Monday 10AM :
The boss gives a new assignment. Recoding of existing web design, but in database form. He also wants a full functioning shopping site. The catch is the payment process must be custom built in PHP, of which I know nothing… yet. There’s also a list of secondary features we’d like, but are optional, like a newsletter feature, flash gallery etc.

11AM
We’ve decided to push up the deadline a bit. It should be ready for the next conference… in two weeks.

11:01AM
I panic

Two weeks later:
All deadlines are met, including the optional ones. What happened in between? Hard work and good time management, aka magic.

six weeks after completion:
ALI comes up 2nd or 3rd in all searches related to our market.
The content is updated daily, with fewer staff
The newsletter goes out monthly and reaches 15,000 subscribers
We have a 6% return on advertisement and 10% repeat visitation
Site statistics have risen %600 and are holding steady.

10 weeks later:
The custom PHP classes built for Nelnet are in their 2nd revision, and have become the standard for the entire university. For security reasons, I can’t show the code, but believe me, it’ even easier than paypal.

The only regret:
Would liked to have done a complete redesign of the whole site. I never thought the existing one fit our market or our personality.