Last Updated on Mar 11, 2020 by James W
There is a wide array of Internet-based businesses that one can start from the comfort of their homes, and many of the people that start such enterprises go on to make a pretty successful and decent living out of them.
One of the best types of business that you could set up – and on a shoestring – is a web design and hosting business! If you are tech-savvy and want to find out how you could startup in business offering customers such services, here is what you need to know!
Self-motivation
Before you decide to set up in business as the next web design and web hosting supremo, you will need to think about how you can motivate yourself to grow your business and succeed at achieving your goals.
When you work in an office or some other work-based environment, and you have to report into someone, there is an element of pressure which helps to motivate you to get the job done properly and on time.
But when you work for yourself at home, there is always going to be some temptation to “slack off” and watch some TV, go down the pub or play computer games instead of working on building your business up!
According to the Startup Britain website, there has been over half a million people starting up their own businesses in 2013 and around 34,000 for this year as I write this!
Many of those startups will have to overcome the same motivation issues that you will almost certainly face working from home, but it will be your determination to succeed that will set you apart from those who aren’t 100% focused on being the best that they can be.
Services
Obviously you are going to be offering web design and hosting services to your clients, but you should determine whether you wish to specialise in any particular areas (e-commerce, cloud hosting) or if you want to offer a multitude of different services.
Prices
You can’t just pluck some figures out of the air and set these as prices for your web design and hosting services. It is extremely important that you research what sort of prices your competitors charge both on a local and regional level.
It can sometimes be a bit of a challenge to get your prices right, because if your prices are too low or too high it will cause your customers to go elsewhere.
Getting set up
In the very least, you will need to register as self-employed with HMRC as this is required by law when you start your own business on a self-employed basis. Professional indemnity insurance is also an essential item to have, as it will cover you in case one of your clients is unhappy with your work and tries to sue you.
You will need to have a website and email facilities set up for your new enterprise, as well as a way for customers to contact you by telephone or by post. If you don’t want to use your home address, you can either use your accountant’s address or hire a “virtual mailing address”.
In terms of the services you offer, many people go down the white-label reseller route so you could essentially offer hosting services but in reality be simply reselling for a larger hosting company.
Seasoned web designers can obviously do the work themselves, and when you get too much work to deal with you can sub-contract it out to other web designers who charge less than you do.
