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Coppola, Spielberg, and Tarantino would never have gotten the same breaks in today’s industry. The paradigm is always shifting, and many popular ideas about success in the film industry have been outdated for decades.For young filmmakers to find success in today's landscape, one has to learn from history.So let’s go back to…Hollywood—which, just a few years earlier, was a home for artists, mavericks, and pioneers—had become increasingly bureaucratic and institutionalized.And the guys who founded the major studios…Had recently retired and been replaced by young executives.Old methods of audience research, production, marketing, and distribution were failing to attract young people in large numbers to the box office.Movies were suffering, and the new management didn’t know what to do about it.At the same time, motion picture cameras were getting smaller and cheaper. Cassavetes made Shadows in NYC. Godard made Breathless in Paris.These movies got young filmmakers fired up about what was possible.Then Easy Rider came out.Made outside the system for only $400,000, it took in $60 million and proved to Hollywood that teenagers and college students will still go to the movies in large numbers.Suddenly youth was in vogue. Directors in their 20s and 30s were trusted with millions of dollars; the first major film schools—USC (Lucas), UCLA (Coppola), NYU (Scorsese)—presented a clear path to connections in Hollywood.And for possibly the last time ever, many new filmmakers were given opportunities from inside the system.These changes kickstarted New Hollywood, the era that gave Spielberg, Ashby, May, Bogdonovich, Altman, De Palma, Cimino, Peckinpah, Malick, and many others their footing.The fun lasted until the end of the 70s, marking one of the greatest decades of the American movie business.So what changed at the end of the 70s? Two things.First, there was the counter-example of smash hits by these guys:Jaws (which made $470m) and Star Wars ($775m) redefined every notion of success. People waited outside for hours to see these movies, popularizing the term “blockbuster.”Then, in 1981, when Raiders of the Lost Ark opened six months after the studio-bankrupting failure of Heaven’s Gate, the writing was on the wall.Heaven’s Gate was a movie so expensive that it became a symbol of gratuitous auteurism (if I remember right, its director, Michael Cimino had an oak tree uprooted and shipped overseas to be placed in the background of one shot).And, unfortunately for everyone, Heaven’s Gate made only $3.5 million against its $44 million budget.These two examples—Raiders and Heavens Gate—presented Hollywood management with a binary choice from which it has never looked back.Executives selected by holding companies to protect the interests of multi-national shareholders were incentivized to adopt bureaucratic processes from other industries. Studios—which had previously spread their bets among many medium-sized films—were increasingly inclined to put all their eggs in few Star Wars-sized baskets.Advertising budgets skyrocket, endings got happier, and young directors who were once the lifeblood of New Hollywood were now shunned in favor of summer tentpoles.And Easy Rider’s eleven-year party was officially over.While all this was happening in Hollywood, the next generation of great American filmmakers—Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, Jane Campion, Richard Linklater, Sam Raimi, the Coens—were coming of age.The Coen brothers made a proof-of-concept trailer for their debut feature, Blood Simple, grabbed a phonebook, went to dentists’ offices in Minnesota, projected their work on a wall in each office, made a sales pitch, and collected checks.And the Sundance Film Festival, which was founded in 1978—partially as a reaction to Hollywood’s new corporate mandates—had become a force of nature by the mid-80s.Sundance allowed these filmmakers to get attention.Directors from all over the world premiered their films and got discovered by the press, Hollywood, and paying audiences. And with the advent of home video, these small movies could become minor cultural phenomena without relying on traditional methods of theatrical distribution.By the 1990s, independent film had become its own industry.Young companies like Miramax took the market by storm, and major studios were forced to keep up by establishing their own acquisitions, marketing, and distribution subsidiaries like Paramount Vantage and Searchlight Pictures.Then, along comes this guy…The success of Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs—and Pulp Fiction two years later—created the success story most young filmmakers still cling to. This is unfortunate because the paradigm has shifted many times since.That said, Tarantino’s rise was certainly a big deal at the time. Execs started competing with one another, hunting for the next Tarantino