A good share of our projects in Vientiane don't start from zero. They start with a folder of files from a previous developer who stopped answering, a Facebook page that says "website coming soon" from two years ago, or an admin password nobody wrote down. Rescuing these projects taught us exactly where they go wrong — and it's almost never the code. It's the questions that were never asked before money changed hands.
Here are the ten we'd ask anyone, including ourselves.
1. "Show me three sites you built that are still online."
Not screenshots — links. Screenshots show what something looked like on launch day; links show whether it survived. Open each one on your phone. If a "portfolio" can't produce three living URLs, you're not hiring a developer, you're hiring a hopeful.
2. "Who owns the domain, the hosting, and the code?"
The correct answer is you, in all three cases, in accounts registered to your email. The most common disaster we untangle in Laos is a business whose domain is registered under a freelancer's personal account — and the freelancer has moved to another country, or simply moved on. If the developer insists on holding the accounts "to make things easier," that convenience is a leash.
3. "What happens after launch?"
Websites are not fridges; they don't just keep running. Certificates renew, software updates, forms silently break. Ask what maintenance costs, what it covers, and what the response time is when something dies on a Saturday. A professional has a clear answer with a number in it. An amateur says "just message me" — which works right up until it doesn't.
4. "How fast will it load on mobile data?"
Most of your customers will open your site on a phone, on Unitel or LTC, possibly standing in the sun. If the developer doesn't bring up performance before you do, that tells you where it sits on their priority list. There are free tools (Google's PageSpeed Insights) that score any site — ask them to run it on their own portfolio, live, in front of you.
5. "What will you do so people can find it on Google?"
You're not asking for magic rankings — anyone who guarantees #1 on Google is lying to you, walk away. You're checking they handle the basics: proper page titles, descriptions, a sitemap, Google Business Profile connection, and structured data so search engines (and now AI assistants) understand what your business is. The words to listen for are boring ones. Boring is good here.
6. "Can I update the content myself?"
Maybe you want to change menu prices without paying anyone. Maybe you'd rather never touch it. Both are fine — but decide now, because the answer changes what should be built. Beware the opposite failure too: a heavyweight admin system you'll never log into, which you paid extra for and which now needs security updates forever.
7. "What exactly is included in this price?"
Number of pages, number of revision rounds, who writes the text, who supplies photos, whether Lao/English versions are both included, what the deposit is, and what triggers the final payment. Vague scope is where friendly projects turn into arguments. A one-page written summary protects both sides — we won't start without one, and you shouldn't either.
8. "Who did you build for that I can call?"
Vientiane is a small town in the best way. Ask for a past client's contact and actually message them. One question is enough: "Would you hire them again?" The pause before the answer tells you everything the answer doesn't.
9. "What do you need from me, and by when?"
Here's a secret from the other side of the table: half of all late websites are late because the client hasn't sent the menu, the photos, or the text. A professional will tell you this upfront and give you a checklist. If they promise a finished site without needing anything from you, they're planning to fill it with stock photos and lorem ipsum — and you'll be re-doing it in month two.
10. "Why this price and not half of it?"
Not a trick question — an invitation. A serious developer can explain what the money buys: design time, testing on real devices, performance work, launch setup, aftercare. If the answer is a shrug, the price is a guess, and a guessed price usually hides guessed work. (We wrote a full breakdown of what websites actually cost in Laos if you want the numbers.)
You're not hiring someone to build a website. You're hiring someone to still answer your messages in a year.
The pattern behind all ten
Notice that almost none of these questions are about technology. Frameworks, hosting brands, this-or-that CMS — that's the developer's job to worry about. Your job is to test for ownership, honesty, and staying power. Anyone who scores well on those three will also make reasonable technical choices, because the two failures share a root: people who plan to disappear don't invest in doing things properly.