How I Started

I sort of accidentally stumbled into web design. Probably the same way a few other designers and developers out there did. Before I got into web design, I was a photographer. I started taking pictures professionally when I was about 15. A few years later I decided that having a good website would be a good investment. At this time the web was still pretty new, but I knew I wanted to have some sort of online web presence.

Like many novice business owners, I had no idea where to loo or what the first steps were to building a website. I think I probably ended up hosting with Yahoo. Lucky for me, I had enough of an eye to know that those crap templates they provide were awful at best. So, I began to look elsewhere for a good looking website template.

I checked out e-Lance, which was where I got my photography logo done, but all the designers I found on there either looked like they worked for Yahoo or were too expensive for me. I finally settled on a Template Monster HTML theme.

When I purchased the template I had no idea how to code anything. The design was table based and I managed to figure out how to replace images to change the overall look of the site. I slowly figured out how to do some basic HTML editing and get a professional looking website.

That website served me well for a year or so.

Then I became a white water raft guide. Talk about life changing. I started rafting in the summer, racing sled dogs in Alaska, and traveling the world in the months between.

So, both my photography and limited web skills fell to side for several years. I only mention this to brag about how bad ass I am and because it is actually what got me back into web design.

I started designing t-shirts for kayakers and raft guides and once again I found myself in need of a good website. Lucky for me, the web and my understanding of it had come a long way sine the Template Monster website. I actually hired a professional design company to design and build the website for my t-shirt company. It was all table based and html.

I managed to make it work for a while, but my ideas were quickly out growing the website, so I began to look into teaching myself CSS design. I struggled long and hard with the code side of the business for a long time, but the design side was something I found myself getting better at with every passing day.

Deciding to Start Taking on Client Projects

I’m serial entrepreneur to no end. So, even though I barely knew what I was doing when it came to building and designing websites, I started seeking out and taking on client work. Looking back, most of those clients are people I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. But, at the time, they were offering me money and I was enjoying the learning experience.

How I found My First Clients

When I started looking for some web design clients, I had no idea where to look. I still actually knew very little about the industry, who was important, where people hung out online, or where clients found website designers. I can’t say for sure, but I think I may have got my first paying client off of , dare I say, Craigslist. Actually, I got quite a few jobs from there. Most of them only paid a few hundred bucks, but I thought I was doing pretty well for someone who had no clients and no experience only a few short weeks ago.

From there I moved on to more specialized job boards like Elance, Authentic Jobs, and other various job boards that were geared directly at the web community. I don’t recall how many jobs I got from these websites, but i can tell you that it wasn’t a lot. Most of the jobs I found I was either severely under qualified for or the clients just weren’t willing to pay enough for what they were asking.

I wish I had a better story for you about how to get your first clients. Truth is, its not an easy thing to do unless you are overly gifted at what you do. If finding good clients were easy, you wouldn’t be reading this. Finding your first few GOOD clients takes a lot of time and a lot of work.

Once you get your first few good clients, things start to get easier. In our industry, word of mouth and referrals are your best leads. Once you get a few good clients who are happy with the work you have given them, they are likely to tell others about you. This is when life starts to get better and the quality of clients and work starts to improve.

The Best Decision I Ever Made

When I first decided to get into the web industry I had this vision that I would be a one man shop. I would be the designer, developer, and project manager. However, after trying my hardest to learn code, I realized it just wasn’t for me. While I had an idea of what was capable with code and a basic understand of how it worked, I just couldn’t wrap my head around it.

Once I came to terms with this, I started looking around for a developer to partner up with. I must have gone through 50+ people over the course of a year trying to find a developer that was a good fit for me and my business. It was a struggle to say the least. But, once I found that perfect partner, my life was never the same.

Being free to run the business and do what I love, design, was the best thing that could have happened. It allowed me to not only do what I love, but also freed me up to take on much larger projects that normally would have been out of my skill set. No longer was I stuck only doing basic html sites for small businesses. Now I could take on much more complex CMS projects, build themes, and do all kinds of other stuff I wouldn’t have normally been able to do.