Business on the Up and Up

[pheck]

Well since this is the business forum of FK, I thought I'd start a thread on business picking up. I've noticed it in the past several months, and have decided it's a reflection of economic improvement. Have other developers and designers noticed this too? If so, do you think it will last? For the first time in a couple of years, I have been able to increase our rates. And I've also been able to be more selective about the projects we take on and the people we work with, which has been a real benefit. Any other stories out there?

[SubwayDesigns]

Yes! Business hit a real low laast autumn, but now I've got projects lined up...

[jaybirch]

definatly. i've never had so many offers of design work, lets hope the good times continue

[argonauta]

it must be the moon or the starts lining up. It's weird. The economic situation here in Ecuador is not too good, and it seems our president is going to quit soon, which brings a lot of inestability. However i'm loaded with work, sleeping everyday at 3 am. And yes, work keeps growing and growing.

Kinda weird.

[Loyal Rogue]

Same here.
We are getting so much work we are looking to sub out a few jobs at this point.
Let's hope this isn't a temporary situation.
In a couple of month's I may have to rely 100% on our design business when my contract comes up in my fulltime position.

[MikeInkJunior]

yes, same here, I have been starting to refuse projects, or asked them to call us back in 8 months time..Last year business wasn't even worth doing it in a company name, now we've established a company and it has really helped us out.

It has gotten to the point where we have contracted out work to 4 designers and someone to translate our work for us. We anticipate hiring people full time starting in March so we can produce more sites monthly.

[Apocalypse44]

I've even been overwhelmed with local requests! And I haven't even established my web presence yet... did one job for my aunt and word-of-mouth has proved to be quite effective! No shortage of jobs as of yet, so I haven't even bothered to get my site up ... I'm lined up all summer, so it's looking good!

[pastthepresent]

Yeah, business is really going strong now. Picking up a lot of large corporate clients which will hopefully lead to even larger corporate clients.

It has taken three years to get it to grow this much and has been hard balancing 40-50 hours of work a week with a full college load. Plus, a lot of those hours were unpaid at times but it is finally paying off.

I just hope we can get through the summer without any terrorist incidents and the economy can continue to grow. Best of luck to all.

[nordberg]

i'm not in the same boat as most of you, as i no longer freelance that much. but we are selling online products (elearning) this year more than ever, and it is probably a result of everything getting better economically for our clients. training is always the first thing cut in any budget, so when you see a spike in revenue, you know something good is happening.

i still think there will be huge boom for all of us content creators in the near future. everytime they create a gadget with a screen and a speaker, someone will need to fill it up with content.

long live the pixel!

[aversion]

No complaints.

Things are up 400% on 02/03 here and we're on the cusp of signing our first 6 figure project contract.