Is The Web Recession Proof?
Economy, economy, economy. I swear it is all you hear about these days. Turn on the news. Go to a cafe. Doesn’t matter where you are, someone mentions how bad the economy is. Because Steve and I left extremely stable and secure jobs, we often get asked, “Are you feeling the hurt?”
So are we? Currently and thankfully, we are a not. On the contrary, we have noticed an increase in project requests in December and January. Granted, project requests do not always turn into projects, but I think for us they are pretty indicative of interest.
Here are my unfiltered and most likely naive thoughts on our current circumstances. I believe that even though the economy as a whole is hurting, there are pockets of growth. I believe that one of those pockets is the web. I believe that if you are a company that has been fiscally responsible, grown at a reasonable rate, and continually provided high quality products and services, you are going to be fine.
The answer is no. The web is obviously not recession proof, but if there is any industry right now that provides opportunity, it is the web. Stop worrying about the economy and focus on strengthening your business. What do we do, here at Ordered List, to make sure we are strong?
- Cash flow. We don’t obsess over cash, but we require payment to do work. Yep, we are paid before we do work, not after. If a client wants a fixed price, they’ll get one, but they’ll pay all or at least half of it up front. If the project is larger, we work in 100 hour blocks. Once we have logged 80-90 hours, we let the client know and go from there.
- Keep reserves. It is tempting to pay yourself a ridiculous salary or pay out large profit checks, but that is very short-sighted. We pay ourselves modest salaries, even for South Bend, and always make sure we have several months of expenses in the bank before we partake in profit sharing.
- Spend money where it counts. If you don’t need an office, don’t pay for office space. This is different for everyone, but instead of paying rent and utilities every month, we choose to keep our recurring monthly expenses low. Instead, we splurge more on laptops, gadgets and conferences. We care a lot more about that.
- Build a reputation online. Every piece of work that we are commissioned to do comes from the reputations that Steve and I have built online. Geographically, our closest client to date was almost 100 miles away. Our clients find us online and we work remotely for them, which opens up far more opportunities than if we focused on the local chamber of commerce. Recently, someone asked me what the market was like in South Bend. My response was, “I don’t know.”
- Stay current. Don’t shoehorn yourself into one thing. Our primary service is website and application design, but we are also pretty knowledgeable in Ruby and Rails, and more recently, have been diving into iPhone development. The great thing about being small and current is that different opportunities are more profitable at different times, and if you are current, you can not only see them coming, but also take part in them.
I could be wrong. We could be in for dark times, but worrying about that won’t get us anywhere. Focusing on what is going good and attempting to amplify that will.
What is your sense of the web world right now?
