My first business, which I started on September 11th 2001 was a web design business. Shortly after starting it my brother joined me in the business. We ran it together as a web design company until 2005 when we stopped providing web design and development for customers and focused our efforts on the development of our own Internet businesses. During the four years that we did customer work we made countless mistakes (as all new businesses and entrepreneurs do), but we managed to learn from each and everyone and come out stronger for it.

So building on my experience here’s my take on what you need to consider before starting up and how you can start a successful home based web design business.

Is there a local market (demand) and can you make a living from it?

For many businesses the size of the local market matters – it’s going to be your primary market and despite this new Internet age that still holds true for most web design firms. We were amazed (and rather disappointed) to find that less than 5% of our business came from our website – despite it ranking number one on Google for most of the variations on the keyword phrase "web design [town]" where town was one of the local towns we targeted. Instead the majority came from either word of mouth (around 55%) or in response to our advertising in local papers (around 40%).

So what is your local market? I would suggest that you initially consider any business based within the geographical region that you can reach in 45 minutes to be your local market. Try to avoid going any further away as every hour spent travelling is an hour not spent either prospecting or actually doing the work. Next you need to determine if there are enough potential customers with that area. To work this out decide what sort of web design you’re going to do (i.e. brochure websites for small businesses, e-commerce sites for SMEs or large complex sites for Internet businesses). Then determine based on a combination of your experience, expected earnings and competitor analysis a rough figure for the average income per customer. For example for brochure website for small businesses that might be £500, whilst for SMEs the average might be £8,000 and Internet businesses £25,000. Then using your target earnings calculate how many customers you’ll need to find.

For example if you plan to turn over £50,000 offering web design to small local businesses at £500 per site you’ll need to find 100 customers (which is too many customers for a one person business to manage). To achieve the same targeting SMEs at an average of £8,000 you would need just 7 customers but they are likely to be larger businesses. Based on these figures you need to look at your local area and decide if there are enough prospective customers for you to be able to achieve the required number of sales per year.

All that being said it’s possible to offer web design to a global market and you can find projects via a number of routes, from Elance to direct mail.

Do you have, or can you acquire the necessary skills?

Before you start out be sure to honestly access your skills. Decide if do you have the following technical skills (in some cases you can partner with other businesses that do):

• Graphic Design
• Ability to produce (X)HTML/CSS
• Programming ability in one or more of PHP, PERL, ASP, ASP.NET, Ruby (and Ruby on Rails).
• An understanding of databases.
• A basic understanding of common server software (i.e. Linux, Windows, and their associated Web sever software).
• A basic understanding of other web technologies (i.e. Javascript, HTTP).

You’ll also need the usual business skills:

• Sales
• Marketing
• Project planning and time management
• Customer relationship management

How can you market a web design business?

If you have the skills listed above the next step is to start developing a marketing plan for your web design business. Here’s what I would suggest based on my experience.

• Build a website and make sure it’s covers the basics of SEO. Your website probably won’t generate many leads but it does prove you are able to build a website – in short it’s the start of your portfolio.
• Send a press release about your new business to the local press.
• Advertise in local (ideally business) press.
• Get networking – explore the local business networking scene starting with the Chamber of Commerce and expanding to BNI, BRE and the other networking organisations.
• Differentiate your business, and try to find a niche.

How much capital required?

When I started my business it was run from my home, partly because I was sick of spending several hours per day commuting but mostly to keep costs down. Working from home and using the computer you probably already have (i.e. whatever you’re reading this on) you can start this business for just a few hundred pounds. Just enough to buy a few networking breakfasts and 5 or 6 ads in the local press.

Starting a web design business from home doesn’t have to cost much at all. Best of all you can fit in most start up activities around an existing job allowing you to test the waters before you jump in.

Useful books:

• How to Start a Home-Based Web Design Business – a guide to starting a home based web design business.
• Web Design & Marketing Solutions for Business Websites: Better Sites, Better Marketing – websites are part of a businesses marketing – so don’t forget the marketing elements.
• Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability – an excellent book on building usable websites (I wish more web designers would read this).
• Small Business Web Sites Made Easy – a potentially useful guide to creating websites for small businesses.

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