which is how directors like Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, James Gray, David O. Russell, Robert Rodriguez, and Kevin Smith got their breaks into the business.At the same time, the popularity of MTV made a bridge (now burned) between directors of music videos and Hollywood. And David Fincher, Antoine Fuqua, Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Jonathan Glazer, and Tarsem Singh all made their debuts around this time.This party continued into the mid-2000s and Sofia Coppola, Christopher Nolan, Lynne Ramsay, Jonathan Glazer, Steve McQueen, and Rian Johnson all got their footing before the music stopped.Then, this happened…And everything changed again.The Great Recession had many long-lasting effects on the film industry.Among them, studios pulled a move from the playbook of 1981 and became more risk-averse, and less willing to take chances on young directors.These trends dovetailed with some serious technological disruption in the way movies are distributed and consumed.Studios continually underestimated the threats posed by Netflix, Amazon, and the innovative pipelines these companies were creating.So what did the major studios do?They doubled-down on blockbusters; the biggest, loudest, most epic tentpole movies designed to get people out of their houses, away from their computers and TVs, and into movie seats around the world.Following the success of the MCU, sequels, adaptations, and pre-existing intellectual property became king.The movie business largely lost interest in small/medium-sized, original movies for adults.And as James Gray put it, the “middle class of filmmaking” was eroded:"I’m 47 years old, I live in an apartment, I can’t buy a house. If I were coming of age in 1973, I would be in Bel Air. The whole reason for this is exactly what we were talking about, where the middle is gone… Five directors make Marvel, and then there’s the rest of us who are trying to scrounge around to find the money to make films."Sundance, which was once the home of emerging filmmakers, picked up some of the slack but became increasingly corporate in their own right.Oscar season movies starring A-listers are now their bread and butter, and smaller festivals like SXSW are left to carry the torch.So how did new voices break in from the late 2000s to today?Successful indie directors of the 2000s and 2010s—Greta Gerwig, the Safdies, Barry Jenkins, the Duplasses, Lena Dunham, Josephine Decker, Lulu Wang, David Lowery, Joe Swanberg, Alex Ross Perry, Sean Baker, Rick Alverson—found a variety of paths to success in this tumultuous landscape.But they all had something in common: each of them made micro-budget features in isolation.Many of them, like the Safdies and Barry Jenkins, graduated to making low-budgeted, institutionally financed indies.Some, like Dunham and Swanberg, graduated to breakout successes in television…Some were tapped to direct tentpoles for major studios, like David Lowery…And a small handful—Robert Eggers and Ari Aster included—got their breaks like the greats of the 1970s with the help of A24, and made their first features within a well-financed infrastructure.But the truth is, these success stories are few and far between.For every filmmaker that launches a successful career with a micro-budget feature, countless others fall on their faces.This is the paradox of independent filmmaking today. While affordable technology makes it more feasible than ever to shoot and edit a movie, the economic realities of the film industry make it very difficult to find a foothold.And this year, we’ve witnessed a disruption unlike any other:Only time will reveal the long-term effects of COVID-19 on the art and business of movies.But if history can teach us any lesson, it will be this: studios will double-down on their risk avoidance, and it will soon be even harder for independent filmmakers to break into the business.What might this look like in the next decade?In terms of actual production, it will require scrappiness. Write your movie to be shot for very little money and embrace all the limitations that entails. If you don't have the money/resources for a feature, start making shorts.Submit to festivals but be prepared to get your work in front of an audience without them. Even the "golden ticket" of Sundance isn't what it used to be. So don't count on festivals to save you.Once your film is complete, plan to distribute it yourself.And while “self-distribution” sounds to many like one has failed (a note we’ve gotten from very smart people inside the industry) it is, in my opinion, the most exciting and robust arena for innovation in the business of movie-making today.Vanishing Angle, the team behind Thunder Road, are pioneers on the frontiers of digital self-distribution. Check out this great Medium article by Jim Cummings for some specific tips.For independent filmmakers, the landscape is always changing. One year’s strategy for success becomes outdated and unviable the next. The important thing is to keep pushing. Don’t ask for permission. In the words of Mark Duplass, accept that the cavalry is not coming.Research and test out new methods of finance, production, distribution, marketing, and exhibition—or pioneer your own. Experiment, learn from your failures, and share your discoveries with the rest of us.And as always, look to the great independent filmmakers of the past for inspiration.Thanks for the upvotes, everyone! Be sure to follow my new space, Art of Small Movies, dedicated to micro-budget filmmaking and the continuation of this conversation.

