Field note: sometimes a website problem is actually an architecture problem wearing a prettier outfit.
I recently started refreshing my own site expecting to clean up some pages, modernize the navigation, and fix a few things that felt dated.
That happened. But the more important work was deciding what the site was now supposed to be.
The old version had a clear identity. It was just no longer the whole identity.
The store had originally been built around creators and entrepreneurs. That made sense at the time. But my work had expanded across strategy, marketing, journalism, teaching, AI, speaking, entrepreneurship, products, and resources.
The mistake would have been to erase the store in order to make room for everything else.
The better decision was to change the architecture.
A brand can contain multiple businesses without becoming confusing
The question is not whether you do more than one thing. The question is whether a visitor can understand the pathways.
We reorganized the site around clear destinations: work with me, courses, free resources, shop, editorial content, and about/contact information.
That sounds simple. Getting there required deciding what belonged where, which identity was primary, and which pieces should remain distinct.
Navigation is strategy
A menu is not just a list of pages. It quietly tells visitors how the business thinks about itself.
If the menu prioritizes only products, you have told people you are primarily a store. If it prioritizes only services, you may bury the commerce side. If it includes everything equally, you can create a wall of choices.
The goal is a hierarchy that helps people self-select quickly.
Do not confuse legacy language with brand equity
One of the most useful parts of the process was deciding which old phrases still deserved to stay.
Some language carried real history and personality. Other phrases described an earlier version of the company and had become constraints simply because they had been there for a long time.
That distinction matters in any rebrand: nostalgia is not the same thing as strategy.
The line that survived the process
One idea kept fitting the current brand better than the older language:
Ambition matters. Burnout is not the business model.
That is not anti-growth. It is a better definition of growth. I still care deeply about ambition, marketing, execution, revenue, reach, and results. I am simply less interested in systems that require people to remain overwhelmed in order to prove they are serious.
What I would tell another founder
If your website suddenly feels wrong, do not start by changing fonts.
Ask:
- What does this business actually do now?
- What are the most important visitor journeys?
- What has become outdated?
- What deserves to stay because it still means something?
- What should be one brand, and what should remain a distinct property?
Then design around the answers.
Field Notes is where I will keep sharing this kind of thing: what I am testing, building, changing, and learning while doing the actual work.