Wide-sweeping statement: The Irish web industry is a joke. Our British and American cousins set trends and embrace emerging technologies, we celebrate corner-cutting, standards-dodging con-artists and complain when Irish businesses look elsewhere for better service.
Smarter statement: The Irish web industry is small. Those with the biggest PR budgets set the tone of the industry and sell to those that don’t know better, obscuring the few but very talented and passionate people amongst us.
Jan Blanchard wrote recently about looking for someone to develop his new service, Touristr. He described two very different types of people in the industry:
The first one is the old school (often large and successful firms with crappy websites) who sent over 10 pages proposals and insane quotes. The second type are freelancers with good ideas and reasonable prices.
But I think the biggest difficulty for someone like Jan (no development background) working with freelancers is project management. Outsourcing work to geographically distributed groups of people makes managing their work a really tough job. Jan chose an American company in the end and they’re doing some great work for him. And he’s not alone; many of the Irish web apps being developed at the moment (that I’m familiar with) are outsourcing some or all of the work abroad.
But with a little effort and organization, us freelancers can give Irish web entrepreneurs a real, Irish choice. I agree with Jan in that I think an opportunity exists for small groups of developers, experts in their fields, to “develop projects at a fair price from start to end in a short time”. I’m going to build one of these groups and aspire to make it the first port of call for Irish entrepreneurs developing modern web applications. Hence the corny post title.
I’m looking for a shit-hot web developer to join me to form this group. You need to be Irish based, modern-thinking, au fait with web standards and recent trends in web development and extremely passionate about making amazing looking and working web applications. Oh, and I think I want to work with a Ruby on Rails developer. You wouldn’t be working for me, I wouldn’t be profiting from your work and everything you do will go right into your portfolio. It would be an equal partnership except I’d handle all the tough stuff like promoting us and answering enquiries. If this sounds good to you, please get in touch.
Also, if you’re developing (or planning to develop) a web app at the moment, I’d sincerely appreciate your thoughts on what people like you need from developers.
30 Comments
Hey Eoghan, great post, personally there’s enough work to go around for all of us webbies :) Also you should consider Jan’s blog post (blog.touristr.com) about cheaply launching an app. He mentions something about a gov’t grant that refunds him 50% of his expenses. I wish we had something like that in the US!!! Good luck in your group adventure!
Great post Eoghan.
I’m delighted that you’ve put this plan together, it sounds excellent.
I think we need to starting calling out the cowboy firms who produce substandard (and non-standard) work for ridiculous prices. A friend of mine was 9/10ths of the way toward paying €16,000 for his “very own” wordpress install on his own website. As in literally €16,000 for someone to set up wordpress on a webserver and call it a website. Luckily he mentioned it to me, and I intercepted him. (I only charged him €15,000 :) )
The old poker phrase always haunts me at times like these “It’s immoral to let a sucker keep his money”. What the cowboys don’t realise is that the work will dry up as a result of them damaging the reputation of Irish web design/development.
€15,000 for a word press blog? seriously?
Well no , I didn’t charge him anything for setting it up.
But the other crowd basically outlined costs along these lines
1) Consultations (3) - 1,000
2) Software Development and Installation - 7,000
3) Design - 3,000
4) Purchase of hosting and domain name 1,000
5) 3 years maintenance 3,000
They were billing it as custom software developed to meet your needs, complete with your own administrative interface for site management.
And of course to a guy who doesn’t “do” computers that all sounded reasonable.
Thats why I like it when designers list prices on their sites. It helps educate clients to be a bit more frugal and selective.
I like the post, in some regards the Irish industry is a bit of a joke.
However, one of the things one tends to forget is that someone who creates mediocre websites for average prices is making a living. (I’m not referring to you here) By directly commenting on them on blogs/forums a person can actually be endangering a person’s livelihood. This is just something to keep in mind.
Then again there have been many “X from hell” shows like “Builders from hell” where they exposed cowboys so maybe this is the tipping point.
Allan: Hi! Thanks for dropping by. There is lots and lots of work going around but not too much for quality projects like Touristr. You’re one of the lucky few.
