How to Become a Webflow Developer in 2024

all right so if you're watching this video there's a chance you watched a video that I made a couple years ago on how to become a freelance webflow designer and developer in 6 months now since I made that video a lot has changed so what I wanted to do was make a video specifically on how I would become a webflow developer not a designer just a developer if I was starting out today now what I'm thinking in this video is I'm going to cover if it is a good idea to be a webflow developer if you're deciding in 2024 how to become a great webflow developer and if you should choose to become a freelancer or to have a job or to do a mix of both now let's start with is it a good idea to be a web flow developer in 2024 now if you read anything online you'll see a bunch of people film oning saying that the industry is saturated that there's loads of web flow developers that you shouldn't start because there's all of these people who are way better than you but this happens in pretty much every single industry and you should not listen to it at all as someone who actually runs a studio so we have designers developers and and I kind of do a little bit of both there is so much opportunity for really great web flow Developers now I always see this happen in pretty much every industry that people will always say it's too saturated don't start now because you might end up wasting your time but really what they're saying here is if you're not very good you will not have many opportunities you will not have success in that space what you got to look for when you're deciding to make a move like this when you're deciding that you're going to have a career in a specific industry is a couple things first of all is how big is that industry and is that industry growing because if the industry is getting smaller then you're going to be able to kind of grow with that industry you're going to have to be really good and take a big percentage of the market share but if an industry like the webflow industry is still growing then the chances are that you can kind of ride the wave as the industry grows and you can grow with the overall industry for me deciding to be a webflow designer and developer was a great decision because webflow was so small at the time when I decided to go kind of go all in on webflow about four years ago that in that time just a sheer fact that webflow has grown so much has presented me a lot of opportunities now you might think that that 4 years sounds like a long time but ultimately the actual percentage of sites that are built on web flow is incredibly low especially when you're comparing it to something like WordPress and webflow as a company is growing really quickly so if that company is still growing if the industry is growing if a lot of companies are moving from these Legacy platforms like WordPress and like their old CMS platforms then it's still a good decision to choose an industry like web flow where it is growing quickly and you can kind of take advantage of that growth now the other reason I still think it's a great idea to become a web flow developer is because there is so many bad web flow developers in the ecosystem now I've been running a Agency for a little while and we've been working with a bunch of different clients in all kinds of Industries and a bunch of different webflow developers on our end there is a lot of people who are just not very good at building websites they will produce really poor quality work and then the client is left with that poor quality work and they have huge problems because the websites are not scalable there's no class system they're performing really poorly and this all makes people think that there's either something wrong with the Freelancers the agencies in the industry or there's something wrong with web flow the platform now if you can be really good at being a web flow developer if you can be a great webflow developer then that is your unfair advantage that is the piece where you can really sell yourself because there is not many people who are masters of everything in the web flow Ecco system I think a lot of this comes from probably two things one is the fact that webflow kind of Market it as self as a designer tool which means that people don't necessarily come from strong development kind of fundamentals which means there's a lot of opportunity for people who have super strong fundamentals and they actually kind of approach it as a developer versus approaching it as a designer who is turning into a developer and I think the other reason is just because it's still a very new industry there's still a lot of people who are kind of flocking to this space because there's a lot of opportunity so a lot of the people who are building websites are not necessarily kind of super qualified but there there's not been a long enough time for them to be weeded out there's not been a long enough time for people to realize this person's not doing good work so we'll work with someone else I think the thing that amazes me most about this space is I will see websites which I know companies and individuals have charged 20 30 40K for and they are really poor quality websites they're not using good scalable class systems they're not making sure that the website is easy to maintain for the client and what we do when we get a new project is we always like to look at the back end before we accept the project because that's going to show okay how good is this website to kind of work from and how easy is it going to be for us to build from or should we start again and kind of scrap it and and go from nothing and start from the beginning and then work with the client from that very first phase now the amount of people who deliver really bad work but I know or in this space have been charging people lots and lots of money is is there it's like there's a lot of people who kind of have done this and a lot of people who still build businesses doing this now the thing with this is sure it doesn't seem great it doesn't doesn't seem great that someone's feeling like they're getting ripped off because they're not producing great work this person's kind of somewhat scamming or at least just producing really poor work but there's an opportunity here because if you can deliver really high quality websites if you can be the person the company who is able to do that and able to kind of hit every single basis even when no one is going to see so if you're making sure that every single thing is checked if you're making sure that you're submitting the website to Google search console if you're making sure that all the tags are set up correctly if you're making sure that the HTML is semantic all of these super small things that clients are not going to see but ultimately kind of stack on top of each other and build the website and make it better and better and kind of give it the strongest foundations possible that is where the opportunity is that is where there is a lot of opportunity to take these projects from people who are charging loads of money and and really kind of just know the the idea of how do you build a big agency and how do you kind of charge clients a lot