Am I a selfish, bad brother?

Really not sure if this is the right place for this, but I was wondering what like minded people would think of my story.

[BACK STORY]
I used to have a construction company, and one day decided to update my logo and get a website done. My brother, who was just starting out with web design, offered to build me a website for $200 (family price and good practice for him), just a simple 3 or 4 page site - and I got my logo done on a logo design contest website.

I was over at my brothers house when he showed me the almost finished website - (design and coded), and something about the navbar kinda bugged me (something silly like the last button on the navbar ran the entire length of the bar I thought it was kinda weird the button was so long) so I asked if it was possible to shorten it, and, he lost his nerve. Said I was the worst client ever, raged a bit, and then deleted my site's folder right before my eyes.

I was kinda crushed, and remember leaving his house like a lil girl crying about how mean he is.

I never got a site, he didn't give me my domain (yeah, he registered it), and I never got my $200 back.

Time went by and I started to really lose motivation in construction. This was in 2008 when there was the big economy crash, and everyone and their dog from the East was coming to the West to start up their own company offering rock bottom prices that I didn't want to compete with when I offer a much higher caliber of work.
[/BACK STORY]

[THE STORY]
Then one day, I decided to start fiddling with my website design, since I never got the one I paid for. I got my hands on a free copy of GIMP and start making pixels happen, and I started to really enjoy working with layers and the tools. Eventually enough nagging from both my brothers got me to convert to photoshop (thank god for that). I started practicing with logos (as a designer on that logo design contest site) but the attitude and the ego of other designers really annoyed me (plus I was terrible compared to most entries).

So I bugged both my brothers for free work just so I could practice designing, but they never gave me anything. I remembered my brother (the 'designer') offering his service on a forum, so I went there and made a post for some free work like logos and banners (which was different from what he offered) in return for some honest reviews. My brother saw that and messaged me raging at me about how I was pathetic and gonna steal his clients and all this. He mentioned some other (crappy) forums where I could advertise my services and wouldn't be stepping on his toes - so I went there instead and abandoned 'his' forum.

Two of the forums embraced me as a newcomer and I started getting some practice to grow my skills along with some good feedback, so I started to offer a design service for real. I got a range of work from logos, websites and landing pages. I taught myself to hand-write html/css and was enjoying everything I did.

It's now years now years later, and I consider myself to be pretty good with design and html/css. I've slowed down quite a bit on client work because I have a gig that is a lot less stressful (and clients can be annoying time vampires) that I enjoy doing more, but there was a couple years where I was attending lots of clients and outsourcing parts of projects.
[/THE STORY]

[CONCLUSION]
My 'design' brother (I put in in quotes because he was never good with photoshop and much less with coding) now runs a design agency with a remote team mostly based out of Asia, and considers me as competition. He likes to remind me of how terrible of a brother I am for getting into the same line of work as him. He says there's nothing wrong with making websites, but that there are "1000000s of niches and I had to get into the same one as him" (things like affiliate marketers & supplements). I've also created many e-commerce stores for clients (which he also does, but doesn't seem to care about). It had nothing to do with him, nor did I ever use his work as inspiration (I don't particularly care for his work), it's just where the current and natural progress took me.
[/CONCLUSION]

[QUESTION]
Am I a selfish, terrible brother for getting into the same industry and offering the same services as him?
[/QUESTION]

He should be encouging and support you no matter what.

Your brother sucks OP. No offense.

BHApollo said:

He should be encouging and support you no matter what.

Your brother sucks OP. No offense.

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Two sides to every story

"Am I a selfish, terrible brother for getting into the same industry and offering the same services as him?"

Lol no, wtf. This is just childish bullshit. Maybe he is jealous of you beeing able to get shit done better than him.

No.

BHApollo said:

He should be encouging and support you no matter what.
Your brother sucks OP. No offense.

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None taken. This post was his idea anyway.

macdonjo3 said:

Two sides to every story

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This just made me lol thinking about what kinda stuff he would say and believe it to be true.

of course no bro

Screw your brother mate, do what works for you

No
No
No
No
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No
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No
No

lol. It is not your fault at all. It is your brother who is at wrong here. I mean web design is such a huge field. so it wouldn't matter at all if two brothers were doing the same thing.

Yes, you are a bad brother.

Nut-Nights said:

Yes, you are a bad brother.

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I'd like to think this is done for comedic relief

Read my signature and tell him that! You can add before the quote "Hey kiddo, you still don't get it right?" then my signature.

SYAWEDIS said:

I'd like to think this is done for comedic relief

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If you consider that doing it makes you bad brother, then I think I deserve to burn alive in hell

If someone is good at what they do, and they can get their product in front of the right people, competition shouldn't be a major issue. even when you're just starting out, you're going to have different clients due to having different price points, different design philosophies, and so on.

Within the website management industry, there's plenty of sub-niches and specialties. For example, designing a site for a brand new restaurant is entirely different than a new site for a doctor or construction company, and all three are completely different from eCommerce. And within those sub-niches, there's additional specialties for reputation management, SEO, trademark issues, email marketing, social marketing, and so on.

As you gain clients, you'll naturally gravitate to a specific field. Instead of staying a jack-of-all-trades, as it were, learn more about that field and start approaching those businesses specifically, further refining your knowledge and target market as time goes on. Before long, that specialization alone will get you a reputation within that industry, and you'll be able to turn away the 'generic' clients that your brother thinks you're stealing from him.

SYAWEDIS said:

I used to have a construction company

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That's a seriously huge advantage toward your specialization right there. You'll have a much better idea where to find and how to approach clients, you'll be able to speak the same 'language' in terms of what the client wants and what you can provide, you'll know how to get your client's sites in front of their potential customers, etc.

[MY2CENTS]
Your brother is a dick.
[/MY2CENTS]

All of this sounds really childish.

SYAWEDIS said:

[QUESTION]
Am I a selfish, terrible brother for getting into the same industry and offering the same services as him?
[/QUESTION]

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I would not call you terrible but I would never do that to one of my brothers.

This is why People shouldn't do business stuffs within family. Family is family and business is business. If one ruins the other, it's not a good experience imo.

As for op's question.. No way man! If it's a good business for you, you did the right thing!

BassTrackerBoats said:

I would not call you terrible but I would never do that to one of my brothers.

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+1. My brother (15 years old) just started learning about internet marketing and other stuff,which basically means that he could be my competition some day. I was so happy that he started learning about internet marketing and that I can actually talk to someone who understands. Also,my 2nd younger brother (9 years old) just started learning editing videos. I am no expert in both internet marketing and video editing,but I know a thing or two that they do not know. So I absolutely love helping them out. That's what family is for. Now,I'm not saying that the OP is terrible or that his brother is terrible. I respect his decision/s,but,just like you @BassTrackerBoats I would never do that to one of my brothers.