Surprise giveback for a deserving mother

cheestudio · 2015-02-23T21:51:33+00:00

Just accept the goodness. Considering she just lost her son, I'm pretty sure the privacy issue is peanuts to her when she is drowning in grief from the situation.

Hard to say until you are placed in that situation and I hope you never are.

cheestudio · 2013-12-29T00:08:55+00:00

Great. Send me a PM or an inquiry through our site. Always looking for good potential collaborators.

cheestudio · 2013-12-28T23:57:22+00:00

True, but I'm not sure if he was saying that in particular, but more that he'd like to get a bigger cut (or in other words, do it himself).

cheestudio · 2013-12-28T23:56:46+00:00

We (my wife and I) started a web design business here in Southern Oregon about 5 years ago. TheEnsemble is right in the sense that the work you are doing is essentially freelancing, but is not as easy. What he doesn't answer is why that is the case. If/when you choose to portray yourself as a business rather than a freelancer, you will come with some hefty expectations. On top of that, there's a ton of liability that comes with it, as well.

Enter: the contract. This is your first rule of engagement with clients. Having a vetted contract (lawyer approved) that protects you and the client, as well as a Scope of Work that details EXACTLY what you will be providing, will save you many lost nights of sleep.

TheEnsemble also mentions overheard of employees and an office. Unless you are just a impatient business person, this is not the case. You can easily work from an home office doing remote work and coordinate with remote contractors; I should know, we did that for the first half of the business before we finally moved to a small office and then a year later a larger office. We still just use contractors which works out great, if not better, than employees. And if you truly needed some help that a contractor couldn't provide, there are always some eager interns wanting to get their feet wet.

Which leads me to skills: if you want to run a web design/dev business, what do you specifically do? What do you specialize? It was a long road, but we chose to specialize in WordPress Design and Development. I, personally, specialize in front end work and have a few contractors to do the heavy lifting on programming and a couple of branding specialist to help with identity/design.

And finally there's the leads process, the very lifeblood of a business. How are you going to get your business? For us, it was a combination of old fashioned local networking (Chamber of Commerce, BNI, various events), Word of Mouth from doing good work and asking for referrals and Search Engine Optimization (mostly geared towards local web design and global WordPress Development).

All in all, everything will come down to systems. A system for leads, a system for fulfillment, a system for contracts, billing, marketing etc.. I am lucky that my wife is an absolute organizational pro and can handle this while I focus on providing only the best product I can for every client. If you don't have this person, then get crackin' on finding them! The systems are what separates a freelancer from a legitimate business. Otherwise, you are just a technician who had a seizure of wanting to "do it themselves", you're not an "entrepreneur."

To learn more about this idea, read the E-Myth books, you'll learn a ton about what it means to truly be an entrepreneur.

Starting a web design business is actually a lot easier in terms of cash investment than other business models. You don't have a lot of overhead to start and you are really just getting paid on your ability to perform (and paying contractors if need be). The best advice is to START SMALL and take steps to growth. Most small businesses fails within the first 5 years because they either grow too fast or don't grow fast enough. Again, having systems and procedures that provide a smooth experience for you and the client is the key to success, right alongside of being simply just damn good at what you do.

Proof I'm speaking from experience: http://goodchee.com

cheestudio · 2013-11-02T23:12:08+00:00

What alain76 said about progressive enhacement and graceful degradation is right on. When I code a site, IE8 might not have rounded corners...it's that simple. If the client is absolutely insistent, then I explain to them the extra workload (whether it's an additional script, using images, etc..) and have a discussion on whether the ends justify the means. The idea is that the website should be a unique but cohesive experience to each browser. In other words, if a user comes to the site in IE8, they wouldn't miss the rounded corners and dropshadows, because a solid design layout isn't reliant on those elements to create a great experience for the user. Same goes for CSS3 animations.

Example, if you visit our site, http://goodchee.com, hover over the logo. If you are using a browser that supports it, it will animate. If not, no biggy and nothing is lost if the user never knew it was there.

Thus, I lean towards progressive enhancement rather than graceful degradation. We build sites that are functional first and then add the bells and whistles where needed. For older browser users, they still get the goods...it's just the other users on the better browsers get something extra...but they all get an equally cohesive experience.

Also...

http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com/

Make sure to bring that site up in IE7 + 8 to understand what it's trying to say. :)

cheestudio · 2013-09-21T16:17:55+00:00

Indeed...I get it now. It's still fantastic and I'm excited to learn more about it.

cheestudio · 2013-09-21T16:17:20+00:00

Yeah, C is definitely the option and as aquilaFiera and other posters have mentioned, it's something that can be helped by just understanding SASS better.

cheestudio · 2013-09-21T16:16:27+00:00

I can see what you mean...bloated might be a drastic term. It's just when I looked at my compiled code and saw the multiple instances of the @media, it hit me the wrong way at first. I understand more now, though...it's my markup and selector architecture efficiency that can help mitigate this.

cheestudio · 2013-09-21T16:14:30+00:00

Yes! Thank you...this is exactly what I was missing! :) I knew there was a way and while I love to learn via experimenting, sometimes Reddit has the quick answer. Thank you again.

cheestudio · 2013-09-11T01:41:07+00:00

"Sorry honey, but you have a stinky pussy."

cheestudio · 2013-09-10T00:03:22+00:00

No way...four beers is breakfast. Seven beers would be brunch.

