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What To Look For When You Choose A Website From Your New Or Start-up Business

There are many important factors in getting a website that really works for start-ups and over the next few weeks we are going to work through them and bring to bear experience from hundreds of sites and dozens of successful entrepreneurs who have worked with us and we have learned from.

First in the countdown - if you are on a tight budget go for a fixed price contract. Don't write a blank cheque and encouraging slow, inefficient and overly complex work. Insist on seeing what you are going to get right from the beginning. If you have a larger budget you might be willing to experiment.

Work out what you need - a content managed website or an ecommerce shop are most likely. A static html site may be a lot cheaper but will soon be out of date and mark you to your customers as a failure. Later you may need graphic design and web marketing but if you are not a funded start-up travel lightweight and start with the essentials. If you use a company that develops content managed websites or an ecommerce websites using open source code this will be much more flexible if you need something fundamental changed in their future. Although these are 'free' under the GPL don't even dream about doing this yourself no matter how good you are. It takes time and concentration to get a plausible start-up site and if you are not giving it to your core business then you will surely fail!

Remember companies that offer fixed price contracts often have a higher hourly rate that they base their fixed price on, as they are absorbing all the risk of the project over-running. You are also typically paying for more sophisticated planning and project management (and project managers) instead of someone who is just bumbling along.

This makes the use of time far more efficient and increases your chance of success. Thus you end up paying less even in the short run, as well as making more in the longer run as your site is guaranteed to work correctly.