From Side Hustle to Web Design Agency! Shayah’s Story

June 10, 2024 Paige Brunton

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Will Niching your web design business ACTUALLY lead to more clients?

Is it normal to see a dip in inquiries some months of the year, or does that mean your business is kind of “over”?

**What is it REALLY like to go from a one-woman-business to a team & agency? (and is it WORTH it?)**

It can be extremely challenging to know the answers to these questions if you haven’t actually had the experience.

Lucky for us, today's guest has experience with ALL of these questions.

I hope you enjoy this extremely honest and insightful interview with my incredible past Square Secrets™ and Square Secrets business™ student Shayah from Virtuwell Balance.

Let’s get into the interview!

Okay Shayah, I would love to know what you were doing before becoming a web designer.

(Shayah) So, my background is actually in health and wellness. My first business was being an online health and wellness coach, as a nutritionist and yoga teacher. I also worked full-time in a hospital in health care administration.

That full-time job was killing me. I really wanted to work online, travel, and do my health and wellness business.

So I asked my employer to give me one year leave of absence without pay. I know some people just quit their job, start an online business and travel the world but that just felt like way too much of a risk for me. So I told my employer that I need this time off for myself, my mental health and to figure out my life and they allowed it.

So I had a year off but I also had my backup plan. That way, I had a year to figure out my business but if it didn’t work, I could go back home to Canada and my job at the hospital.

Obviously, that's not what ended up happening. 😊

I was running my health and wellness business and was focusing on social media, email marketing, starting a blog, did my own branding, and building my website.

First I tried making my website on WordPress, then Wix, then Squarespace. So then I had all these different versions of my website, and was trying to figure out which worked best… and that was when I found your course.

So I took Square Secrets™ in order to learn how to design my own website but in the process noticed I actually loved web design.

Around that time, my health and wellness business was starting to do better and I had a lot of peers in the industry asking me

How did you build your website?

How did you build your branding, email marketing, and social media?

And since I really enjoyed these things, I was like

Well, I can help you, I can teach you, I can show you how to do this.

And so I started a little side business a VA business (which is my business now: Virtuwelll Balance) and that just took off so well.

So I eventually ended up switching full-time into the virtual assistant business and health and wellness became more like a hobby of mine.

that's how I got into website design. I slowly started offering all different types of services and realized that I enjoyed website design the most.

And I went back to your course so many times during the process of building different websites…so it was definitely super helpful in giving me the skills and confidence I needed to offer website design services.

It’s so common that people start out just building a website for themself, realize they really enjoy it, and then end up helping other people build their websites.

I feel like that’s also proof that the industry isn’t oversaturated. If everyone who learns how to build websites suddenly gets asked if they can do other people’s websites too then clearly there is enough work out there.

Oh, totaly! I was actually looking this up the other day and have a statistic to share…

In 2023, there's 5.4 million new businesses registered in the USA alone.

So in my opinion, like probably 95% of those businesses, if not more, are going to need websites.

That’s 5.4 million businesses in one year in the USA alone. So I do not think that website design is oversaturated cause like I can't serve that many people. So if you're a website designer wanting to get started, there's so many businesses out there who are going to need your help and support.

Plus think about the number of God awful websites out there. And the fact that so many people had their website design done like 3-5 years ago so now it’s looking a little dated. So it’s like a recurring service. So every few years you will have clients come back to you as well. People always need to update and redesign.

How did you get your first few clients? How did you turn this from an idea into people actually pay you to do it?

So at the beginning when I was doing VA work, I realized I really loved web design and that that was what I actually wanted to do. I wanted to offer website design services and packages.

Not only did I enjoy it but it was also a much better profit for my time than VA work was.

But I didn't have a portfolio or clients to use as a reference if people asked what work I’d done in the past. So I literally just made a few websites in my spare time.

I used stock photos and in the end, it looked as if it had been made for a client.

So I basically just made my own mock projects that then showed them to potential clients as an example of what I could do for them..and they loved them! It became my portfolio work for that beginning stage.

Then, I had my first few clients and way overdelivered for and undercharged... But, you know, I think that’s something that helps in the beginning. And then it just slowly took off from there.

In the very beginning, I was quite active on Instagram, so that's where most of my clients came from. Now, I’m hardly on Instagram…which I prefer.

Was the main reason you got off Instagram because you didn’t like being on it? or was it something else?

I felt like I had to show up a lot in a certain way and like portray my life behind the scenes. Those things sell but it felt a little weird to me. And people would say

But you're doing such cool things! you're traveling and have this fun life and business.

Why not share it?

