Designers - FANTASTIC opportunity.....

[sarettah]

LadyM ? Did you go visit Craig's list this morning...

Just found this in the same category as the ad:

RE: WANT TO HIRE YOU TO BUILD A COMPLETE FUNCTIONAL WEBSITE $150

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reply to: gigs-127182085@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-01-21, 4:58AM CST


To Whoever posted the ad below

I'm going to provide you some free advice. Take notes. Other people would be typing foul invective in capital letters. I'm going to provide you with some clues about the real world, though.

What you are asking for is worth, in today's market terms, so much more than what you offer for the job ($150), that one almost has to assume that you don't know what you're talking about. The only other alternatives would be that you 1) are just trying to intentionally insult for no good reason (and waste the time of) any random web developer who reads your ads or 2) are simply just insane.

Your e-commerce web site is both the primary software infrastructure for, and the public face of, your business. This isn't like hiring some retarded high school kid to mow your lawn.

Like a lawyer or any other self-employed professional, a freelance web developer has to charge enough per billable hour to finance all of the time spent lining up jobs that have billable hours. At the very least, for someone who is only *marginally* competent, you will pay $20-$25 per hour typically. A competent and professional web developer simply will not be found for less than $36-$50 per billable hour.

That's just the question of rate, though. Next is the question of how much time would be required to create the site you describe. Assuming you found a cheap $20/hour newbie developer, you appear to be assuming that the site you want can be built the way you want it in 7 and a half hours.

If so, I need to let you know that you are not merely wrong, but not even in the ballpark. It would take longer than that. Significantly longer.

The next thing you need to know is this...

Since you weren't aware of those things, it seriously calls into question your own ability to run a web based business. I'm not trying to knock you down in the dirt. I'm trying to save you some money. I'm telling you that you are not sufficiently prepared yet to run the business you want to run, and that lack of sufficient background will only result in you not making smart business choices. For the love of God, man, hang on to your pitiful small amount of cash and use it to buy a damned book or take a community college course so that you're not just a babe in the woods when it comes to this sort of stuff.

Please, do so. Please.