Example · fictional person · live site

A home for ten years of writing and a podcast.

Lena writes a letter every other Sunday and hosts a podcast about attention and sound. Her work lived on four platforms that weren't hers. This is how Mo's crew gave all of it one address.

Lena Ortiz

Essayist and podcaster · Lisbon

“I've written for ten years across four platforms. I want one home for all of it — one people can actually find, and that feels like me.”

Visit lena.molby.app Hear an episode opening

The need

What Lena wanted.

Since 2016 Lena has sent Low Tide, a letter every other Sunday, to about 6,400 readers. Since 2020 she has hosted Slow Signals, unhurried conversations about attention and sound. Her talks sat on a video site and her half-thoughts in threads.

None of it was hers to keep. When a reader asked for an essay from 2019, she couldn't find it. She didn't want another platform. She wanted a room: one address, in one design, where everything she has made can be found by readers and by search engines, and that still feels like her.

Idea cardDone

One line: One home for ten years of essays, episodes and talks.
For: Readers of Low Tide, listeners of Slow Signals, editors and event organisers.
Money: Not yet. The letter stays free; talks and commissions come through the site.
Must have: Every essay, searchableEpisode pages with transcriptsTopicsClean, fast addresses
Not now: Paid membership · comments

Stage by stage

What Molby delivered, and what Lena decided.

Seven stages, one crew. Lena talked, looked and decided; the specialists did the rest. How the stages work

1 · Idea · Mo

Five questions turned a wish into a plan.

Mo asked who the site is for, where the work lives today, and what “feels like me” means to her. Each answer went straight into the idea card above, including what waits for later.

LenaStart with the archive. Membership can wait.
2 · Research · Researcher

Is a site worth it when the platforms already exist?

Researcher compared where writers keep an archive today: hosted builders, newsletter platforms and blogging tools, what each does with years of old work, and where each one stops. Every point linked to its source.
- Verdict: Worth building, high confidence
- Her edge: a decade of work and an audience that already asks for it
- The risk: moving more than 300 pieces without losing dates or breaking links
LenaBuild it, and keep the letter where it is.
3 · Prototype · Designer

Three directions. She chose the quiet one.

Designer offered three direction cards. Lena picked Newsprint: warm paper, a reading serif and one orange accent. Then came a prototype she could tap on her phone, with her real essays and episodes in it, not placeholder text.
- Home, essay, episode, topic and about pages, on desktop and phone
- A design system she can see: type sizes, colours, spacing
LenaNewsprint, but the podcast should be as visible as the essays.
4 · Test · User researcher

Twelve readers tried it before anything was built.

One link, no sign-up. Readers left notes on the page itself and answered a one-minute interview from Mo. User researcher ranked what to fix.
- Search should find words inside episodes, not just titles
- Topic pages need a short introduction
- The newsletter sign-up sat too low on the page
LenaFix all three in the next version.
5 · Build · Engineer & QA

312 pieces moved. Nothing lost.

Engineer built the real site from the prototype, and QA tested every page type on phone and desktop before Lena saw it.
- Every essay, episode, talk and thread imported with its original date
- Search across essays and episode transcripts
- Episode pages with a player, chapters, show notes and a transcript
- An RSS feed, so readers can follow the site itself
LenaChecked the staging site on her phone and signed off.
6 · Launch · Launch

Built to be found.

Launch took care of everything a website needs to go live and be understood by search engines. There's no app store for a website, so nothing waited on a review.
- lena.molby.app with SSL, ready for her own domain
- A clean address for every piece, a sitemap and a feed
- Structured data saying who wrote what, and when
- A share image for every page
LenaPressed Launch, then sent issue 265 of Low Tide pointing home.
7 · Grow · Analyst

What people read, and where they came from.

Analyst's weekly note from Mo: which essays people found, which episodes they finished, and which topic deserves the next piece.

LenaWrite more about sound.

What's live

Open it. It works.

Everything below is on lena.molby.app right now. Hear an episode opening

The home page of Lena Ortiz's site: the latest essay, the newest Slow Signals episode and five topics. — **Home.** The latest essay, the newest episode and the five topics her work falls into.

Lena's site on a phone, showing the latest essay. — **On a phone.** The same room, one thumb.

The essay “Rooms, not feeds” on Lena's site, with its date, topics and where it was first sent. — **An essay.** “Rooms, not feeds”, with its date, its topics and where it was first sent.

Slow Signals episode 48, “The sound of a room”, with an audio player. — **An episode.** *Slow Signals* no. 48, with chapters and a transcript. Three episodes play a voiced opening, and the show has its own jingle.

For your own

What it would take for you.

The same split as Lena's: most of it is done for you, a few things are one tap, and a few need you in person.

We handle it6

Hosting and backups

Your domain and SSL

Moving your archive

Search, sitemap and feed

Structured data

One tap from you3

Pick your domain nameTap

Approve the designTap

Press LaunchTap

Needs you in person1

Your wordsThe crew moves them; you decide what stays.

A personal site is a website, so there's no app store review. Before each step starts, Mo shows you a fixed price for it.

Lena Ortiz is a fictional person and lena.molby.app is an example, so it's kept out of search results on purpose. A real site launches ready to be indexed.