Websites for startups & new businesses.

Starting a business is a hundred decisions fired at you at once, and "the website" almost always gets shoved to the bottom of the pile — right when it deserves to be near the top. Your very first customers will Google you before they part with a penny. They'll check you're real, judge in seconds whether you look like a business or a hobby, and quietly move on if the answer's wrong. At the start, when you have no reputation to fall back on, your website is your credibility.

But every founder knows the bind: launch is also the exact moment you can least afford a £2,000–£5,000 agency bill, with your runway needed for stock, tools, premises and staying alive. This page is the honest way through that bind.

A startup's real options, compared honestly

A new business choosing its first website has essentially four routes. Here they are without the sales gloss:

The pattern is clear: free and DIY protect your cash but cost your time and credibility; an agency protects both but takes the cash you need to survive; pay-monthly is the one route built for the startup situation specifically — professional from day one, nothing upfront, and no risk beyond a month's notice.

Why £49.99/month (+ £499.99 build) fits a new business like a glove

• £499.99 flat to launch — you launch properly without draining the cash you need for everything else. The single biggest barrier to a new business getting a real website simply disappears.
• A professional, hand-built site — not a template you're wrestling with at midnight instead of running your business, and not something that screams "made this myself".
• It's handled — design, hosting, updates and SEO all done for you, so your hours go into the actual business, not learning web design.
• It grows with you — start with what you need to launch, add pages and features as you land customers. Pivot the business and the site pivots with you. No re-buying, no starting over.
• No lock-in — no contract, 30 days' notice, and your domain is always yours. The honest terms are written in plain English here.

What a startup actually needs (and what it doesn't)

Here's something most agencies won't tell a new business: you don't need everything on day one, and over-building before you have customers is a classic, expensive mistake. What you genuinely need at launch is the foundation done well — crystal clear on what you do and who it's for, effortless to contact, credible enough to trust, fast, and findable on Google. That's it. I'll help you launch with exactly that and build outward as you grow, rather than selling you a twenty-page site for a business that might pivot next month. I've written honestly about how much a startup should actually spend — including when the answer is "less than you think".

Getting your first customers — the part after the website

A website is step one, but a new business starts from absolute zero online: no reviews, no rankings, no reputation. Breaking that cold start is a solved problem if you work it in the right order — Google Business Profile first (it's your fastest win), genuine early reviews, local groups and your own network, while the site's SEO compounds in the background. The full playbook is free on this site: how to get your first customers online, setting up Google Business Profile as a new business, and the interactive new-business online checklist that walks every step in order and saves your progress.

The mistakes that sink new-business websites

After enough builds you see the same traps repeating: waiting months to get online at all, over-spending on a site the business outgrows, DIY-ing it to an amateur standard, forgetting mobile, ignoring Google Business Profile, and letting someone else register the domain. Every one is avoidable once you know it exists — I've written them all up in the ten website mistakes new businesses make, and steering clients around them is half the value of working with someone who's seen it before.

Why a solo studio suits a startup

You get one person, a direct line, and honest advice — including being told when you don't need something, which saves you money. I keep my client list deliberately small, so you're a business I actually know, not a ticket in a queue behind fifty others. And I've built for new businesses across trades, food, events and services — including Fatties BBQ, who launched lean with a coming-soon page and grew into a full site with online pre-ordering exactly as the business found its feet. That lean-launch-then-grow path is the model.

What it costs

£49.99 a month, everything included — design, build, unlimited updates, hosting and ongoing SEO and Google support — with one flat £499.99 build fee, no long contract, and your domain always yours. One-off fixed-price builds are available too if you'd rather own it outright from day one. Here's exactly how it works.