I've spoken to dozens of small business owners who came to me after a bad agency experience. The story is usually the same: a discovery call that felt promising, a proposal with a reasonable price, and then weeks of silence broken up by requests for feedback on things they didn't understand. Agencies are structured for scale. They have account managers, designers, developers, project managers, QA teams. That structure adds value when you're a company spending £50k on a rebrand. For a local plumber who needs five pages and a contact form, it adds delay, cost, and confusion. The typical agency process for a small website runs 8 to 12 weeks. That's a lot of runway for a project that, with the right person, can be live in under a fortnight. This isn't a criticism of agencies. They do excellent work for the clients they're built to serve. The problem is the mismatch: a small business gets sold agency process when what it needs is a capable individual who can move quickly, communicate directly, and take ownership. What should you look for instead? Someone who has built sites like yours before, can show you the work, will give you a fixed price before starting, and is reachable when you have a question. That's it. If that sounds like something you need, you're in the right place.