We recently connected with Sierra Doucette and have shared our conversation below.
Sierra, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of our favorite things to brainstorm about with friends who’ve built something entrepreneurial is what they would do differently if they were to start over today. Surely, there are things you’ve learned that would allow you to do it over faster, more efficiently. We’d love to hear how you would go about setting things up if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you already know.
Running a service-based business as a soloprenuer can be very challenging when just starting out. If I was to start over, I would definitely try to vet my clientele, via an application process, rather than accepting all clients. It took me over a year of dealing with various clients who were not compatiable with my business to realize that not all money is good money. When an entrepreneur is just beginning it can be exciting to have so many clients and seeing the profit and the growth of the business. However, when dealing with extremely rude or difficult clients, it can be very challenging and impact your motivation to want to continue on with providing your services.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
The creation of who I am as a web designer began in high school. My passion for web design began as a sophomore in high school, where I was introduced to the fundamentals of web development. After creating my first website, I was hooked. The pride I felt after seeing those hundreds of lines of code transform into a website was astounding. My next passion is interior design, which I was introduced to in my junior year of high school. I took multiple interior design courses, which now enable me to identify the differences in colors that afford me the ability to select stunning primary colors with bold and beautiful accent colors for the websites from the color palettes provided by the customers. The courses also provided me with the necessary tools and knowledge to identify how different patterns, design aspects, and textures coincide together, which surprisingly does have an impact when designing visually appealing websites. The web development course, coupled with the interior design courses, developed into a natural marrying of talents.
After obtaining the foundations of web development and interior design from high school courses, I decided to embark upon a computer science field of study in college. With this, I was able to broaden my learnings to such a degree that I am now capable of coding both the back-end and the front-end aspects to create fully functional websites. Even though my passion was intense for web design, after college, I did not immediately seek a role in the corporate workplace that would allow me to utilize my talents due to fear that my skillset was not enough or comparable to my peers. However, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to be a part of a youth program that allowed me to coach, teach, and mentor local youth on the foundations of web design and web development. In March 2020, when the world was ravaged by the pandemic and I was working from home, it became an opportune time to monopolize the free time I had outside of my normal working hours.
Finally, I decided to launch my web design business, Jaded Web Designs. My very first customer was a family member. While creating her website, I was able to quickly learn how to navigate various website hosts. This was crucial because even though I can fully code a website from pure code, the creation time is extensive. Today, I create websites using platforms such as Wix and Shopify. These platforms allow me to focus more on the design elements of the site and easily create beautiful websites in a fraction of the time that it would take to fully code and develop a website.
Ideally, my target audience is minority entrepreneurs who are wanting to establish a professional online presence. Since the launch of my business in August of 2020, I have created over 100+ websites, conducted numerous web design consultations, and partnered with social media marketing agencies. I pride myself on establishing a brand and a business that is professional and provides top-tier service. I look forward to transforming even more conceptual ideas into Jaded Web Designs!
How did you build your audience on social media?
When I first launched my business, my Instagram only had about 100 followers who were primarily close friends and family. At this time I was still trying to decide how I wanted the aesthetic of my Instagram to look and I knew that until I finalized my aesthetic and was consistent in my branding, I would not be able to grow my following count. After about 6 months of testing our different aesthetics and themes, I finally found a theme that was suitable for my brand and allowed me to properly showcase my work. I began to consistently post multiple times a week, sharing content that displayed my work, new clients that I had just onboarded, and educational posts. I noticed that my following count was finally beginning to grow!
But, the major pivotable point of growth for my social media was the use of social media ads. I learned that with only $5 a day you could run Instagram ads that would reach thousands of people. So each month I would run about 2-3 ads for about 7-15 days and my following count began to grow by about 200 followers each month. I was shocked and super excited because I believed the more followers I had, the more clients I would soon get.
My recommendation to those who are struggling to grow a social media audience would be to establish a theme/aesthetic and remain consistent with it. Lastly, take advantage of social media ads and reels!
Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?
The primary factors that helped me build my reputation within my market were that I am professional, trustworthy, and passionate about my craft. Because I still work in the corporate world, I have the same professionalism in my business as I do in my workplace. This allows my clientele to understand that this is not just a hustle or a freelance job, but rather a small business. In regards to being trustworthy, I have had numerous clients come to me after paying other web designers expressing the fact that they were scammed. I ensure that I am very communicative with all of my clients regarding the status of their project’s progress to make sure that they are informed throughout the entire process. Lastly, I am very passionate about designing and design every site as if it were my own, meaning I am very meticulous about my work being as near perfect as possible. If I happen to develop a site design that I dislike, I will start over and redesign the site multiple times until I am satisfied prior to showing my client. I learned early on, that if I dislike a design then most likely so will my client. Establishing such a reputation has had its up and downs, but ultimately and thankfully, I have been able to do so.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jadedwebdesigns.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jadedwebdesigns/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JadedWebDesigns/
- Twitter: https://www.instagram.com/jadedwebdesigns/
Image Credits
Jordyn Ari for personal photo