I wanted it to feel like me, not a resume.
In August I drew a mind map in my notebook with Me in the middle of the page. On October 2nd it went live as this site. Here's why I built it, and everything that sat between the page and the launch.
Back in August I sat down with a notebook and drew a rough mind map. On October 2nd, what started on that page went live as the site you’re reading this on.
I built it because I needed a home base for this chapter: a place to share what I’m building and learning, connect with business owners and fellow builders, and house it all somewhere I own. And I wanted it to feel like me, not a resume.
The page
In the middle of the page there’s one small circle with “Me” written in it. Everything else branches off that.
Across the top I’d written “Expression of my identity.” Around the circle: Story, splitting into personal and professional. Pictures. A timeline, with milestones hanging off it. Learning journey. Social media, with each channel I’m on as its own bubble, and Blog sitting right beside them.
And down in the bottom corner, one that says “Non-Resume,” with “stories” hanging off it.
That’s the bubble that shaped it all. LinkedIn has a very defined structure you have to follow for your profile. A resume does too. Both do their job, and neither was built to hold the whole story, my story. I wanted much more freedom than that. And when I meet people, at a networking event or anywhere else, I wanted a place to send them that I felt represented who I am.
What followed that first map was a number of pages of brainstorming and sketches, exploring what it could look like.
Looking at the mind map now, a lot of it made it. The timeline is on the About page, milestones included. The blog is here. The contact page is a form.
Everything between the notebook and the launch
The mind map was the exploration part. Then came everything after it.
I walked through every step. Framing the overall structure and the pages. Coming up with the content and writing the copy. Choosing a web platform. Buying the domain name. Setting up the pages. Gathering up the photos and arranging the photoshoot. Creating the diagrams. Figuring out the design and the colours. Making the forms and the interactive pieces work. Configuring the DNS settings. I’m likely forgetting a few.
A couple of those have shown up here already. The diagrams got their own post, and so did the instruction pages I was working through when I was inches away from launching.
And yes, I used my AI clone to assist me in the process. It still took a number of steps to arrive at something I was ready to launch and happy with. The help was real, and the page with “Me” in the middle still had to come first.
What it’s for
A home base. A place to share my story, what I’m learning, and what I’m building as I broaden what I’m working on.
I still run Keylingo, and will for the foreseeable future. This site is me continuing to expand my learning and abilities, and sharing that as I go.
LinkedIn, X, Facebook and Instagram are all on that mind map too, and I’ll keep posting on all of them. Each of them hands me a shape to fit into. Here, I got to decide the shape, and it sits somewhere I own.
If you’ve been thinking about a place of your own, the one thing I’d pass along is the order. I didn’t start with a platform or a template. I started with a pen and a circle with “Me” in it, and asked what belonged around it. The platform, the domain, the DNS, and all those other bits all came later.
If you drew that circle, what would you put around it?
(*No templates were harmed in the making of this website.)