David: Hi! Thanks for the comment. I wouldn’t knock anyone for making mediocre sites for average prices. It’s the guys making mediocre sites for extortionate prices (again and again) that I think need to be called out. But apart from that, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. I wouldn’t like to endanger anyone’s livelihood, but if a few stray blog posts can do that to someone, maybe they need to pick a different career!
That’s a disgrace - to think a “professional” web company would even contemplate ripping someone off to such an extent. Eoghan - I think the idea that a irish team of genuine webheads can be assembled to undertake some of the contracts floating about is a genuinely good idea.
Regarding the whole Comhaltas debate I dont find it suprising Cog won the contract, given the money grabbing approach of some “local” webhouses. However I think the design itself is somewhat lacklustre (as is their recent AIGA rejig) - and couldnt be much better than what one of the more savvy design-focused dublin companies would’ve produced. Happy Cogs sacred cow status is questionable - there are numerous international web design firms whose work blows Cog’s output out of the water - having said that zeldmans contribution to bringing the web to where it is today regarding standards etc. is second to none.
We also choose a US company for hosting our service. Although it rails based that was not a factor.
The main reason for our choice was our sales enquires went unresponded to. It made us question the resources available should we have serious support issue when live.
You’re making some interesting points in your post. We’re the oldest web development company in Ireland and would very much run counter to your characterisations. In fact you could consider what we do as ‘the third option’ in your list - an interdisciplinary team who provide value for money, a high standard of customer service, and technical strength in depth.
I welcome your idea of a loose consortium of high-quality practitioners, and in other circumstances I would be talking to you about hooking up.
I think, however, that you might be underestimating the importance and effort involved in providing accountability,continuity, quality control and customer service in this business.
Our experience over 12 years tells us that this is more than a full-time job and is actually the key factor in successful delivery of any but the most trivial projects.
We are constantly fostering relationships with partners in closely related and overlapping fields, simply because our partners are better than us in their own field, and, once we’ve worked together a few times, we can trust them to reflect the level of professionalism, honesty and quality of service that we offer to our other partners and clients.
So in a way, your idea is already taking shape in clusters of interdependent companies and individuals from web development, graphic design, communications, branding, web marketing, IT, and others.
We’re not really a “web app” company these days (although ALL of the current work we’re doing is web app based as we gotta pay the bills somehow!) but I’d like to know more about what you really intend. Infurious was started along the same lines - some developers (2 on staff right now) and some admin people (one “vision” person and one “wages” person) with the intent on just making some cool software. Biggest issue we have right now is lots of projects!
Hi Fergal,
Thanks for your comments. I didn’t know you guys are the oldest web dev company in Ireland. Cool!
I don’t think I’m underestimating those values. I think many in our industry do. I believe it’s an essential part of the process and I don’t believe, like many, that our work is finished when a site goes live. However, I know from working with modern web entrepreneurs that their needs are unique. Most of these guys are trying to get a basic product together to either raise funding for full development or test the waters with it to assess viability. These people need efficient implementers, not full service providers. But apart from this, I honestly believe freelancers can provide great “accountability, continuity, quality control and customer service”. When you call my phone number, you get me, not a secretary, a salesperson or a project manager (customer service). Unlike a company that can cease to exist at will, I exist until I die (accountability, continuity). And I’m solely responsible for the quality of my work (quality control).
What do you think?
I think that it’s naive to think that individuals are any more accountable or trustworthy than a company. Companies are not monolithic entities, they’re made up of people. There are reasons to have secretaries, salespersons and customer service people. It might be because you’re a developer and you need to code rather than do tech support. It might be because you have to actually SELL your product. It might be because there’s a lot of data entry or scheduling work that would be a waste of developer skills. Even as a freelancer you need to consider insurances and other liabilities. Some projects are too big to be efficiently managed by one person or even among a team of freelancers.
Let’s play a game and pick some numbers out of the air. You can work out your own ratios here. When I call you I might have a 70% chance of getting you. If I do get you, I might have a 85% chance of disturbing you when you’re right in the middle of something else and a 15% chance of getting you when your workload is clear and you’re not thinking of something else. There’s a reason to have other people. Otherwise….why do you need TWO people in this Development A-Team? Why does a developer need you to promote and answer queries?
