Selfish Websites
I rebuilt my website three times last year.
Each version looked completely different. Different purpose. Different structure. Different audience.
This felt like failure until I realized it was the point.
Most personal websites are built for the wrong audience. Portfolio pieces designed to impress hiring managers. Landing pages meant to convert strangers. Showcases that scream "look at me."
This is completely backwards.
Your website should be useful to you first. Not to visitors. Not to potential employers. Not to some imagined audience.
To you.
The person who owns it.
Think about what a website actually is: a structured collection of information you control completely. That's incredibly valuable. Not because others might see it.
Because you can use it.
The Utility Shift
Your personal site can be a public notebook that forces clarity. A reference library for ideas you want to revisit. A forcing function for consistent output. A sandbox to learn new skills. A home base connecting your scattered digital presence.
The moment you build for yourself first, the pressure evaporates.
You stop asking "what will people think?" and start asking "what do I need?"
This changes everything.
The Shape-Shifting Website
Your utility requirements change constantly.
Learning to code? Your site becomes a project showcase and documentation hub. Job hunting? It shifts to a portfolio demonstrating competence. Building an audience? Now it's a content platform optimized for subscription. Consulting? Sales page.
The website should morph to match what you need from it right now.
Code is cheap. AI made it disposable. What took weeks now takes hours.
There's no reason to keep a site that stopped serving you.
Burn it down. Rebuild for the new need.
The Permission to Be Selfish
The best personal websites happen when creators stop performing.
When Derek Sivers built sivers.org, he made it a public collection of notes and book summaries for his own reference. It became one of the most respected personal sites on the internet.
When Patrick Collison built his site, he created pages to track his own reading, bookmarks, and questions. Not for visitors. For himself.
The selfishness became the appeal.
Because authenticity isn't a strategy. It's a byproduct of building something genuinely useful to you.
Your website should be a tool you actually use. Something that makes your life better, your thinking sharper, your work easier.
Luke Wroblewski built a whole agent his personal site to answer people questions. It screens 40+ questions a day and he uses it to write his emails.
If it doesn't serve you, it won't serve anyone else either.
The irony is perfect: the more you optimize for your own needs, the more valuable your site becomes to others. Not because you tried to please them. But because you didn't.
Build for yourself first. The rest will follow.