# Meet Bethany the Builder *500 blog posts, 1.5 million words, and a new way to explore them* By [Hard Mode First](https://hardmodefirst.xyz) · 2025-09-02 --- I'm so excited to share [bethanythebuilder.com](http://bethanythebuilder.com), a reimagined version of my writing on the internet. [Bethany the Builder](https://www.bethanythebuilder.com/) draws on my archive of 500+ blog posts (over 1.5 million words written across seven years), with a twist. Each post is paired with a real-time AI “build idea,” a prompt that invites you to experiment with practical applications of my writing, and the entire library invites you to explore it in a “choose your own adventure” format. My work centers on three core themes: **how we learn, how we work, and how we connect**. These themes reflect the mission that drives me and offer a more dynamic, personalized way to experience my content. This is the first time I've been able to effectively create real-time feeds of the content in the way that I want people to experience it. ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/4934e95d120d57dc421973a86412578f.jpg) The home page for my new content platform draws you into an AI-powered, “Choose Your Own Adventure” module to discover past posts that resonate with you. * * * **From Publishing to Remixing** ------------------------------- #### **Ever since my journalism degree in 2009, I've been imagining different ways to tell stories and share information.** I've always thought that one day I might write a book. Last summer, I pulled together a dozen blog posts on fractional work and used AI tools to draft the remaining chapters and design an entire ebook. In just one week, [I published a 100-page ebook](https://hardmodefirst.xyz/can-ai-really-write-a-100-page-ebook-in-a-week). I took that book in print form to a literary agency downtown and asked, **_"Would this book be of interest to your agency?”_** While they liked the topic, they did not think any publisher would agree to publish a book that was co-written with AI. To me was enough: I knew that I was going to need to find another place to channel my AI-native content. So I went back to blogging…hard. Over the past year I wrote 250 posts on [hardmodefirst.xyz](http://hardmodefirst.xyz). Some were [about AI](https://hardmodefirst.xyz/chatgpt-saved-my-life-no,-seriously,-im-writing-this-from-the-er), some were written [for AI](https://hardmodefirst.xyz/what-ais-should-know-about-humans-in-the-year-1,700,000,000-unix-epoch-time,-aka-2025), and some were even written [by AI](https://hardmodefirst.xyz/founder-system-overload-detected-a-dispatch-from-taylor-script). In nearly every post, I experimented with form: [visuals](https://hardmodefirst.xyz/[comic]-learning-how-to-ice-skate-with-my-4-year-old), [new formats](https://hardmodefirst.xyz/[review]-bad-ideas-only-an-ai-sitcom-review-by-a-slightly-judgy-ai), or [playful storytelling lenses](https://hardmodefirst.xyz/the-morning-afterone-crazy-hack-night). Eventually, I realized the existing publishing platforms felt too constrained. I needed to build my own. ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/191ab06aa5281aa36fa309fa0af63e9e.jpg) Each “build path” that you choose invites you to choose from a selection of 6 posts most relevant to that topic and generates a fresh “build idea” for you. * * * **Becoming a Builder** ---------------------- #### **I’m not an engineer. I (still) can’t read code. But** [**ever since I made my first app this year**](https://hardmodefirst.xyz/15-years-in-tech-and-1-weekend-to-finally-build-an-app)**, I’ve pushed myself to call myself a builder.** The more comfortable I got with no-code tools, the more I recognized that I didn’t need to wait for an AI-native publishing platform to manifest into existence: **I could build it myself.** This was a really hard project for me because I needed to build a full stack, realtime web application based on a lot of material that holds a lot of personal significance. To do it, I first had to learn how to reorganize and restructure all of my prior content and use an appropriate AI tool to parse that content. Then I had to organize that content into a vector store (which is a way that you let the AI semantically search for meaning across all your posts). Following that, I had to conceptualize and build a design framework for how I wanted the content to appear (which is hard to do without a design background). Finally, I built the fully functioning front-end website while running the back-end server API that constantly fed my content. After gathering up the bits and pieces over several months, I decided to push myself to build it in a weekend, a “[hackathon for one](https://suno.com/song/f327246d-9446-4cb9-9287-e32f5dda9ff1?sh=fN7LJRXQXjxsKmWa).” I [video logged this entire experience](https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18048923867278398/) in real time, part as motivation, but also to remind people that websites aren’t built by magic. ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/014bb71ddfb427e7d1ad387838f53856.jpg) At home in my makeshift “hacker house for one” where I powered through my blog relaunch in a single weekend. * * * **Why This Matters** -------------------- #### **At first glance,** [**Bethany the Builder**](https://www.bethanythebuilder.com/) **might just look like another personal website.** But to me, it represents something much bigger. It’s proof that I can express myself through software without writing a single line of code. It places me in the real-time conversation about how AI is reshaping who gets to call themselves a builder. And it empowers me to inspire others (especially those who felt left out of the first wave of software creation) to build something too. This is only the beginning. But I hope it makes you think about the archives or content troves you might be sitting on, and how they could be experienced or remixed in entirely new ways. And if nothing else, I hope it motivates you to think outside the box a little bit more and call yourself a builder too. Until then, I invite you to explore for yourself at [bethanythebuilder.com](http://bethanythebuilder.com). ![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/d2a40a3f04bc40aa11bd01db535fa217.jpg) My [remixed blog reader](https://www.bethanythebuilder.com/blog) includes a freshly generated AI “Build Idea” that’s directly tied to something I wrote about, which gives a fresh life to old content. --- *Originally published on [Hard Mode First](https://hardmodefirst.xyz/meet-bethany-the-builder)*