Displeasing populist politician assertions, no country is truly self sufficient as most economies are intertwined.Lets look how major forecasters such as Fitch or Standard and Poor see the economic outlook for 2020/2021.In the meantime, be wary of forecasts. Statistics is one of the most potent tools mathematics has made available to other sciences. But like any power tool, it can cause havoc in the wrong hands. We should rely on experts, but the experts in question are not economists and armchair virologists. They are bio-statisticians who understand not only the statistical methods but also the many subtleties behind the data.Anyone prone to drawing big conclusions from popular online virus data trackers should heed Robert Grant, a British medical statistician who tweeted last week: “I’ve studied this stuff at university, done data analysis for decades, written several NHS guidelines (including one for an infectious disease), and taught it to health professionals. That’s why you don’t see me making any coronavirus forecasts.”A) Global outlookStandard & Poor's Global Ratings noted in a recent statement that "the eurozone and the UK are facing recessions" and that "we now expect gross domestic product (GDP -- in the eurozone and the UK) to fall around two percent this year due to economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic," representing a loss of 420 billion euros in real GDP in 2020 "compared with our forecast from November 2019."However, the "risks are still to the downside, as the pandemic might last longer and be more widespread than we currently envisage. For example, we estimate a lock-down of four months could lower eurozone GDP by up to 10 percent this year," S&P analysts wrote."The forecast fall in global GDP for the year as a whole is on a par with the global financial crisis but the immediate hit to activity and jobs in the first half of this year will be worse", said Brian Coulton, Fitch's chief economist.The spread of the pandemic and the actions necessary to control it mean that we now have to incorporate full-scale lockdowns across Europe and the US (and many other countries) in our baseline forecasts. This was not the assumption used in our March 2020 GEO forecast. There are many moving parts, but we now judge that lockdowns could reduce GDP across the EU and US by 7% to 8%, or 28% to 30% annualised, in 2nd Quarter of 2020. This is an unprecedented peacetime one-quarter fall in GDP and is similar to what we now estimate occurred in China in 1st quarter of 2020.As a matter of perspective, the 2008 “subprime” crisis generated a drop of 6% in GDP and necessitated two stimulus packages, totalling nearly $1 trillion during 2008 and 2009 while the European Central Bank and the Bank of England followed suit with 1,5 trillion in stimulus. This however left the countries involved with unprecedented debt levelsOn the assumption that the health crisis is broadly contained by the second half of the year there should be a decent sequential recovery in activity as lockdowns are removed, some spending is re-profiled from 1H20, inventories are rebuilt and policy stimulus takes effect. But this has to be set against the many factors amplifying the depth of the dislocation, including job losses, capex cuts, commodity price shocks and the rout in financial markets."Our baseline forecast does not see GDP reverting to its pre-virus levels until late 2021 in the US and Europe," said Coulton.The direct impacts of lockdown policies on activity are being amplified through multiple channels. Most noticeable has been the dramatic fallout in the labour market, particularly in the US and Canada, where weekly data for new unemployment benefit claims have smashed all records. Our annual unemployment forecasts for developed countries have been pushed sharply higher across the board and we expect US unemployment to peak at 10% in 2Q20 with 10 million job losses. Companies are also likely to slash capital expenditure and consumers will pare back sharply on discretionary spending. This will be exacerbated by the collapse in equity prices.Rising corporate and emerging market bond yields are tightening global financing conditions and the strengthening of the dollar and falling commodity prices will add further headwinds