But personally, I just feel like it takes away a bit from the experience. Like when I'm having a nice dinner with my husband or sitting on the beach and then i’m like

Oh, wait, let me get this on the gram!

It just takes you out of the moment.

This was something I struggled with for a while but have found a little more balance with: now I am intentionally sharing stuff on there.

Psst…curious about what other marketing strategies are out there besides social media? I’ve got just the thing to help find the perfect marketing tool for you! 👇

See this gallery in the original post

So you built and ran this business all while being a digital nomad. Where did you travel to? Do you have any tips for someone who wants to build a business that can move with them?

We started out in Latin America: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala. We drove so we also travelled through some other countries but those were the three that we actually lived in.

Then we also spent three months in Chiang Mai, Thailand which is one of my absolute favourite places. We spent three months in Bali, six months in Vietnam. I was also in India for my yoga teacher training.

Then we've also done some shorter trips through Europe: Switzerland, France, Germany.

At some point we thought we missed Canada. We were travelling for close to four years at that point. We were like

Let's go home, get married, settle down. Our businesses are doing well enough now we can afford to live in Canada.

So we went back home, last year for about eight months and realized it wasn’t actually what we thought it would be. So we made the decision to permanently, move down to Guatemala and that's where we are now in Antigua.

I guess as long as you're doing anything fully remote, you can take it with you as long as you have good systems and processes in place. And also a stable Wi-Fi connection.

When it comes to working as a digital nomad, do you have to think about time zones?

Oh that's a good point. When we were in Southeast Asia it was very difficult working with clients in North America. Most of my clients are Canadian and American, so that was hard. I was taking calls very early and very late…so that’s definitely something to keep in mind.

I’m super curious about this…how exactly did you end up finding my courses?

I think I found your course through Cassie & Shay from Bucketlist Bombshells. I was following them because they were talking about the digital nomad lifestyle. I was taking their Work Online & Travel the World course and they were doing something with you. I think it was a webinar workshop on Squarespace website design.

I was trying to learn Squarespace at the time.

When I found you, I actually was super nervous about the investment because at the time, I wasn’t making a lot of money from my business. But I knew it was something that I needed. I just knew that it was going to help me.

This was pretty much my mentality at the beginning when it came ot courses. I took so many courses at the beginning of starting my business. And I learned so much from so many different course creators.

I think courses are very beneficial in the beginning of your business when you can't afford, to work 1:1 with a business coach or a mastermind.

But anyway, your course was super helpful. I went through it so many times - it’s walked me through making so many websites.

So now you have switched to Wix. Tell me more about what made you make that decision. We've actually got many students now who do multiple platforms is also very common. What made you realize that this was something your clients needed?

So first of all, I’d like to say I was actually designing on Wix at the time when I bought your Squarespace course. And it also helped me with designing on Wix. Whatever I was learning from you about Squarespace, I’d usually find a very similar way to do on Wix.

So I actually implemented a lot of the stuff from your Square Secrets™course on Wix.

Now, over time, my company has used Squarespace, WordPress, Wix, and Show It. But basically at the beginning it was always between Wix and Squarespace.

Nowadays Squarespace has Fluid Engine. I actually haven't used it myself yet but basically you have alot more freedom and flexibility to place things where you want.

But back then, Squarespace was just allowing you to design in strips and blocks which felt limiting if you didn’t know code. I could still definitely design a beautiful website on Squarespace without having to code, and it does keep you on track when you use those blocks.

From a designer’s perspective, I wanted a little bit more creativity, I sometimes wanted to move outside of those blocks.

That's what I found on Wix. It didn’t constrain me in designing in certain ways. But the thing to keep in mind about this: if you’re a designer, you can have more freedom and flexibility to create what you want without coding on Wix. But only if you know design best practices and have the skills for it. What I found is that clients who use Wix without having the design know how, could really screw up a website because it doesn't keep you in the box.

So for doing a DIY website without any design background, Squarespace was probably better because it didn’t let you screw it up. But for me, I loved using Wix because I had that extra freedom and I knew design best practices.

But like I mentioned, now with Squarespace you can have that extra freedom too.

I think it's interesting that I created a course centered on Squarespace but now I always hear about people from all these different platforms who ended up taking it.

I think it's just the best website design course out there, like, regardless of platform. Seriously, I've looked for other courses after taking your course because I was like obsessed with courses in the beginning of my business. And I couldn't find one that I felt would be more comprehensive than yours.

That makes me so happy! Mission accomplished!

I also want to talk about revenue numbers over time, because I think this is very interesting for people to realize that not everyone is an overnight success in 2.5 seconds.

