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I Wanted to Help My Friend’s Website Succeed — But I Couldn’t Say This

Making money on your website remains a challenge for most business owners, especially my friend.

Ellen Frances
The Startup
Published in
13 min readFeb 7, 2025

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The plucky website owner | Image created on Canva

Jane looked at me and sheepishly asked, “What do you think?”

I stared at her website, then at her, and back to her website, I realised my jaw was on the floor. How could I say something nice about her website? How could I explain that the design in front of me belonged in the scrap pages, let alone on the internet?

It’s the perils of being a former website designer. Every person you know wants your thoughts on their website. Jane, the friend in question, opened an online fashion accessories boutique almost a year ago.

To this day, it has only generated three sales. Not great.

By the time she came to talk to me, she was nearly in tears. Not only had she spent thousands of her mother's money (yes, a loan she quickly needed to pay back) on the start-up, but she was looking at all of her future business plans going down the toilet.

Everything she was doing to set herself up for the future was suddenly vanishing before her eyes.

I felt for her. As a favour, I looked through her website and immediately spotted the…

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The Startup
The Startup

Published in The Startup

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Ellen Frances
Ellen Frances

Written by Ellen Frances

I’m here to use my wins and losses in life as your cautionary tale | Writes 1LD; Cautionary tale women's fiction https://linktr.ee/ellenfranceswrites

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