How Low-Level Agencies Can Ruin Your Online Success

Back in September 2021, I’ve picked a consulting job on codeable, which was ensuring that WooCommerce Subscriptions were added in the WordPress Website, for iPhone in-app-store purchases, without double billing users, that’s the premise of how the consultation started.

First call was scheduled, I’ve met with the client, had a great chat about her goals & problems, and established a way forward.
2 years of development, at roughly 10,000$ per month, which included a project manager, frontend developer, backend developer, and iOS Developer.

The core issue with their development flow, was the lack of an Membership Layer for restricting access, and doing all restrictions at a subscription level, which is wrong.

Sometimes, our clients in website development need to understand that we are open to sharing less-than-ideal news. Here’s the situation: there’s a big problem with the website they wanted, and we’ve informed them that it was built incorrectly, without proper planning. Their IT team was supposed to include a membership feature throughout the entire structure, but unfortunately, they didn’t follow through, leading to a somewhat chaotic result.

They didn’t have a solid foundation; they focused on a subscription model, not a membership one.

After analyzing the project, it has become apparent that the team invested considerable time in developing the necessary tools. However, regrettably, most of that time seems to have gone to waste. In hindsight, they could have accomplished a significant portion of their requirements by simply utilizing a plugin like WooCommerce.

Instead, the IT team apparently opted for an inefficient approach to extract more funds from the project. This is undoubtedly not the best course of action, as it undermines the project’s foundation and could have been easily avoided by utilizing plugins with solid foundations already available in the market. Therefore, it is highly recommended that teams consider using pre-existing solutions that have been tried and tested rather than reinventing the wheel. Doing so can save a lot of time, effort, and resources, which can be better utilized towards achieving the project’s ultimate goals.

The construction of numerous features that were not essential to their business was a significant misstep on their part. One of the most pressing issues that they encountered was the creation of code that was extraneous due to their subscription-based model. In particular, they expended much effort reconstructing several components of the WooCommerce Memberships plugin, which was ultimately not pertinent to their overall goals. In hindsight, it would have been far more prudent for them to have acquired the necessary features directly from the pre-existing plugin rather than engaging in superfluous construction activities that proved time-consuming and costly.

The key takeaway is that you shouldn’t develop something until you have a solid plan.

If you want to build something durable and functional and don’t want to reinvent the wheel unnecessarily, if a plugin can provide you with specific features you need without adding too much unnecessary complexity, then it’s worth doing so. If a plugin can give you 50-60% of what you need, it’s better to use that plugin.Their IT team’s interests were selling hours, not solving the problem. We don’t want to sell hours; we sell what is necessary to achieve our objectives and ensure everything is okay.

What happened? Did the client start work with us?

I explained to the client in plain terms that the problem lay in planning, and a significant amount of hours had been allocated to build unnecessary things that lacked a solid foundation. Although the client understood my approach, which made much more sense, after some discussions with their IT team, they concluded that they would stick with what had already been built even though this decision started causing them many headaches and wouldn’t allow their business to expand as they had hoped in the long run.

What’s the moral of the story?

Always ensure you have a plan, even if you believe you have a good team behind you. Double-check with a specialist, pay for an hour of consultation, make sure everything is okay, and avoid allocating too many resources to someone who gives you what you want but doesn’t inform you that there are easier ways to achieve a similar or better result.

Why work with us?

We don’t want to force hours upon you; we want to solve your problem quickly and efficiently. We don’t need hundreds of hours; we provide professional services that solve problems as effectively as possible. Together, we can establish a plan and direction to achieve your goal with maximum resource efficiency – that’s our objective.