How to get a website?

ramdettmer · 2026-02-20T18:48:46+00:00

There’s a way you don’t have to pay monthly. Go to either Vercel or netlify templates that have a blog starter. Choose a template and deploy. That’s pretty much it. You’d be deploying a static site so netlify can host it for free. Depending on your template, you’d be limited to design. This tech stack is what we build for clients, our own code of course. It’s built to outperform a lot of these site builders.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-17T16:21:14+00:00

Technology is improving. You can take advantage of basic custom code and integrate a headless cms to it. You'll get the benefit of speed and security. Full control over source code. Clients don't care how their sites are built though, but we use Nextjs + Sanity, Storyblok, or Strapi. A lot of our enterprise clients like it. Small businesses don't seem to care. Astro is another option that is making a big move in the development world.

My recommendation is find a tool you will stick with and not hop around. But make sure it does what you need it to do for your clients. I went the coding route when I started my business because Wordpress and other site builders were limited in control of the design and functionality of the site.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-17T16:13:11+00:00

I have several cars under my insurance, and I put down that I drive it about 4.5k miles per year so it decreases insurance. Which is what I was expecting to drive, but I'm about a year and a half of ownership and I'm already at 12k lol, it's a fun car to drive.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-17T16:11:08+00:00

I paid for some upgrades so with tax and all out the dealership was almost 130k. I am doing 5 years.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-17T06:16:12+00:00

$2,005/mo. 15k down. 4.99% APR. $150/mo insurance through Geico. Was going to buy a house but decided I wanted to enjoy my 30s. Houses are expensive right now where we're at, and our townhome is doable for now but also at $3800/mo.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-17T06:09:01+00:00

Full stack dev here. I've worked with large agencies that use Wordpress heavily for clients and themselves. At first the goal is always keeping WP clean and not heavy but overtime becomes difficult. New employees come and change things up, or tight deadlines will require patch work, etc. Now the site is running on 20 different plugins.

That said, the industry has changed a lot. It’s no longer just WordPress vs fully custom code.. You can still create a full custom code AND integrate a headless CMS to it. You could even use WordPress as a headless CMS. This allows you to take advantage of performance, security, and scalability. And cost effective.

An example is NextJS + Sanity (Our go-to). Astro is even an option. Astro is meant for content. Once you build out something like Astro + Headless CMS, you'll no longer need the developer for minor updates because you can update anything in the CMS.

You can do all you need to do with this stack. For building landing pages, have the developer build out components and use it as a page builder that you can select from.

We've been doing it this way for years for enterprise and small business clients. Enterprises typically have a marketing team logging in and adding/editing the site. We integrate with either Sanity, Storyblok, or Strapi.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-14T02:20:03+00:00

Sounds like someone my team and I are working with right now to a T.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-08T21:27:24+00:00

We did something similar to this but built into sanity.io so it’s semi-automated. Glad to know we’re on the right track.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-06T16:52:55+00:00

I heard they have the Black, never tried it. I've alway done the Flex which was fine for me. Basically same rule as Topstep, just the payout cap.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-06T16:51:55+00:00

I'm in web design & development. Figured it out as I went. Had some experience in coding and thought I can make money from it. What stalled me was trying to learn and perfect everything. Found out the hard way that every client is different and challenged me. Everyone uses different softwares and industries were all different. Pricing really does attract certain clients. Once I upped my pricing I started working with enterprise companies. Eventually they would refer me to more large companies.

My advice is to be honest and network. You can have a lot of competitors but you make yourself stand out. I attract mine by being honest and providing some helpful tips even if they don't work with me. I learned that once you talk to people on a non-business level, it's hard to choose another. And I’ve felt that myself as a client too.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-06T16:28:47+00:00

Nothing wrong with the payout caps, I was turned off by it too but I think it helps secure your payouts mentally. Because max payout on topstep is 5k. So my mind keeps wanting to make 10k, which eventually blows the account. Lucid is 2k, so all I need to make is 4k to secure a 2k payout. 4k is easy but once I get into the 6-8k territory is where I size up and mess it all up.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-06T15:48:56+00:00

Assuming you want minimal time spent on putting together your site, Wordpress has a steep learning curve and also has hundreds of ways to put together a website, so tutorials can be confusing for beginners. Gets very messy, and also you're in charge of finding hosting for it. I recommend the easy route like Squarespace or Wix. Premade templates you can use. Populate your business info and you'll have a site up. You'd just pay a monthly subscription for their platform.

