Why I Built My First Personal Website as a Product Manager — and What AI Taught Me About Growth
A Product Manager (Dhema'alam Fajrianto, or myself) shares his identity crisis sparked by AI, the tools he used to build a personal website, and what it taught him about learning and career growth.
Introduction
Lately, I’ve found myself asking a big question: Is being a Product Manager really what I want to do until I’m old and bald?
Artificial intelligence (AI) triggered this identity check — not just because of the tech buzz, but because it shifted how I see my own career and growth.
This post is about how I turned that moment of doubt into a learning project — and ended up building my first personal website.
My Personal Website
What Made Me Rethink My Path
I went through a phase of questioning everything:
- “Maybe I should be an engineer instead.”
- “Should I learn data science?”
- “What about going for a master’s?”
And then I came across this quote from Jensen Huang:
“It’s easier to fall in love with what you do than to find what you love.”
That changed something for me. Instead of running from uncertainty, I asked:
“Why not be friends with AI to level up my product skills?”
That curiosity sparked my next big experiment.
How I Built My Personal Website
Believe it or not, I built a fully functioning personal site — mostly by myself — despite having just basic coding skills. Strike that — very basic.
Here’s the roadmap I used:
- Research with Perplexity
I started by defining prompts to figure out what makes a professional personal website. Then, I exported the results as markdown so it was easier to feed into other tools later. - Plan with ChatGPT
Using the research markdown, I asked ChatGPT to help me draft a basic PRD (Product Requirement Document). I also generated a markdown version and a PDF for reference. - Prototype with Google Antigravity (AI coding agent)
I fed the PRD file to an AI agent called Google Antigravity to generate code, set up the GitHub repo, and scaffold the project. - Adjust and Launch
Yes, I manually tweaked some parts of the code (just a little!), and then boom — my site was live. The whole thing still amazes me.
Lessons Learned (So Far)
Identity isn’t static
AI might have sparked my identity crisis, but it also showed me a way to grow instead of running from it. Some themes I’m still exploring:
- The boundaries between Product, Engineering, and Design are blurring.
- Tools matter, but practice matters more.
- Learning by building and shipping accelerates growth more than endless theory.
Pro tip: If there’s a promo, trial, or free tier for an AI tool — use it. I did with Perplexity, Gemini, and ChatGPT.
Final Thoughts
This project isn’t perfect and is still a work in progress — but it opened my eyes to how much there is to explore in this role and beyond.
And if this resonates with you — whether you’re a PM, engineer, or tech creator — remember one mantra:
#YangPentingMulaiDulu (What matters most is just getting started).
Stay tuned for more stories from this journey.
Share this article
