I had my first consultation today as a freelance developer. What happened? Did I secure a deal? Am I building a site for a client as we speak? No — I actually turned the client down. I could’ve made a quick buck and built exactly what he wanted. Instead, I pointed him in a different direction. I was sitting at the dining room table, where I spend most days coding and whatnot, when I got a message from my cousin:

“Hey, I got my friend who wants to get into selling merchandise and hats and stuff, can you help him build a website?”

I messaged back “of course,” sent my number, and we started a consultation. Things were going well until I asked: “Okay, this is doable — but do you have a target demographic? You’ll need product buyers to make this work.” The response I got back:

“No, I don’t have anyone to sell to as of now. I’m building from the ground up.”

That’s where I flipped the script — went from consultant to “here’s why you shouldn’t be talking to me right now.” I know how that sounds, but it wasn’t coming from “this is a waste of my time.” It came from knowing how much money this guy stood to lose if he paid me to build and ship for him. My morals got in the way. I explained that dropshipping is a difficult business. Marketing is brutal — you’ll spend way too much for too few views to generate any real SEO traffic. E-commerce is a tough field even with a targeted demographic. Without one? You’ll buy all the product and it’ll collect dust in your room for weeks, maybe months. So I told him straight: “Hey, this is a bad idea, and I’m going to try to save you some money. My services aren’t cheap. What you should do is start with Shopify or Printify — they’re built for exactly this. Low startup costs, and the platform does the marketing heavy lifting for you. I can’t offer you that.”