The Spark: Why I Built This Site
After losing my employment during the pandemic and watching my freelance work dry up, I was stuck in a cycle of constant friction trying to find my way back in. JexiDev was born out of a need to rebuild myself from the ground up, not just professionally, but structurally. I was tired of waiting for opportunities that never materialized, tired of bending myself into shapes that didn’t fit, and tired of feeling like my skills were invisible because they didn’t sit neatly on a CV.
So, I created my own space. A place to document what I know, what I build, and how I think. JexiDev isn’t limited by someone else’s template or their idea of what counts as experience, and that is the whole point. I wanted to show that you don’t need expensive agencies, bloated themes, or generic designs to build something meaningful. If I could break out of the mould, I can help other small businesses do the same.
The Early Days: Fighting WordPress Themes
When I started JexiDev, I had experience of building websites with Elementor, and I knew with full clarity that I had to move away from it. I’d spent time working through The Odin Project and building smaller, raw coding projects on the side, and that “under the hood” experience changed everything. Once you’ve felt the freedom of writing your own logic, going back to a drag-and-drop builder feels like a step backward.
I tried to find a middle ground. After sifting through themes like Astra, which I still recommend to beginners, I landed on Blocksy. It felt clean and seemed to suit my needs, or so I thought.
In reality, every design decision turned into a battle. The theme would frequently overwrite my custom CSS, and fixing one issue seemed to create three more. Between the theme options, customisation panels, and the sheer weight of the page builder, I felt like I was trying to paint with mittens on. I wasn’t actually building; I was wrestling with someone else’s set of design rules.
The Breakthrough: Starting from Zero
I reached a point where I realised the problem wasn’t me, it was the themes. No matter how clean or “lightweight” they claim to be, I was still working inside someone else’s box.
I decided to scrap the entire project and start over locally. I moved into VS Code, using the Live Server plugin to build a raw HTML and CSS version of what I wanted. This was the true turning point. Being able to see how my CSS and JS changed the site in real-time, and using a global * debug border around every container, unlocked a level of understanding I’d never had before. For the first time, I wasn’t guessing where the margin was coming from; I was the one who put it there.
The next challenge was bridging the gap between my clean, local code and a functioning live website. I still wanted to feel comfortable, so I made the decision to stick with WordPress because of its security features, plugins, and user database management, but I didn’t want to go back to the bloat. This is when I discovered the BlankSlate WP theme. Completely stripped back of any sort of design features, it allowed me to do a little research on PHP and wrap my HTML project into WordPress.
Experimentation: Finding My Own Style
Once I had the site running on BlankSlate, everything opened up. I started playing with GSAP for animations, building reusable components, and refining my CSS structure so the site felt consistent instead of patched together. JexiDev finally felt like a space I could shape instead of a space I had to fight.
It became a playground again. I could try ideas, break things, fix them, and learn from the process. Every small improvement taught me something new, not just about code, but how I wanted the site to feel. It had to be clean, intentional, lightweight, and mine.
Closing Thoughts
Looking back, JexiDev became more than a website, it became a place where I rebuilt my confidence, my skills, and my direction. What started as a way to take back control during a chaotic period has grown into the foundation of the service I offer today. The same principles that shaped this site: clarity, intention, lightweight design, and building things properly from the ground up, are the principles I bring to every project I work on.
This diary is my way of keeping track of that journey, not as a polished portfolio piece, but as an honest record of how JexiDev came to be and how those lessons now help me support small businesses who want to break out of the mould too.
Coming Next: Entry #02: From File Manager Goblin to GitHub Grown-Up