| Find Someone You Trust
Personal Attention
Communication
The Trouble with Discount Programmers
Be Clear About What Is Included In A Quote
Proper Training
Time To Complete
Local vs Overseas
Getting The Job Done
Find Someone You Trust
When searching for a web programmer these days, it can feel like finding a car mechanic for the first time. When you're charged $800 to replace your muffler, you start wishing you'd shopped around a little more.
You may have heard horror stories of web sites that just never got finished. These range from the web designer charging more than they originally quoted to completely disappearing off the face of the planet (hopefully with not too much of your money). It is important you find someone who will work with you until the end and won't leave you hanging. We always work with our clients until the project is completed. We will leave you satisfied with a fully functional site.
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Personal Attention
A web site is often a very personal pursuit. Whether it is a site to showcase your music or photography, or an eCommerce site to make your first million, you want a site that you can be proud to show your friends when asked "What do you do?" For this reason, you want to work with someone who not only understands this, but is able to work with you one-on-one to manifest your vision into something you're proud of.
For this reason, we work intimately with our clients to figure out exactly what they want and don't stop until you get it.
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Communication
This may be obvious, but many people looking for a web programmer for the first time do so completely over the internet and never actually speak to the programmer in person. While this may start out well, inevitably you'll try to call with an important change and have to wait for several days (if you're lucky) for them to call you back. Hundreds of unfortunate people have been charged for work that they decided to go in a different direction with, but couldn't reach the programmer in time and paid heavily for it.
Besides this, it is simply important to have good communication between a programmer and the client. Many programmers will make assumptions and then tell the client that that's what they really want. I know it sounds crazy, but this is the world we live in.
It is also important for a client to know what their options are. Many programmers will choose not to go with (or are simply unaware of) a cheaper alternative, and end up charging their clients significantly more than what they should. Even an honest programmer could end up charging ten times as much simply because they are not aware that there's a package out there that has already been developed to do what the client wants.
We are available by phone (646 785 9580) and will return your calls quickly, and put the time into discussing your needs and offering different options based on your budget.
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The Trouble With Discount Web Programmers
There are many students out there or people who are dabbling in web design and want to build their portfolio so they charge very little for their services. We've heard many stories because many of our clients have tried to go the discount route first and have lost money and time while becoming increasing frustrated. Eventually they realize that it's best to go with a professional from the start.
The problems that arise from going with a student or inexpensive web designer are twofold. First, as they start to get more clients, they will start to charge closer to standard market rates, and as they get higher paying clients, they'll prioritize that work until the discount clients projects get shelved indefinitely.
Imagine you're a web designer who wants some experience and offer to build a site for $10/hr. You start going, but someone finds out that you do web work and they want a site. You're already busy but they don't mind paying you $20/hr because market rates are much higher. So now you face the choice of working for $10/hr or $20/hr. Which would you do? Then you have another client approach you and before you know it you're charging four or five times what you were charging for the first project. Suddenly you don't have time or financial incentive to work on the first discount project and you offer excuses until finally you just say you can't do it and offer what you've done so far and suggest the client get another programmer. By this time, not only have you wasted a lot of time, but good luck getting any money back you've already paid the programmer.
The second problem with going with a student or hobbyist web designer is they often simply get too busy, or decide not to do web programming full time. Again, you're put on hold for a while until if you're lucky they finish your project way over deadline, or again, they may just stop returning your calls. Again, you've lost time and money, not to mention the stress involved in such a business relationship.
We support giving students and amateurs a chance to practice their skills, but unless your project is not very important or you don't have any kind of deadline we suggest you start at least on the low end of market rates.
We keep our prices on the low end of market rates so as to remain competive while offering a service the provides the security that you expect from a professional service.
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Be Clear About What Is Included In A Quote
This is especially important for those of you trying to find the cheapest quote, as you may end up paying even more than a higher, more realistic quote by the time your project is complete.
