Expectations are good, but reality can catch up to you real fast.
All great things comes with hard work, dedication and sometimes, a tiny bit of luck. So why I am writing this blog as a web developer? Everybody’s expectation should always be higher than reality. These kinds of things move us forward as human beings with a wonderful sense of imagination. Let’s take a steps towards reality first. I think after years of building websites that range from quick half-fast projects to weeks of intense coding.
The quality shows at the end of the life cycle and final delivery. What I’ve been noticing a lot in the current web market is the need for a “DIY” Do it yourself website project. This also includes other do it yourself skills that include photography, blogging, social media, web hosting, e-commerce, and updating. An automated system is expected when you have less time but more money to invest so you might use or hire a third party services to get stock photography, content sharing, spam on social media apps, invest in automation instead of manually crafting your work because of your busy life. You are doing what is expected as an entrepreneur or a DIY person in life. So then you realize it’s not that hard after all.
Anyone can do it,
Just follow the steps that the last 10,000 people have done already and you will be successful at it and gain a new experience in the process and feel a sense of personal accomplishment. Now that you can do it or tried, the next step is expectation. What do you expect people to pay for your product not that 10,000 people followed the same steps, same pattern, same scheme and same practice? How important is it to invest in your service or product? Asking lots of questions? Why does an iPhone cost more than an older model flip phone? Why is your art work more valuable than the other artists? Why is your design more valued than the other designers? What makes you special? The market determines most of it but you that’s the average. Is your service or product average?
Quality is something that makes this market different. Websites are 99.9% visual products. The other 0.01% is if the website works or not, and if it doesn’t work, then you have to ask yourself how important is this project if a specific feature doesn’t work? I’ve seen thousands of websites where something doesn’t work right, I can imagine a day where something on this site becomes deprecated or not up to date and it fails to do its only job. For example a contact button, how easy it to use? How come some websites have so much noise that you have to learn how to use it when you probably shouldn’t. Then you realize, that…
Nobody wants do it.
Sometimes there’s too much work involved and has no real monetary return or value. I think the most important thing from a business point of view is making the customer happy. That’s how money becomes related in the grand scheme of businesses and services. Even if there’s no money involved in the beginning, if it makes people happy, then I feel someone will want to be a part of it, the might want to pay for it or turn it into a business. That’s when you’ll realize that if you’re the only one making a profit from it, others will copy you (really fast).
I’m going on a rant but the example of the Thanksgiving dinner is a good example. Someone might have the best Thanksgiving dinner in their life and wanted to make a profit and an came up with affordable product for everyone to experience. You can get a $4.99 Thanksgiving frozen dinner meal or spend hours of prep time cooking and growing vegetables in your backyard and hunt for a Turkey and finally end up with an elegant meal but the process is different, very different. Websites are the same.
You can get a cheap website for almost nothing or pay a lot more for an elegant website framework and spend hours customizing it so it fulfills your expectation. You “could” get full for $4.99 if you really think about it but life isn’t always about only money, its about the quality of life. “Some” people are satisfied with a frozen TV dinner, I like TV dinners but I also like nice elegant meals too. Eventually I think in a long enough time period, everyone will do it or think about trying it.
Everyone will do it.
That’s the beauty of a do it yourself (DIY) attitude, it gives you the strength to try and succeed, and the wisdom of a hard floor as you fail when you jump too high. You are not going to be good at everything but the opportunity is there. Well at least I hope everyone gets an opportunity. So ask a lot of questions, shop around, taste different meals or learn about it online, and when you make a decision, ask yourself, how important and is this and is it worth my time?
