Your first website for a friend's business: doing it properly
Your first website as a one-person AI agency, for a friend's business: a price, a one-page scope, accounts in their name and a clear finish line.
A friend opens a hair salon and asks you, over dinner, if you'd "do the website". You've built a few sites for yourself and you'd like to build them for other people. It feels like the perfect first client: someone who trusts you, a real business, and a project small enough to finish.
Six months later the site is nearly done, the salon has opened without it, and every catch-up ends with "one more small thing". Nobody is angry. Nobody is happy either.
A website for a friend goes wrong for the same reasons any project does, except the awkward conversations are harder. The fix is to treat it like a real client project from the first day: a price, a one-page scope, a deposit, a set number of changes, every account in your friend's name, and a clear finish line. Writing these down isn't cold. It's what keeps the friendship out of the project.
Should you charge a friend?
Usually, yes. Even a reduced price does three useful things:
- It makes the project real. Your friend puts time aside for text and photos, because they've paid for something.
- It makes extras easy to talk about. "That's not in what we agreed, here's a price" is simple. "Could you do me a favour" is not.
- It lets you practise the whole job. Quoting, taking a deposit, and handing over are skills. Your first client is the best place to learn them.
If you offer a discount, write the full price and the discount on the quote. It shows your friend what the work is worth, and it gives you a real number to start from with the next client. The website proposal template is a good starting point, even for a friend.
If you'd rather do it free, that's your choice. Still write down what's included and when it ends. Free work without an end is the fastest way to lose an evening a week for a year.
What should you write down?
One page is enough. It should cover:
- The pages and features. For a salon: home, services and prices, about, gallery, contact, and a link to their booking app.
- What's not included. For example: an online shop, a logo, photography, copywriting, and changes after launch.
- What you need from your friend, and by when. Text, photos, prices, opening hours, logins.
- How many rounds of changes are included. Two is common.
- The price, the deposit and when the rest is due.
- The finish line. The date the site goes live, and what "finished" means.
- After launch. Whether there's a care plan, and what it costs.
A website scope of work template gives you the layout for a local business site on a single page. Send it, talk it through, and ask your friend to reply "agreed". That reply is your contract for a job this size, and it's worth more than a handshake over dinner.
How should you run the first meeting?
Hold it like a client meeting, not a catch-up. Book half an hour, bring a list of questions, and take notes. Ask what the site is for (bookings? walk-ins? a phone call?), who the customers are, which sites they like, and what they need by opening day.
The list of website kickoff meeting questions keeps the conversation on track. It also stops the meeting turning into two hours of "wouldn't it be nice if", which is where friend projects quietly double in size.
Whose name should the accounts be in?
Your friend's, every time. That includes:
| Account | In whose name | What you need |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | Your friend's business | Access to change settings, or a login you can use |
| Business email | Your friend's business | Nothing, usually |
| Google Business Profile | Your friend as owner | Added as a manager |
| Hosting | Your friend, or you under a written care plan | A login or access |
| Booking and payment apps | Your friend's business | Access to link them to the site |
Google's help pages say a Business Profile can have several owners and managers, and a manager can do most of what an owner can, except add or remove people or delete the profile. That's the right role for you.
This matters more with friends, not less. If you drift apart, or the salon changes hands, nobody should need your password to change their opening hours.
How do you handle feedback from a friend?
Friends give feedback like friends: in person, in passing, and in pieces. "Could the photos be bigger?" said at a birthday party is a change request, but it doesn't feel like one to either of you.
Two habits help:
- Collect changes in one place. Ask your friend to send changes as a list in one message per round. Anything said in person, you write down and send back: "Here's what I heard, is that everything for this round?"
- Show each version by name. "Version 2" is easier to talk about than "the latest one". When they approve, they approve that version.
Before each version goes to your friend, check it properly. A website QA checklist covers the words, the links, the forms and the phone view in one pass.
What if the project starts to grow?
It will try to. Friends think of new ideas at odd hours, and a salon that opens next month suddenly wants an online shop, a gift voucher page and a blog. None of that is unreasonable. It just isn't the project you agreed.
When a new idea arrives, answer it the same way every time: "Good idea. It's not in what we agreed, so I'll send you a price, and we can add it now or after launch." Most friends will choose after launch, once they see the first site working. Either way, the launch date stays where you both put it, and the new work gets its own price and its own finish line.
What happens after launch?
Agree it before launch, not after. Either there's a care plan with a monthly price and a list of what's included, or there isn't, and changes are quoted when they come up.
If there's no plan, say so kindly: "The site's yours now. If you need changes, send me a message and I'll give you a price." Then keep to it. The first unpaid "quick change" sets the pattern for every one after.
At handover, give your friend a short list: where the site is hosted, which accounts they own, who to call if something breaks, and how to reach you. The guide to building, reviewing and delivering client websites shows what a clean handover includes.
Can this be your first portfolio piece?
It can, and it's a good one, if you ask first. Agree in writing, even in a message, that you can show the site. Describe what you built and what the site does for the business. Don't claim results you can't show: "a new site with online booking" is honest; "doubled their bookings" needs proof.
A friend's site done properly gives you more than a portfolio link. It gives you a quote, a scope, an agreement and a handover you've actually used, and those are the things the next client will need from you too. The page for anyone starting a one-person AI agency picks up from here.