TrainingYear
The starting point
Degree, self-taught, career change: say it plainly. Someone self-taught who owns it reassures more than a vague history. Say what tipped you into web development.
Home / About
Behind Valweb, one person.
Not a logo, not a customer service desk, not a form that bounces into a call centre. One person, reachable, who answers you directly and writes your site's code themselves.
01 Hello
I'm Valentin
I'm a freelance web developer based in Flers, in Normandy. Valweb is me: not an agency, not a floor of ten people, not a salesperson who sells you a project before handing it to somebody else. The person you speak to at the first meeting is the one who will write the code.
I do this work because I like the moment a fuzzy idea turns into something you can click. And because there are still, in rural Normandy as everywhere else, plenty of businesses excellent at their craft yet invisible online — or worse, paying a monthly subscription for six years for a site they do not even own.
My job is as much translating as it is coding: understanding what you do, saying it plainly, and putting it where your customers are looking for it.
02 Background
How I ended up here.
A dated background reassures more than a list of skills: it shows a progression rather than a poster.
ExperienceYears
Where you learnt the trade
Agency, in-house, side projects, apprenticeship. What you actually did there, and what it taught you that you apply with clients today.
TodaySince…
Valweb, going freelance
Why you went out on your own, and which kind of client you serve best. One sentence on what you refuse to do is often worth more than a paragraph on what you can do.
03 Why go freelance
Three ways to get a website.
None of them is bad: they answer different situations. So let me say honestly when I am not the right choice.
Do it yourself
Wix, Squarespace, Shopify
- €20 to €40 a month, forever
- Quick to launch, no middleman
- You do not own the site
- Time spent on it is time not spent on your trade
The right choice if your budget is very tight and you enjoy tinkering.
An agency
A firm of 5 to 50 people
- €5,000 to €30,000 for an equivalent project
- Several specialists, serious resources
- The salesperson is not the developer
- Overheads baked into your invoice
The right choice for a high-volume project or a marketing team to coordinate.
A freelancer
Valweb
- €890 to €8,000 depending on the project, once
- One point of contact from start to finish
- The site is entirely yours
- One person, so a limited number of projects at once
The right choice if you want someone who knows your file by heart.
04 Where I work
Normandy first, then everywhere else.
Around Flers I come to you for the first meeting: seeing a workshop, a shop or a practice says more than an hour on video. Beyond that, everything works perfectly well remotely — half my projects require no travel at all.
If you are more than an hour away, it changes nothing about the quality of the work. Meetings happen over video, the site is built on an address you can check whenever you like, and everything else goes by email or phone.
In-person visits possible
Flers
Argentan
Alençon
Condé-en-Normandie
Vire
Caen
Domfront
La Ferté-Macé
Tinchebray
Briouze
Falaise
Granville
Remotely
Anywhere in France, Belgium, the UK and Spain. Central European time zone, messages answered between 9am and 6pm, Monday to Friday.
05 Tools
The right tool for the right project.
I do not impose a single technology. A five-page site does not need the same architecture as a shop with three thousand products: going too big costs a fortune to maintain, going too small blocks growth.
The test is always the same: can you live with this site in five years, and could another developer take it over without rewriting everything?
Depending on the need
HTML / CSS / JavaScript
TypeScript
React
Next.js
Astro
Node.js
PHP
WordPress
Symfony
PostgreSQL
MySQL
Stripe
Git
Figma
06 Outside of work
A few details that have nothing to do with it.
You may end up working with me for several weeks. You might as well know who you are dealing with.
- A hobby, a sport, an instrument: what you do at weekends.
- Something you love about the area you live in.
- A strong but harmless opinion: a language you can't stand, a piece of software you defend.
- What puts you in a good mood at the start of a project.
Shall we talk?
The first conversation lasts thirty minutes, costs nothing and commits you to nothing. You will know very quickly whether we click — and so will I.