pjrvs — the blog of paul jarvis

why i killed jarviswp

i’ve removed the jarviswp website, and will not be taking on any new clients for the service. i will, however, continue to host/manage/backup all existing clients, and do the projects i’ve already promised that i’d do.

what was jarviswp (for those who never saw or used the service)? basically it was a much cheaper version of my design/programming services that was based on a wordpress framework i created, so i could (in theory) create and launch sites quickly, for a lot less than the typical budget i work with – as it only included 5 hours of customization. and each site was hosted on a server i built and included updates, backups, maintenance, and monitoring.

jarviswp was doing well, making money, and had a 2 month waiting list when i decided to stop doing it. so why kill something that’s profitable? because it wasn’t measuring up to my definition of success.

the impetus for creating the service was so i could create sites for solopreneurs who otherwise couldn’t afford my custom services. and this happened, and that aspect of things was actually pretty fun, since i got to create some pretty awesome websites for some pretty awesome people.

what wasn’t working (for me) was that i’m a perfectionist. i can’t just spend 5 hours doing design and customizations for clients, since i want every site to be perfect. so exactly zero sites had under 5 hours of my time... and most had more like 20-30. so there’s no point in offering that as a service, since my company already offers custom design and programming for wordpress sites – and also has a month or two waiting list at all times.

the decision didn’t come down to just money though – it came down to the fact that i’d rather be doing projects that are fully custom... much more than doing a productized version of that. i tried to productize my creativity and it wasn’t working for me. the service i offer through twothirty is what really makes me happy – since it allows me to creatively explore the best solution for each person or company.

so, jarviswp is going to become a managed hosting platform for existing clients and new twothirty clients (and stay exclusive to those groups), since i’m quite proud of how that’s built and think it offers great value, past cheap shared hosting plans. but as far as designing and building websites go, it’s back to being 100% through twothirty.

thanks for the ride,
paul

#business / permalink