Keeping Costs Low
Here are the top 5 ways to reduce costs
1. Freelancer vs Agency
Agencies normally charge clients 3x - 3.5x the amount of money that it actually costs to build a site. This increase covers the cost of multiple layers of management. Normally you talk to a sales rep who sells you on the company, then you have a project manager, then you have the people who do the actual work. Also there are still multiple layers of middle and upper management.
You can cut out all those costs by working with a freelancer
2. Use AI tools to create mockups
There are AI coding tools for beginners like Lovable, Bolt, and Replit that let non-technical people create mockups of what they want. You can type your ideas in plain English and see what they look like. This lets you iterate quickly.
When you have something you like I can replicate it with real code
3. Start with a minimum viable product (MVP)
Most people envision a robust software product with lots of features to address every use case. I can do that but it will cost more. The best practice is to identify the core features needed to test out your idea and see if it catches on with users. We can always build more features after getting market validation.
4. Use existing platforms and tools
Don't reinvent the wheel. Use WordPress for blogs, Shopify for e-commerce, Stripe for payments etc. Also use open source component libraries like shadcn for common features like date pickers, tables, or carousels.
5. Build for maintainability, not complexity
I use popular tools that are battle tested across 100K+ websites. There is no good reason to use new experimental tools or highly complex tools when creating software applications for small to medium businesses.