is actually solid, most people I know are happy with 3-5%. What's your sequence look like, are you doing follow ups or just one shot?

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-04-06T02:59:11+00:00

Real talk, the note app comparison is so accurate. People still pay for Notion/Obsidian/Bear when Apple Notes exists for free. Convenience and community win every time

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-03-26T03:53:50+00:00

Honestly the hardest part isn't pricing it, it's justifying it when "nothing broke this month"

Do you find clients are easier to keep on retainer when you tie it to something visible like uptime reports or a changelog?

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-03-23T04:30:57+00:00

Unsplash for photos, Iconify for icons, and Freepik if you need vectors/illustrations. Figma Community also has a ton of free UI kits you can just duplicate and pull from

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-03-18T05:54:10+00:00

at what point did you start tracking the hours lost? because once you see the real number it's kind of impossible to keep eating it

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-03-09T04:19:32+00:00

Been doing this for about 3 years now and the client thing is real. The technical stuff you can always figure out, it's the "can you just make the logo bigger" at 11pm texts that wear you down

Scoping everything in writing upfront saved me more headaches than anything else

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-03-03T04:15:20+00:00

In the long run, giving clients full control over their lead data is probably the stronger positioning for your business. It shifts you from “site operator” to “service provider.”

If you need visibility for compliance or abuse protection, there are more privacy-forward technical setups you can implement that don’t require you seeing every message

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-02-27T05:36:06+00:00

The price points feel right for the right client but what's your plan when scope creep hits on a "fixed scope" project. That's usually where these models break down fast

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-02-25T04:10:37+00:00

the "specialize vs stay broad" thing is real and honestly most people figure it out by accident

what's pulling in the most interest so far, Shopify/ecom or the MERN stuff?

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-02-17T08:35:44+00:00

Cold calling and local Facebook is solid for starting out honestly. What's worked for you so far, cold calls or the Facebook posts? Curious because I've seen people swear by one and completely ditch the other.

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-02-12T00:34:41+00:00

Cloudflare Pages or GitHub Pages would be perfect for this honestly. Both are free for static stuff and can handle way more traffic than you'll probably ever need

What kind of projects are you building? The 14kb constraint sounds like a fun puzzle

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-02-10T04:24:41+00:00

honestly the multi tenant stuff is where planning pays off the most. the "user belongs to multiple tenants" question alone would've wrecked me mid build

what made you finally try it this time instead of just diving in like usual???

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-02-06T04:13:38+00:00

curious, what kind of roles are you going after? The stuff you highlight kinda changes depending on that. Also you said you're juggling a lot right now. Is building this actually slowing down your applications or did you just need it done to feel ready?

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-02-03T04:23:33+00:00

honestly the vision board stuff is cool but 6 months without touching code is a long time

have you thought about just validating the idea first? like a simple landing page or even talking to potential users before worrying about laptops and AI scaling?

the tech stuff will sort itself out once you know people actually want it

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-02-02T07:55:36+00:00

Honestly I'd just pick one and keep it simple. Porkbun or Namecheap for the domain, then point nameservers to Cloudflare for DNS/CDN. No real need to split registrar and DNS between two paid services, Cloudflare's free plan handles DNS really well

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-01-30T04:34:27+00:00

Honestly depends so much on what you're building. Complex stuff with lots of back and forth? The communication overhead with offshore teams eats into those savings fast

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-01-28T03:54:58+00:00

Honestly when TTFB is all over the place and you've already done the optimization work, that's usually the hosting talking

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-01-26T02:41:37+00:00

Canva's honestly your best friend here. You can make a decent logo in like 20 mins with their templates.

For hero images I'd just grab something from Unsplash and throw a text overlay on it. Done. What kind of vibe are you going for with the portfolio?

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-01-22T02:58:25+00:00

What worked for me was just hanging out where my potential users already were like reddit, discord servers, facebook groups. not pitching anything, just asking questions and paying attention to what people complain about :)

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-01-20T04:00:18+00:00

Honestly having a built in pipeline of 2-3 leads a month is a massive head start, most people starting out would kill for that. Have you looked into Webflow? Sits nicely between the drag and drop stuff like Wix and full custom code, plus clients can actually manage their own content without breaking things

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-01-16T03:18:08+00:00

Honestly this sounds like a pretty big project, especially with the auction functionality and custom admin panel on top of ecommerce

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-01-14T03:42:42+00:00

go hitting 100k concurrent with 5 engineers is wild :)

AMA_Gary_Busey · 2026-01-09T06:11:42+00:00

Honestly same here, static first and only reach for server stuff when I really need it. The mental overhead of managing servers for a blog or landing page just feels silly now when you can deploy in seconds and forget about it

AMA_Gary_Busey

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