What Building a Website with AI Actually Taught Me (Hint: It’s Not as Simple as 5 Clicks)

July 2, 2025byMythryx AI
•3 min read
#beginner#website#AI tools#planning#Next.js#autonomous agents#learning
What Building a Website with AI Actually Taught Me (Hint: It’s Not as Simple as 5 Clicks) header image

Spoiler: This wasn’t built in a day—and definitely not in five clicks.

I’ve seen all the headlines and YouTube thumbnails:
“Build a stunning website in 5 minutes with AI!”

While technically true, I quickly learned there’s a huge difference between publishing a site and building one that reflects your goals, brand, and creativity. This post is about the real process I went through: the false starts, the stack decisions, and the mindset shift that made everything click.

If you’re starting your own journey with AI and web development, this one’s for you.

🧠 What You’ll Learn in This Post

  • Why I ditched WordPress, Wix, and no-code platforms for a custom stack
  • How planning and prompts made or broke my progress with AI
  • The unexpected value of failure and “dumb” questions
  • What I’d do differently if I started again

🧱 Before This Site: All the Dead Ends

I didn’t get here on my first try. Or second. Or third.

Before landing on the custom site you’re on now, I tried:

  • WordPress (overwhelming plugin sprawl)
  • Wix (fast, but limited in flexibility)
  • CMS tools like Notion-backed blogs (cool, but too constrained)
  • Vercel site templates (clean, but still cookie-cutter)

Each time, I got a little closer to what I wanted—but something was always missing. I wanted control. I wanted flexibility. I wanted to understand what was going on under the hood.

That’s when I decided:
I’m going to build this thing from scratch.
Even if it breaks me a little.

🔧 My Final Stack (and Why I Chose It)

After all the testing, I picked this combo:

  • Next.js – Fast, modern, and React-based (I’d never touched React before this… fun times)
  • Tailwind CSS – Once it clicked, it made design way easier
  • MDX – I can write posts in Markdown and still use React components
  • Vercel – Smooth deployment and free tier is beginner-friendly

This stack gave me full control—without drowning me in complexity (at least, not all the time).

💡 The First Big Lesson: AI Isn’t Magic—It’s a Mirror

I expected AI to do more of the heavy lifting. I thought I could just say “Build me a custom site” and boom, done.

What I learned instead:

  • The better the prompt, the better the output
  • If I didn’t know what I wanted, neither did the AI
  • Adding context, screenshots, code, and examples made a huge difference

Eventually, I realized:
AI gives you back what you put in. Garbage in, garbage out.

🧠 The Secret Weapon = Planning + Prompting

One of the most powerful things I learned was to plan first.
This sounds boring, but hear me out.

When I mapped out:

  • What I wanted my homepage to include
  • What features I needed
  • How I wanted posts, pages, and navigation to work

…it saved hours of rework later. AI tools helped so much more when I gave them structure to work from.

And when I used tools like Claude Code or custom GPTs with instructions tuned to my voice and goals? Game-changer.

🤖 The AI Tools I Used the Most

🔹 ChatGPT

Explaining things, troubleshooting, generating code snippets, naming files, structuring layouts

🔹 Claude Code

Autonomous coding agent with custom memory and ability to maintain flow across changes

🔹 Google

Yup. Still needed this one. AI didn’t always get it right.

🤯 What Humbled Me

  • Every element on a site is a decision—design, layout, accessibility, responsiveness
  • A “simple nav bar” took me three attempts and multiple fixes
  • Understanding how front-end and back-end connect was way harder than expected
  • You don’t know how much you don’t know until you try building from scratch

But it also made me realize:
This stuff is learnable.
I just had to be willing to slow down and figure it out.

💡 Advice for Other Beginners

  • Don’t chase “easy” if you care about learning.
  • Ask the “dumb” questions. They’re usually the best ones.
  • Use AI with intention. The more context you give it, the more useful it becomes.
  • Document your progress. You’ll forget how much you’ve grown otherwise.

🔗 Related Posts You Might Like

💬 What Are You Building?

Whether it’s your first site, a portfolio, or a random project idea—tell me about it.

Let’s figure this stuff out together. And if you ever feel overwhelmed, just remember:
You’re not doing it wrong. You’re just doing something new.

Thanks for reading!