Hi mj,
Really glad to hear your biggest issue is too many projects. That’s a great problem to have.
Thanks for your comments. But I think you’re getting me all wrong, to be honest. I must not be explaining myself very well. I’m not for a second saying that people don’t need secretaries, project managers or other staff. That would indeed be naive. (In fact, I’ve someone lined-up to work for me from April!) I’m not claiming that “individuals are any more accountable or trustworthy than a company” either. What I am saying is that there are real benefits to working with freelancers and that I think a lot of people overlook them.
Your figures and rationale above make sense. But as a freelancer, I do a lot less business than a company and so take a lot less calls. I can run a very profitable business with only a very small amount of clients. It’s working extremely well for me and I’m only in the freelancing game full-time since June. If I can do it, enjoy it, make a great living from it and all all my own, then there’s definitely nothing stopping others doing it.
“Why does a developer need you to promote and answer queries?” They don’t. That’s not the idea. I’m trying to find another freelancer, a really talented developer, to hook-up with and sell our services together, as a package. And judging my the dozen or so e-mails I got from some amazing developers, the vision’s not lost on them. All will become clear shortly.
Thanks again for your feedback.
Pardon, Eoghan, but you did cast a slur on “companies” with:
“Unlike a company that can cease to exist at will, I exist until I die (accountability, continuity).
And I’m solely responsible for the quality of my work (quality control).”
The real advantages of working with freelancers/contractors for a “company” is that both of you get a lot more “buck for bang” due to not having to pay as much in the area of National Insurance Contributions and Income Tax (in the North anyway). We have a company and employees because we have service levels to maintain, we have to provide people with stable jobs because of rent and other responsibilities. Not everyone is cut out to be a freelancer. We need to have staff available when people take holidays. We can’t afford to available 70% of the time. We can’t afford to have the creatives/developers disturbed just to answer phone calls (especially sales calls from the big mail order houses).
I’m not surprised that you have developers banging on the door. My own experience with freelancers was mixed. We’ve had good guys, we’ve had bad guys. Companies have at least two people who are accountable and they’re a lot more traceable. No-one can disappear as easy as a freelancer.
Im not saying it’s a bad idea. I’m just thinking that the reasons given are very “anti” company and I think that’s wrong.
Hey mj. I didn’t mean to be “anti-company”. I will be one myself pretty soon! I still think you’re not understanding me and that may be my fault.
And I’m sorry you took that as a slur against companies. Wonder what I should think of your slur against freelancers?
“No-one can disappear as easy as a freelancer.”
The background to this idea is not “companies are bad”. That’s silly. It’s that bad companies are bad and there are too many of them in our industry.
Yes, bad companies are bad. Bad freelancers are bad too. And still, no-one can disappear as easily as a freelancer. :) Do I sound bitter?
Yes. :)
I’m about to disappear (easily) for the night now. If you’re in Dublin any time soon, give me a shout and we’ll have a good argument about this over coffee.
Might just do that…
16,000 for a wordpress customization and install is a disgrace.
You need to name and shame that company.
Eoghain, I think you’ve been once again overdosing on the Carson Systems/37 Signals kool aid.
I take offence when someone makes a sweeping generalisation about the web industry in Ireland, specifically the ‘big boys’. Whatever you make think of the companies themselves, it’s grossly unfair to tar the individuals working therein with the same brush. And yes, I happen to work for one.
There are two principal reasons why Ireland may lag behind in the use of ‘cutting edge’ technologies or paradigms:
1) The client base for larger sites is mostly corporate and conservative.
2) Budgets are fixed by marketing and they make the decisions. They also happen to be precisely the wrong people to be in charge of anything other than tieing their own shoelaces.
The CCE horse has been beaten to death at this stage, but it’s worth pointing out that Happy Cog /weren’t/ in fact the cheapest quote for the upfront build (source: Creative Ireland thread). It was the ongoing costs such as infrastructure where Irish companies fell down. I happen to think that the CCE site is pretty poor to be honest and I can name 5 Irish companies off the top of my head who would have done a better job.
