[terra_t]

I've worked in job shops that do web sites for smaller businesses and I'll tell ya that it's a rough business.

If you're lucky you'll get to mess with a lot of new technology, and even meet some really cool clients, but sooner or later you're going to meet your nightmare client who burns up the profit you made on five good clients. If you're not careful, bad clients can drive out good clients and before you know it...

The industry is particularly impacted by people, who, as you're planning to do, will do work free or cheap. This puts the larger operations that are more responsible (offer health insurance, have a variety of experienced people with various specialties, always have somebody around even when some individual takes vacations, etc.) under a lot of pressure.

You're better off working on one or two big things than working on a bunch of small things that will distract you all over the place. I wouldn't go back to making web sites for small businesses even if it meant I'd starve to death or have to make my living selling aluminum siding or something.