DNXAI

From WordPress to Claude: My Long Road to Building dnxai.com

By the DNX AI editors3 min read

It's not today that I started. I've failed a lot. That's why I'm proud of what I'm building now.

I learned to code young

I started learning to code when I was 15, and kept going until about 23. I built websites, front end and back end, learning online until late at night. It wasn't easy.

Then life happened. I got a job and couldn't meet coding deadlines. In those days, coding was very hard: it took a lot of time, and good internet was hard to get. My environment wasn't supporting me, so I stepped away from coding and learned business instead.

Now I'm in my 30s, and I'm building again.

The old era: we were doing it wrong

I started blogging with WordPress about 10 years ago. Today those old blogs can't be found anymore. I enjoyed that experience, but looking back, we were doing things wrong:

  • We blogged only for money, not from passion or real experience.
  • We downloaded cheap templates, and some already had hacker code hidden inside. They slowed our websites down and made our designs look bad.
  • We followed every trend, from the blogging era to the YouTube era, without really understanding what we were doing.

I had passion. I even bought Halloween domain names and built websites for them, but they never got to where I wanted.

2023: dnxai.com

In 2023 I bought dnxai.com to build an AI tools directory. I couldn't do it with WordPress, so I changed direction and bought a PHP script for a domain name generator. I still wasn't getting any traffic.

Then I tried Lovable and Bolt. They built a nice front end, but I didn't know how to do the backend for this kind of site.

$3,000 for a backend

I went looking for developers. They were asking $3,000 for the backend. The cheapest quote I got was around $500, and even that was too much for me then. I kept searching for another way.

Finding Claude

One day on Twitter, I saw a lot of people talking about Claude. I started using it, first for content and blog posts. Then I noticed Claude could help me build the database too, an SQLite database.

Here's how I finally built it:

  1. Claude helped me build the backend and the tools.
  2. I ran everything on localhost, my own computer, until it was ready.
  3. Then I moved it from localhost to live on Hostinger.

On October 3, 2026, the new dnxai.com went live. That was one of the best decisions I've made.

Building more with Claude

dnxai.com isn't the only one. I built a website for my girlfriend: Shimmy's Budget, a savings challenge box made for savers in Ghana. You pick a cell, drop the cash in, cross it off, and watch small amounts like ₵5 and ₵10 grow into ₵5,000 and more.

We vibe-coded it in HTML and connected it to WhatsApp. When a customer wants to order, the website sends them straight to her WhatsApp. Simple, fast, and it works.

The last two weeks on dnxai.com

Since launch, I've worked with Claude to add:

  • A new design that doesn't look like every other AI site
  • A blog where I share my real experience
  • Payments, so tool owners can get listed and featured
  • Security: logs, auto-blocking of attackers, and file checks
  • SEO fixes, so Google can understand the site

My first payment provider, Paddle, turned down my application. I didn't give up. I applied to Dodo Payments, got approved, and now payments are live.

The results so far, in less than two weeks after launch:

  • Google has shown dnxai.com in search 1,840 times, for 312 different searches
  • My pages average position 11, close to page 1
  • Real tool owners are submitting their tools and getting listed

My advice: is WordPress still worth it?

Yes, WordPress is still a great place to learn. There's a huge amount of free information about it on YouTube, and you can use AI plugins to learn about the backend and how websites work. When you later move to Claude, everything becomes easier because you already understand the basics.

Now we do it right

Before, we blogged for money and took shortcuts. Today we build from passion, experience and what we love, and that's when it works. I've lived through every era, but in the AI era I finally know what I'm doing, what helps me and what's good for me.

With AI, I'll make sure every website I dream of becomes a dream come true. This is the best time to create something sensible that helps people.

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