Two of the most common approaches to developing a web site are 1) defining exactly what you need and obtaining a quote for it, and 2) paying by the hour as you develop a project. When asking for a quote, it is important to be extremely clear on what exactly it is you are expecting and have the programmer break it down for you to show they understand and tell you what is included in the quote. Often a site will take more work than expected when there are unexpected coding problems or additions that a client may want, and as a client it is important to know what you are expected to pay for. Especially when suddenly you get a bill for twice what you expected because the programmer under-estimated the time it would take to complete the project. Beware of price quotes that are not based on very much information. It is important that you provide as much information as possible before asking for a quote, otherwise what you're getting is a random number that has no basis on reality and programmers know that the lower this number is, the more likely it is they'll get the job. It is not unusual to in the end be charged five or six times what was initially quoted for these situations. If both you and the programmer are clear up front about what is involved, this can help eliminate problems, but unless you work with a programmer whom encourages this, you can quickly find yourself in a very unhappy situation. Also, many clients choose to modify the project after it is in production. This is a natural desire, for as you see the site take shape, you'll think of new things that you'll want to add. For this reason it is important that you find a programmer that can offer the flexibility you need, as well as work out a pay scale for additional work Both working from a quote and paying by the hour have their advantantages. While obtaining a quote gives you a clear idea of how much the project will cost, you may not know exactly what you want right away and paying by the hour allows you to get started right away and develop the project with a programmer as you go. This approach is extremely advantageous, especially for larger projects, as the project can grow and continually be tweaked and modified to perfection. We work with clients using either approach. If requested, we would be happy to schedule a consultation to help guide you through this process. Many clients find that this type of consultation early in the project ends up saving them thousands of dollars of re-programming costs. We work hard to help you define what you want so all parties involved can be clear of what to expect as we're as interested as you in having a productive work relationship and feel very lucky to have so many return clients.
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Proper Training
The world has thousands of web programmers, all of different levels and trained in different ways. Most of them have taken courses and only learn new methods that way. The disadvantage in this is, as you likely know, internet technology is growing at an extremely fast rate, and if a programmer doesn't keep up with the latest methods, they, and you, are at a disadvantage.
The importance of choosing a programmer who is able to teach themselves the latest methods is that most web projects have some aspect which require the use of a very new technology. A popular example of this is the integration of the more advanced capabilities of Google Maps into web sites. A programmer confident in conquering new ground will implement new technology faster (and ultimately for less cost) into your web project. Our lead programmer, Gabriel Klavun, has trained as a computer programmer, forming a solid and important foundation, but he also has taught himself the latest programming methods, such as the rapidly growing Web 2.0 Ajax method, and more.
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Time To Complete
If someone offers to create a site for half of what others charge, but they take a year to do so, is it really worth saving a few hundred dollars?
This question is especially important to ask for a site that sells anything, including advertising (where many sites make there money). The money you could have made over that year from your site could be 10 times what you saved.
The point of all this is that it is important to choose a programmer that has the resources to complete your project in a timely manner. It is typical for projects to take longer than expected, either from unforseen programming challenges as well as clients deciding to enhance the project as they go along.
Many programmers will offer unrealistic time frame estimates in order to get the job. Or they may take on too many projects at once and put yours on the back burner for months before even getting started.
We have a flexible team of programmers that can be called on at any time should your project have more rigorous demands. This flexibility allows us to offer the best possible service and turnaround times.
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Local vs Overseas
If you've put an ad online looking for a programmer, you'll likely receive many responses from people in other countries such as India and Pakistan. While there are many talented programmers around the world, many people outright see the advantage of hiring a local programmer versus someone overseas.
The obvious reason to do this is so you can meet with them personally. The less obvious reason is how much easier it is to be scammed by an overseas company. Much of the time, it is not necessary to meet face to face with a programmer, as most communication for this type of work can be done over the internet or by phone. But many of our clients prefer to meet in person which is why they choose us. One reason is to look at examples side by side and discuss changes simply by pointing at the screen and saying "move that there, make it slightly bigger and change the text above it to blue" or something to that effect. Choosing a local programmer also has the advantage of knowing where they are, should something go wrong. While it is still possible, it is a lot less likely that a local programmer will disappear with your money, and even if they do, it's a lot easier to track them down and take legal action if they are in New York versus India. As you've likely heard, the internet is full of scams. You likely see them in the form of spam in your bulk mail folder every day. But scams or not limited to spam and ebay. It is typical for a programmer to ask for a retainer up front. This is fair and to be expected (as clients often disappear without paying for the work done), but if you're putting money down you clearly want to be sure that you're giving it to a real programmer that actually intends to do the work. If choosing to hire out overseas, we urge you to only do so if you have been referred to the company personally by someone you know so as not to be another victim of a disappearing programmer.
When you are looking through responses to a search for a web programmer, be sure to be clear where the programmer is located, and if you think you may want to meet with them in person for any reason at any point during the project, make sure they will be available to do so.
While we work with people from all over the world, the bulk of our clients are located in New York City where we can speak with them on a local number and meet with them when necessary.
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Getting The Job Done
At the end of the day, you want to find someone who can get the job done at a reasonable cost without causing you a lot of stress and extra work along the way.
We'll be happy to guide you through the process, whether that means walking you through the details so you can craft your site using us as your progamming fingers, or just taking care everything for you so you can think about other things.
We're here to make your web experience enjoyable.
Contact us to get started with your project today!
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