I'm a student, and I build these myself. Nobody is subcontracting your site to someone you'll never speak to, and nobody is selling you a retainer you don't need.
That's also why the front page comes first and costs you nothing. I'd rather hand you something real and let you judge it than ask you to take my word for anything.
Receipts
Two things I can show you
Who you're hiring
The longer version
You are about to give me money and your domain name. Here is enough to decide with.
First in New Jersey, third at the global final
Fiserv runs a STEAM competition for students called Future Techies. We won the New Jersey round and went on to the global final, where we placed third. Most of this page is me telling you about myself. That one was judged by other people.
I built the computer I work on, and then had to fix it
An i7-12700K, 32 GB of memory, a Radeon RX 6700 XT and about two terabytes of storage, assembled by me on a desk at home. Picking the parts was the easy half. The useful half was afterwards, when it did not work properly and there was nobody to ask: changing one thing at a time, writing down what each change did, and not stopping until I understood the actual cause rather than something that made the symptom go away. That is the same job as a website that works everywhere except on one customer's phone. I have already done the version of it where quitting was an option and I did not.
I took every art class on offer, including the optional ones
For three years I took the extra art classes on top of the one that was required, because I wanted to, not because it counted. That is the reason these pages look the way they do. Plenty of people can make a website work; far fewer can make it look like anything, and I went and learned the second half deliberately instead of hoping it would come with the first.
I have been coding since long before it was for money
Years of after-school classes in C++, Java and HTML, and the hardware that goes with them, Raspberry Pi Picos and the wiring and debugging they need. I have also done robotics. A salon's opening hours and phone number are the easy end of what I have been doing for a long time, and that is exactly why I would rather build yours properly than quickly.
What I am actually taking this year
AP Computer Science Principles, honors biology, honors algebra 2 and honors world history. On top of that, a course in mobile app development and a semester on stock market investing, because the part of this that is a business is as new to me as it would be to anyone and I would rather learn it on purpose than by getting it wrong on you.
Football, which is more relevant than it sounds
It is where you learn to turn up when you said you would, take a correction without sulking about it, and do the unglamorous part a hundred times because it is the part that decides the outcome. Ask anyone who has hired a freelancer which of those they were missing.
And the ordinary parts
I love music, I play video games, and most of my weekends are my family and my friends. I am still in school, and that is a real thing to weigh rather than something to read past. It is also exactly why the first page is free: you get to look at the actual work before any of this has to be taken on faith.
What I believe about this
Three opinions, held honestly
You should own everything
Your domain, your files, your hosting account. Plenty of web shops keep that on their own accounts so leaving is expensive. I think that's a lousy way to run a business, and it's the first thing I'd check about anyone you hire, including me.
A small site should be small
A shop with a phone number and opening hours does not need a content management system, a cookie banner, or five megabytes of JavaScript. It needs to load instantly on a bad phone signal and say the right things.
Prices should be public
Anyone who won't tell you the number until they've had you on a call is deciding what to charge based on how much they think you'll pay.
Straight answer
Why I'm cheaper than an agency
Because I'm early on, I have no office and no staff, and I'm building a portfolio. That's the whole reason. The work is careful and the prices will go up once I've done more of it, so if you're reading this now, you're getting the early rate.
If you'd rather just talk, call 732-963-5333. I answer my own phone. If I don't, I'm in school, at football, or with my family. Leave a voicemail or a text, or email vir@builtbyvir.com, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.