From receptionist to five-figure website projects
How I built a business by saying “stuff it, I’ll do it myself.”
Let me take you back.
I was earning $37k a year. Overworked. Undervalued. Sitting at a front desk for a boss who made The Devil Wears Prada look like a Disney movie.
It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t creative. And it sure as heck wasn’t where I wanted to be.
Something had to change.
No Plan. No Tech Skills. Just Pure Determination.
I had a graphic design degree, but like most design grads, web stuff wasn’t covered. Not properly anyway. They gave us Dreamweaver (ew), a bit of HTML and then sent us on our merry way.
When I started freelancing, clients kept asking for websites. I was designing in Photoshop and sending the files off to developers. Sounds fine, right?
Except…
They butchered my designs.
Time after time, I’d hand over a beautiful layout and get back something that looked like it’d been attacked by Comic Sans and broken CSS.
It was painful.
Paying web developers = burning money
Not only were they butchering the designs — they were blowing my budget.
I’d quote a job, outsource the dev, and end up with barely any profit (plus a stress rash).
There had to be a better way.
So I Googled. A lot. I YouTubed. I cried. I tried again.
Until I discovered Divi — a page builder for WordPress that changed everything.
Suddenly, I could design and build the website myself.
No code. No begging a dev to fix their mess. No slashing my margins in half.
My accidental path to web design – From receptionist to building $10K websites
Once I got the hang of it, things snowballed.
One client became two. Two turned into four.
Then I landed a dream project — a full-blown eCommerce site with all the bells and whistles.
Old me would’ve run from it.
But thanks to what I’d learned, I built that website from scratch (with a tiny bit of help from a dev mate for one sticky bit). No code. No templates. Just me, my tools and a vision.
The invoice? Over $10,000.
That was the moment I knew:
This is it. This is my thing.
Do you want to learn web design, too?
If you’re reading this and still stuck in the cycle of outsourcing, second-guessing or saying “I’m not techy enough” — I get it.
I was you.
My accidental path to web design — from receptionist to building $10K websites — wasn’t fancy.
It wasn’t planned.
It was messy and scrappy and full of trial and error.
But it worked.
And now? I’ve taught hundreds of designers how to do the same.
So if you’re ready to:
👉 Stop relying on flaky developers
👉 Keep more of the profit
👉 And confidently build gorgeous, high-paying WordPress sites…
Then I promise — this path is wide open for you too.
TL;DR? Here’s what you need to know:
🎉 You don’t need to learn code
🎉 You can build $10K websites
🎉 Your accidental path to web design might be starting right now…
And if you want the shortcut? Watch my free training — it’s the perfect intro into how to get started with web design!
It’s beginner-friendly, jargon-free, and shows you step-by-step how to go from “WTF is hosting” to launching five-figure projects.
Em x
Want to see exactly how I use WordPress to build irresistible websites for clients?
→ Watch my free training video and learn the simple, no-code way to build websites that wow!
💌
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About the author
Hey! I'm Emma. I’m a graphic designer turned web designer on a mission to teach others how to build beautiful & professional websites with WordPress. 😍
Through mentoring and my online courses, I've taught thousands of awesome designers and other creatives how to build their own websites using my 9-step process.