good morning! i'm normally a super morning person, but today...today was hard for whatever reason. but...i'm here. i'm here to tell you a very brief story about how i got royally screwed by someone online.

months and months and months ago (like a year ago) i was searching and searching online for a web developer. as you know, i was starting up my tiny, little online business and i really wanted to do it right...but do it right on a tight budget. i figured if i had a nice online space to guide people to, business would come.

i eventually found someone one etsy. i looked at her goods, perused her website, and combed through her pricing list. she would be great. i went for it. i bought the web development package and got started.

i'll admit...i wasn't the fastest on my end. i have a lot going on. but i got her the necessary information and we started the process.

we worked through this and that and the other and as the process went on...a dreaded feeling continued to overwhelm me. i just knew something wasn't right about this "developer." the stuff she was sending me was terribly elementary. i was having to do a lot of the design work myself because anything she was creating was just...just no.

i went back to her etsy shop and started combing through reviews. in my horror i realized people had experienced exactly what i was dealing with. poor communication. untimeliness. and the worst part...i realized i had never seen a picture of her and she NEVER used her name. was this girl even a girl? i had just assumed the entire time.

i started getting a little scared - scared because i had a feeling i was going to lose all that money i had invested. i had a feeling the end result of my website was going to be a disaster. i had a feeling this person was claiming to be able to do something that she wasn't going to be able to deliver on. and i was right...

let me back up by saying - i had a part in why my website ended up being a disaster.

when this person sent me my designs i realized - these are not designs at all. these are juvenile. i paid good money for this. so i scrambled. i panicked and slapped something together thinking...oh...i'll learn the ins and outs of coding wordpress later. i'll fix anything she does that i don't like.

fast forward to ONE YEAR LATER (people...developing a website should take about 10 weeks - max) and she basically just disappeared. she never finalized my site. she never fixed things i had been asking her to fix eight months prior. she just...disappeared.

her etsy shop is gone. her website is gone.

i was so disappointed in the final result i couldn't even handle sharing it.

what did i learn?

as a small online business owner i learned a few valuable lessons.

lesson #1 - when people purchase a service from you...THEY ARE TRUSTING YOU.

lesson #2 - be nice to your customers. tell them yes. yes, i can do that. yes, i'm happy to make that change for you. yes, you paid me good money and i'm happy to revise that for you.

lesson #3 - do your research. from the customer side - you're taking a risk if you go the budget route. there's a reason pricing varies amongst services. some people really know what they are doing or have a team in place that will get the job done...some people think they can fake it until they make it.

in the end...i jumped on squarespace and put together my own website. i'm almost happy with it, but still have my portfolio page to finish and a few other coding snags to work through. oh...and i need to transfer my domain because i'm officially saying so long to wordpress.

buh bye wordpress. my mama don't like you either.

and that's that. back to the grind and back to more coffee.