[thelist] Site Copycat (Special Circumstances Involved)

David Bindel dbindel at austin.rr.com
Fri Jun 20 18:28:49 CDT 2003


> From: Behalf Of Richard Bennett
> Sent: Friday, June 20, 2003 7:03 PM
> 
> One thing to keep in mind is, he might seem like a clueless 
> copycat whose undercutting you and stealing your clients and 
> work, but that's seen from your point of view.
> From my point of view, as a tax-paying freelancer who has to 
> support a
> family, you are that annoying college student who is working 
> from his parents basement, undercharging his customers, 
> making it harder for me to ask a reasonable rate because 
> there's always someones son who's studying IT and will do it 
> for less.

I've had a similar rant going in my head for the last couple days about
3rd World programmers who will develop a shopping cart superior to
osCommerce for $5...

> And I am the thorn in the side of larger webdev 
> companies, because my hourly rate is half of what they 
> charge, because I don't have to employ someone to do the job 
> etc etc. This is the way things are in business. You have to 
> position yourself by being positive about your own work, not 
> by wasting energy on putting others down.

I am being positive about my work.  I'm being proud of my work, I'm
sticking up for it.  I don't want it being copied and resold to someone
else's clients.

> I would suggest reading a few books about business psychology 
> - one good one I remember was called 'Getting past no' . The 
> essence is, to use the possitive aspects of a negative 
> situation to your advantage.

I'll look into it.

> You could use the situation to your advantage.
> You can tell him that you enjoyed teaching him what he knows 
> for free, but once money is involved, you need your cut too, 
> as partners.
> You could decide decide to market php-driven site-templates, 
> and use him as a guinypig.

But I don't want to work *with* him... he has nothing to offer to me.
Like I said, he's clueless when it comes to development.  That's why he
copied my stuff in the first place.

> You could possition yourself as the local server-side guru,

I'm from Texas, he's from New York (damn Yankee! :P)... It's not really
an issue of who's boss on the local level.

Thanks for the suggestions,
David

-- 
    David I. Bindel
  Website Development
 dbindel at austin.rr.com
  www.davidbindel.com 



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