for projects that can go over to you that can go over to these companies that can go over to the company that you work for because you just focus on quality and eventually quality wins because what's going to happen is the best agencies are going to rise to the top the best Freelancers are going to rise to the top it just takes a little bit of time so the fact that there is these big projects and the fact that there isn't many people who have super high quality work is a great opportunity which really leads me on to the second point and that is how do you become a great webflow developer now I think in the web flow space because it is so kind of designer orientated because the platform makes it so easy to create animations and all this kind of interaction stuff it makes it really easy to think that the best websites possible are the most impressive ones it's the most eye-catching websites it's the kind of things where there's stuff moving all over the place but while this stuff obviously is impressive it's not the basis of what makes a great webflow developer because at the end of the day a web flow developer is really kind of a marketing developer if you're developing a backend tool or if you're developing like an app you're developing the whole app like you're developing the actual product itself but if you're a webflow developer you're essentially a developer for a marketing website in most cases because often you're not necessarily building custom web apps I know you can do that in the space but it's most of the time you're actually just building marketing websites which makes you a marketing developer if you're a designer in this space you're a marketing designer and the thing that's so different about this is sure interactions and sure kind of functionality and all this stuff is important but the most important things here are actually the things that help the people who you're working with so if a company is looking for a great marketing website what you need to do is figure out how do I build a great marketing website something that is going to bring leads into the site so it's going to have strong fundamentals that's going to help them if they're focusing on SEO if they're focusing on paid ads whatever their marketing channels are it's going to convert really well because obviously the website is there to make sales or to get people to inquire about a service and and ultimately the website is going to make them more money so adding a bunch of interactions and all that kind of stuff it's it's really cool like you can make a website and create a brand experience that just looks great feels great and can be part of this overall strategy but in most cases it's not the main thing the main thing is a website that converts really well a website is really easy to find a website that loads really quickly a website that has great ux and a website that is accessible ultimately the main things that make up a great webflow developer is can they figure out how to build the best marketing websites and a lot of this comes down to how do you nail every single fundamental that comes down to are you submitting things to Google search console are you doing all of those small things that people don't necessarily see especially if the client doesn't know much about building a website but these are the things that actually kind of make a difference if you're moving someone over from a different place are you setting up 301 redirects because if you're not you're hurting the people you're working with but setting up 301 redirect doesn't look super fancy it doesn't look like the animations that you can add in your portfolio and be like hey look all this cool stuff I've done ultimately a great webflow developer is someone who can absolutely nail all of the fundamentals do them incredibly well and then add those extra pieces on top so adding those micro interactions adding those small little details that make the experience of being on the website feel super premium but they don't do that at the expense of all the other things which actually build an effective website and actually help clients and the other piece with this is having an understanding as to how the website actually works in the greater ecosystem of the company I think as designers as developers as people who build websites you can think that the website is the only important thing about the business but ultimately all that website is there to do is to communicate their value and to really kind of create sales for that company it's a way for people to understand this is what the company does this is why I would work with them here is how I get in contact with them or here is how I buy that thing from them and if you can really understand the greater ecosystem of how all of these pieces fit together that's when you become incredibly valuable because you can offer your expertise for strategy and and really just helping the company shape what decisions is that they actually make in future because most of the time the value as a web flow developer as a designer as someone in this space is actually understanding what work should be done that will actually help the company so really the way that you become a great web flow developer in 2024 and really in any year is you focus on how do you become a developer who understands what the actual purpose of these websites are and that is marketing you're not just someone who can build kind of fancy animations and do all of this impressive stuff you focus on what are the fundamentals what are the actual important pieces that most people miss and when those people miss it doesn't necessarily mean that people are going to pay attention to it because these people are producing bad work and then getting a away with it for an X period of time but eventually it catches up with them and when it catches up with them they don't get referrals they don't get future work but if you're focusing on all of these things which sure do take a little bit of extra time and do take you to learn these different skills that is when you can really set yourself apart and go from being an okay or a good web flow developer to being a great web flow developer now the final thing I want to touch on is should you go for the route of being a freelancer or having a job as a web flow developer now I don't recommend the way that I did it to almost anyone and there's a couple reasons for this when I started out in this whole ecosystem I was only 18 so I had the privilege of being able to live at home while I was building the business which meant that I didn't need to earn a lot of money in the short term I could figure it out over the course of a year or two then I was able to move out and do all the other stuff but it took me some real time before I was able to actually kind of create a sustainable living from being a freelancer and the other reason I don't recommend the path that I took where it was kind of go all in on just learning everything and and doing everything at once is because I realized over the last kind of year or so that my superpower is just being incredibly determined and gritty and figuring out how I'm going to do something kind of to my own detriment