to emerging market growth. Our 2020 oil price forecast (Brent annual average) has been lowered again to USD 35 per barrel. Capital outflows and limited social safety nets are further pressuring economic conditions in emerging markets.Huge fiscal stimulus packages have been announced in many countries worth 10% of GDP in the US and about 5% in Germany and the UK.Russia’s economy will contract by 1% in 2020, according to the latest forecast by the widely respected Bank of Finland Institute for Economies in Transition (BOFIT), due to notably lower commodity prices and a weakened outlook for the global economy.Russia started this year with an official forecast for 1.9% growth. But the double whammy of an oil price shock following “OPEC plus” production cut deal collapsed on March 6th closely followed by an escalating coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that has brought the global economy to a standstill will hurt the Russian economy.Former Finance Minister and Audit Chamber head Alexei Kudrin, who is a widely respected authority on Russia’s economy, warned that if oil prices fall and stay low then the slowdown will be deeper and longer.While China’s economy is slowly restarting, major European economies are in turmoil and the United States is still in the early stages of ramping up its response with unprecedented fiscal measures. China will likely struggle to find enough customers across the West, and emerging markets elsewhere are simply not large enough to compensate. Affected sectors include automobiles, as major Western companies have closed down production, and communications equipment, as supply chains have been disrupted.The World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) published on March 27 a report predicting that the crisis will cause international tourist arrivals to fall by between 20 percent and 30 percent in 2020 from last year's total of 1.5 billion tourist arrivals, leading to a loss of 300-450 billion U.S. dollars in international tourist receipts and hit the small and medium-sized companies that make up 80 percent of all businesses in the sector.The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said in a recent report that the COVID-19 pandemic may bring a 30-40 percent drop in global foreign direct investment (FDI) flows during 2020 and 2021.To sum the forecasts we are looking at a recession across the developed world. Even China, assuming it manages to completely eradicate Covid-19, will see a serious down turn as a result of its exports’ collapse. In order to alleviate the worst, these countries will have to “print money”, increasing their debt levels and driving world wide interest rates up.B) The impact on Turkeya) the pandemic’s direct costs to the economyWhile Europe and the USA have just decided stimulus packages amounting between 6% and 10% of their GDP respectively, to face direct consequences of the pandemic, the Turkish government does not have the funds it requires to hold back the tide of the coronavirus pandemic and is asking for public donations to stem the issue, DW Türkçe reported.While Turkey is expected to take additional measures set by the government to stimulate the economy, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has sparked controversy with the aid campaign he announced on Monday, DW Türkçe said.The government, which used Treasury resources in 2019, no longer has resources, DW Türkçe said, citing economist and author Mustafa Sönmez.Sönmez said Turkey’s finances should be transparent to explain the economic package, like other countries do."Why doesn't the (ruling Justice and Development Party) do this when the whole world is willing to do it? Because the AKP ran out of gunpowder in 2018-19. Treasury resources have been depleted so that the crisis in 2018 does not get deeper," he said, adding that the only move the government can take now is to rein in the budget deficit.There is no other solution other than for the Central Bank to print money, Sönmez said.The Turkish lira hit record lows in 2018, following a diplomatic row between Ankara and Washington over the almost two year detention of an American pastor. Turkey has been facing difficulties in repaying its foreign currency-denominated debts ever since.The macroeconomic indicators, especially the budget deficit, already at drastic points before the pandemic grew enough to threaten the Turkish economy, said Altınbaş University economics professor Hayri Kozanoğlu.