Why are we in a web service business in the first place?Jan 12, 2011
We started developing Edicy in early 2008. Been in the web design business for already 10 years, we still started from scratch. There were a lot of dogmas to be thrown away and a lot to be learnt along the way.


History of web agency business
In the old days, websites were born in the same manner attorneys do their sueing business. Every working hour spent on designing and developing a website was billed from the customer. In addition, a hefty license fee was added for the content management system— a custom built buggy monster developed in house by every web agency.
Those initial investments turned out to be actually recurring. Every three to four years customers felt that their website needs a revamp or a total redesign as design styles shift as quickly as fashion trends. Running costs (hosting, updating the system, editing the content) seemed so small in contrast, that they were added on top of this with no one even caring.
The new model
That's the main reason we built Edicy in the first place — you can build a website in minutes with it. And it will instantly have a beautiful design and great system for the recurring price of quality hosting.
The difference of what we were doing before Edicy and what we are doing now can be illustrated with the following graph:

Customers have won.
Of course many companies still need a custom design and integration of external systems for their website. It will never change—truly great design is unique, whilst truly great systems are standardized.
There are a number of agencies building beautiful custom websites on Edicy, while Edicy itself remains the same for all the hundreds of thousands of users.
Most of Edicy users are happy with building websites on their own upon a standard design theme though. One can personalize a design by just laying out content thoughtfully.
The other side of the coin
We aren't here just for spreading love, peace and happines. There's something more in Edicy for us. It's the business model.
By selling Edicy subscriptions for €6 per month we earn almost nothing from you. At least when compared to the old times where system licence was €2000 and monthly support and hosting fee piled up another €100 per month.
But by selling hundreds of subscriptions each month, it starts making sense.

We have won too.
I like to do business where everyone wins. You get the costs down and quality up, we can focus on building a great system and agencies can focus on building great sites.
That's why.
Replies to this post
Modern civilization was started with the same spirit :) Go, Edicy, go!