Starting a Web Design Company as a Teenager

BY Aaron Jan. 31, 2011 39 Comments

If you have good judgment when it comes to fashion or colors, web design may be a great career choice for you. Why not start early and explore this lucrative field? Web designers create designs that are clean, effective, and visually appealing. The vast majority of transactions in this field are done online, so it’s an easy way to make some money if your young. Self employment is also a nice bonus.

Young web designer

Get some references

You can’t simply throw you’re service out to the world and charge hundreds of dollars. When you show them your empty portfolio, people will look the other way. Customers need evidence that you’re not just a fluke. Design a couple websites for ultra-cheap or free to get some references and build up your portfolio. Don’t worry, eventually once you have built a reputation you can start really charging your clients.

Have a website

You can’t be a web designer without a website! That’s like a chef without a restaurant. This should be your first and last project. Don’t be satisfied with your website’s design, always seek to improve it as your skills exponentially increase.

Keep client information on record

Whenever you have a client, you need to do two major things before you walk away with your payment:

Take their contact information, you never know when you’ll need to contact them.
Write down their FTP and database information, you may have to make changes later.

Be firm

Don’t let anyone push you around. You’re the professional, and your opinion is vital. Even if your customer is asking you to change everything, it’s not always 100% true that the customer is always right. Let them know that you have experience, and know what works, and what doesn’t. But don’t ignore their suggestions; they might be good, so stay open minded.

Age is not important

Web design is one of those wonderful fields where customer and professional rarely meet. In most cases, they don’t meet at all. For this reason, I strongly suggest that you don’t reveal your age unless asked. I’m not telling you to lie, but there’s no reason to tell them if they don’t ask. People have this predefined notion that teenagers are inexperienced at a lot of things. Don’t let this drive away your customers.

Have you thought about web design?

Making Money, Online Business

entrepreneur, starting a company

http://maddencorner.com A. Tatum

Sounds good, offering any stock options lol.

http://aaronnech.blogspot.com Aaron

Haha, maybe!

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http://plrarticlesnow.com Murlu

I’ve seen some ridiculously amazing web designers that are extremely young – like 12 and 13.

When you have a ton of free time on your hands and want to learn something at that age – you dive right in and don’t have to worry about anything – that’s the time to do it!

http://aaronnech.blogspot.com Aaron

That’s right. And it doesn’t really cost much, hosting is so cheap now. You can get a very nice server and hosting for somewhere around 5$/month. And even then, blogs can be hosted for free in some places like blogger.

http://www.megabizflakes.com Samuel

Keeping record of your clients will help convince new customers and make them patronize you. Owning a website is a must. Thanks for sharing.

http://aaronnech.blogspot.com Aaron

Yeah it always helps to have a portfolio regardless of your age. You have to show them that your abilities are proven, and that you know what your doing!

http://www.sperkinsblog.com Stephen Perkins

Great post Aaron. Website design was the first business I ever did and I wouldn’t say I was very successful, mainly because I was a beginner to business.

Anyway, starting a website design company is a great way for people to get acquainted with the internet and things like SEO.

Thanks for contributing!
http://Www.foursides.ca James M

Back when I was 13, the Internet was barely in existence. Web design was a good five years away. I really wish I was growing up now and had all these opportunities available to me. I wonder if there is more money to be made designing WordPress themes to sell or offering web design services.

http://www.aaronnech.blogspot.com Aaron

I wonder the same thing. If you figure something out, shoot me a mail or something!

http://www.omnificdesign.com.au/ Graphic Design Melbourne

It is very refreshing to see youngsters start out early as web designers. I am a firm believer in teenagers looking out to better themselves and what better way to do that than to start a business that uses their creative skills. So, good job here, Aaron! Keep up it up

- Wes -

http://www.aaronnech.blogspot.com Aaron

Thanks!

William Tha Great

Hey Aaron,

Thanks for the awesome post!

I don’t know about about the wed design part, but I know that teenagers rule the world! Haha, well at least for now I plan too! ( :
Age is never a factor you just have to show you are wise beyond your years. You have to prove yourself then you can start building your authority.

Thanks again!

God bless,
William Veasley

http://www.aaronnech.blogspot.com Aaron

Why not web design? We grew up with the web. We are “inside” what’s popular, and know what may possibly be popular. And we’re a very tech-savy generation.

Thanks for the comment!

http://www.simcoe.co.uk Peter Simcoe

Aaron, I think you’ve raised an interesting point with your article and I have no doubt that there are talented young designers in their teenage years – however, experience is a key factor in success and being “wise beyond your years” as William put it is very, very rare because we are typically as wise as our experience allows. The good thing about starting young is that the pressure on success is reduced – if you have a family to look after and a mortgage to pay then that is a different ball game! So, my advice would be not so much start when you are a teenager but get as much experience of designing for companies as you can in the early years and START YOUR OWN COMPANY WHEN YOUR FINANCIAL PRESSURE IS LOW [ie low rent / shared house / no kids / no wife [or husband!]]

http://aaronnech.blogspot.com Aaron

I agree; you may not be making big money when your a teenager, but it’s an excellent time to build a portfolio and experience. That’s what I’m aiming for right now. I have little-to-no financial pressure except for my own necessities(such as college in high school credits.) I don’t have to worry about mortgages, internet bills, and so on.

