The Many Insults of the Web Developer — Part 1

In September 2001, I was living in Austin with my wife and business partner, Margaret, and we were operating our web design business out of our house. Things were going pretty well. The business was successful, Austin was exciting and fun, and we were a few chapters into the writing of our second co-authored book.

On September 11, I woke up shortly before 8:00 and sat down at my computer to check my email before taking a shower. I opened Excite.com and saw in the newsfeed that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. “What a horrible accident,” I thought. I left a browser window open to CNN.com so I could check it out after I went through my email.

The next time I looked at the news, a 2nd plane had hit the World Trade Center. I ran downstairs to tell Margaret. We turned on the TV and saw the first tower collapse. For the next hour, we watched as the most horrible thing we’d ever seen unfolded.

Then my office phone rang. I saw on the caller ID that it was Joe, our real estate agent client. I had talked to him at 10PM the night before, several times during the previous day, and a couple times over the weekend. It wasn’t unexpected that he would call at strange times. But if he was calling now, it must be a huge emergency.

Maybe he had family in New York and wanted my help contacting them? Maybe he felt it necessary to call and tell me that he wasn’t going to be working today? Maybe he just wanted to talk to someone about what was going on and thought of me (we had been talking an awful lot lately, after all). I picked up the phone.

“Chris, I know what’s happening in New York right now is just terrible. But, we really need to launch the site today. We have a big e-blast going out tomorrow morning.”

I started my web development company (Minnick Web Services) in 1997. It survived the dot-com crash and the early 2000s lull. The great recession hit us hard in 2009, and we laid off 10 of our 12 employees. I kept it alive for another five years with loans and by burning through every penny that my wife and I managed to save since we started working. I finally shut down the business in November 2014.

This series of articles will describe the history of my years as a small business owner, employer, and web developer. I don’t know how long this series will end up being, but I’m looking forward to sharing some of my stories as well as the small bits of wisdom I’ve gained. My hope is to figure out where everything went wrong with my first business, and to learn something so that I don’t repeat my mistakes. I’m also hoping to pass on my experiences to the next generation of web developers and clients.

I won’t bother you with my personal revelations (much). You’re here for the story, and I’m going to give it to you as best I can.

All non-innocent names have been changed to protect the innocent.