The True Cost of "My Nephew Built Our Website"
Dear diary. Day 1. Great news for Mutua Hardware. My nephew Kevo, who is very good with computers and once fixed the Wi-Fi by switching it off and on, has offered to build our website for free during his school holidays. He says small business website design in Kenya is expensive, so this is a family discount. He says it will take a week. My wife says I should pay him something. I bought him a burger. Business is about margins.
Day 9. The website is live. It has our logo, a photo of the shop, and a background that changes colour when you move the mouse. Kevo is very proud. I am very proud. I have shared the link in four WhatsApp groups and my church group. Two people replied with thumbs up.
Day 64. A customer called to say our website is advertising online casinos. I told him this is impossible because we sell cement. He sent a screenshot. Kevo has gone back to campus and is not picking up. Apparently he is "in a lecture" for three days straight.
Day 71. I have learned that the domain is registered in Kevo's name, the hosting is paid for using his student card, and the only password is in his head. The hosting company would like to know whether I am Kevo. I am not Kevo.
Nephews are wonderful. Ownership matters more.
Let us be fair to Kevo. He is talented, he meant well and he built something that worked, for a while. The problem was never his skill. The problem was that a website is not a one-time job like painting a wall. It is more like a vehicle: it needs registration in the right name, insurance, regular servicing and someone who knows where the keys are.
When a relative builds your site as a favour, those ongoing responsibilities quietly disappear. Nobody is paid to update the software, renew the domain or check that the contact form still works. So nobody does, until something breaks in public.
The costs that do not show up on day one
The domain lapses or sits in someone else\'s name, and getting it back is a headache
Plugins and themes are never updated, which is how sites get hacked
There are no backups, so a hack means starting from zero
The contact form quietly stops sending, and enquiries vanish for months
The site is slow on phones and invisible on Google
Your brand appears next to adverts you would never approve
Each of these costs real money in lost customers, time and embarrassment. Mutua eventually paid more to clean up and rebuild the site than a modest professional build would have cost in the first place. Plus he had to explain the casino situation to his pastor.
How to protect yourself, whoever builds it
You do not have to hire an agency to avoid Mutua's diary. You do need a few basics in place, whether the builder is a professional, a friend or your sister's brilliant son.
Register the domain in the business name, using a business email you control
Pay for hosting yourself, so the account is yours
Keep a written record of every login, stored somewhere safe that more than one person can access
Agree who updates the site and how often, even if it is just once a month
Make sure automatic backups are switched on and stored separately
Test the contact form yourself every few weeks
When small business website design needs professionals
If your website is just a digital business card with your address and phone number, a simple, well-maintained page may be enough. But if customers book, order or pay through it, or if it holds personal data that Kenya's Data Protection Act expects you to protect, it deserves the same seriousness as your till.
That is where a team that builds and supports sites for a living earns its fee: proper hosting, security updates, backups and someone who answers the phone even during exam season. If you are at that stage, our services page explains how we handle website builds and ongoing support.
Final entry
Day 120. New website is up, registered in my name, with backups and a support contract. Kevo called. He wants to build a mobile app for us next holidays. I have told him he can do it, as long as he does it as an intern, signs the handover document and gives me every password before he leaves. He said that sounds like a job. I said yes, Kevo. That is the point.
Your next step: find out today whose name your domain is registered in. If the answer is "not sure" or "Kevo", talk to Philsoft and we will help you get the keys back.