“It is time to meet the most basic needs of citizens by applying to all public resources and overcome them with minimal human harm, leaving aside the concerns of whether the budget deficit increases or inflation jumps," he said.Kozanoğlu believes those who manage Turkish economy have yet to realise the magnitude of the situation. Sonmez said government considers the pandemic issue a “short-term storm" to ride out.A surge in Turkey’s short-term borrowing masked a drop in the country’s net foreign currency reserves to just $1.5 billion last month, said the Financial Times.New data released on Friday raised serious concerns about Turkey’s ability to protect its economy and tackle any large declines in the value of the lira during the coronavirus outbreak, the FT said.At the end of last month, the Turkish Central Bank sharply increased its borrowing through short-term swap operations - which it uses to exchange lira with local banks in return for dollars - to $25.9 billion. In the latest TCB report, Current Account recorded a deficit of 1.8 USD bn in Jan 2020When Turkey’s net foreign assets - a sum reached by subtracting foreign currency liabilities from assets - of $27.4 billion were deducted from short term borrowing, the figure left just $1.5 billion of net foreign currency reserves.Turkey’s net foreign currency reserve level “is not sufficient to enable the central bank to make a sustained defence of the currency,” Paul Gamble, head of emerging Europe sovereign ratings at Fitch, told the FT.Turkish GDP which had dropped by 10% as an indirect result of the “Subprime Crisis”in 2009, recovered to peak at 950,5 billion USD in 2013 before declining to 772,2 in 2019.This means that a conservative stimulus package equivalent to 6% of GDP would amount to $ 46 bln USD or ₺312 bln which unfortunately aren’t available and need to borrowed.Last month, Turkey unveiled a relief package worth 100 billion Turkish liras ($15.4 billion) -- the Economic Stability Shield -- to limit the economic fallout from COVID-19.As Fitch forecasts the eurozone to shrink by 4.2% this year, Turkey's net exports will have a negative impact on GDP growth this year,"this is likely to outweigh the benefits to the Turkish economy from lower imports and any potential relocation of export capacity," Douglas Winslow from Fitch, told Anadolu Agency.b) economic after shocks linked to recessionThe recession hitting Turkey’s export customers, sources of Foreign Direct Investment and Tourism will also have an impact on earnings and foreign currency reserves.Using data for 38 countries which experienced a banking crisis, they find that financial crises had a disproportionately negative impact on sectors that rely more on external sources of finance if they are located in countries with developed financial systems. For instance, in a country experiencing a banking crisis, a sector at the 75th percentile of external dependence and located in a country at the 75th percentile of private credit to GDP would experience a 1.6 per cent greater contraction in growth in value-added between the crisis and precrisis period compared with a sector at the 25th percentile of external dependence and private credit to GDPTurkey shipped US$171.1 billion worth of goods around the globe in 2019.Turkish Statistical Institute on Jan. 31 announced that the country welcomed 44,6 million foreign visitors last year, generating an income of $34 bln in foreign currencies. The nationalities of foreign visitors, Russia took first place with 15.6 percent -- some 7 million visitors -- over the same period, followed by Germany (11.2 percent or 5 million) and Bulgaria (6 percent or 2.7 million).Foreign Direct Investment to Turkey reached 11 bln $ in 2019 having declined by 75% since 2015.Hence foreign currency inflows totalled to 216 bln USD in 2019.The most conservatives estimates will show a decline of 6% in exports, 40% in FDI and 90% in tourism which translates in a compound 24% decline in foreign currencies.In March, Turkey’s exports fell 17.8% compared to the same month last year while imports grew 3.1% on an annual basis. Foreign trade Minister Pekcan claimed that as the government they had taken all the necessary measures to support exports as she was pointing at ease of credit lines, yet the problem seems to be demand from Turkey’s main export partner, the EU.With the expected strengthening of the US dollar, credit rating lowering (borrowing becoming more expensive) and a sharp increase in unemployment it is unknown how much the Tl will depreciate. This depreciation will have far reaching effects as private borrowing and bonds will become more expensive to reimburse. Vital activities relying on imports are also liable to be hit like agricultural output relying on imported chemicals, as noticed during the last Tl depreciation.According to Atila Yesilada, Turkey’s currency closed the week at 6.73, at levels last touched during the worst of the 2018 currency crisis, as the coronavirus pandemic began weighing on manufacturing and trade. An ultra-loose monetary policy and domestic investors lacking confidence in Erdogan’s ability to manage the health crisis also add to pressures on the TL. Further weakness would boost inflation as well as dealing another blow to already much damaged corporate balance sheets. With the Central Bank of Turkey (CBRT) running out of Foreign