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3rd Space Bucharest · AI Workflows Card 002 Shipped Aug 2026

Brief, build, and the part nobody warns you aboutCreate a Website

Plan the site with Claude. Let Claude Design build it. Then move your web address without killing your email.

CreatorEric Melchor
RunsOnce per site
Stages3
Total time~7 hours
One site, start to live 7 hours
1 hr — writing the brief ~4 hrs — the build 2 hrs — domain cutover, and fixing what it broke

The real comparison isn’t a faster website. It’s a website that finally got made. The old one had been “about to be redone” for months. Nobody was ever going to give it three free weekends.

Eric Melchor

“I kept saying I’d redo this site soon. Soon took months. With Claude the plan took an hour and the build took an afternoon — and then I knocked my own email offline for three days. That mistake is the most useful thing on this page.”

Eric Melchor · made this one · Founder, 3rd Space Bucharest

Overview

What this does

Building a website is really two jobs, and most people mix them up.

Job one: decide what the site has to say. Who is it for? What are they worried about? What goes first, second, third? Job two: build it. Most people start with job two, pick a template, and get stuck halfway because job one was never done.

So do them one at a time. Spend an hour talking to Claude and come out with a brief — a plan that says who the site is for, what it has to prove, and what each section says. Then hand the brief to Claude Design and let it build. The brief does the thinking. The builder does the typing.

Then there’s the third job nobody mentions: pointing your web address at the new site. That’s the part that bit me, and it’s why this page is worth reading even if you never build a site with AI.

This is how 3rdspacebucharest.com — the site you’re on — was made.

Before

The old site, and what was wrong with it

One page on Canva Sites that had been “about to be redone” for months.

01You couldn’t leave your email address. The one thing the site needed to do, it couldn’t do.
02Events were typed in by hand, so the page was usually out of date.
03It sounded like everyone else. “Meaningful connections.” “Like-minded individuals.” The best thing about 3rd Space — you get introduced to people before you arrive — was hidden in a bullet point.
After

How it works, in three steps

The order matters. Building before planning is how you get a site that looks fine and says nothing.

11 hr

Write the plan with Claudejust talking — no building yet

An hour of Claude asking you questions about your own business. What comes out is a plan a builder can follow without asking you anything.

  • One line on how a visitor should feel — and how they should not feel. Mine: “that sounds like a relief,” not “exciting.”
  • The one worry to beat, written the way a visitor would think it. Here: “Am I going to have to work the room?” Every section then answers it.
  • The page order, the real words for each section, and a list of the photos and facts only you can give.
Only you have this The real numbers and the real quotes. Claude builds the argument; you bring the facts it’s made of.
2~4 hrs

Give the plan to Claude Designplan in, website out

You don’t explain your business again. It’s all in the plan.

  • Builds the pages in the order the plan sets, using the plan’s words as the real words.
  • Puts anything that changes often — numbers, dates, prices — in one easy-to-edit block.
  • Puts the site online.
Watch for Your sentences being “improved” into bland ones, and stand-in photos still being there on launch day. Say in the plan that the words are final, and have your real photos ready before this step.
32 hrs

Point your web address at the new sitethe risky one

Your web address does two jobs: it shows your website, and it delivers your email. Move it carelessly and the second job stops.

  • Screenshot every setting at your old provider before you change anything.
  • Copy the email settings into the new place first. Then switch.
  • Email yourself from a different account to check mail still arrives — and check again tomorrow.
This is where it broke I didn’t do it in this order. See below — it’s the most useful thing on this page.
Tools

What you need

Claude · Cowork Claude Design Netlify Bluehost (domain) Google Workspace (email) Luma (tickets) Substack (list) dig / DNS lookup
The hard part

The mistake that cost me three days of email

The one that got us

Your website will work perfectly. Your email will go nowhere.

Your web address holds a list of settings. Some of them say “here is my website.” Others say “deliver my email here.” When you move your address to a new host, only the settings you copy across still exist. The website ones get set up as part of launching the site. The email ones don’t come along, and nothing warns you.

There’s no error and no alert. The bounce message goes to the person who emailed you. Your inbox just goes quiet — and a quiet inbox looks exactly like a slow week.

It went on for days. I only found out because someone mentioned their email to me had bounced.

  • Screenshot everything first. Every setting at the old provider, before you touch anything.
  • Find the ones that aren’t about the website. They have names like MX, SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Those four are your email.
  • Add them in the new place first, then switch. Not the other way round.
  • Test from someone else’s account. Emailing yourself from yourself proves nothing.
  • Set a reminder for tomorrow that says “did anyone email me?” That one habit is the whole lesson.

Wait before you “fix” it again

Even once the settings are right, email can take a few hours to find its way. Changing things again after twenty minutes turns a short outage into a long one.

Give it hours, not minutes.

A vague plan gives you a vague site

“Make it look modern” gets you a site that looks like everyone else’s. One real worry, in your visitor’s own words, gets you a site that answers it.

