Hey Wow!  O'Reilly's A Font Bitch Too

(Disclaimer -- after I write this I suspect I won't be getting an author's Christmas Card from O'Reilly this year.  Oh well.)

As many of you know, I'm probably the loudest complainer over fixed font web sites.  Sites that insist on setting font sizes in PX values can't* be resized using any version of Internet Explorer for PCs are what I call FontBitches.  It means that they put their designer's whims over the viewing ability of their readers.  That's just, well, bitchy.

And I've just found another font bitch -- O'Reilly.  That's right.  O'Reilly.  From the makers of some of the best resources for CSS and even lots of information on accessibility.  Every single setting in their CSS is in PX values.  And I won't even talk about the less than brilliant call on using what looks to me to be 8 point white arial text on a black side bar.  Yeah that's readable.  Sure it is.

Sigh.  And so it goes.

*I know about the override option.  It ranks, at best, as poorly implemented.  At worst as, well, we don't use those words here.

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Independent Web Designers Can Still Make It: Jose Toirac

I had breakfast this past weekend with an ex-employee of mine, a guy named Jose Toirac.  When I worked at Mascot Network, an educational dot com, where I was VP of Engineering, Jose worked in our web design group customizing our portal's look and feel for specific schools.  Jose was someone that joined the company in technical support and fell in with our web designers just as a friend.  He picked up some design stuff on the side, got a cross promotion and then, very, very quickly, became one our best designers. 

After Mascot, like all less than perfectly thought out dot coms, went up in a pile of virtual smoke, Jose made the decision to go out on his own and form a web design business.  Starting a business is always brave.  And its an especially gutsy move for someone who had never been in business for himself -- to enter a field when it is widely regarded as dissolving.  So here it is roughly 2 years later and how's he doing?  Is he selling used cars?  Is he running a coffee shop?  Is he working in the accelerated food distribution business (that's a really polite way of saying "driving the truck that delivers to McDonalds)?  Nope !  He has his own company,  Toirac.com, a small Miami based web design firm and he's doing pretty damn great.  Sure it's tough right now but he's making money (as he said to me "I'm paying my bills, I have cash flow but I don't have lots of cash stick") and he has real live customers.  He's even in the process of changing his business name to something more appropriate; the site's not up yet so I'm not going to disclose it.

Marketing 101 Lesson

Now, here's the real lesson, how is he getting business?  Simple.  He's Hustling.  He's constantly networking and looking for work.  I know he's got clients in Boston, Miami and New York among other locations.  When he was up in Boston, where he grew up, did he spend a lot of time seeing friends?  Nope.  Other than 1 night out of 7, he was with clients and potential clients all the time.  And, when you're tiny, that's how you get work.  You hustle, you network, you're never afraid to give out your cards.  Now this doesn't always work out but it will work if a) you are persistent b) you are polite and engaging and c) you are persistent.   As I've said in other essays, persistence is a key component in marketing.  Its just plain essential and, while we all hate it, we all need to do it.

Now this is Strange But Good

And, in the strangest twist, I now work for Jose.  That's right -- the student has become the teacher.  Seriously, I'm going to be a subcontractor for him on back end type work since his specialty is design and, at the FuzzyGroup, while we do design, we don't focus specifically on it.  That's pretty smart -- rather than try and master some fairly difficult skills, he's going to reach out to a trusted source or sources (he also has some other contacts than myself) and pull them in when necessary.  And, rather than try and make them employees, he's learned that you are much better off having sub contractors since you aren't then tied down with salary needs.

Note: As of today there isn't a current project that we're collaborating on so right now there are no $$$ between us.  Jose's just being smart knowing that this is a good, logical way to expand his business.

Conclusion

What more can I say?  Recommended.  If you're in Miami and you need some web help then you might want to give him a call.

[Bias Disclaimer: Jose's an ex-employee of mine, potentially a business partner, a friend and just plain a cool guy.  I'd like to think I had a little to do with his success but he really did this all on his own.  And I am clearly biased but he's also damn good at what he does and, more importantly, he knows his limits and he's honest.]

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