Personal site spec
Target: live by 2026-10-15 (Nov-30 credibility targets). Founder decisions are quoted from iMessage on 2026-10-02 unless noted.
Decided
| Area | Decision | Source |
|---|---|---|
| CMS | EmDash (Cloudflare) | founder 2026-09-28 21:27 ("Emdash it is") |
| Brand | Not Ray Data Co. A plain name domain feels "generic and uninspiring". | 15:45 |
| Name direction | "Grid Notes"-like ("Not sold on it, but along those lines sounds nice") | 16:03 |
| phData rule | "cannot talk about clients directly and cannot sell the same services. Thought leadership is fine." | 15:45 |
| Byline title | Principal Consultant (an FDS/FDE retitle is likely) | 16:03 |
| Pages | Home, Writing, About, Subscribe ("bare bones minimum") | 15:45 |
| Post #1 | "Agents don't need your data warehouse. They need your definitions." (draft v1 sent 15:57) | 15:45 |
| Style anchor | Headshot with the blue scribble (~/Projects/rdco-website/public/founder-headshot.jpg); refs Wes Bos (character), Adam Wathan (minimal) | 15:45 |
| Color | Paper #EAF0FD, ink black, ONE accent = marker blue #3B82F6 (sampled from the headshot) | 16:03 ("1. yes") |
| Grid | Home page + margins only; plain paper where you read | 16:03 ("2. B") |
| Signature move | One blue marker underline/circle/arrow per page or post | 16:03 ("3. Yes") |
| Fonts | Founder picks: Noway Round (sans), Menlo (mono), Salome (special). Handwritten fonts for extra detail: "I like notes in the margins." | 16:03 |
| Diagrams | Yes, a core feature ("the levels of communication that Karpathy was saying agents can achieve now") | 16:03 |
| Headline option A + the About lede approved; founder edits LinkedIn himself | 16:03 |
Open
- Domain: candidates gridnotes.dev / thegridnotes.com / quadnotes.dev (available 2026-10-02; gridnotes.io is a live "GridNotes" site, a collision). benwilson.ai available as a redirect (price unverified).
- Font licensing: Noway Round (Atipo) is free for personal use only, so buy a commercial license or fall back to Nunito; Menlo can't be served, so ship JetBrains Mono with Menlo first in the stack; Salome Pro is ~$25 at Canada Type (web use included). Handwriting: offered Calligraphr (his own hand as a font). Spending over $20 is his call.
- Post #1: needs his non-client anecdote and optional small Snowflake build; diagram "one agent, two numbers" in progress.