Can you tell me about what you made in your first year of business, and what you’re sort of on track to make this year?

Yes, I'm happy to share these details with you guys. I've actually never shared this before. I normally don't want to talk about my numbers because I'm always concerned or like conscientious about how this might make other people feel. Especially because they don't always know the background story of these numbers.

When I was first starting my business, I would see people on social media talking about

“50 K months” or “100K launch”

and I’d be like

What!? That's amazing! I want to do that in my business too!

But you don't actually know like what it took them to get there, what their expenses are, and how much of that is actually profit. So keep that in mind next time you see these numbers online.

But anyway, so my first year in business with Virtuwell Balance was 2019. That was when I started working as a VA for health and wellness businesses. That first year I made approximately $10,000. And then I spent most of that money on, like reinvesting in the form of buying courses.

To be honest, I lived off of my savings the first year while we were travelling and I was still getting my business started. Any money I made, I pretty much just, like, reinvested. I was maybe around, ten months in or close to the year when I started structuring my services better and charging a little bit more, that I started to have better revenue.

Was that actually the time where you started to switch from VA work to more web design projects?

Yes that was exactly that time. But at first, I wasn't offering whole website design packages. I was more just like doing a page for someone or edits or updates. I was kind of nervous to do a whole website on my own and didn’t feel confident enough to offer that yet… but that’s just something that comes with time and practice.

So first year I made around 10K, then in my second year, I made about $50K. At this point it was still just me, like solopreneur doing website design, mostly still figuring things out as I went along.

Then in 2021, I started hiring. So that was when I brought on my copywriter, and then later my brand designer. I was basically hiring for things that I didn't do or I wasn't good at.

In 2023, I also brought on an SEO specialist, a virtual assistant and a website designer. That year the business made around $150,000.

I think this year, we will make around $200,000 as an agency with the team.

But something to remember here is that now my role in the business is no longer a website designer - I’m more like a director. I basically manage the team, do the sales and marketing, the finances and the PR. And those are the things that I like and enjoy doing as well.

There are some people who would never want to grow a team because they don't like to manage people - they love the client work.

Maybe you are like a multifaceted creative, and you can do copywriting and branding and website design, and you just want to be a solopreneur - that's fine too! You can actually have a lot more profit that way.

So now, even though my business makes $150 to $200,000 a year, my profit is still probably about $50-60,000 a year. I have a lot of expenses with my team, but that’s fine because I'm still doing the work that I enjoy. Plus I'm working less hours.

In 2020, my second year of business as a website designer solopreneur, I was making around $50,000. Now I have a way bigger business, team and more revenue. I'm still making the same amount of money, the difference is that i’m working less hours.
So those are just things people don’t really think about.

If you want to grow a team, are you also up for managing that team?

If you want to have a big business or agency, do you still want to be the website designer in your business?

Those are things I think you need to think about when you grow.

I think it's also so true that what’s right for one person might not be right for another. For example, for me, running an agency is just not my thing but I have so much respect for people who do it and think that if you have the skills and it brings you joy, then that's amazing.

And it’s definitely nice that you can then work significantly less hours because you have other people who are actually doing the implementation.

Totally! And the nice thing about having a team -although I'm sure there's ways around this too if you're still a solopreneur-is family planning. We want to start a family soon so it’s ideal that the business can still be run without me.

We can still have clients coming in and out, have client work done, and be profiting without me having to do the client work because I have a team in place for that. So, this is something I'm trying to work on this year: getting the business to a stable and consistent enough place that it’s able to run a little bit more with without me.

When it comes to business, I like to picture a Venn diagram that includes the offering, the ideal client and the marketing strategy.

Who is your ideal client, what is your niche and how do you make sure you get in front of those exact people?

So I had a little bit of a journey with Niching…I basically started my business because of my niche- health and wellness. Then, as I grew, I had some people reaching out tome being like

I know you design for health wellness, but I have a vacuum cleaning company…can you design my website?

And I was like

Yeah, I can make you a beautiful website!

So I had random people reaching out who were in totally different fields. And it made me think

Oh geez, there's probably a lot of people who are inclined to work with me because of like, my needs, health, wellness.

So then in 2022, I un-niched. I changed around all of my content, my entire website, social media and copy. Everything was changed to like general website design, branding and marketing for service based businesses.

But then it was so hard to create content because I had no idea who I was talking to and who I was targeting. I felt so messy and sloppy. It was just so much harder to sell my services and talk about my services. We also had a big drop in revenue that year.

