The very beginning ... but of what?
18 Nov 2021“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”
T. S. Eliot
You catch me at a crossroads.
I am the owner of https://ugli.hk which is a small web design agency: our clients are mostly in Hong Kong (despite my own presence here in the UK), and our development team (3-5 of them depending on the day) is mostly in the Philippines. Previously a PHP developer – among quite a lot of other things – I am mostly concerned these days with sales, project management and (reluctantly) design; my being personally required for this work partly why Ugli is hard to scale beyond its current size. There’s only one me (or only one that I can afford to hire, anyway 🙂).
Web design is an increasingly difficult business to be in. Ugli was carried through the pandemic by three larger-than-usual clients (for whom we are eternally grateful) but the custom from these guys masked a near complete drop-off of what was previously our bread and butter: regular brochureware and e-commerce projects for Hong Kong clients in the £5-12k bracket.
Hong Kong is part of the problem: the virus has been only one of two equally-seismic and disruptive Hong Kong news stories in the last few years, and many of my contacts, made over the 12 happy years I lived there, have now left. The city, though changed, is still standing and some business sectors are doing perfectly well, but it’s no longer the place I remember and the sales enquiries are drying up fast.
But I think the real issue is as follows: as web designers we are not just competing with each other – placed as we all are somewhere between the swanky agencies and the self-taught teenagers – but are now increasingly up against ever more sophisticated “DIY website builders”: software as a service (SaaS) solutions which for a mere 5 or 10 or 25 quid a month will do for our potential clients a serviceable version of what we normally do for thousands or more.
The robots are coming.
But what am I going to do about it? Well thanks for asking, I’m going to build a SaaS of my own.
- What is it going to do? I have absolutely no clue (yet) but I intend going to find out.
- Which audience is it going to serve? I refer you to the my previous answer.
- When it be launched? Give me a break, I’ve only just decided to do it. As soon as humanly possible, ok?
My plan is to “build in public” (against my instincts) so you can watch me try, fail, learn, pivot, go crazy, lose interest, grow a beard, start again, and maybe, one day, just possibly, get to somewhere worth being. I think it will help me to think straight, conquer imposter syndrome, make better decisions and enjoy myself if i remain accountable to YOU, whomsoever you may be: so I’ll be open and frank about my ideas, plans, setbacks, and any actual paying customers I manage to convince along the way.
I have nearly 20 years experience of watching clients heave and groan and push out all of their terrible — and sometimes not so terrible — ideas; swearing blind they understand the concept of MVP, while refusing to cut the cord until their baby has a degree and a full beard. Hopefully this experience will be useful to me (but maybe it won’t).
I’m devouring an absolute ton of material on the subject (and there’s such a lot of it). I will discuss this as we go along, and pass on any recommendations of books, podcasts etc. which I’ve found useful.
To spice things up I have 2 kids and suspected case of ADHD, so … will I become all-consumingly obsessed with the puzzles of developing a commercial product? Or will I write a few blog entries before becoming distracted by something utterly trivial and lose interest? Your guess is quite literally as good as mine.
So stay tuned! Or don’t. It’s going to be a wild ride! (Maybe.)