Thinking now for a future business, need a bit of help...

I am currently a student at UMass Amherst, doing an individualized degree program in Web Design. Ultimately, I am looking at maybe perhaps going freelance, or opening my own business. I am not opposed to working under someone either.

Nowadays though, it seems that alot of people are doing web design startups left and right - My question for this is, is it too late for me to even try? I would like to offer services such as web page building, back end programming, databases, posslby hosting, and perhaps some other options. Am I better off just trying to find work with another company / studio?

Furthermore, since I am relatively new to the web design experience (I do have a little bit, but just using FrontPage/Publisher), what are some key languages to learn? I would like to start building a list of programs / languages to pick up on to help get my career off the ground.

As an aside, my school unfortunately does not have a lot in regards to web design-related courses. I am currently speaking with my advisor for my degree program about what we may potentially do, and the answers here may be used as part of a proposal to get the necessary courses for the school.

Thanks!

Hello,

## Am I better off just trying to find work
## with another company / studio?

This is better to work full-time with another company at the beginning. Then build up your own web business step by step at home while working for a company.

The benefits are:
- earn enough money to develop your own business later on.
- learn more while working for others
- check whether it is easy to run web business while working
- etc...

Best regards

Yeah, the more I have been thinking about things recently, this may be the way to go. Fortunately at my current job, I may have the chance to get more into web development by doing some internal pages / backend programming, so that may help things.

Plus, I already am the webmaster for a small business that a friend of mine is starting up. Both resume-worthy, IMO.

I would say the first thing to do is to get away from Frontpage. Can you hand-code, or do you use WYSIWYG programs only?

What can you currently program in for backend programming? PHP/mysql is a good combination to learn.

As for whether it's too late to get into web design... it's never too late, as the internet is always growing. If you can market yourself well, offer competitive pricing, and prove yourself as being a good designer, then people will come to you.

But while you are building a portfolio, it may be good to stay with a company, unless you're rich and don't need to work.