Michael Lynch on his experience using an agency to redesign his business' website:
Two years ago, I created a website for my business. By combining my terrible design skills with a decent-looking template, I created a site that looked okay. I told myself that if the business took off, I’d hire a real designer to make it look professional.A year later, the business was generating $45k/month in revenue, but my website still looked like a college student’s hobby project. It was time for that professional redesign I’d promised myself.There were only three pages I cared about, so I expected the redesign would be straightforward. Maybe a few months and $15k.[...] Except it didn’t take a few months and $15k. It took eight months, $46k, and a lot of headache.Now that the project is over, I’m revisiting what mistakes I made that let this project spiral so far out of control.
It's a relatively long read, he has it marked as taking around 20 minutes, but it was a certainly a fascinating and insightful story.
Even though I don't run my business, or work for or with agencies, there's still a lot to be learned here about scope creep and producing actual value.