Currency reserves, policy options are limited: Capital controls or an application to the IMF?March cash deficit of the Treasury soared to a record monthly high of TL40.5 bn, as dollar/TL traded up to 6.78 on Wednesday, despite state bank Foreign Currency sales of $400 mn over the last two business days.As a 2nd pandemic wave seems inevitable in the fall, it will also require a 2nd wave of confinement before a world wide vaccination campaign may eradicate the virus. This in turn means that the recession will most probably rage till early 2021.So personally I not only think that human and economic outlooks are bleak, the potential for social and political disruption is enormous. Expect chaos and power grabs, Viktor Orban is showing the way.I sincerely hope I’m wrong.https://www.fitchratings.com/research/fund-asset-managers/fitch-ratings-updates-2020-sector-outlooks-to-reflect-coronavirus-impact-27-03-2020European economy devastated by pandemic as COVID-19 cases well pass 500,000Turkey | DataThe Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on Industry Growth

If you think you are a good entrepreneur then go ahead.Now below points are the reasons why it is a good idea:-1. You Can Start Part-TimeIf you’re in college or you’ve got a day-job, you can start a web development business on the side and build it part-time. While meeting with clients may present some scheduling challenges, you can work through those. The actual web development work can be done in the evenings and on the weekends.2. You Don’t Need An OfficeIf you need to meet with clients, meet at their office or at a local café. Maintaining an office is expensive and, in the early days, it’s money that can be better spent elsewhere. If a client asks where you are located or seems put off by your lack of an office, simply explain with confidence that you built your business to be mobile and that you’re able to get more done for your clients in less time by not having an office.3. You Don’t Need To Learn CodeIf you’re just getting started, don’t waste time learning HTML or CSS. If you already know how to code, put that knowledge aside. The best way to get started is by using a platform. I highly recommend WordPress. Start out by using pre-built themes and plugins. Stay focused on providing results for your clients and keep your learning curve to a minimum. There will be plenty of opportunity to master code down the road – if that is your goal.4. Your Schedule Can Be FlexibleBeing the master of my own time is a big reason why I favor web development. The nature of the work means that I can get it done early in the day or late at night. If I need (or want) to take time off for a few weeks, or even longer, I can arrange the business and communicate with clients to keep things going in my absence. If communication is required, an hour or two checking email or making phone calls on the road can be all it takes.5. The Demand In The Market Is HighMore businesses and organizations than ever before are turning to the web and looking for help to establish or improve their Internet presence. Along with the demand for service there is a tremendous demand for education. The amount of information being blasted at businesses is overwhelming and they put a high value on anyone that can help them filter through the noise and make intelligent decisions. That’s where you come in.6. The Startup Cost Is LowYour greatest initial expense is a computer and the one you already have will probably work just fine. Beyond that, a $100-$200 budget is easily enough to get you started. Buy a domain name (around $10), choose a premium theme ($40-$50), and a managed web-host ($25-$30 a month). Get your first client and begin investing a portion of your earnings back in the business (development software, training, plugin licenses, etc).7. The Margins Are HighThe profit potential in web development is enormous. The greatest expense is your time and as your capabilities and processes improve, the amount of time it takes to deliver high value will decrease. I recommend that you start by calculating your per-project rates at a minimum of $75/hour and go up from there as your value increases.8. There Is High Demand For SpecialistsWeb development covers a wide spectrum of skillsets and within that spectrum there is a lot of room for specialists. Even more importantly, the demand for those specialists is high. You can focus your efforts on a niche or on a specific facet of development (e.g. design, mobile development, engineering). You can also focus on a geographic region, becoming a specialist to serving businesses in a specific area.9. Competitors Are Falling BehindThe web development industry is growing and changing at a mind-numbing pace. This means that your local competitor, the guy who’s been building websites for 5+ years, is probably using old technologies and is in danger of falling behind on industry best practices. This