All Forum Posts by: Sean Dolan

@Eric Sztanyo Facebook offers courses for free at https://www.facebook.com/blueprint they also offer a certification (I've taken it), it's a tough test, with a proctor, but the test really motivates you to get through the course. Good luck!

And I don't know how familiar everyone is with the devastation here, but I got a front row seat when I joined the Cajun Navy after the storm and boated past rows and rows of multi-million dollar homes 10 feet under water. It was insane. 

We put in an offer a week after Harvey on a SF for $132k that appraised for $145k in Katy, just north west of the Barker's reservoir. Not flooded (but near flooding), so I think the sellers were so unsure of the what the market would do, they took the offer. We close in four days. As for flips, all I will say is I have a client in Houston who would probably like all of you investors to stay far far away from Houston for awhile. ;) 

No, but if they work, I can show you how to find emails associated with physical addresses to advertise directly to these users on Facebook.

@Will F. Technology is always changing, and I don't claim to know everything. If you can give me some examples of sites that cost $100-300, I'll point out where money is being lost due to inefficiencies, load-times, errors, etc.

To put some number to it - for every additional second it takes for a site to load, you lose, on average, 7% of your conversions. A few seconds in and you've lost 21% of your conversions, and people are getting less, not more patient. So, considering the loss of 21% out of your conversions (for some that is 1 home a month, for some, 5 homes a month?), and the difference between $300 and $15k isn't such a big deal. 

I agree, and definitely encourage new investors to sign up with Investor Carrot or Lead Propeller, until they get their lower-funnel worked out. I'm a big fan of pay as you go - don't buy $200 shoes to run your first 5k, when you barely even know if you like running yet. But, when you're doing a marathon a month, those $200 shoes are a no-brainer.

Happy to continue discussing this, if you'll provide me some examples of websites in different prices ranges, I will give you my honest opinion, based on my experience. If I can't find anything wrong with the site, and you know someone who creates them for cheap, I'll be happy to recommend them to you and my investor clients. 

My company's bread and butter is PPC management, not website development, we develop websites infrequently, usually for clients that we need updates to in order to improve PPC, or really fun clients that come across our desk (like NFL teams) so I'm not trying to sell anyone website services here, and even if I were, I'd still give you my honest opinion. Thanks!

I tested Investor Carrot versus Lead Propeller and posted my results in this thread: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/80/topics/420747-investor-carrot-or-lead-propeller?page=2#p3030529

@Will F.

An analogy that might resonate here. It's like you're making the case that there are manufactured homes that you can get for 64k, and I'm telling you that a custom house is going to cost $120K. A manufactured home takes every shortcut, and limits you down the road (ie: you will have to add a garage later for 20K), whereas a custom home will suit you for the next 5-10 years while your family grows into it, you won't have to move homes as new needs arise. The custom home comes with all the features you will need, and will future-proof you from needing to scrap your website and start over every year or two to keep up with technology. Hope that helps. 

@Will F.

If you sourced all the materials yourself, you could build a house cheaper, similarly, I wouldn't argue that it's not possible to get a site for cheaper, but you would need to count your hours spent sourcing material into the final cost. If you're chipping away at the final cost by spending your own time doing it, you need to compare what your hour is worth, versus the cost of the provider per hour. 

For a $15k website, blended rate of $150/hour, you're looking at 100 hours of work. This includes meetings/discussions, client changing their mind, unique content, ssl certificates, hosting compatibility, CSS, Javascript, Html, all customizations, tracking... here's a pretty good list of website scope: 

https://www.ecreations.net/frequently-asked-questi...

100 hours is just north of two weeks of a full-time employee at the blended rate of $150/hour. 

I'd would rather you enter the market expecting $15k and beat down someone to $12k, then find someone offering a $2K website, and walk you up to $7K, and you end up with a net negative, a website that doesn't function, and you're pumping money into it to keep it afloat. Just seen it too many times. If someone is good, with happy customers, no online complaints, they're going to charge $150/hour. If they are charging $25-$50 - you have to ask yourself why are they charging so low if others can charge $150/hour? 

It is SO easy to read a few blog posts and sound like a web genius, and I see it all the time. And if I didn't know any better, I'd fall for it. So, just trying to help everyone avoid pain. We get a lot of clients coming to us, literally got one today that said 'this will be my 5th marketing company to work with, please tell me how you are different' - lots of BS out there. 

I hope that answers your question. My best advice would be to ask the web designer what other investor sites they've built, then ask the client (don't just assume that because they tell you they built a website that they ACTUALLY built it, verify it). If you talk with 3 investors they worked with, and a year has gone by without any major website overhauls required, they're a safe bet. 

@Will F. - I say that because at that price there is a lower chance of being scammed. It's just like contractors, if someone is willing to paint an entire house for $200, something isn't right, but if you don't know anything about the cost of paint and labor involved in doing it correctly, then you just go with the cheapest option, and end up regretting it. A bad website is like an anchor around your neck - load speed, functional forms, rendering on all devices, or you find out with the next Wordpress update that it completely breaks your site because the developer edited core files to get the look they wanted. Some websites cost 100K, it just depends on what bells and whistles are needed. Could you get the same result of my $15K site for $5K? Maybe, but you're taking a big gamble that the person you are working with is taking shortcuts to get there. If you are looking to hire a developer, I'd be happy to charge hours of my staff's time to review their plans - get a second opinion on it before you move forward. I hate seeing folks get a bad website and constantly patching it. 

@Brian Connelly right on man, I'll find you on linkedin. We manage the website builds, but we use reliable contractors to build them. 

@Will F. @Troy Copeland See my update above, thanks!