

Web Design Job for the Eager - andrewljohnson

I have a bit of a story to tell here, but their might be a job in it for you, so bear with me. I just spent the last 45 minutes talking to the owner of Tahoe Reno Firewood. I don't know why I did it, but I just started talking and asking questions, and I couldn't stop.<p>The reason I was on the phone was because my girlfriend Anna had gone on his website: http://www.renotahoefirewood.com/index.html to order a cord of wood. As it stands, to do this, she had to download a PDF form and then email it back to him. Even after jumping through these hoops, he emailed us and asked us to call because the form was screwed up.<p>So, Anna had me call the guy, and while I had him on the phone, I decided to ask some questions about his business, and give him some advice on his website. He seems like a really nice guy, and I really like his business - we've discovered that not everyone in the wood business is reliable or honest. But his website is a real travesty.<p>After talking to him for a while, I learned some things:<p>* he sells several thousand cords of wood (over a million in revenues)<p>* his website gets around 50 visits per day<p>* he traded a cord of wood for his website, including hosting<p>* he has two types of clientele - people who live in the Bay and own multiple houses, and less affluent people around Truckee<p>* he manually imports the PDFs people send him into Quickbooks<p>* he's very friendly and likes to talk on the phone<p>What i took away from all this is that there is a lot of money sitting on the table. If you follow hacker news, you know that simple usability issues (remember the $300,000,000 button from yesterday) can make or break a web business. And he has a segment of clientele who really appreciate a good website.<p>It seems to me that if this guy had a better way to order would online, if his website better conveyed his brand (reliable and high quality), and he didn't have to manually input forms, he could make a lot more money. Now, I do sort of get the feeling that the guy is leery of paying a lot of cash for a nice website, but I think if someone came to him with a good deal, that involved some cash and perhaps a gain-share on sales, he might be interested.<p>So that's the story. I just met this random guy while ordering a cord of wood., and I asked myself - where might I find some enterprising young web developers who see the same opportunity I did? I'd aggressively pursue this myself, but I recently got some funding for my company trailbehind.com.<p>By the end of the conversation, the guy seemed sold on improving his website this summer (during the off-season) - but I told him I wasn't available. If you are, I'll put you in touch, or you can even bypass me and call him yourself. My only hope is by this time next year, I can buy a new cord of wood online.
======
aaronblohowiak
This story illustrates why you're a founder -- recognize pain, know the
solution to alleviate the pain, and have the skills to talk to the people who
can effect change. Congrats on the funding.

------
lionheart
It looks like this site has some amazing potential. But I wonder if its
possible that the site makes this much because of the bad design instead of in
spite of it.

I've actually seen cases where a redesign to make a site look better kills
sales. I'm not saying that it would happen. I'm just saying that it could. Its
possible that the kinds of people that buy firewood like simple sites like
this.

On the other hand, I see absolutely no reason why putting in online ordering
would hurt sales. And that would be very easy to set up.

I'll send you an email and maybe I can help him out with this.

------
staunch
Maybe I'm just over cautious but I wouldn't have posted revenue/traffic
information without his permission. Just because he was willing to tell a
single customer on the phone doesn't mean he wants it posted online.

~~~
andrewljohnson
I thought about that, but I didn't think the story would be interesting
without the numbers. You know anyone else who sells a million bucks in
something with 50 visitors a day? The numbers do a lot to illustrate the
opportunity.

If the guy gets mad at me, so be it. But if these numbers were really a
secret, he shouldn't have told them to a random guy on the phone.

I also don't think there's any harm in relating what he told me - maybe he'll
get someone to help him because of it.

------
nirmal
I really enjoyed this but the contrast of the text with the background made it
quite hard to read.

<http://jottit.com/n2x8w/>

~~~
fuzzmeister
I agree, I think that post text on HN should be a bit darker.

------
da01
I'm not suggesting he does this, but why doesn't he use eBay? Is it because of
the PDF files? or because it's very local service?

------
Harkins
My dad runs a small web design/hosting business, most of his customers are
local business. This is exactly the process he goes through to find almost all
of his clients.

There was a big wave of this in '96, people going door-to-door to sell mom-
and-pop shops on a website. I guess this is the second wave, upgrading them to
a good website.

------
aditya
How about Shopify (<http://shopify.com>) - seems to be a good match?

~~~
chaostheory
yeah i think <http://goodbarry.com> and yahoo stores are a good match too - a
custom site may or may not be overkill

------
sjs382
I have experience with a similar project. How can I get a hold of you?

~~~
andrewljohnson
Email me at andrewljohnson _at_ trailbehind.com

------
joshsharp
Great story, and thanks for sharing the opportunity on here. I'm sure someone
closer by than me will jump at the chance.

------
alex_c
Isn't this a perfect use case for Wufoo?

------
EricaJ
Why not just use the shopping cart that is offered? Think the site is simple,
clean and straight. Have you ever seen a PHP flash site about firewood? dont
think it will work.

------
peregrine
Interesting.