offers you a lot of room to come in, start with a clean slate, and deliver a higher value to your clients – and eventually his.10. You Can Scale As You GrowWhen the demand for your services is higher than you can manage, you can bring in a partner, a contractor, or a first employee to manage the load. The flexible nature of the business means you still don’t need to get an office and the speed at which you’ve acquired your skillsets means that you can also quickly train a newcomer to continue providing a high value to your clients. You can also use technology to streamline and automate some of the time-consuming parts of your business, making it easier to scale.11. The Timing Is RightThere has never been a better time to start a web development business. Internet availability and the speed of consumer adoption means that more people than ever before are using the Internet to make decisions. Businesses realize that. For those who’ve held out all these years, they are finally ready to get a website. For those who had a website built early on, they’re ready to make changes and improve.12. There Are Giants In The LandSince the early days, the amount of experience within the industry has exploded at an exponential rate and more people than ever are sharing what they’ve learned. You can study the successes of web developers who’ve gone before you, not only in general, but also, more than likely, in your specific area of interest. The web development industry as a whole has a great willingness to share and if you can’t find answers by looking, you can ask.13. Education Is Readily AvailableThere are thousands of blogs and websites dedicated to web development. Smashing Magazine, Webdesigner Depot, and Web Design Ledger are three great resources, to name only a few. Add to that, there are hundreds of great books (and ebooks) on specific specialties. You can also make use of online learning to further your education via sites like Learnable, Treehouse, and Codecademy.14. Web Development Favors The YoungFor those of us under 30 we have a perceptive advantage in this industry over those of the older generation. Web development and new technology is heavily associated with the younger generation and while we can’t sit back (some of those older folks are still very quick to learn!) we can use the perception to our advantange.15. Building Websites Opens Doors To New OpportunitiesAs you put your best into your work, you’re going to learn about clients and their businesses. Along the way, you may discover opportunities to meet a need that hasn’t yet been met. Keep your eyes and ears open. Many now successful app development companies started out doing web development for clients and, along the way, recognized an opportunity to build a service that now reaches a much wider audience.Source:Under30CEONow its not like that you will only flourish. Its a business so there will be ups and downs. Before going ahead read this below story as well :-A decade ago I started a web design company. We grew and grew, and after ten years of hard work, I’ve finally been able to get rid of it.Don’t get me wrong – we were successful, had fun and did good work. At our peak we had over 200 clients and 15 fulltime staff, making us the largest such company in our city. We’ve worked on great projects for some big name clients and we even made some money too.Little by little however, the years ate away at my soul. This year we finally left it all behind and moved onto our own products, and I’ve never been happier.So this is why.Web design isn’t all badWeb design is not without its benefits. Client work is endlessly varied, and you’re always learning new things.It’s a ludicrously easy industry to enter too – all you need is a computer, Internet access and time. There’s plenty of demand for cheap work to get you started, and fair rates for good work if you can do it.I started Silktide fresh out of University with no computer and £14,000 (about $22,000) of debt. And though it was hard from the start, we were able to double in size every year, and all our work led to better work. Our efforts were continually rewarded as we grew.Unfortunately, not forever.Your fate is sealedWhen you take on creative work for a client, they own a share of your time.I used to think I was an entrepreneur running a web design company, but the reality was far from entrepreneurial. Clients were my bosses, and we were at the mercy of their whim.We worked with some amazing and wonderful clients, but we had our share of the misguided, tyrannical and flat-out bonkers too. It’s not like you can always see them coming.Most web designers work constantly just to keep their clients happy, because unhappy clients don’t pay their bills. Regardless of how good their legal contracts are, a web design company that pisses off their clients won’t stay in business for long, and to keep clients happy sometimes means compromising your work