How To Get A Business Website Built For Cheap Or Free

In: Uncategorized By: Brian Armstrong

1 Mar 2009

Breaking Free reader “tormcgraw” posted this excellent question to the Breaking Free Forum. I thought others might find it useful:

I have had an idea for a website business very similar to universitytutor.com but with a different industry. I have conducted research with parties that would utilize this service and indication is they would utilize the service. My fear is that since I do not have web design experience, it will cost thousands of dollars (that I don’t have) to produce the site. And because it will involve profiles, ratings, driving directions, etc., I would guess it would be expensive! Is there any advice or potential services that would be helpful. Thanks and any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Here is my response:

Hi Torrey,

I have a few ideas that could allow you to get it done for cheap or for free:

Cheap
You may want to look at outsourcing websites like odesk.com or guru.com. These will allow you to post your idea and get bids from programmers all over the world to build it. Some bids will be cheaper than you might expect since they live in countries like India and the Philippines (maybe as low as $5 per hour). The quality varies here though, so read their feedback and give them a small project first to see how good they are. It could potentially be done for less than $1000, depending on what you need.

Cheaper
You could try a pre-built tool like WordPress and then add a “ratings” plugin for it like this one. There are actually tons of plugins for wordpress so you might be able to put together a lot of those features you mentioned. It’s open source software so it is for the most part entirely free. The only downside to this is two fold: (1) It won’t be as customizable as designing it from scratch – you might not be able to get EXACTLY what you want but pretty close. (2) You need to be somewhat tech savvy to get all these plugins working. You won’t need to be a programmer, but tech savvy yes. If it gets too crazy, you can always hire someone as in the first option but only for a few hours to help you with wordpress so it should be much cheaper.

Free
Find a programmer and offer him equity (percent ownership in the business) in exchange for building the site. I would look for a current college student (computer science major) to do this – college students are great programmers but still young and hungry and would go for this type of thing more than a programmer who already has a job at a big company.

None of these methods will be an overnight instant success, but few things worth doing in life are. If it was easy then someone probably would have already done it by now, and would be raking in all the cash from YOUR idea :) The fact that it’s a little bit difficult is actually great, it makes a barrier to all those other people who don’t want it as badly as you do!

Hope this helps,
Brian

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19 Responses

Matt Thomas

March 1st, 2009 at 6:58 pm

Great advice, Brian. I find that WordPress is more and more frequently recommended for these kinds of solutions. Since it is open source and flexible, it allows for a lot of options with all of the database, back-end programming already written for you.

Because of this, I have heard of a lot of new internet business gravitating to this platform, even if they have no plan to start a blog.

While I agree that this would fall in the “cheaper” category, it can easily be free as someone with no web design experience could easily get a little bit of html background in no time.

Brian Armstrong

March 1st, 2009 at 10:00 pm

Agreed…I def did mine (this blog) for free. Of course the webhosting costs about $10/month, but the software to run it is free.

WordPress really is amazing.

Chiko777

March 2nd, 2009 at 10:08 am

Same here, my website’s template was free (wordpress powered). No one ever believes that my website was free, they always ask me who designed it? and how much did I pay for it?

Brian Armstrong

March 5th, 2009 at 1:24 pm

Haha, thats a good sign!

John

March 2nd, 2009 at 2:22 pm

While I agree for simple things like a Blog, seeing posts like this annoys me as a web developer and designer.

Web development and design is not only a technically inclined art, but a creative art as well… and it should not be viewed so cheaply. Next time you consider outsourcing to India, China, or some other place where the cost of living (and general properly educated population) is significantly less than many other countries, consider the quality of product you get… would you rather pay someone $300 for a poor quality website that could probably be hacked easily, look terrible, function terrible, and more than likely need revisions over a number of months, or pay an extra $1000 for a website that looks, functions, and promotes itself well and get it done in a few days?

To rag on WordPress a bit, it is a horribly written piece of software from a developer standpoint. From a consumer standpoint it is awesome though, and the promotion they have done for it is amazing with how terribly it was initially written (although it has cleaned up a bit recently).

These are all things to consider when building a website and an identity online. How well do you want to represent yourself? And are you going to go cheap just to save a buck or would you rather make an impression with you web presence?

Depending what your needs are, I think it is always good to get some consulting from a professional. It is worth the money, trust me.

John

March 2nd, 2009 at 2:30 pm

Also, I’m not stereotyping anyone from India or China, there are plenty of excellent designers and developers in those countries.. I am refering to the people who advertise “Website for $200″. Yes, its possible, but with most business models you won’t get something very good.

Interestingly enough, I am working on a business model to actually create great looking websites for a lower cost, without outsourcing to lower cost solutions.

Joey

March 2nd, 2009 at 6:31 pm

John,

I agree with you to a certain extent. I think that spending the additional money up front is worth it in the long run. I ended up having a great looking personal site, but I had so many problems with it and ended up having it done over, twice!!!

Now that I’ve been working in this field for a little while now, I think one problem is the knowledge gap between the consumer and the designer/programmer. The general consumer doesn’t understand what goes on behind the scenes of setting up a website, nor do they care. I see a 1-click auto install of WordPress, with thousands of free templates and plugins, and I’m there!

