First Website

This week my friend Jack McDade made this tweet showing a screenshot of the first website he created that he made more than $1,000 on:

This got me thinking about when I first got started and I remembered a design I did for a motorcycle dealership back in 2001 that ended up leading to my first paid site. So even though I didn’t actually get paid for this one, it led to my first paid design. Here it is in all its glory:

Now, to get the full effect you have to see it on the web.archive because the clouds are an animated gif with lightning bolts.  Thanks, Macromedia Fireworks!

It just amazes me how much back then felt like the wild west. You would copy/paste code from random forums, or peoples personal websites. No package managers, no great training resources. Just you searching for hours on how to solve problems. In some ways, I miss those days, but if I started fresh today I think it’d be so much easier.