Web Presence
Growing Pains
In 1999, I was four years old. I wouldn’t have my first memory for a few more years. I had yet to learn that I was born into the internet age.
This was the golden age of pets.com, where companies were going public and getting massive valuations before earning a dime. Even Amazon invested, buying over half the company. They ended up IPOing at around a $90 Million valuation before a spectacular advertising binge, and massive decline and liquidation. Today, this historic domain redirects to the PetSmart website.
At that time, the internet and the business models that would rise out of it were fully understood. Never before had a business been able to reach so many people at once, to scale so quickly.
Your website probably won’t get a valuation like pets. But your personal or company brand still stands to gain both visibility and accessibility by setting up a website.
A Better Time Than Ever
If you are thinking about getting a web presence in 2020 or later, it would probably take you longer to do a thorough analysis of the question than it would take to figure out what content you would like to feature and to set everything up.
You don’t need to lose millions on your website. Today, there are cheap domain and hosting options everywhere- including options like squarespace.com, where you can set up a presence with low or no code at all. You essentially drag and drop to define the website that you want, and your website is ready to go.
You could start from the ground up and start teaching yourself Markdown, HTML, CSS, or even Javascript. There are mature technologies like WordPress that will allow you to get started extremely easily. The sky is the limit.
Simple websites can be powerful too. My inspiration in this area will always be the Official Home Page of Berkshire Hathaway, a conglomerate worth about half a trillion dollars at the time of this writing:
Whichever way you go, you will end up creating something unique and that you will feel a sense of ownership over, so why wait?
Start sharing your brand, your thoughts, and your ideas with others.