Has This Website Blooper Ever Happened To You?

Part of the reason for starting a resource of the nature was ultimately a culmination of a couple frustrations we’ve had over the years.  The biggest and most painful frustrations came at the outset of our online business ventures.  Back in 2005, we started a business online by the name of BlanketMyBaby.com.  We had received so many nice things from friends and family when my wife had her first baby shower.  The most touching and long lasting of the gifts was a Little Giraffe baby blanket.  The quality of this blanket had exceeded our expectations in so many ways that we were telling our friends about it and just couldn’t stop talking about how wonderful this blanket was.  So we went in search of more of these blankets and could not find one single place where many of the different brands of blankets could be purchased.  We said to ourselves, “wouldn’t it be nice to have one place online that was dedicated to just baby blankets”.   And so BlanketMyBaby.com was born.

Back in 2005 we had never heard about many of the different ways of creating websites.  Blogs at this time were definitely mainstream but we had known nothing of their existence and how to set one up.  We had done some searching for a bit and set our sites on the the use of website templates.  I knew nothing about html or Dreamweaver and I couldn’t fathom having to wait 2-3 months before getting our new “foolproof” idea up and running.    So, we did what many did back then and found a couple “website designers”.  The first designer was given the simple task of taking one particular website template design, tweaking it and implementing a back-end for a shopping cart.  What we got was a gobbled up mess of a site that didn’t function properly and looked extremely hideous.  That particular failure set us back about $500. Needless to say we immediately severed that transaction before we dug ourselves in deeper.

As you would expect we did not learn our lesson there.  From there we figured that we wouldn’t mess around. We would rather go straight to a known professional.  The person we chose came on recommendation from another website owner.  The new designer was in-fact more knowledgeable and did a much better job at delivering on what our vision was for the site.  Although it wasn’t 100% what we had dreamed of, it was a start.  When the site launched we had a complete and uniquely designed front end with unique content.  We also had a fully functional back-end that did what it was designed to do.  So how much did this site end up costing us?  $2500 dollars.  I say again, $2500 dollars.  Now I know some businesses spend 10 times and even 100 times as much getting businesses off the ground, but for a couple of optimistic newbies who had never stepped foot in the business world before, $2500 dollars was a significant amount.

We all know that hind-sight is 20/20, and my 20/20 vision today tells me that this was probably one of the most damaging financial blows we experienced while the business was going.  I know we could have done so much better in finding a more cost effective alternative online at that time, had we known of its existence.  With the internet being so massive and so adaptive, it is hard to know where to turn and what to do at any given time.  There could be the “God’s Grail” to your business online but if you don’t know how to find it then that could mean sudden death to your business.  This is an issue we have come across many times in our online journey to become successful online business owners.

Today, there are so many free resources online for building websites and blogs that any business owner could get a site off the ground with minimal financial outlay and time.  Sites and services like Wordpress, Blogger, Drupal, Wix & Weebly all have tremendous ability in allowing users to create fully functional websites and blogs.  Gone are the days of having to know complex HTML and having to hire web designers to build a fully functioning site.  Everything is laid out in easy to understand tutorials.  Start off with a template that you like and customize it to your liking with the editing tools that each programs offers.  So, if your new to the online business world and are looking for a cost effective alternative to hiring a high-priced web designer, take a look into a couple of the above mentioned site builders and you might just find that “Holy Grail” for your business start-up.

BlanketMyBaby.com Update

A couple years after shutting the doors to the business we found out that someone had acquired the abandoned domain name and started up the same business.  Same idea, same name, yet different owners and I’m sure, less expensive start-up costs.  What they’ve done with the site is amazing and all-in-all I wish them all the success in the world.

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