A new direction?

We have been off this place since some time - as explained earlier, we were busy servicing our first client and what we did not know was that the second client would come trotting on the heels of the first. Referred by our first client, we had to quickly service our second client too which we are now doing.

Having serviced two clients I have now come up with some questions ....

1. 1. Are we a focussed web development shop? We do marriage websites - a new concept, but are we any different than the web designer in the corner shop?
2. 2. We did some work involving masups and some by developing 'modules' coded from scratch - which one is a better approach or as usual is a mix of the two the best?
3. 3. In both our clients, we 'designed' the looks as the client desired: We did try to create an innovative design for one of the clients but we did not end up using that. So what should be our strategy going forward? Create new designs or completely rely on the client's requirements specs?
4. 4. Has our business model of getting multiple partners succeeded?

For Questions 1 and 3, I have some thoughts. We are not a pure web-development shop, in fact the promise of our work is to help people be 'innovative' while using the web for their invitations. Rather than just send out an email invite or make a PPT and circulate it on email - we want to allow people to use the web with its full potential!

In this pursuit, I think our job should not be just to cook a design which our client wants - our job should be to provide them a mix of ideas - mashup ideas, small 'modules' (like Invitation Tracker), web designs etc which they can use to create their wedding / event invitations.

What does this mean? I guess we need to have a readymade inventory of designs, image galleries for clients to pick up from; similarly a gallery of 'services'/'modules' like Invitation Trackers, Maps Guide, Discussion forums from which client should choose which services they want to add in their invitation site.

A new client should be presented with an Options Questionnaire to run through before we start our work. Once they answer a basic questionnaire we can build what they want more efficiently - also the questionnaire will give clients more insight into what they themselves want.

Finally coming to point 4: Our business model - I think its early to say anything. We haven't actually approached too many people. I think I will now send out our biz model to other potential groups where we can find designers, sales ppl or simply interested folks and seek a fresh set of partnerships.

On point 2: I am still thinking ...