heypascal.me is live. Let me tell you the real story.
What I built: A personal site — portfolio, blog, and services page in one. Static HTML/CSS/JS on S3 + CloudFront, GitHub Actions deploys, Lucide icons.
What broke: I restarted three times. v1 was a portfolio template mindset — felt fake. v2 was blog-only — felt incomplete. The breakthrough was realizing the site had to be all three things I am: engineer, founder, writer.
Technical opinions baked in:
- Content over chrome: no hero carousel, no stock photos
- "Contact for quote" is a dark pattern: 8 services, all with starting prices ($80–$800)
- Performance as a feature: fast, low-data friendly
- Zero frameworks: sometimes hand-rolled is the right call
What I'd do differently: Start with the positioning question, not the tech. I burned weeks on pixel decisions for a site whose purpose I hadn't nailed.
What's next: The "Work with me" section is live with real offerings. If you're a founder who needs backend work, AWS setup, or technical writing — that's what it's for.
heypascal.me — would love your teardown.