to do what you’re told.I fired a number of clients in our time, but you can’t fire everyone you disagree with. At times, to pay the bills, you’ll probably take on work you suspect you shouldn’t, and deal with people you wish you wouldn’t. Bit by bit, you sacrifice your ideals for expediency, because the alternative is worse.But eventually, your conscience grows thin.Not a great businessIt’s not easy to make a lot of money in web design. It’s decent sustenance, but a poor investment.You can’t really differentiate yourself for starters – I mean, you’ll think you can – but in reality you’ll always be one of a gazillion companies in a global marketplace. It’s not like software, where one company can literally own a market; no one web design company owns 0.01% of their market.Like everyone else, we charged clients fixed rates. If our projects were a storming success, our reward remained the same. At best, you’ll earn yourself more work. Well done! You just won yourself more work.Understand how this is different from many other businesses. If you make a best-selling solar powered torch your reward is your own, and so is your destiny. You can choose to change your product, your brand, your strategy as you see fit. If you’re the best, the rewards are immense. But with web design, you essentially earned yourself more, slightly better work.There’s a reason most web designers never have time to work on their own websites, nevermind their own businesses.The limits of size and locationCompanies in all industries have natural sizes that have evolved to be stable and successful. For example, there aren’t that many car companies worldwide, and they typically have to make billions of dollars just to exist. Yet most plumbers and electricians are one-man bands.Web design companies tend to range from 1 to 10 people, with the vast majority having a couple of staff and a handful exceeding 100 or more. Like plumbers, they tend to focus on one geographic area: as far out as they can comfortably meet people face to face.The most successful companies tend to be in the biggest cities. If you’re a magnificent designer but you’re based in a remote mountain cabin, you’ll have a harder time than a mediocre designer in NYC.After about 7 years our location began to limit us – although we had customers from Cornwall to Cumbria, it became progressively harder to service them all. More distant customers are more expensive to tend to, so your returns diminish. You’re paying a premium to compete against the local companies who already work there.We could have moved or expanded, but this didn’t make economic sense for us. We’d spend a fortune to lose all the advantages we’d worked to earn: our staff, our network of referrers, our name. It can be done, but like plumbers there are few web design companies that can scale and prosper.Sacrifice your own destinyFor me, the greatest cost was what we could be doing instead. The opportunity cost.The thing I love most about businesses is their ability to transform the world for the better. We live in a world where two guys can found Google in a garage, creating an incalculable benefit to the world, and profit for their efforts. That – to me – is one of the greatest wonders of civilisation.I’ve always wanted to make the biggest difference I can with my life, and I couldn’t see me achieving this with a web design company. For no matter how much great work you do, it’s not the work you choose to do. You’re always working for someone else.And if you feel like I do, that’s the kind of passion you can’t surrender quietly.So what did we do?For at least 5 years I knew I’d need to leave web design behind eventually. 4 years ago we started to split Silktide into a web design division and a software division – and gave them separate brands. We had our first product – originally called SiteScore – and our first clients.The mistake I made was continuing to feed the web design monster, whilst trying to get our product side up and running in my spare time. In reality, despite ultimately delegating command of the agency to others, the web design business always consumed 90% of my attention.When the 2008 recession came our web design sales were severely hit, and it took all our efforts just to dig ourselves out of the financial hole that put us in. Ironically our products were keeping us afloat, but our web design was consuming all of our time.A year ago I set a 12 month deadline to get us out of web design; in the end it took us 9 months. It cost us a fair slice of income, but we gained a monstrous amount of our time. And finally our products are starting to get the attention they deserve.It’s too early yet to know if this decision will pay off – right now, we feel like a startup all over again. But whatever happens, we only have ourselves to answer for. And that feels pretty damn great.Source : Why we gave up web design after 10 successful yearsAll the best :)