Entrepreneur Magazine recently wrote an article titled The Cost of Quality which talks about the costs associated with designing, building, launching and managing your website.  It’s a very interesting article that emphasizes the fact that in order to be successful online, you cannot entrust your online presence to a cheap design template or the “dude next door” working out of his parent’s garage.  Of course it will cost you some money to get a website that drives your business goals and objectives, but it’s all about expectations and understanding what a quality website or application will take in effort and dollars spent to design, develop, and deliver.

What we’re talking about here is viewing your website as an investment, not just a marketing spend.  Your website is an asset that belongs on your balance sheet; revenue and expenses as related to it should be tracked.

Another point is that your website is just like any other asset you purchase; the old adage, “you get what you pay for” really rings true.  You can go to your friend’s cousin who lives in his parent’s garage to get a website for $1,000 but I can guarantee, you will pay for it later on.  We’ve been in the business for over 16 years and we’ve seen it happen time and time again.  Somebody went the cheap route and ended up with a website that didn’t work the way they wanted it or it broke down all the time or it flat out never got finished, because someone who didn’t know what they were doing promised them the farm at an impossibly cheap price.  Everyone knows that is just not reality – “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

I encourage you to read the article from Entrepreneur Magazine and think about your current web services provider: are they fulfilling your business goals and objectives (or even considering them for that matter), or do they take the time up front to ensure that you have a solid plan for accomplishing what you’re looking for, even if it costs a little more?  If you fit into the former description, I would suggest you take a look at a firm like ours and see if there really is a difference…my guess is that you will be pleasantly surprised.

As with many businesses, the product itself seems to get all the attention; the new car smell is intoxicating and exciting. In the website and application development business, the actual website or application projects get the spotlight but, not unlike a new vehicle, they still require maintenance and updates.  Most of the time though, support and maintenance services get overshadowed by the fun projects, but this service plays an essential role in keeping client's websites and applications operational and working the way they need them to.

This week, we closed our 5,000th maintenance ticket since we starting tracking the metric four years ago and YTD we've helped 76 of our clients keep their website or application working at peak performance.  That's a big milestone for us!  The cool thing about it is that those are 76 clients that we've been able to help long after the project closed.  We don't just say, "see ya later!" when the project is completed, we're shaking your hand and saying, "see you in 3,000 miles, oh and if you want to make it go faster, we'll be right here standing by."

For anyone who is familiar with Indianapolis, you know about Bub's Burgers in downtown Carmel, Indiana.  Home of the Big Ugly burger that weighs 1 lb after it's been cooked is a challenge that many Hoosiers have attempted.  It comes on a huge bun with all the trimmings and if you eat all of it, and I mean every last crumb, you get to have your picture on the wall.  We wanted to give the Dutch intern at our office the full Indianapolis experience, so he's gotten to do things like attend the Indy 500, salsa dancing, all-you-can-eat buffets, driving a 24ft. moving truck, among others over the past month, and of course, we thought it was fitting to take him to Bub's to meet the Big Ugly face-to-face.

I did the Big Ugly once in college and then proceeded to eat a pint of Ben & Jerry's ice cream and I remember how I felt after that so I decided to bow out of the challenge this time, but my Less Ugly burger tasted extraordinarily good and Michael Ratliff, another BitWise employee decided to take on Harry in the Big Ugly Challenge!  Even though the video has been sped up significantly, Harry ate the Big Ugly in about 8 minutes and Michael did it in about 10 real time - these guys can seriously eat some food!! 

If you've never been to Bubs, you gotta go try the Big Ugly challenge, and join the thousands of other people on the wall-of-fame! May the following video give you the courage to attempt the feat!