When I first began as a web designer about 5 years ago, the career choice creating websites for clients didn’t seem like a bad idea at all. At my first job, it was not uncommon to bill clients in excess of $5,000-$10,000 for a simple html website. It was easy to run a profitable business with a large enough client list. These days are pretty much all but gone now, sure there are still web design firms, but it is becoming increasingly more difficult to remain profitable as a one man shop. Profitability is not the only problem with the idustry. There are numerous other problems that web designers are now face. Here are my reasons for getting out of the web design industry.
1. Decline in Profitability – There are more people able to create websites than ever. With more people in the market, prices have gone down significantly. The going rate for the best of the best web design freelancers in Silicon Valley is around $50/ hour which is not very much. Salary positions usually come in anywhere from $32,000-$45,000. Not anything glamorous. Not only that, the internet has sped up the global economy as well and outsourcing web design jobs to countries like India, the Philippines, Romania is becoming easier by the day.
2. Rise of Open Source – Part of the reason why the price designers can charge for websites have gone significantly down is due to the rise of web based open source software. When I first started in the biz, you essentially needed to hire a programmer to create any kind of custom application for a website. These custom applications usually came with the highest profit margins because the pool that could do these things was significantly smaller. Open source is community developed software that is free to use. Today there is an open source alternative for anything you want to do. Not just that, the open source stuff is almost always better than the paid option. Great for clients, not so great for designers.
3. Constantly evolving medium - The web is a constantly evolving medium. Software, programming languages, technology to use, browsers are all constantly changing. Whats great today sucks tomorrow. A perfect example of this is Flash. Flash was all the rage when I first started, I spent an enormous amount of time learning about flash because I thought it would make me more attractive in the marketplace, today Flash is bastardized and generally frowned upon by everyone. Table based layouts were the standard when I started, now it’s all about div layouts. Keep in mind this is all in the span of only 5 years. Having to relearn your trade every year is something designers either love or hate.
4.Clients - It’s nothing against the people I’ve worked with. In fact I think I’ve generally liked almost every client I’ve ever had. The problem comes with the idea that because they hire me, they don’t need to learn anything. Not only that, most don’t even understand why they need a website or why their website is important. This kills me because a website is probably the single biggest marketing investment any business can make, yet they treat it like mustard on a hotdog, not the main focus, just a something a little extra. There are problems with scope creep, and delays. Scope creep has you doing extra work for the same amount of money essentially lowering your hourly rate and delays push back deadlines which pushes back when you get paid. Both problems are very common in the industry and really hurts when you were counting on that money at a certain date. Sure you can bill for delays, but that is not going to help your case when you go out looking for new clients. Clients although almost always great people are most times not great to work with.
5. 1-1 Work Ratio – This one is by far the biggest reason why I’m personally getting out. When you’re a web designer creating websites for others, the time you spend when compared to the money you earn is a 1-1 ratio. You do work, you get paid. Like a dentist, doctor, etc. It is very hand to mouth and not scalable. Nothing wrong with that, it’s just that for me, I’ve come to learn about leveraging my time and achieving higher ratios when I do any sort of work. For example, we put out a DVD for Ukulele Underground, we did the work once, but we can continue to print it now that it is done for as long as we want. Personally, I’d much rather spend my time creating things like this as opposed to starting from scratch for every new client and doing the EXACT same thing over and over.
With all that being said, there are always going to be web designers around. I think it will be good thing because the ones that will continue to do this are the ones with real passion for it. When all the ones like me are gone from the industry, what you’ll have left are talented passionate individuals and I think that will bring up the standard of quality of web design as a whole. I’m doing my part to help this by stepping out of the away and moving on to new things.
