How I Built My First Mentoring Website

Introduction

This was my first real client project - a mentoring website that needed to be professional, fast, and easy to maintain. In this post, I'll share my journey building it from scratch.

Tech Stack

For this project, I chose:

• Next.js - For server-side rendering and great developer experience
• TypeScript - For type safety and better code quality
• Tailwind CSS - For rapid, consistent styling
• Vercel - For seamless deployment and hosting

Challenges

The biggest challenges I faced were:

1. Responsive Design - Making sure the site looked great on all devices
2. Performance - Optimizing images and load times
3. Booking Integration - Connecting with the client's scheduling system

What I Learned

This project taught me so much:

• Clean code structure matters more than you think
• Performance optimization should be considered from the start
• Communication with clients is just as important as coding
• Testing on real devices catches issues that emulators miss

Next Steps

For future projects, I want to:

• Implement better animation patterns
• Focus more on accessibility from day one
• Explore headless CMS solutions for content management