Hey, there!

This is Sonket. It has been quite a long time that I wanted Creative Directory to exist.

But, I never could code.

What I could do was make websites on WordPress with Elementor & Plugins.
Around 2020, the first attempt was made.

The drawbacks:

• The explore page took a couple of minutes to load, owing to the sheer size of the number of records.
• Things started getting messy, as for every little thing I had to add a new plugin, or write one, and then do tons of re-work on the frontend with Elementor, all while trying to make sure nothing breaks.

Conclusion:

Not Feasible
(Obviously, there were many more attempts, but they are not relevant anymore.)

Now, in August 2024, we have AI tools to code with you and also answer every whimsical question you might have. So, I tried again. And this time, I could make it work! The code was written from scratch by the AI, and all I did was provide feedback. It took us at least 5–6 restarts and pivots, but it worked! The code was messy, my need for organization made things difficult, and I could not pick up from where I left anymore.

Then, I started following a YouTube video with the most recent version of Strapi and NextJS. It took me another whole night to install the example project, as I didn’t even know the basics of running an application.

But here we are. The starter project was understood, and with the right prompts in the right places, we have the first build of Creative Directory.