So let’s discount CCE as a case in point, shall we?
Futher, bootstrapping Irish web2.0 companies are obviously motivated to get as much as possible for the least amount possible. So what if Touristr were quoted higher prices here than in, say, Bangalore? Let me pause for a moment while I shed a tear for them.
By the by, you want a shit hot developer? Then don’t tell prospective developers what the solution is in advance of defining the problem. Let them use their experience to make any decision regarding technology stacks. We can all watch the latest weblog-in-17-nanoseconds video of the week by DHH, but that doesn’t mean we’re in a qualified position to make calls on strategic development issues.
Christ, but the Rails fascists are annoying. You would think that the web was on teletext before they came along.
Derek, I’d have to go with Eoghan’s view here; While it is a sweeping statement to claim the Irish industry is a joke, it is close enough to the truth that Eoghan is justified in saying it to try and promote discussion on improvement and “reform” of the Irish web industry.
Honestly, there is little argument against the quest to raise the Irish web “bar” a bit higher, and to weed out the cowboys. In the long run the cream-of-the-crop designers and developers will come out on top.
That is not to say that Eoghan, as the instigator, or any supporters are somehow superior. Rather, it must be a collective effort for each entity working in the industry to come up to standards, and up to expectations.
There is alot of mistrust (and misunderstaing?) among potential clients because of blatant rip-offs. CEOs here of the nightmare development/design stories of 10s of thousands of euro disappearing into websites, concepts and identity work and they got scared of “us”.
And for the record, “fascist” shouldn’t be thrown around as the latest Intellectual 2.0 word.
@David: I was advocating standards-based design back in web1.0 when companies like Labyrinth (the archtypical 300lb Irish web gorilla) were serving ‘best viewed with Internet Explorer’ to Mozilla and Opera users.
Believe me, things /have/ changed for the better since then. I do still see a lot of substandard work around but it tends to be mostly from the bit-players of the industry.
In terms of design, great work is being done here by Newmedia, Front, and Metronet to name just three. In terms of development it’s obviously a little harder to point to up front but there is good work being done.
Hi Derek. Thanks for your comments.
I don’t drink the Carson Kool-Aid too often, but I like the 37signals stuff!
“Sweeping generalisations” will always hurt. That’s why I followed with my “smarter statement”. But if Newmedia is the stand-up firm I presume it to be, you should have no reason to take offence. However, if you believe all is well in our industry, then you’re on the Kool-Aid too, my friend.
Could you explain a little better your “principal reasons” why Ireland lags behind? I don’t understand how those points are unique to us. I think the reasons we are behind in this industry are long-standing social, economic and cultural ones. And it would take a much greater man than me to describe them. But the reasons aren’t important. What’s important is that we recognise we have a problem and do something about it!
The Comhaltas issue has hardly been “beaten to death”. I think it has started some healthy discussion and I think great things will come from it (the new development group being one of them). You seem to be focused on price; price is not the issue. Value for money is. That’s why Happy Cog were chosen.
You’re making a massive assumption about my preference for modern development technologies like Rails. I come from a computer science background and have developed with most used web technologies out there. Rails is the technology of choice for some of the most innovative and skilled developers in this country and they’re the guys I want to work with (and luckily, they want to work with me too).
/over-zealous use of the post button
Just simply stating that Irish web companies are overcharging and underdelivering is - while entertainly provocative - pretty much a pointless exercise without backing it up with specifics.
I’ve worked on numerous EUR 20,000 - 50,000 websites and can tell you that in all cases when the hours were added up the clients were /under/charged.
I think that, to a degree, we’re held back because Northern Irish companies are run by one of two kinds of people. People who don’t know how much a web site costs (and therefore get fleeced) and people who woudn’t pay more than 200 quid for a web site nomatter how much effort went into it.
