How we Built our Website in 2 Hours 👩‍💻

It's the joyous start to another delightful week of . Monday—formerly known as Monandæg in Old English— is supposed to bring a fresh start associated with the moon.

For some, it's the most productive day of the week. Research indicates that Monday is when we're most likely to make progress towards our goals.

It's also the day with the most births. Doctors often induce labor on a Monday to ensure their Thursday golf rounds are uninterrupted.

But, did you know that in 🇮🇹, there's a perception that starting something new on a Monday is doomed to fail?

Our team starts the week off with an even more extended, extended team stand-up. It's also the day we take stock of all the brilliant ideas that came through Asana over the last week.

As the day drags on, we push the countdown timer forward, inch by precious inch. It's the beginning of the grind until we finally reach the Promised Land: the weekend.

What's your take on Mondays?

Who says you can't have a little fun during Dry January? Tito's Vodka and domestic goddess Martha Stewart are here to show you all the creative ways you can use vodka around the house... without actually drinking it!

In the video, Martha demonstrates how vodka can be used to water your plants, tenderize your meat, and even freshen up your home. It's the perfect way to start off your Monday.

When we started planning for Hey Rebekah over the summer, we made a big list of things we'd have to build. We started off with a goal of "100% Delight". This was going to be a huge effort that we'd have to create from scratch. In our roadmap, this represented where we wanted to go.

Given our limited resources, that would take forever. So, as Lean Startup enthusiasts, we had to be real with where we were starting out from. Zero.

Rather than take a waterfall approach to building the mountain—and they will come—we decided to not waste time, resources, or money. Everything we're doing is a set of experiments to validate assumptions, then iterate.

We chose Webflow for a variety of reasons. But, mostly because we were bored with WordPress. We dove right in and began exploring our options. In our planning, we wanted to ensure that the site we built was extensible and infinitely scalable.

That meant we had to compromise on our personal opinions and adopt an opinionated, well documented framework. We chose Finsweet's Client-First as our style guide. It's a free resource maintained by the F'in superstars of Webflow.

Next we had to explore options for components. There's a $#!t ton of them out there but we settled on Relume's Library, because it played nice with Client-First.

OK, well not just yet. A couple of pre-requisites first. We needed to set up a Webflow account and subscribe to Relume's Library. Webflow's pricing is a little complicated and we ended up with a Core Workspace plan and Business Website (CMS) plan.

Webflow sets us back $19 and $49 a month respectively. Add $38 a month to that for Relume's library. This investment was a no-brainer for us given our limited resources, because time is money!

Before building, we made sure to use Octopus to create our information architecture and high-level site-plan.

Compared to WordPress and our preferred React/Next, this set up was a breeze. The whole process of building out the site to wire-framed components took 2 hours. Then, the design team at Hey Rebekah spent 4 months to update copy and graphics. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Once they were done, we performed some site/speed optimizations. This is the result after some minimal .webp optimizations which take only a minute, cleaning up unused classes/animations—another minute, and addressing some accessibility issues.

The whole process across Webflow and Cloudflare took roughly 30 minutes.

We haven't published robots.txt yet or connected to Google Search Console. We'll do that after the growth team completes their keyword research and copy updates.

Our current production site is a good example of releasing early to test, validating assumptions, and being ready to iterate. It's also a case study in minimizing waste as a startup.

Hit us up with any questions you may have and we'd be happy to address them.

Every Monday, we're going to add more to your plate by recommending a book. But here's the best part, if you don't want to read the book, we're going to include the gist for you courtesy of our friends at OpenAi.Our first recommendation: How to Win Friends and Influence People

Ah, Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People," a classic guide for the smooth-talking socialite.

It's simple, my friend. Just follow Carnegie's golden rules, and you'll be the life of the party. First, remember that everyone's favorite subject is themselves. So when you're schmoozing with the elite, make sure to listen attentively and ask plenty of questions about their oh-so-interesting lives.

Next, show a genuine interest in others and their concerns. And for the love of God, always use their name when you're buttering them up. It's a small touch, but it goes a long way in making people feel special.

And when it comes to criticism, well, sugarcoat that sh*t. No one wants to hear you whine about how much you hate your boss or how much you loathe traffic. Keep it positive, and you'll be well on your way to winning friends and influencing people left and right.

So go forth, my fellow social climber, and use Carnegie's wisdom to charm your way to the top. Just don't forget to thank me when you make it big.

This section was inspired by the one-and-only Alex Lieberman of Morning Brew.