I’ve decided to launch a Multi-Media web design and hosting company. People have told me for years that I should do so, but I’ve never thought it a viable option. Mostly because I just don’t have the paperwork that you need to impress people. Everything I’ve learned has come to me the hard way, by dissecting web sites and learning on the fly. What I know about PHP I learned from using PHP. What I know about MySQL, HTML and Flash I learned the same way… by using them. Sure, there are gaps in my knowledge, but I know enough about these particular subjects to know where those gaps are.
What really turned me around where web design is concerned was a recent problem with Robin Rogers’ web site. Tony, her husband and an old friend of mine, asked me if I could help figure out why their index page was blank and why some other problems were there. I was glad to help. But in the process it occurred to me that I was fixing problems in an installation that had been in place by someone who had been paid to do so. Basically, I had more knowledge in certain areas than the person who had been paid to put up the web site in the first place.
A musician friend of mine, Doug Schwartz, could probably be credited with giving a reason to pick up this idea and run with it. He pointed out that there are a lot of musicians out there who want good web sites, but have no idea of how to go about it. He think there’s a market for someone to do what I am best at – putting together WordPress based web sites with ReverbNation widget integration, that are easy to maintain by the end users. Hell, my mother uses a web site that I put into place for her, and she has little trouble using it.
So… I’ve decided to use my old Windhaven Network web site to see if I can get something going here. Why not try to make money from what I’m good at?
