Publishing My Website
This is my first blog post, and I want to talk about the purpose of this website. I’ll walk you through the process of creating it, starting from when I first thought about building a personal site to now that it’s actually live.
Where the Idea Came From
I first thought about creating a personal website when I saw Ali Abdaal talk about how one of the best decisions he ever made was building his own. He said it opened doors for friendships, business opportunities, and so much more. I wanted to do it then, but I never made the time.
The idea came back recently when I started listening to a book Ali recommended, Show Your Work by Austin Kleon. Austin talks about how his personal website and blog posts have been the source of so many opportunities—speaking gigs, friendships, and business. Ali basically turned that chapter into a YouTube video, adding his own spin, but the core idea was the same. Everything good in Austin’s career, he says, came from his website. That really hit me. And this time, I not only had the time, but also another reason to finally give it a shot.
Why Now
The biggest reason is ChatGPT-5. It’s been a game-changer for me in writing. Here’s how I use it: I turn on dictation mode and just talk. My thoughts don’t need to be polished or organized. I can free-flow, circle around ideas, and speak in a way that feels natural. Then ChatGPT takes what I said and organizes it into something readable.
It feels like collaboration. I give it the raw draft through my voice, and it shapes it into writing that keeps my voice but is easier to read. That speed is what unlocked this for me. Normally writing takes me forever because I overthink word choice and structure. With ChatGPT as my editor, I can create way more output.
Other people already do this in their own way. Gary Vee doesn’t write his books—he speaks them. He records his ideas and works with an editor who organizes and polishes them. Chris Voss did the same with Never Split the Difference. So this approach isn’t new. ChatGPT just makes it accessible to me.
Deciding to Publish
Being able to dictate to ChatGPT and quickly get polished writing made me realize I could finally keep up with blogging consistently. That’s why I decided now’s the right time to launch my site.
Even writing this post was faster. I dictated the whole thing, had to redo it twice because of a technical issue, and still finished quicker than if I’d tried to write it manually. What would’ve taken me ten times longer before now feels effortless.
The Homepage Problem
When I decided to create a personal website, the first challenge was figuring out what to put on the homepage. I thought it would be easy, but it actually took me three days of going back and forth.
At first, I looked at what others do. Some people introduce themselves with, “My name is X, I do Y, follow me for Z.” I considered something like: “Hi, my name is Hervin. I’m an entrepreneur. I love storytelling, frameworks, and business ideas.” But it didn’t feel right.
Then I tried a different version where I simply listed the things I’m excited by—storytelling, productivity, scaling businesses, pickleball. That didn’t feel right either.
Eventually, I realized it’s an open-ended problem. There’s no perfect answer. So I kept it simple. I wrote about the purpose of the website—why I made it. It may change later, but for now, I just needed to publish. The lesson for me was not to get stuck trying to be perfect. Momentum matters more.
The Purpose of This Website
For me, this site is like a living journal. I’m using it to document what excites me, what entertains me, and what inspires me.
I’m doing this for two reasons. First, selfishly, I want to keep a log of my journey and ideas. Years from now, I can look back and see my train of thought at different points in time. Second, I want to share ideas that might help or inspire others. Not everything I write will resonate with everyone, but some things might.
There’s also a future benefit. If I build up a big enough volume of work, I could even train AI on it. That way, it could help me make better decisions by reflecting back my own documented thoughts. That possibility is exciting too.
The Design
Once I figured out the writing, I thought about design. I wanted the site to be minimalistic, sleek, and easy to update. White background, black text, simple layout. I didn’t want to wrestle with design every time I published. But I still wanted it to look good and have some playfulness because aesthetics matter to me.
I experimented with Midjourney and ChatGPT prompts to mock up design ideas. They gave me some inspiration, but eventually I found a gallery of minimalistic websites that really clicked. I’ll leave placeholders here for the URLs I found inspiring.
The goal was to make the site easy to maintain, so I can just focus on writing and publishing consistently without worrying about design details.
What’s Next
That’s the story of how this website came to be. If this resonates with you, stay tuned—I’ll be posting regularly. Not by asking ChatGPT to “just write something,” because that feels lame and the results aren’t good anyway. Instead, I’ll keep dictating my ideas and working with ChatGPT to edit them.
This collaboration makes publishing so much easier. And now that I’m in motion, I’m excited to keep going.
List of Personal Websites That I Looked At For Inspiration
List of Websites That I Looked At For Minimalistic Design Inspiration
I found all of these websites inside this gallery website: https://minimal.gallery/
Such a time saver!