OLITT Journey – Idea Stage
OLITT Journey has been an idea for quite a long time.
It all started while providing Managed Cloud Solutions at Truehost Cloud.
We learnt that that Web Design and Development was a bottleneck in getting more businesses online.
The Cheapest Website Design Service was priced at $100.
Students and young Web developers charge $100 for a simple Website Design and Development Service.
However, $100 budget is a fee that is out of reach to most Micro Enterprises and Entrepreneurs especially at the early stage of their businesses.
At Truehost Cloud, only 4 of 10 cloud ready businesses we able to launch their websites.
The 6 others lacked a website Development Budget to get online.
Initial Solution: Truehost Marketplace
We launched Truehost Cloud Marketplace, the Marketplace is a service Marketplace where verified buyers post their design projects.
The Marketplace service providers include website designers, web developers, graphic designers, programmers, project managers, artists, content developers among others.
The Marketplace service is similar to fiverr.com.
A buyer lists a project (Gig), highlighting all the requirements including sample projects, screenshots, delivery timeline and the budget.
Multiple service providers receive system automated invitation to bid the Gig (Project).
The bidding process is administered by the buyer. A typical bidding process takes 3 days, a buyer can cut short the bidding or extend it to get more bids.
As soon as the buyer select the winning bid, the winner is notified on the successful bid while the losers are notified on the unsuccessful bids.
The Marketplace was a success from the launch standpoint, developers signed up and started bidding for the projects posted.
Some of the entrepreneurs and Micro Enterprises were able to get better deals. The average Website Development cost dropped from $130 to $80.
Challenges associated with the Marketplace
Frankly, the $80 Website Development Cost is still high for many of the entrepreneurs and micro enterprises.
Project Management: the lifecycle of capturing users’ requirements and actualizing them proved to be costly.
Delivery Period: Project Delivery period was decent with most projects being delivered within 3 days.
However, most of the entrepreneurs were looking for 1 day service.
Resolution
The Challenges above can only be addressed by a DIY Website Builder. – Develop a Simple and Affordable DIY Website Builder – Olitt Journey on.
Why should you develop one when there are several DIY Website Builder Services.?
Review of Existing DIY Website Builder
There are several DIY Website Builders in the market.
Most of which are simple to use and have several stunning templates. Some of the DIY Website Builder reviewed include:
Wix – https://www.wix.com/
Squarespace – https://www.squarespace.com/
Sitebuilder – https://www.sitebuilder.com/
WebsiteBuilder.com – https://www.websitebuilder.com/
Site123 – https://www.site123.com/
Yola – https://www.yola.com/
Webnode – https://us.webnode.com/
Site.Pro – https://site.pro/
Gridbox – https://gridbox.io/
The major issue we noted with all these providers, was the cost of service. Interestingly, the cheapest cost for a decent DIY Website Builder service is $5 or $60 per year.
After this observation we asked a critical question:
Can we bring this cost down to allow more people get online..?
The moment our answer was Yes, Olitt.com – Free Website Builder was born.
Phase 1: OLITT.com founded – Journey on
The Free Website Package.
After initial works we came up with a free website package which include the following features:
- Free Olitt.com Domain
- Display Olitt.com Branding
- SSL certificate
- SEO Tools
- DNS Management
- Ready-to-use templates
- 200 MB Disk Space
- 1 Website Package
A startup can launch a stunning website in 5 minutes without paying a cent or even having to attach a credit card.
Phase 2: Cheapest Domain Names
After providing free website to startup and micro enterprises, we sought to bring cost of domain name down.
We came up with zero markup domain name policy.
OLITT has a zero markup domain name policy, consequently, OLITT.com provides the cheapest domain name prices.
In additional to cheap domain name pricing, Olitt.com provides free DNS Tools to allow easy management of the domain names.
Olitt.com users can map their domain to any service from OLITT.com without having to do domain transfer to other cloud services.
Phase 3 Ecommerce & Online Store
In Phase 3 we seek to provide Ecommerce capability to entrepreneurs and micro-enterprises on OLITT.
Users will be able to launch online stores in a click.
Eventually, Online stores at Olitt will have the following important features:
- Low monthly cost – as low as $10 per month.
- Unlimited Products
- Gift Cards
- Discount Codes
- Fraud Control
- Multiple payment options – online stores will be in a position to collect payment from any major payment provider. Some of the gateways include Stripe, Paypal, Cards, Web Money, Skrill, Alipay, Wechat pay, Mpesa, Bank Transfer among others.
- eBay Integration – Integrate your eBay store to Olitt Website
- Amazon Integration – Integrate your Amazon store to OLITT Website
- Facebook Shop Integration – Integrate your Facebook Shop to Olitt Website
- Instagram Shop Integration – Integrate your Instagram Shop to Olitt Website
- Quick Book Integration – Manage your Inventory and Book Keeping from Online QuickBooks
- Odoo ERP Integration – Manage your Inventory and Book Keeping from Odoo ERP
- Xero Integration – Manage your Inventory and Book Keeping from Xero Accounting
- Freshbooks Integration – Manage your Inventory and Book Keeping from Freshbooks
- Integration with Shipping and Logistic Service Providers
- Staff management
- Reports and Analytics
Phase 4: We do not know this phase of the OLITT Journey
We are listening to our customer to know what to do on the Phase 4 of the Project