How I got started doing website design
In 2001, I was working for my buddy’s website design company in Atlanta, Georgia, as a sales rep. I wasn’t that great of a sales person, but he kept me on anyway because of my work ethic.
I stayed on with my buddy’s company for about another year. While I was there, I wanted to know more about what website design was about, so I started asking the company’s website designer some questions. He gave me a few tips, but I wanted to learn more, so my buddy let me take a copy of Macromedia (now Adobe) Dreamweaver home with me.
I was pumped and wanted to start my own website, and one day out of the blue, the name Mr. Technique came to mind. The name had nothing to do with website design. I came up with it through one of my favorite hobbies, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This martial art has everything to do with technique and little to do with strength. Fellow students of the art would joke around calling me technical while I was not.
The birth of my freelance website design career
I searched GoDaddy to see if MrTechnique.com was available and it was. I felt like I struck gold and purchased the name immediately. Without boring you to death with specifics, I set up MrTechnique.com as a personal website while learning Adobe Photoshop through reading books.
Within a couple of months of setting up my website, I picked up my first two clients while living in The Big Apple. I wasn’t working for my buddy’s company anymore, so I was freelancing. I didn’t know that much about designing websites back then, but I guess I knew enough to get paid a little for it.
I started imagining myself doing this on a full time basis, but I wasn’t quite there yet. I didn’t have the knowledge or more importantly, enough clients…yet.
I started reading books and online tutorial to gather more knowledge while I worked a few other jobs to support myself. Every chance I got, I was immerse myself in a website design book to further my knowledge. My design skills got better, and I even learned a little bit of Flash and server-side programming languages like PHP and Perl to boot.
My number of clients started to increase through word of mouth. All of sudden, I found myself with enough work to keep me busy every day.
Am I at my goal now?
For the time being, I’m designing websites on a full-time basis. I can’t say the road has been easy, but I’ve always fulfilled my obligation to every client. I want to stay a freelance website designer and have no plans of turning my company into a big corporation. Suit and tie every day? No way! I’m down with supporting the small businesses.
I try to frequent the small businesses whenever I can because I believe in putting money in their pockets rather than huge corporations who look at you as Customer #53678313. I prefer to establish relationships with my clients, and I’m grateful for all of the business that I’ve gotten over the years.