In this respect I’m infinity lucky. I can create websites with free tools, and my own knowledge gained from the internet and library. There’s no start up cost except hosting, which is cheap.

That being said, asking for a mediocre amount of money compared to professionals isn’t out of the questions once you have a portfolio. If you ask for a professional price they will expect professional talent.

Check out my web design “company” for example: http://www.snosites.com

http://www.dennisedell.com/ Dennis Edell@ Direct Sales Marketing

Great tips Aaron and honestly good for any service type business at any age.

http://aaronnech.blogspot.com Aaron

Thank you!

http://www.scales4industry.co.uk/ Tina @Weighing Scales

I believe anyone with good skills in computing / software can be an owner of a web design company. But it also depends on whether they could juggle around up to 10 client’s per week / month. Check out http://www.sprike.co.uk/ their owner I know him very well, he started at the age of 13 with designing and developing. He is on the first page for the keyword “Marketing Company in Birmingham” – If a teenager wants to be in this positions, then he/she will need to be doing studies and finding out different strategies to how they could promote themselves better then their competitors.

http://www.aaronnech.blogspot.com/ Aaron

I agree. If you have the skills, and you possess the maturity; age shouldn’t matter.

http://kuzmanov.info Kuzmanov

Great post, thanks for sharing Aaron! I’m making money with Web Designing, WordPress & Web Development since I was 13 years old, now I’m 18. There are a lot of teenagers who are great at web designing and stuff like that, so the years are not a factor. You just need to be passionate about your job, that’s the key to success.

http://www.aaronnech.blogspot.com/ Aaron

True. Almost all the success stories I’ve found weren’t in it for the money; they became involved with something they enjoy, the reward was just a very nice bonus.

webdesignsarena

Great tips Aaron and honestly good for any service type business at any age.

http://www.aaronnech.blogspot.com Aaron

Yeah. I even learned recently that in Washington State, you can earn up to 12,000$ before you even have to pay taxes or start a business (offering services)

http://www.indiabucket.com/ Rakesh Kumar

Yes I have website and always try to improve its design. Great tips, Thanks Aaron.

http://www.aaronnech.blogspot.com Aaron

Yeah, it’s a continuing process. For example, I just sold my main web design service website(snosites.com) and now I moved everything to aaronnech.com I changed the design a bit and now I’m integrating my blog and restructuring everything.

http://5dollarbaby.com/ Navya

Well said Aaron!!
Age is not at all a criteria that is to be considered as you said!Web Designing is really a Rocking Career to choose.If you have enough awareness, zeal and dedication followed by hardwork and out of box thinking then you will definitely ROCK!!Designing always need Innovative thoughts..

Thank You
Navya

http://www.aaronnech.blogspot.com Aaron

Age shouldn’t be an issue, and it isn’t for me(so far). Your right, it’s all about innovation. People get rich off simple ideas. I have a few good ideas of my own. I’ve tried several things, and they’ve failed. But the glory of it is it doesn’t cost much at all to set up a website. So even if one idea fails, it was worth the investment to try!

http://www.irelandsfarmcottages.com karen@ Holiday Cottages Warwickshire

This is a really great thing to if you enjoy art and working with computers. If you have a good portfolio or even a good quality one or 2 websites then building your own web design company is a great idea,

http://www.aaronnech.blogspot.com Aaron

Portfolios are important, they have to know you are good at what you do!

nick andrew

uhm,Hey Aaron,im 14 i need your help…..

http://www.aaronnech.blogspot.com Aaron

Hey Nick, feel free to contact me.. my contact info is on my blog.
http://www.techshores.webs.com samuel aboki

learning a web design young is kind of fun, but making it a career is even a better fun. This is the order in which to learn website design languages. start by learning html or xhtml, css, javascript, php and mysql. this if put to good use will go a long way to making your career a reality. Techshores@gmail

http://beginwebsite.com/ Begin Website

Nice article written with good tips on being a webmaster irrespective of the age bracket…I guess, experience in this stream of web development counts a lot, as we see a lot many web firms spending few bucks for their promotion while practically do nothing in terms of understanding SEO factors and design simplicity…A good idea would rather be using the Web knowledge along with the skills and expertise. Learn while you develop, and let your customers learn from the content that you provide on your development site, say tutorials on PHP, HTML, SQL, and others.
SUPERB WEBSITE DESIGN

Age is not at all a criteria that is to be considered as you said!Web Designing is really a Rocking Career to choose.If you have enough awareness, zeal and dedication followed by hardwork and out of box thinking then you will definitely ROCK!!Designing always need Innovative thoughts..
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superb website design

learning a web design young is kind of fun, but making it a career is even a better fun. This is the order in which to learn website design languages. start by learning html or xhtml, css, javascript, php and mysql. this if put to good use will go a long way to making your career a reality.
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This is a really great thing to if you enjoy art and working with computers. If you have a good portfolio or even a good quality one or 2 websites then building your own web design company is a great idea,
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