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No horror stories?

I guess no news is good news!

Tell us more about this if you could.

Wow! Thank you for asking, I've been wanting to get this off my chest for MONTHS!

I worked with this complete Twit on a database site idea a while back and he was one of the best salesmen I've ever seen. I'm a hard sell, but this guy had me at "hello".

So we get into the planning phase, I meet with him and the lead programmer and I can tell it's all going South when the programmer stats shaking his head and saying "no, no, there's no way we can do that in 2 weeks"

I knew it was too good to be true. So, me being the insane person I am, I decided to let it slide. I give them a full 60 days to get the preliminary work done and cut the down payment.

Fast forward about 4 months. These boobs had no idea what I wanted! They talked a great game, but at the end of the day it was like everything was on fire... there were 800lb gorillas falling through the ceiling with soggy diapers... real Biblical wrath of God type stuff.

Then to make matters worse, they had this 100% money back thing. I had to chase him almost until last week to get paid!

Moral of the story: never hire a firm that specializes in graphic design to do databases.

TGA000 . . . well said! Thanks for the story.

If you would have had a DOMAIN EXPERT to work with ...they would have worked with you to first design the set up and data flow and then it would have gone to the coders.

No DESIGN...No Database sense.

Hello,

Thought I might add my 2 cents... We are a Webhost and Networking Company and we see this alot. Even though we do web design and programming we always go into detail with what the customer wants. This is not always that easy.... and sometimes it is. There are some basic questions from a consumer point of view that need to be answered and tranlated into layman terms. Like-

Do you want to sell product online? If so, this is called an ecommerce site that has a shopping cart and it is not something that is going to be over night for a quality job (how many things/products/items really are)

Where do you see your website/business in a year?Two years? Do you see it housing memberships,portals,10.000 more products and customers?

What is your idea of expansion?

Is there a specific funtionality of your site that is critical to your business?

Do you need just a page or two for an online presence?

Many people/business owners are becoming more savvy in this area however the learning curve is scary and can be costly so here are a few tips:

When thinking of web sites and online business you can relate it to these terms.

Web space is in megabytes,Gigabytes = Your real estate for a Brick and morter house. The land that you would build your house on.

Transfer,Bandwidth = Water,Electric Phone Bill. This is what you would consider your utilities for the website. It it also measured in Megabytes and Gigabytes. Very similar to that overpriced cell phone metering we all have.

SO.... why bother me with the hosting side of this? Well as the Domain Expert mentioned it is the foundation upon what your House/Website is built. It dictates how much house you can afford (to a point).

You could easily go out and pay for a 50.000 website/house and not know what or where you can put it.
You may even love the ideas and get caught up in the magic of the new house/website and forget that the neighborhood taxes are beyond your means. Hence getting your new site shut off or that house into foreclosure.

There is a huge difference between a programmer and a web designer. Funtionality and Database programming is the Programmers job. Design (making it pretty) and some programming is the Designers job.

I have seen people go over the top and then realize that there is a substantial amount of marketing involved online that eats away at there budget and at most does not bring them the traffic they need to be successful.

This usually was a combination of the over-expectations of the customer and the crappy unscrupulous sales person or owner that sold them what they don't need.

Have you seen this in other industries? Yes of course. Granted it is not easy to find someone to do this job so ask around go to people that are proven by checking with other businesses that have spent the money and time to get the "right one"

The goal that keeps both parties very happy is to do what any really good real estate person would advise on.

1. Buy the house you can afford (you can always upgrade with the right site)
2. Use a well known builder
3. Buy the house that can be expanded
4. Buy the house that you intended it for. ( raising kids, retirement and so on...)
5. Find the right neighborhood.

For the sake of too lon g a post I will close thank you for listening.
Joseph Voldeck
MadGig.Com

[quote]Moral of the story: never hire a firm that specializes in graphic design to do databases[/quote]

very VERY true... as a matter of fact i would go one step further and say never higher a design or code firm to build your website period... one will make it look good, the other will make it work good, but which one will help you make money with it?

always hire a salesman who has geek and graphic design tendancies.... like me <g>

even if you arent trying to make money directly with the site (ie ecommerce) you still have goals for it... getting new customers, retaining old ones, etc... there is some reason for doing it and if your designer doesnt ask that question first then run for the door and find someone who is going to build a relationship with you... not just a website for you.