Launching a Personal Brand Website in 2025 — Why Bother?
After years of staying mostly quiet online, I’ve launched a personal site. Part blog, part portfolio, part experiment. Here’s why I’m treating it like a product, and what I’ll be tracking.
Month 3: Shipping through December
December was full. Work ramped up, family stuff piled on, and I took a proper break over Christmas and New Year. The site still moved forward: Next.js updates prompted by a security advisory, a layout refactor to standardise page structure, fixes to sitemap and canonical tags, and three case studies now sitting behind password-protected pages while I write.
Month 2: Keeping the Lights On
Month 2 was mostly invisible work: Next.js upgrades, schema fixes, Open Graph groundwork, and performance tweaks. The biggest change was moving off Supabase after the database kept going to sleep on the hobby plan. Convex has been calmer so far, and it opens the door to real-time interactions later.
Burnt Toast
GitHub dropped toasts in favour of inline and persistent feedback. It’s a practical move that exposes how unreliable floating, timed messages have always been.
X-Ray Loaders
Skeleton loaders are, for the most part, perfected, but I've noticed some apps go a step further and preserve your intent while you wait. I think we need a new name for this.
Month 1: Building the Baseline
One month after launch, I take a first look at the numbers, what they actually mean, and what it feels like to start small again. Building the baseline, both technically and creatively.
Personas That Work
Some people love personas, others think they’re a waste of time. Honestly, both camps are right. When they’re grounded in real customer jobs, they’re a powerful cross-team tool. When they’re not, they’re just theatre.