Pitfalls of friends and family building your website

As a startup funds are always tight and it's of course great to make savings wherever you can and whilst we know these days to succeed in an ever evolving and competitive market we need a website, the choice then becomes do you invest initially or use that friend or uncle bob who has been building websites for years?

After years of talking to people who have taken the friends or family route there are some common issues that arise with taking this path;

You are next I promise

Using friends and family seems like not a bad option, let’s face it you will get a good deal because you are willing to wait to be next in line as your not paying that much. Herein lies the issue...uncle bob is finishing off a great site and your next in line..he will do it as a favour to you. However, in between you being next in line and him finishing up the current job he put another quote out and won the job and its paying well so of course you will get bumped back until he finishes this new site but he promises you will definitely be the next after that..and then the vicious circle begins.

It will do syndrome

When dealing with friends or family what tends to happen is you would be more lenient with them and they are less fastidious with you. Afterall when you see the design and it doesn't seem quite as detailed as other jobs uncle bob has done what can you really say, a) you don’t want to offend him and b) you got a good deal so this will do until later...how is it now different to installing a free template that will barely do but it's cheap until you have real money to invest? Is  “it will do” the way you want your clients to think of you??

It wasn’t worth it

The saddest outcome of course when dealing with family and friends is it just wasn’t worth saving a few pennies to lose the friendship..and it rarely unfortunately ends in tears of happiness.

The design is great but your last in line for support

Your happy uncle bob did a great job and now you just need some support, you just want to change a few things around, but uncle bob has a full list of clients paying for his time..again you go back to the bottom of the priority list why your website suffers

All in all your small business needs a website, but it also needs a professional website, one that gets built to your budget and on time and this is achievable without ruining relationships in the family.

If you need to get your business up and running with a professional website without the pressure get in contact with us today for a free quote.