Hello! This is a good question because it embodies several areas of consideration. I have experience in UXUI not as a designer but as startup founder and QA Consultant for many brands and startups. Not to mention working directly with UXUI designers for the past 10 years or so. If you are get...
I'm glad you described your market a bit. I have not seen a retainer model work in this space, but that's not saying you can't succeed with it. YOU are the expert, so I would not leave it to clients to choose what they want. If you do, you'll get clients who say, "Yeah, I hired them to make me ...
I know Vistaprint has/had a design platform that you can integrate into a larger website. I think it has a monthly fee. Hope that helps! Ken Clark Coach, consultant and therapist to entrepreneurs
You can use a convenient online legal service site such as legal zoom. These online legal services will be able to help you register in any of the 50 states, and you will also be able to file taxes and annual reports through them. The services fees will vary by state. If you are considerin...
I've had a bunch of my own 'maker' / hacker projects publicized. Here's what I suggest: 1) Write up a project and suggest it to Make Magazine (http://makezine.com/) 2) Tell hobby electronic supply shops about it to see if they want to stock it (e.g. https://www.sparkfun.com/ https://www.ada...
See Joan Stewart's website, PublicityHound.com . Joan was a journalist for years and is also a publicist, so her site will help you out a lot. I think she recently put together a pack of media templates you can purchase. If you don't see what you need, email Joan and she'll direct you to what you...
One approach to consider is seeing if you can find a specific project type that you can replicate with many like clients. It's harder to sell 'web design' than a very specific 'great website for homeowners wanting to sell for-sale-by-owner', for example. One of the keys to profitable scale i...
Before I get to your question, let me give you a tip: always aim settle questions of payment before the work happens. It is ten times easier to agree on a price beforehand, and having done that doesn't stop you from changing it by mutual agreement later. The problem with paying cash is pretty ob...
Scaling using freelancers is better (at first) than scaling with employees. Either way, you need to avoid the trap of being a mid-sized consulting company. Here's an article of mine detailing the math behind this trap, and some challenges you'll face, and also a list of ways to combat this trap...
Option 1: Generally when you're first testing out an idea, you want to build a first functional prototype cheaply and quickly. The easiest way to do this would be to use existing tools that facilitate what you want to do. For instance, you could make a web-based version (which you could embed in ...