We do usually have a kind of roller coaster of ups and downs in revenue in my business. But during a time of year where we are typically busy, it was very slow that year. And that was right after I did the un-niche.

So basically I ended up re-niching. I went back into health and wellness. And we even got more specific with the niche. So now we do clinics like therapy clinics, chiropractic clinics, things like that.

We reworded some of our marketing and went through a whole rebrand. We're currently working on updating our website copy and coming up with a new content marketing strategy to target these people.

And we’re spending more time on LinkedIn as opposed to Instagram because that's where they're hanging out.

After we did this, I had three of my biggest revenue months in business ever.

So I definitely think that niching is important and it's going to make your life a whole lot easier just in terms of talking about your services and creating and selling content.

Also people will still come to you. Don't be nervous that people outside of your niche won't work with you. They'll work with somebody else and you're going to have the people who want to work with you pay more to work with you because you're a specialist in that industry or niche that they want to work with.

Wow… I love that that. That is such a good lesson for so many people.

Yes, I wish that it didn't have to happen to me and that I could have just learned it from somebody else. But now I’m the example. 😅

Lets talk about fluctuations in inquiries. Earlier you mentioned that the the first time this happened to you, you basically had a heart attack. But now you’ve realized that there are just seasons and it’s normal. What are the seasons where you tend to see a lot of inquiries and what times of year do you see less?

Yeah so especially for web designs, I think the summer months really slow down. For us it starts in May and stays slow through July and even August. Sometimes in August it starts to pick up because people begin planning for the fall.

December is super busy which I find kind of weird because it's holidays season so you’d think people would be taking time off. Maybe because it's the end of the year, companies have leftover budget that they want to spend. Or maybe they had it as a goal for the year to rebrand the website but left it till the last minute.

Anyay, in December it picks up and then January through march is always very busy because it's the new year which means new goals, new budget. People want to rebrand their websites and in general it’s just the time of year when businesses are thinking about these thing and setting goals for the year.

So overall I’d say the busy season is November through March. And then April might still be okay and then in May it starts to slow down for the summer.

But honestly, you don't know that until you're in business for a few years and can look back and see the pattern year over year. So don't freak out like I did. Just know it's probably a trend

It’s always good to ask around and hear experiences from other website designers. I feel like we need some kind of a community where we can talk openly about this stuff and people won't be embarrassed to say things like

My business is slow right now…anyone else too?

Cause then we can relax and know it’s just a trend in the industry. Some people don't like to say when their business is slow, but I think those are important conversations to have with fellow entrepreneurs.

It’s especially true if your ideal clients are women who have children. They are so busy looking after their kids in the summer since they might not have consistent childcare during that time. Or if you're serving photographers, it’s definitely slow in summer because they are shooting weddings.

So the degree to which you’re impacted by these trends definitely depends on your industry. The good thing is that once you know this, you don't need to have a heart attack about it and can plan your business in a way that makes sense. You can plan your vacations for the time that your business is going to be slow.

Just make sure that you're pricing accordingly so that you can take that time off. That means you set my prices high enough so that you know you can hit the numbers you need during the busier phases.

Exactly! Or you can use that time to put back into your business. During our slow times, I like to take a look at all of our systems and processes and check in with the team. We work on our content or updating our website…it's easy for us to do those things when it’s slow. Where as when we’re busy, we don't have time to touch that.

If someone wants to do what you've done, what are your top tips for them? if you could go back to your beginner self in that first year and just give yourself some advice, what exactly would it be?

First of all, be patient cause it’s not a sprint.

Pick your niche. Pick one marketing funnel and stick to it. Whether it's Instagram, LinkedIn, blogging, YouTube.. I think it's better to just pick one thing and get really good at it. Plus you can always repurpose pieces of content to share elsewhere if you want to, but focus on one place.

Last, take Paige’s courses. Really! I invested in so many courses (I could give a list of other courses that I've taken) but when it comes to web design, Paige’s courses are like the most comprehensive out there. So that was super helpful in the beginning stages of my business.

And again, be patient. These things take time. Don't beat yourself up if it hasn't been an overnight success in five seconds. Especially if you're busy traveling the world. If I could build a successful business traveling the world during Covid then I think anybody could do it. You just have to be motivated. You have to have some goals and stick to your values. You'll eventually get there.

So what should you do if you also want to run a successful website or business? Let's start with getting you a client or three.

I have a training called Finding Clients as a New website Designer:The Seven Costly Mistakes to avoid.

If you are totally confused right now as to what exactly you should be doing on a daily basis, this training is for you. I’ll be thrilled to hear from you very shortly when you land that next fabulous client!