Before you even think of getting a website you need to make your business plan.

You need to outline your business mission, you need to make a product list with detailed product descriptions, and you need to give time and thought to your pricing.

Then you need to outline exactly how you will process payments, and deliver your products to your buyers.

Once you know ALL of that – DON’T SKIP ANYTHING – then, start thinking about your website.

The 3 steps to getting online:

1. Pick a name (domain name/site address)
2. Pay for hosting. Get it for 1 year in advance. You can get a hosting package on this site, or you can go with Siteground.
3. Then, hire a designer who knows what they’re doing. That’s me.

I want you to leave GoDaddy & Shopify because I know for a fact they’re bleeding you. Go to Siteground.

You can get a website (domain +hosting+ email +security) FOR LESS.

I’m on Twitter everyday. I talk to would-be startups everyday. So many people don’t know that they don’t have to pay THAT much just to get online.

I don’t have to make your website. You can hire someone else, or even try to do it yourself.

I’ve been making websites for a HOT minute. It should never cost a new start-up/small business $300 a year for hosting. It never has, it never should.

THE MATH NOT MATHING

GoDaddy and Shopify are literally overcharging small businesses for web hosting.

Every single day. Every single week. Imagine if you were making $300 EVEYRDAY on at least 50 people. What?! $15,000 minimum everyday, on websites that very likely (85% chance) won’t even keep the thing up after a year.

And for why?

NONE. ZERO. N A D A of the things they list as “Features” are needed by a new start up.

All you need is a domain, and 10GB of storage.

Almost all of the software you need to start, run, and promote an online store is FREE or veryyyy cheap.

WordPress is FREE software. MailChimp is FREE software. Google Analytics is FREE software. Twitter is FREE software.

YOUR HOSTING SHOULD NOT BE $300+ a YEAR

(Unless you’re in the web design/development business, like me, and YOU ABSOLUTELY need that space, storage, security, and room for growth.)

A baby online store DOES NOT need a lot of space/storage. And security features are standard with most hosting. And the right designer can install them for you in 5 minutes.

You could 100% run your store using PayPal “Buy Now” buttons, and call it a fuckin day.

Either way, you’re gonna pay that 2.9% processing fee + .30 on every purchase because that’s been market standard for credit card processors for maybe ten years.

And I would know because I actually worked sales in midtown Manhattan for a call center that sold credit card processing machines. I have always been hustling and hauling ass BAM (by any means necessary) to get what I needed done with the lowest possible overhead. And learning the maximum amount of useful information along the way.

So if you could use PayPal, or Stripe, or Square, and ALL of them are gonna tack on 2.9% + .30, why would you pay GoDaddy and Shopify ANYTHING? Period.

AGAIN GODADDY + SHOPIFY ARE BLEEDING ONLINE SMALL BIZ

They don’t even give you things you need. They tell you they give you things you’ll love, but you don’t even know how to use those things.

And by the time you get involved, you get burnt out because you’re fighting with their custom website builder software. When all you wanted to do was launch a fuckin blog or store, and upload some products and make some money.

I’ve seen stores/websites launch and then just fall off.

If you don’t have a FLAMING SCHORCHING BURNING PASSION for your project, if you don’t know where you wanna take it, or what to do with it, your website will die. I’ve seen it. The big hosting companies are literally banking on you to get confused and quit.

Listen, let’s get into it. Let’s get you on the good hosting. And on the phone with me. We need to talk about your goals, your product(s), identifying your audience/market, creating a content strategy, tracking your traffic, and keeping your sales moving month after month after month.

Someone needs to take you through it.

IT ME. I’m that someone.

I’ll tell you everything you don’t know, and everything I DO know. And I’ll get done what YOU NEED, in probably 10 days or less.

So, how do you wanna do this?

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