I launched heypascal.me — here's what I built, what broke, and what I'd do differently

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.