in a lot of times I like smack my head against the wall over and over again until I eventually figure it out which does slow you down but ultimately is a reason why this worked for me and I don't think it would work for a lot of people instead I think there's a couple other ways that other people can do this and I think these would work best for most people now the first way to do it is to have a normal job so something probably not related to design and development at all the kind of job that doesn't really follow you home once you get home from work you don't have to kind of think about it you don't have to be doing a little bit of work at home and then build a freelance business on the side now this for most businesses is actually probably the best way to get into building a business a lot of people think that one day they'll quit their job they'll have absolutely nothing on the side and then they'll be able to focus on that thing they'll be able to focus on building that business but the problem with this is when you quit you have nothing like you have to then figure out what are all these different things and then you have the pressure of having to try figure it out all at once which again is kind of like the system that I had in the beginning instead for most people what would actually work really well is to have a job that has nothing to do with this and just kind of Gets You Through It kind of pays the bills but doesn't follow you home and then build the freelance business on the side so in the mornings on the evenings and then on the weekends you're focused solely on building that freelance business and that is the outward Persona that is the outward kind of thing that you're marketing the thing that you're pushing the the lessons you're learning are all kind of at the expense of this other person paying you in a sense even though it's not actually kind of learning from that other job you have it to kind of see you through and keep you going while you're learning all these lessons until you can eventually replace it with that freelance work now that is the first option but it's probably not the option I would have chose if I was 18 and I was starting out from the beginning instead what I would have done is I would have learned the fundamentals so at this point we need to be kind of good enough to be able to build websites in the sense that you can you can kind of build a website add value but you don't necessarily have to be an expert at this kind of thing and then I would focus all my attention on getting a job at an agency now if it could be an inperson agency it could be a remote agency I guess it kind of works with your location so you know is there any agencies close to you like or would you rather work online would you rather work remotely so figuring that out is kind of a personal piece of this but then when you actually work at an agency the benefit of this is you figure out how agencies and and freelancing and how all this stuff works because there are so many pieces involved with being a freelancer a lot of people probably don't want to be a freelancer when they figure out the fact that you have to do all the sales and the negotiation side of things you have to invoice people you have to do kind of all the operations and stuff and then you have to go do the work so the best part about getting a job an agency in the beginning is that you can learn from people who are much further along than you so you'll be able to learn much quicker and you'll be able to learn these lessons that are not things that someone can teach you in a course or a YouTube video you'll be able to understand how the overall ecosystem of doing service work works because at least for me it took me so long to figure out how to communicate with clients properly how the whole process of kind of doing business and sales development works and then marketing yourself and then communicating with clients on the back end and then delivering work to the clients all of these are things you have to figure out alongside actually being good at what you do and at this point when you're in an agency you may realize that you do actually just want a job you do actually just want to be a really great webflow developer and this will save you a lot of time because you'll be earning money you'll build skills and then you can make a decision do I want to start the freelance thing on the side do I want to start to kind of venture out as a freelancer do I want to stay at this agency and kind of rise up the ranks do I want to find a company who's looking for a web flow developer maybe a startup or something like that and then work at that company company there's so many pieces involved here and every situation is going to be different some people are much better working remotely some people like to work in person some people are cut out for the whole freelance thing some people are cut out for building a studio or an agency and some people are much better as part of a team because they can be exposed to things they wouldn't be able to be exposed to as a freelancer or an agency they can learn quicker and they have the security of actually having a job I personally like running a business but at the same time that business stresses me out a bunch and if I'm talking purely in terms of being the best possible web flow developer out there I would be a much better webflow developer if I didn't decide to be a freelancer if I didn't decide to also do design if I didn't decide to then build an agency if I was focusing solely on dedicating myself to being a web flow developer then I would be a much better web flow developer as an individual in my situation it's nice because we have great web flow developers on the team and we can kind of enable each other with these different pieces But ultimately what we try to do anyway is figure out how can someone be really really good at one of these things and grow in that skill set because at the end of the day you could be kind of top 1% or top 0.1% of a web flow developer by committing all your time to doing that specific thing so ultimately I think that being a web developer is a great idea in 2024 because overall this industry is growing so much and there is a need for people who have real quality people who are focused on being the best at what they do whether you decide to be a freelancer to build an agency or to be an individual who's working at a company doesn't really matter it's all about how you work best and how you can expose yourself to different situations it's also about the risks that you can bear because if you need a job then get a job it doesn't matter what path you take ultimately you just need to become really good at one thing and when you become good at that thing you'll have a lot more options anyway thank you very much for watching I'll be making more videos like this so if you have any ideas is and just drop them in the comments and I'll cover those topics

Channel: Stephen Wise | DemandFlow

Views: 6,672

Keywords: Webflow, Webflow developer, Startups, Marketing, Business, Freelance, Freelancing

Id: _St4e4mw4nI

Length: 18min 2sec (1082 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 10 2024