Just started building Webscales — documenting the messy early days of a tiny web agency

Hey IH,

We’re right at the beginning of something new. A couple of months ago, we started Webscales with a simple idea: small businesses deserve fast, modern websites that don’t cost a fortune.

So far… we’re still tiny. No fancy portfolio, no big success story — just a lot of late nights, experiments, and notes on what works (and what doesn’t).

Why we’re doing this:

We’ve noticed that a surprising number of local businesses here in Germany still run old, clunky websites:

• super slow load times

• no SEO at all

• not mobile-friendly

• sometimes even missing GDPR-required legal texts

That felt like an opportunity. We want to combine what we know about performance (Core Web Vitals, Next.js, SEO basics) with affordable packages for small companies.

Where we’re at right now:

• Launched our website → webscales.de

• Put together some starter offers (landing pages, shops, maintenance)

• Had first conversations with potential clients (still working on turning that into actual contracts)

• Realized we need way more content — case studies, blog posts, maybe tutorials

What’s been hard so far:

• Convincing people to trust us when we don’t have much of a track record yet

• Balancing “technical stuff” (SSR, caching, Core Web Vitals) with what clients actually care about (design + usability)

• Staying consistent with marketing/content creation while doing client outreach

What’s next:

• Publish our first case study (with real before/after numbers)

• Document everything we learn along the way (even the fails)

• Try to figure out how to get our first real client win

I’d love to hear from others who started agencies or service businesses:

👉 How did you earn trust in the very beginning, before you had a portfolio?

👉 Do you think focusing on speed/performance is a strong niche, or should we lean more into design/branding?

Thanks for reading — if you’re curious, here’s the project: webscales.de