Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Is anyone interested in designing my new website?  I am experienced in graphic design, logos, advertising and marketing, but, I am not very technical and need help.  I am looking for someone that is creative and inspired that wants  to get their name recognized when we launch our site for national recognition.  I would also give you a FREE banner on the site. I can help you with marketing your company. If interested let me know.

bridalchic

If you are into marketing, you could explain what the developer would get out of the deal.

What are your proposed traffic counts so that your barter would be an even trade? What is the site about? What kind of national attention do you hope to gain, and do you have a plan laid out for such a program?

(I`m not interested in a trade at this time ... this is just for discussion on "fair bartering".)

Bridalchic,
Your posting would be much better at myspace.com, there are lots of 16 and 18 year olds that might be able to help you.
But then again, remember... it`s cut and paste.
NIKOLE, Exactly I want to see how many hits you are getting per day, per week, per month. If the number is good we can trade other than that... $$$$ is the key to your project.


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Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

re: fair bartering.

Good points by Nikole and Edgar about the traffic/visibility issue. Free banner sounds nice but if there is no real sustainable traffic, then the point is moot. I imagine there has to be at least 50 unique visitors per day before the designer can expect to make one sale back within a 30 day period. Probably more than that as I`ve tried something similar where I have my company logo on a client site for 6 months now (she easily gets 30-50 uniques/day) and I`ve not seen a sale from it. But the client paid me upfront so I`m not complaining either.

A basic brochureware site (non-CMS) would probably take at least 15 hours b/w mockups, iterations, coding, and setup? Of course, it can be tougher to please a fellow creative professional as well. :)

My opinion is that since you seem confident that you are getting national brand recognition, it really makes sense to pay for this upfront.

In bartering, too many things can go wrong including the designer bailing out, the designer has poor design/development skills, etc... Remember, the only designers interested in this are the newbies and they tend to lack knowledge about web standards, coding, usability issues, etc...

And if the client shows any signs of nitpicking, then this starts to irritate a designer as s/he is doing this for free and morale starts to decrease to the point where designer may lack motivation to finish the project. Client has deadlines as to when this site needs to get up and stress starts to take over.

Next thing you know, another horrible barterting trade went awry and SUN decides to put this up as their lead story for their weekly bulletin :)

HDEAN,
You made a few good point. The only people that will barter are "newbies".
Most newbies will do it for free in return of a "Web site Designed by" and their name next to it.

Another thing you have to be careful with is, since they are not being paid they can ditch your project at any given time and if they feel like you are requesting to much and they can`t deliver, you will get ditched.

Your best bet is to Dish out the 1200 or whatever a designer is going to charge you and go from there. If you then decide to start charging people for banner rotations then it would be a good idea.




-------------------------

Edgar Monroy
Web Developer / Owner / Consultant
When starting your own business the need to "know-how" is greater than money!
http://www.nuevolution.net

Exactly, that`s what credit cards and loans (if you`re that confident you can convince a bank) are for.

Oh, by the way bridalchic, Twilight Pics accepts all major credit cards!

Thanks guys for all your input.  I did find someone that is excited to do the project for many reasons.  The world of business can be a funny thing. Some people wants whats fair, to do the job and get paid.  Then once in a while if you search and you find a gem that sees the bigger picture.  This person wanted to donate their time for the cause.  It was that simple!  I couldn`t believe it!  And most of all very creative.  Just for the info on the hits the site gets 11,482 hits daily.  That is why we want to revamp and expand. 
I love all the comments and SUN!

bridalchic