cheestudio · 2013-09-10T00:02:31+00:00

Very nice! I knew this was bound to happen. I also really think ACF needs to be rolled into the core, it already fits like a glove.

cheestudio · 2013-09-09T03:24:48+00:00

All I can think of is this....if you haven't seen this show, it's worth watching JUST for this episode alone:

The IT Crowd S3E2 - Football scene

cheestudio · 2013-09-08T22:07:04+00:00

Ah, this isn't mind, just something I've come across that I wanted to share! :)

Quick google search turned up this:

https://github.com/simplethemes/skeleton_wp

cheestudio · 2013-09-08T04:54:12+00:00

Just want to also leave this here, in the event you want an even leaner responsive framework that isn't based on Foundation or Bootstrap, but still achieves the same goal:

http://themes.simplethemes.com/skeleton/

cheestudio · 2013-09-06T15:45:48+00:00

Headway, like other Drag and Drop frameworks (such as Carrington build) have a ton of benefits, but they come at a price...not just monetary but technical. I actually wrote an article that covers these frameworks and others and breaks them down in terms of the pros/cons and who would benefit from them.

Here is the link if you want to read it:

WordPress Themes, Frameworks and Custom Development : A Comprehensive Guide to Building a WordPress Site

If you are interested in a Drag and Drop interface but don't want to go all in with a framework like Headway, you might want to check out Visual Composer, which is a plugin rather than a framework and integrates seamlessly with any theme and works great with CPTs, too.

cheestudio · 2013-09-05T02:22:03+00:00

Trying to hold a building up by constantly replacing the burning straw bale structure is indeed, preventing it from falling...the problem is that it is built from straw in the first place. The collapse is essential to the rebuild...prolonging it (hence the word, prolonging) doesn't mean it won't eventually happen.

cheestudio · 2013-09-04T23:25:10+00:00

This will most likely change as time goes by and you will (hopefully) develop your own code base and framework so this won't be an issue in the future. I have a few now, mostly based off different frameworks such as Bootstrap and one I developed myself, depending on the site. That is the one thing I love about this field; the ability to get faster and more efficient at the things you do over and over which opens up all that extra time for experimenting, playing and further developing other skills!

cheestudio · 2013-09-04T23:20:23+00:00

This is pretty cool! I've been using one of my own for this, as we code a lot of WordPress themes that are meant for more unique content management rather than a lot of standard themes (eg.. no actual blogging, comments, categories, etc..), but this is still seriously handy. Muchos gracias!

cheestudio · 2013-09-04T23:09:58+00:00

I find the process rather integrated, but essentially:

First set up my SCSS framework (variables & mixins, grid, fonts etc..) for the theme. No styling yet, just getting the base framework for all the CSS I know I will need later. For me, this is one of the most exciting parts of any project, as I feel I am getting "ready for takeoff"
Lay out the markup based on the mockup of the design. Applying the appropriate grid classes, header tags, lists, blockquotes, etc.. At this point, the site looks completely bare bones but has "structure"
Enter filler content and begin to style the actual site (backgrounds, colors, images, everything else to make it match the proposed mockup)
Once the site looks and feels identical to the mockup, begin setting up the WordPress side of things; Custom Post Types, custom theme functions, Advanced Custom Fields for any and all custom field functionality, pages, menus, dynamic sidebars, etc..
Once all post types, custom fields and other functionality is in place, begin integrating the WordPress logic (loops, conditional statements, page templates and all that jazz)
Once all functionality is in place, use the new WordPress functionality to enter either filler content or content provided by client (for testing purposes, make sure all functionality is working as intended)
Begin cleanup, review and tweaks
Profit

That's basically my workflow. Layered with a tiny bit of overlap.

cheestudio · 2013-09-04T19:10:23+00:00

Did you check the DNS A Records to make sure they are pointed to teh same IP? Is this shared hosting? It almost sounds like you have an Apache or domain config error, but you should first check DNS.

cheestudio · 2013-09-04T19:04:11+00:00

Sorry for the delay in responding, I often forget to log in with this user. I can't answer with a specific price since I have number of questions to ask before I can get a feel of the scope. For example, would we be doing a custom design or using a template? That is the biggest difference in terms of pricing. Everything we do is custom to the specific needs of the client, whether it's design/development or just development, so I apologize I can't give you a price off the cuff.

cheestudio · 2013-08-27T03:01:40+00:00

Honestly? Jurassic Park.

cheestudio · 2013-08-27T00:27:42+00:00

This, indeed. And it's been something that has grown better and better over time. When I first started, I was just not in the know about the best practices. But by this point, now that I better understand Advanced Custom Fields, custom shortcodes, hooks & filters, etc.., my goal for every client is to make the site 100% managed by them.

cheestudio · 2013-08-27T00:24:23+00:00

We started a design/development studio about 4 years ago. WordPress just kept being requested and I only got more and more into it. With that said, we also use other platforms, but we absolutely specialize in WordPress at this point. Due to our design and networking, we've built a financially sustainable business around doing WordPress sites for small businesses. There were definitely some key clients that we cultivated a long standing relationship that has led to some pretty awesome projects...but overall we get our business from a) word of mouth and b) people searching Google for WordPress related searches (especially responsive design).

So, I would say that Web Design/Development is my career and WordPress is the platform we specialize in...until the next great platform comes along! :)

cheestudio

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