@Eoghan: first off, my comments are my own and I’m speaking as an individual, not as a representative of Newmedia. All slagging regarding Newmedia’s site will be ignored. :)
It’s probably useful to put some context on this discussion. So let’s ignore the five page brochureware project for the local butcher. Let’s talk about projects in the region of EUR 10,000+.
Such projects are typically for corporate clients. My experience is that in Ireland corporate clients are incredibly cautious, conservative and well, behind the curve. Further, the key decision makers invariably are from a offline marketing background and typically web-resistant. The very thought of open data and APIs sends these people into convulsions of fright, shock, and disgust.
Look at any Irish newspaper website as an example. That’s where the typical Irish corporate mindset is, two steps behind where everyone else was seven years ago.
Believe me, we’d all love to build the next BBC News website. They won’t let us! :)
Re: CCE, the CCE project supervisor himself stated that the decision was mostly based on price. If it’s down to value for money, prehaps he should ask for the design fee back.
/retracts claws
Love this post of yours. It’s so refreshing to read someone tell it like it is, name names and so on.
Be careful though when you’re naming names - was at an IIA event on blogging the other night and this legal guy TJ McIntyre gave a really good presentation on defamation law and contempt of court. Scary stuff. There’s a podcast you can listen to here: http://www.netvisionary.ie/iia_blogging210307.mp3.
The good thing is that many of the dosy megaliths you’re talking about probably wouldn’t even be aware of their suing rights. :-)
Building the best Irish web development company, That is a cool challenge! - Eoghan, you’re right when you say “… Most of these guys (entrepreneurs) are trying to get a basic product together to either raise funding for full development or test the waters with it to assess viability.”
One of the entrepreneur’s challenge is to get a basic site up and follow market opportunities to grow it. This means (more than often) changing functionalities and requirements as the project grow. In short you may start a project with a set of requirements and launch a completely different website.
I spent the last 7 months bootstrapping, and I can ensure you that my priority was not to export the development of TouristR to Bangalore! It was finding a team who will buy into our vision and help us to keep only the essential. This sound like what an A-Team would do. Best of luck!
good luck in your venture ;) just don’t forget that there is plenty of quality if you can see past the the fakers…
Speaking of standards…
In Ireland it appears to be ‘who you know’, rather than price or pitch. I don’t wish to bitch but I can only speak from personal experience. Since 2002, Segala has only ever had to pitch twice - on both occasions it was for an Irish Government department for the provision of accessibility auditing. We knew the guy in charge already had a *very* close relationship with a specific agency who I may add, isn’t a specialist in accessibility auditing.
On the second occasion we purposely quoted so it was technically impossible to say we were too expensive, even though we weren’t on the first. So, they said we didn’t score well enough on accessibility experience. Given that Segala is the only Irish company to be named on the WCAG 2.0 specification (ignoring for a second all our project experience and the fact that UK competitors award their clients with our Trustmark) isn’t that either an unqualified response, or worse still, a blatant disregard for ‘fairness’?!
I questioned the first decision and only received unprofessional feedback, so I didn’t even bother the second time when it was clear they had their (same) supplier before the project went out to tender.
Again, I don’t wish to bitch, but I find the UK is much more open to fair tenders. I’ve only witnessed the ‘who you know’ in Ireland from Segala and my own consultancy days in Dublin.
3 Trackbacks/Pingbacks
[…] http://www.eoghanmccabe.com/naive-by-design/irish-web-app-development-a-team-to-the-rescue/ […]
[…] As part of my initiative to build Ireland’s number one web app development team, I’m looking for a really hot freelance designer to work on identities for our clients. I’m talking with some very fine developers at the moment who I’m confident are amongst the very best in the country. Our logo designer (I’m uneasy using that term, but that’s essentially what the person will be; logos are an essential element of a modern web app’s identity) will need to be of the same calibre. […]
[…] If you meet Aidan Finn, Dave Jeffery, David Rice, Graham Thew, Olivier Ansaldi or Paul Campbell at Barcamp Dublin, ask them about a team called Patchwork. Posted on 20 April, 2007 at 9:08 am and tagged with web, barcamp, ireland, business, dublin, development, patchwork. […]