As a relative newcomer to the Exeter web design scene we’ve experienced first-hand some of the highs and lows of starting a web development company.

We’ve been running in our current guise for around 3 years, and it’s been quite an adventure! When you decide to launch a new business venture you inevitably sign yourself up for a steep learning curve, and the experiences that we’ve had in our formative years have been invaluable to the growth of our web design business. We hope to carry on learning, both from our successes and from our mistakes!

We thought that it would helpful to share some of the things that we’ve learnt so far.

If you’re a web design startup or considering setting out in the big bad world of web development, here are a few tips that you might find helpful:

1. Find your Niche

Launching a new company is a very exciting process! In the early months everybody carries a huge sense of expectation, and it’s not hard to keep motivation high. Looking back it probably felt like we were destined to become Exeter’s most successful and high-profile web development agency with 60 staff, an expansive array of world-class website design services and an office complex to rival Google’s.

Instead, we’ve found that it’s impossible to do everything immediately. Whilst it’s true that a startup will benefit from having a team of generalists, it’s better still to find a niche that you can thrive in and do everything that you can to be the best at it! We’ve enjoyed building a portfolio of responsive websites and E-Commerce online retail stores. We’ve also found ourselves gaining considerable expertise in WordPress development.

This information has shaped our business strategy and helps us deliver a high quality of service to our clients. If you’re not sure exactly what it is that you’re good at, we’d encourage you to find out – it might just be the shove in the right direction that your business needs.

2. Developer/Client Relations

Unsurprisingly, most web design startups tend to employ a combination of web designers and web developers. These are the guys and girls who design and develop websites. However, one of our steepest learning curves was in the whole realm of project management and developing a client-facing culture.

In an ideal world designers are given a clear and thorough brief, allowed a designated period of time to dream, design and deliver, and then receive prompt payment from a delighted client. The reality is that it can be really difficult for clients and designers to communicate clearly with one another. We’ve learnt so much about agreeing expectations at the outset of a project, during the development phase and upon completion. It’s made life a lot easier, both for our team and for our clients!

If you’re starting out, recognising the importance of communication and the client relationship cannot be underestimated.

3. There are few Shortcuts

It can be easy to think that the success of your website design company will depend entirely upon the quality of your web development. After all, surely that’s what it’s all about? The reality is that it takes time to build a successful web design agency, not to mention marketing, slowly building your reputation and waiting for those all important bigger projects to come your way.

We would advise any web design startups to be patient, build your business from the bottom up and be prepared to ride out those early lean periods. After all, once your web development agency is established and attracting new clients you won’t have as many opportunities to work on your company. Consider it an opportunity to shape your business culture that you might struggle to find time for in 12 months! Ensure that you keep focused on what’s ahead, plan diligently and don’t be too concerned if there are one or two months when business is a little slower than you might like!

4. Be Idealistic and Pragmatic

A big part of our vision is to provide high quality, affordable web design solutions to local businesses across Exeter and Devon. We love being in the South-West and want to be agents for positive change in the place that we live.

However, we’ve also learnt that to continue doing this in a sustainable way we’ve needed to pull in bigger projects from across the UK (and indeed from North America and Europe). The experience, profile and cash-flow that these website development projects have brought have been invaluable in helping us grow.

We’ve had to pursue a realistic middle ground comprising both idealism and pragmatism; every big commercial web design project that we take on gives us the stability that we need to help more local Exeter businesses…

5. Find Web Designers in your City

Finally, get to know others in your city who are doing the stuff and make sure that you take every opportunity to learn from them! We’re grateful for the likes of @ExeterWeb and @DigPen. These kinds of forums provide a wonderful opportunity to learn and grow together. We’re proud to be part of Exeter’s flourishing web development sector.

WheelieChix is an awesome fashion label offering custom designed clothing specifically tailored for wheel chair women. The wheeliechix brand is clean, lean and highly responsive to seasonal trends, so the company needed an ecommerce solution which could be updated with the minimum of ongoing cost while looking fantastic each quarter.

SwankyApple was selected from a range of ecommerce providers due to our complete service offering and highly creative approach to design. We produced designs, marketing creative and a customised OpenCart based ecommerce solution to create a fast, stable, great looking site which converts visits into buyers and plays well with search engines to allow the site to take advantage of its unique market segment.

Visit: wheeliechix-chic.com

TheClearIdea is a highly unique creative marketing solution for medium to large businesses to promote their goods and services in a clever way. Asus, Mercedes and other large manufacturers use TheClearIdea as a part of their product launches and other promotional campaigns. SwankyApple was tasked with providing a ground-up refresh to the web-presence of the organisation including complete redevelopment of all the sites pages to follow a vivid, engaging new theme designed by the ClearIdea team. Our biggest challenge was maintaining compatibility with early versions of internet explorer while providing an animated, dynamic site navigation experience. This is a great example of what we can produce in a very short time, (we had a three day deadline for the project!) while maintaining excellent quality standards.

Visit: theclearidea.com/

The So Shoot Me photographers wanted a speedy, minimalist website which knew when to get out of the way to let the artwork speak for its self.

We developed a clean and fast interface which acts like flash but is actually pure, table free CSS3. This flash-like dynamics combined with simple, clean CSS3 animations makes the site a wonderful surfing experience when viewed on mobile devices of any format and size.

We also developed a simple but powerful custom back-end to let the many member photographers upload and manage their portfolios in a secure environment with changes instantly published to the site front-end.

Visit: iheartstreetphoto.co.uk/c/

The folks at loafit asked us to start from scratch for this one. Their requirements and site functionality was complex and needed to be presented in far more simple, manageable way. We got on board to bring our unique brand of design and technical knowhow to bare and had soon shaken things up for the better.

Starting with a simple but clear brief we set about developing the site design from scratch. The site mascot, Mr Loaf, was developed to give the site a memorable visual identity which went beyond it’s basic name and function. We then established a clean, multi-hued design which helped differentiate the three main site sections.

In terms of programming, Loafit is a powerhouse of custom designed and built systems. On the front end we developed dynamic listings, user ratings, ranking algorithms and a complex external linking system which tracked and monetised outbound traffic. On the back-end we made all site content open to editors including the creation of pages, ranking management, area colour and header customization, user management, and more.

Visit: weloafit.com/

The gigulate website is designed and developed by John who is Chief Creative Officer at gigulate HQ. The supremely smart spider system which monitors the web for news is developed by Duncan Amey, another of Johns partners in the project. Gigulate is yet another highly complex but utterly digestible site which benefits from Johns experience and gifting in design and user experience development.

The site was designed and developed from scratch to be a place where music fans would come for all their band related news, as of writing this article the site is tracking news for: 9,116 artists, 27,884 gigs and 2,564 venues – all updated in realtime. Give it a try some time!

Visit: gigulate.com/