I think that people these days are looking for cheap and easy, especially in these economic times. If you can create a business model that can create great looking sites for a lower cost, I think you’re heading in the right direction. Good luck!

Regards,
Joey

John

March 3rd, 2009 at 2:21 pm

Social networking, in my opinion, is dying. “Web 2.0″ is over. People are looking for more niche sites now to either socialize or use tools to enhance their lives, work place, etc. The sites like MySpace, Facebook, etc… the “1 stop has it all” is a dying breed and you will see a huge influx and demand for quality websites in the next few years to cater to a newly evolved internet society.

Cheap and Easy is also going to die out… there are only so many templates out there on the web, and eventually it will get so congested people will get sick of the “same old, same old”. Now, this doesn’t apply to things like blogs (because really who cares what it looks like, readability is the only important factor for a blog) – I am referring to websites that serve a major purpose and offer services to people.

This is just my opinion based on being in the biz for 10 years though.

Brian Armstrong

March 5th, 2009 at 1:29 pm

Good point John…I’d certainly prefer to have a professionally designed website as well. Much less hassle. However, for people who don’t have this option financially, they can at least know there is an alternative.

Matt

March 2nd, 2009 at 7:31 pm

Interesting post, Brian. How does one deal with competition as a result of disclosing a website idea? I’ve had a few, but I’m concerned about others stealing them. If I posted a great idea on a outsourcing website to get bids, isn’t that just giving my idea away?

If working with a programmer directly, I suppose I could have him/her sign a non-compete agreement.

Any advice?

Darius

March 3rd, 2009 at 2:01 pm

Hi Matt,

Non-compete won’t work in a web-industry, unfortunately. Enforcing it would be improbable AND cost a lot, and good programmers wouldn’t sign them, unless you pay them more.

The best thing to do is find a programmer who just likes to program or already has their own focused project (which is most of them). They won’t steal your idea.

Brian Armstrong

March 5th, 2009 at 1:35 pm

Yep…Matt, I wouldn’t worry about it and I’ve actually never seen this be an issue. The idea is not whats valuable…it’s how well you implement it, market it, etc.

At the same time Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc were created, probably 100 other people had the same idea but weren’t able to pull it off as effectively.

Phillip Harrington

March 4th, 2009 at 1:11 pm

As a web programmer, I have to say, the majority of “work for free for now and I’ll pay you in an equity deal” offers are not tempting in the slightest.

The big reason most of these are not tempting to me is that they are simply lame ideas, or “me too” ideas. No, I do not want to program the “facebook of realestate brokers” or something… Realestate brokers already have 50 sites for this, including facebook. Here are the other big reasons, mostly having to do with how you ask.

First, there are 3 options, Fast, Good, and Cheap, and you get to pick 2. Usually “work for free” falls under the category of “cheap” and usually I don’t like to sacrifice “good” – I have a reputation to uphold – so I will not give these kinds of projects priority. However, usually the owners want it yesterday and feel like their promise of money is as good as a check I can cash, and they are entitled to be very demanding. Don’t do this – it will upset your programmer.

Second of all, many of these offers come with no documentation or copy of the business plan, but do come with an NDA attached. Some also request a proposal. Why should I propose work and estimate it’s value when you’re not offering me money or a copy of your plan of when you are going to make money, let alone when I get paid. A request that comes in and says, “we can pay you after we get paid, and that’s going to happen by this date…” is a lot more attractive.

Third, explain to me upfront how much of the company you want me to own, and if it changes, how and when? After a certain number of hours?

Finally, there’s never a fall back position, i.e. if we’re not profitable after a year, we’ll give you a small compensation for your time – say 25% of the standard rate, and buy you out. That way I’m free and clear and I didn’t throw work and time into something that failed.

I’m not cynical and jaded – maybe I sound that way – but I do see a lot of offers for this. I speak as a person who has rejected a lot of equity deals, and is currently involved in a very nice one.

Gaurav

March 4th, 2009 at 6:04 pm

Great comment Philip!

During our initial years we got a lot of these type of equity sharing requests, and we discounted prices for a few of them. The outcome was always bad. Now we politely turn these down and let prospects know that we are focused on our own business.

I heard this somewhere and its hard to not believe in it – How can someone ask us to invest our time and money paying my team to build on an idea that the client themselves don’t want to invest in.

In my humble opinion, an idea is only an idea until its profitable, then it becomes a business.

I wouldn’t half ass my concept by paying someone $500 to put it together. Do it right and find the right team with experience in building profitable businesses, not simply websites.

Thanks!
Gaurav

Brian Armstrong

March 5th, 2009 at 1:38 pm

Agreed…if you have an actual web business I probably wouldn’t participate in these equity sharing deals either. Young, hungry college student programmers are sometimes more open to it though.

vinnie

March 24th, 2009 at 7:44 pm

hi brian,
My name is Vinnie. I would like to get help from someone regarding building a website. Going through the blog I realized there are loads of people who would like the same. I also came to know that everyone(or most) of them think that they have a great idea and their idea would be the next best thing and rake in millions for them. Yes, I am one of them who think this idea of mine is going to work. But I really dunno the a,b,c of building or getting a website built. So I am writing to ask you what is the procedure you would advise me to follow and how much will I have to spend on an average if I get thy done in Australia and how much in India?
Thanks mate
Vinnie.

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