The best line in my plan: “Am I going to have to work the room?”

Say that your words are final

Write it into the plan, or your good lines get smoothed into “meaningful connections” while the site is being built.

Ban the clichés by name.

Three more things I’d tell you

Stand-in photos survive to launch

If your real photos aren’t ready when the building starts, placeholders go in — and placeholders have a habit of still being there on launch day.

Gather photos before step 2, not during it.

Keep the changing bits in one block

Dates, prices and numbers change every month. If they’re scattered through the design, every update turns into a redesign.

Stats in one component; dates and prices in their own.

Don’t let the site handle money

Tickets stayed where they already were, and the site just links to them. One less thing to build, and one less thing to break on a Friday night.

The site’s only job is collecting an email address.

Your turn

Copy this and use it today

Two documents. The first one decides your site. The second one saves your email.

Step 1

Copy the template

Pick a tab below and press Copy. That’s the whole document, on your clipboard.

Step 2

Paste it into Claude

Open a new chat, paste it, and say: “Interview me through this for my website. Push back when my answers are vague.”

Step 3

Answer the questions

Claude asks, you answer, and it writes the plan. Don’t settle for your first answer on the worry or the voice rules — those two do most of the work.

Step 4

Hand it over and build

Give the finished plan to Claude Design and let it build. Then, before you move your web address, run the second checklist. All of it.

Want to keep it for next time? Paste the template into Claude and say “turn this into a skill”, then switch it on under Settings › Capabilities › Skills.

website-design-brief-template.md 
# Website Design Brief — template

Work through this with Claude in conversation *before* any building starts. Answer in your own words; let Claude push back and ask for specifics. The output is one document you hand to Claude Design.

The brief is where the site is decided. The builder just executes it.

---

## 1. The brief in one line

What should a visitor feel? Name one emotion, and say what it is *not*.

> Example: Make a busy, skeptical professional think "that sounds like a relief." Not "exciting." Not "high-energy." A relief. That emotional target governs every layout, photo and line of copy.

## 2. Who this is for

- Who exactly — age, work, city, income, taste
- What they already tried that didn't work, and why it drained them
- How much time and patience they have on this page
- **The one objection to defeat.** Write it as a sentence they'd say in their head.

> The objection is the most useful line in the whole brief. Every section is evidence against it.

## 3. Positioning

One sentence that is the site's whole argument. Then three proof pillars — facts, not adjectives — that recur structurally throughout the design.

Also write **what this is not**. A list of the adjacent things you'll be mistaken for.

## 4. Voice and copy rules

Two lists, both specific:

- **Do:** sentence length, person ("you" vs "we"), the kind of detail that belongs (real place names, real numbers)
- **Don't:** the exact phrases you never want to see. Name them. Every competitor's clichés, banned by name.

> Rule of thumb: if a line could appear on any competitor's site, cut it.

## 5. Structure

The page order, numbered, as a narrative arc. Say the arc out loud — e.g. *recognition → relief → proof → invitation*. Note which section is the signature one and must get the most space.

Navigation: what's in it, what happens on mobile.

## 6. Section by section

For each section: the layout note, the photo direction, and **real draft copy — not placeholder**.

Say explicitly at the top: *"Draft copy below is real, usable copy. Refine tone, keep the substance."* Otherwise the builder rewrites your specific lines into generic ones.

For each section, cover:

- What it has to accomplish
- Layout / visual treatment
- The actual words
- Any design note that isn't obvious ("the email field must be live here, not a button that scrolls to a form")

## 7. Additional pages

Same treatment, but note where the rules differ from the homepage and why.

## 8. Visual direction

Layout-level only if a design system already exists. Cover:

- What the primary design material is (photography? type? data?)
- Mood in physical terms — a time of day, a place
- Whitespace, accent colour usage, motion
- **What's banned.** Stock photography, icon soup, gradient-heavy styling — whatever your audience reads as low-effort.

## 9. Technical requirements

A table: need → recommendation. Platform, forms, email list, embeds, payments, analytics, performance budget, SEO and Open Graph.

Say what the site must *not* do — e.g. "the site never handles money; it hands off."

## 10. What you still need to supply

A checklist of assets only you can produce: photos, headshots, testimonial attributions, logos, cover art, and any decision still open. Mark the highest-leverage item.

> Do this before the build, not during. A builder with no photos fills the space with placeholders, and placeholders survive to launch.

## 11. How to know it worked

Two or three observable outcomes. Not "looks good" — things you could actually watch someone do.

## Appendix — reference facts

Every hard number, date, price, address, URL and quote in one place, so nothing gets invented mid-build.
Built by Eric Melchor Founder, 3rd Space Bucharest. Built 3rdspacebucharest.com this way in August 2026 — email outage included.

More cards in 3rd Space AI Workflows — each one a real workflow from a real member, with the template attached.