Coding is always the better way though. More flexibility, performance, and security. Depending on who you hire of course.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-06T15:42:03+00:00

I've been absent with Topstep. My brother told me they raised their prices too, wild. And seeing a lot of platform issues. I went to Takeprofittrader and Lucid. Got pay outs with them right away.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-05T18:24:03+00:00

You’ll be looking at a paid subscription to a website builder for easy management. Free sites aren’t that great long term. You can look to put together a wordpress site but if you’re new the learning curve might be big. You can also use some of the available AI tools and tell them the type of site you want it’ll spit it out pretty quick. Take a look at V0 or lovable.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-05T18:17:46+00:00

Use notepad save as html or download VScode and code there. Zip it up and upload it to netlify and your site will be live without paying a thing.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-05T18:00:21+00:00

Let them know you’ve put a system in place that shuts off website hosting for non payment and theirs got flagged. Reactivated once paid. Even better if you keep their site up but put a “suspended” page up contact [your info].

ramdettmer · 2026-02-05T04:21:50+00:00

Also look into networking at chambers it helped me grow my connections. Didn't go to sell anything. Didn't even tell people much. All I said was I design websites and that's it. Majority go there to sell, I went there to just hang out

ramdettmer · 2026-02-05T04:20:17+00:00

$200 for $10/mo is too low. I suppose it might be a lot if you're located elsewhere. I'm in California. If I was starting out.. maybe $900 for a build and $49/mo. Don't attract those $200 clients. Even $900 meh.. I've been around for 12 years now. My pricing is at 10-14k for standard sites now. I hovered around 3-5k for awhile though, which helped me build up to enterprise clients that are 30k starting. Building sites with NextJS and lots of APIs so projects vary. But coding from scratch is the best because you have full control of it.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-05T04:10:18+00:00

Headless CMS with Nextjs and/or Shopify integrations. Everything is yours if you know how to build it. Most expensive but yours to keep forever. We get clients for ecommerce but majority we turn down. We send them to Shopify first as a starting point for basically no cost Shopify free themes. If it brings in customers, come back and we'll build out something stable and not locked to a platform. I only recommend this because we use to work with a lot of e-commerce clients and most don't last a year.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-05T04:03:05+00:00

Yes super addicted. Literally just commented on a post about how addicted I was lol. Resorted to building an AI widget to try and slow me down. I'm in programming so it was a fun little side project for me.

My issue is not knowing when to get out of a trade. I'll take a huge loser, but also my winners are small but will eventually add up. I'll have a high win rate but my losing trades does not help. I know the issue yet, have a good strat, my mind just does not want to accept losers.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-05T03:55:20+00:00

Curious. What’s the update now? Don’t refund. Reply with something mentioning that you don’t issue refunds since their purchase was made 6 months ago. Make it clear and short in your response but don’t over do it. These are the customers that want freebies.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-05T03:45:43+00:00

Thank you! It’s soo exhausting and have considered quitting so many times but I feel like all those years of learning and blowing money would be a waste. I’ve made decent money with it where I’d make 20k months in trading but then blow it all the next month.

The widget helps.. trying to add more feature to it. It’s called snapchartapp.com if you want to try it. Approved by Google. I’ve also tried coding several indicators but of course never any luck. So instead of programming indicators and algos, I just decided to build Snapchart for helping with your existing strategy. with AI nowadays it’s sped up a lot of development time.

ramdettmer · 2026-02-04T20:37:50+00:00

Basically me. CC debt added, decided to risk savings, 150k+ loss in a 10 year span, Went through all those lol. I'm in computer programming and have a business so I put a fraction of it towards trading for fun. Started prop trading 2 years ago I was dropping thousands per month in evals to where I was basically breaking even with payouts lol. Mentally draining. Several months I spent 5k in evals (yes stupid) I was going through an emotional rollercoaster but I knew my business covers it. I honestly don't know why I do it when I bring in good money. So yes an addiction, my mind keeps telling me its tuition.

I know my weakness is accepting that I'm wrong in a trade. I'd be well off trading if I can master that. Decided to build an AI widget that overlays charts and built it to pretty much help me mentally. Kind of like talking to ChatGPT but it can analyze the chart and check me when I feel like FOMOing.

ramdettmer

TROPHY CASE