My name is Joey Pomerinke, I am a website designer in Santa Rosa, California. Below is a brief history of how I got started, and my goals as a designer. My family owns Whiskers, Wings & Wiggly Things, a small pet shop in Sonoma County. After years of being in business, I came to realize there was something missing in our business. It was allowing our customers a way to get information about us and the products we carried, on their terms, 24 hours a day. What was missing was a website. I did some research into what was involved, how to get a website; how complicated was it, and of course how much did it cost. After researching the many different ways to go about getting a website, I decided to try a large website design company that contacted me. They offered free setup, no commitment and a monthly fee of only $35 a month. I was very excited to finally get a website for our business. My excitement quickly turned to disappointment when I saw what they called a "website", and realized why there were no setup fees. It was a page, that included our store logo, our address and phone number, a one paragraph description about us and really nothing else. It was a page with a plain white background and nothing that expressed the pride of our store to our customers, no creativity. After discussing it with the company that designed it, and finding out I had very limited options in what I could change, I cancelled our "website" with that company and went back to researching. I found that getting a great or good website meant going through a smaller company, and included extremely high setup costs of approximately $1000-$10,000. That generally included a website with 10 or more pages, that included graphics. Adding additional pages to the website would cost approximately $100 a page. Any special features and effects would cost an additional $100 an hour. However, for the money I would be getting one- on-one customer service, and a very customized site. I was getting frustrated, as I knew our small business could not afford something like this. I asked myself why couldn't anyone provide great websites, with nice features, good customer service at an inexpensive price for small businesses? I knew it took skill to build websites, but why would these designers charge so much? After considering all the possibilities, I had all but given up on a website for our store. I then wondered to myself, why couldn't I build a website for our store? I already knew tons about computers, from building them, to writing programs. I knew some website building basics, so I decided to see how involved it was. I read and read and read. I soon started putting all of my knowledge and new information to work, by attempting to build my first website. After months of learning, practice, and lots of trial and error, I can say it was a success!! Our website is what it is today, exactly what I had pictured. You can view our website here: 
After building our website to a point that I was very proud of, I soon wondered how many other small businesses were having the same difficulty I was. I now had all of the knowledge, and skill, why not try to help other businesses get a website? A website that is what they have dreamed of, without having to pay the extremely high prices most designers ask for. I knew I could offer the same services as other designers, and sometimes more. So I put together some website packages that I could design for any business, researched what other designers were offering and found ways I could offer better at extremely lower prices. My Goal is to provide your company with what most would consider unaffordable websites, at extremely affordable prices. I put 110% into all sites I design, and will be there to help you and your business before and after I have designed your website. |
