I don’t understand why, but people really like to complicate their lives.
At least with their businesses.
And especially with businesses that are not yet up and running.
The logical thing to do should be to go to the minimum to get started and, when it is up and running, to see what needs to be improved, right?
Well, as far as I can see, no.
A few weeks ago, an acquaintance contacted me.
She is preparing to open a new restaurant in the city.
Top zone. An original concept. All very cool.
She has a designer friend in Holland preparing the web design.
And she needs someone to build the website for her once the design is finished.
Another day we’ll talk about this concept of planning that takes months to design something, and then it’s supposed to be built and working perfectly in a week.
That will be another day.
Back to the topic of building the website.
I say I can help her build it or find someone to build it for her, but first of all I need to know the functionality she is designing.
Depending on how complex the website is, I can suggest one platform or another and recommend someone she can trust to build it.
So we agreed that she would give me the design for me to review and evaluate it.
He tells me that he will have the design finished in a day.
Then it turns out to be two days.
Then she needs a few more days.
Finally, 10 days later, she finally sends me access to the design.
And the truth is that the design is quite good. It is clear and elegant.
Besides, it is made on a web platform called Wix.
That is to say, it is not a graphic design made in Photoshop very pretty to look at.
It’s a working website.
It is even responsive and can be viewed perfectly on both computers and mobiles.
It might not be the platform I would recommend if we were talking about it a priori.
But, that’s not relevant now.
The question I ask is: Why do you want to build this on another platform?
It will cost you time, money and probably nerves as you are very close to the opening date.
She doesn’t need special functionalities. At the moment there is no sales on the website. Just the typical information about who we are, where we are, our menu, …
The most complicated thing is a contact form.
Which she have already done.
I repeat: it has already been done.
And how many visits does she expect to have to the website in the next few weeks?
No matter how much promotion she does, before opening or even during the first months, what will she have? 10 visits an hour?
I’m probably being very optimistic.
This can be handled by any simple web server.
So, I repeat, why migrate what is already a working website to another tool?
Start with what you have. Invest your time and money in getting the restaurant up and running.
And then monitor what happens to the web.
When it becomes clear that you need something that the current website doesn’t offer, then we will consider how to build it so that it is more scalable, maintainable, evolvable.
Are you one of those who likes to complicate your life?
PD: I see she has finally listened to me