Webdesign and Coding: Advices To Succeed
Morgan Ringrose is a Web Designer & Developer from Canada. She talked to us about her self-taught journey to coding and web design.
“No one told me that website design, or coding, were real jobs, so I wasted money going to university instead” laughs Morgan Ringrose when talking about her journey towards Web Designer & Developer.
An accidental journey towards her first love
Morgan started coding when she was 15. She played around, learned HTML and Iframe entirely by herself, on the internet. “I started coding gaming profile for virtual money for my avatars, and it kind of just spiraled from there” she remembers.
But it was only about 7 years ago, bored, that she started looking into it again. “It makes you feel very cool when you can code stuff. It’s a very satisfying thing, especially when you are a woman” she reflects.
She started her adventure on Fiver. For 20$, she would install your premium WordPress theme, customize it and get you all set up. And when the templates were not good enough, she started coding PHP to get her own WordPress website. “And then I kind of got stuck there. I was like ok, this is my job now”.
“I learned everything on the internet. I have only two books, the saint grail of all coding. And then everything I don’t know I just google it. I’m a professional googler” she admits cheerfully.
The need to find your prices: fighting the impostor syndrome
Getting to where she is now, officially registered as her own business and with clients lined up, was a long process. There was no straight line towards it, it felt more like a natural progression of things to her.
In the beginning, the projects were so diverse, in length and in content, it could be very stressful. “As someone who works for myself, I had impostor syndrome and I never knew how to price myself” she looks back. “I was such a pushover, especially when it comes to clients”. One of her biggest obstacles towards success was having to “grow some backbone”.
“I can’t believe it took me so much time to be able to say “if you can’t afford me, I’m sorry, but I won’t cut my prices”
Living in Halifax, her local target clientèle couldn’t afford the rates she should have been charging, so she started by taking on these giant projects for no money. They didn’t cover her time and would put her in a bad place financially.
Now, it’s different. She learned from the process. “My prices are my prices, and if people can’t afford them, I just tell them, well, giving your budget this is the service I can provide. Instead of being like don’t worry I’ll cut my prices by 2000$ and do it anyway. Now I’m just sticking to my prices and sticking to my work. I can’t believe it took me so much time to be able to say “if you can’t afford me, I’m sorry, but I won’t cut my prices”.
Finding your platform and your niche
One of the other things that Morgan pinpoints as the beginning of success is when she moved platform.
“You don’t need to know everything, you need to know one or two really good things”
She works now exclusively with Square Space. It has helped her in terms of time and price management. “I can look at a project and I can see exactly how long it is going to take, I’m able to see that this rate is going to cover this, no matter how long, and that’s really freeing for me”.
More than that, she underlines the need to pick one thing and “just get really good at that one thing. The worse developers I know are the ones that stretch themselves too thin. You don’t need to know everything, you need to know one or two really good things” she smiles.
For her, success started when she made her own website, then one for her business partner, who is a photographer. “Once I made her website, a luxurious website… No one questioned my prices anymore” she underlines.
After that, it only took one very happy customer who told the whole internet about it, and the clients are lining up. She now has her own special style and her own distinct clientèle. “It’s taken 6 years but it’s all coming together.”
The importance of showing your work
“I always tell people, you don’t have to have education, if you can code, just make a project, make a portfolio that is good, people won’t question you”. Finding her niche and her style, and being able to show it in a coherent manner with a portfolio really helped her move forward.
“If you are going to work for yourself, you need to be recognizable. My style of design is different than any other style. You kind of have to have that to make people want to hire you for that specific thing”.
She advocates for three solid pieces. Three good projects, “that’s your credentials. No one will take you very seriously if you have nothing to show them”.
Instagram for growth, sharing and learning
Morgan has also built a very good brand for herself on Instagram. She believes that the platform is good if you want to work for yourself. “Not just to market your business, but to share your journey. We are all on this educational adventure and everyone wants to feel supported”.
“I’m on Instagram and that’s where my business kind of just organically takes its turns and builds itself. I strive to be an educational platform. If I know something cool I’m going to share it with my entire audience. And I think that being that kind of genuine, helpful, supportive person is what really launched my business”.
Her clients are mostly nice sweet people that know they need to be online but don’t know what they’re doing and she takes care of them. “I design their websites. But I also give them an entire supported service and then they just kind of go off with their life and they are in a better place” she smiles proudly.
The path to success is not always what you’d expect
Morgan’s been at it for more than 6 years. And yet, this is only the first year that she’s an officially registered business. “Before I was like oh well, I can still go work somewhere else if it’s getting hard. I didn’t give myself enough credit for how well I could do”.
The last three years started to be more fluid. And it’s only in the last few months that she feels she can comfortably say she has “made it”.
She took 6 months off because her kids were home due to the pandemic. Since she came back, she’s booked solid for the next months. “It’s something that I’ve always wanted for myself”.
And she loves the freedom of it. Working from home, taking reading breaks, managing her schedule around her kids. “I’ve read this thing one day, “being rich doesn’t always have to mean having money, being rich can also mean picking up your kids for school”. And that really stuck with me” she ponders. “I have a 9 years old and a 4 years old. I work very hard during the day so that I can be able to hang out with them after school. That’s how I know I made it”.
