I'd love to have that problem
2008-12-17 15:30:42
It's still a problem I hate it when people 'I'd love to have that problem' when I ask 'What will you do when 1,000 people all show up on the site at once?'
When business picks up it doesn't mean the money will be there to solve the problems you don't want to deal with now. The truth is that it's easier to deal with problems when you don't have 1,000 people banging on the door demanding products or services, or worse yet, their money back because you can't deliver.
You need experienced partners Just because someone knows more than you do, it doesn't mean they know anything important. In the web world the classic mistake is assuming that some kid who can bang out a website should be put in charge of your entire web enterprise because he can ramble on for hours about AJAX controls and because he got a snippet of his code posted on Slashdot.
Your cousin's sister's kid might be a whiz at building cool looking sites, but you need someone who knows what works in the market, not in DIV layer. You need an architect with business experience AND technical experience to bridge the vision of the company with the realities of creating a deliverable product.
You can avoid having to rebuild your web site if you start out right and address the problems before they arise. The right partners will help you do that, just as the right legal staff will keep you out of jail and the right accountant will keep the IRS off your back.
Completely rebuilding the site may not cost much in dollars, but it's going to cost a lot in time and credibility. You're going to lose potential customers and business partners before you ever get to the redesign if the site doesn't live up to expectations.