[consulting] Drupal web design as hobby - shall I start consulting?

[Alexei Malinovski]

Larry, thank you for lengthy answer.

2010/8/15 Larry Garfield <larry at garfieldtech.com>

> On Saturday, August 14, 2010 05:19:30 pm Alexei Malinovski wrote:
>


If you're doing mostly click-together sites, that's less of an issue.
>

What is "click-together sites" ?


> >
> > The ugly truth is that many people in showbiz are absolutely non
> technical.
> > They are clewer, creative, nice, talkative but not technical. So, if I do
> > the web site I make sure that it runs somwhere. The funny thing is that
> > they even allow me to own they domain names. In other words they do not
> > realise that they can and *SHOULD* own the domain name!!!
>
> As a consultant, part of your job is to educate the client to the extent
> they
> need to be educated.  They don't need to be super technical, but explaining
> what they get, and what the trade-offs are, is part of your job.
>
>
I agree. My sister was in the situation when her old site domain was owned
by her previous producer company. Even though she had a good relationship
with producer and his company she could not get ownership of web site name.
Basically we needed to start from scratch. Register another name and promote
it. I agree that if you explain domain ownership issue to potential customer
it will help to build trust.


> If you have a support contract with them, it is actually often easier for
> you
> to own the domain name and hosting account so that you can deal with the
> web
> host directly without going through them.
>

I agree. If maintenance is on my shoulders that should be the case.


>
> > > Most of this work is not very profitable, avoid if possible... If you
> > > have to do it, make sure it's in the contract.
> >
> > Most probably I have to do hosting and site maintenance to be a one stop
> > shop for showbiz people.
>
"Host and support a site built by someone else" is one of Acquia's main
> business channels.  They may be out of the price range for your clients,
> but
> it's worth considering.  Acquia's Gardens project is also targeted at rapid
> creation of reasonably conventional sites (I won't say cookie cutter, but
> less-than-fully-customized) that are hosted on their heavily-tuned
> infrastructure.  Both are definitely worth looking into.
>

Thank you for suggestion! I will look into that. Though, I'm not sure that
those guys speak Russian :)


> I guess this is a bad idea to host different
> > > > Customers on the same account?
>
> 2) Offering rapid-spin-up cookie cutter sites.  There is a market for that,
> especially for artist websites where, realistically, they all want more or
> less the same thing just skinned uniquely and with different content.
>  Whether
> or not that's a market you want to pursue is your call.
>
>
I might be in that niche since musician web sites usually has the same
functionality and just look differently.

BTW, do anyone see any problem to make sites without the contracts at all? I
understand monetary issue - if there is not contract noone will force
Customer to pay you money for the work. Any other problems with such
approach?
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