Tag Archives: Small Business

Stress Management Tips for the Small Business Owner or Freelancer

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The role of the small business owner, or freelancer, is a loosely-defined amalgam of time, tasks, projects, and nine million other responsibilities to pull you in every direction manageable. There are times — believe me because it’s happened to me — when it can all become too much and you buckle under the weight of […]

How to Accurately Estimate a Web Design Project

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Whether you flat-bid or bill hourly, the ability to accurately estimate web design projects is crucial for delivering within budget and avoiding client disappointments. While completing over 300 projects for more than 100 clients at Pelago, we’ve spent the last nine years honing our estimating skills into an art form. Follow these four steps to […]

5 Lessons Learned from 9 Years as a Web Development Agency

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This month, Pelago celebrates its ninth year of life as a web development agency. In those nine years we’ve worked on 339 projects for 105 clients. We’ve built everything from basic brochure web sites to complex data crunching web applications. And we’ve dealt with just about every type of client you can imagine. Here are […]

Three ways to simplify your small business

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When you stop to consider the amount of responsibilities required to run a small business the conclusions can be overwhelming. It turns out the only thing ‘small’ in a small business is the number of people. That means fewer people wearing many different hats handling a larger set of tasks. Diversity is a requirement, not […]

The 80-20 Rule and Client Drama

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The 80-20 Rule, AKA the Pareto Principle, states that “for many events, 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.” This can be observed in any volunteer organization, for example, a church, where 20% of the people do 80% of the work. In our eight-plus years of doing web development at Pelago, we […]

Startup New Orleans

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Home to some of the best jazz, zydeco, and voodoo gris gris music, the Crescent City is experiencing a rebirth of business. Entrepreneurs are finding ideas and opportunities in the wake of Katrina, turning devastation into inspiration and profitability. Check out some of these businesses at startupneworleans.com.

Valuing Time as a Business Resource

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An interview with Curt Finch, CEO of Journyx, Inc., on why tracking time is a necessary business practice. Here are some excerpts from the interview on task and time tracking, Software as a Service, and encouraging employees to provide accurate data. Why tracking time against projects and tasks is important Well, the most obvious thing […]

All Things To All People

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Our company’s eight-year history and experiences with web development have taught us many lessons about running a small business. One of the most important lessons learned was that we can’t be all things to all people. When we first started up in August of 2000, we tried to do it all; print design, logo design, […]