Introduction:

For context, I decided to quit my job at a danish tech start-up as I wanted to pursue new opportunities and try something different, but when preparing to quit and looking for a new job in my mind, I realized that I wasn’t very fond of the idea of just writing an a4 page of why I wanted some job, I (and call me delusional) felt like I had something more to showcase and offer, than could be kept within a standard page. I knew I if wanted something different, I would have to create something most weren’t willing to.

This website has since proved for me to be more than just a simple website. The easy way would have been to build it on Wix or Squarespace, those would probably also have been prettier design wise, but neither was that ever the goal. I created this with extremely limited capabilities in HTML, CSS & JavaScript, but as I had set myself a two week deadline to build it (because I still have rent to pay), the learning curve became very steep. I realized it could become a way for me to challenge myself at first by creating the simple website and learn how to host it, but also for me to show of the aspects of me that would otherwise have required longer conversation and for many never been discovered.

About Mads

Hi again, my name is Mads Damgaard. I grew up in the suburbs of Aarhus, Denmark, but I moved to Barcelona for one year after graduating high school. Shortly after coming back to Denmark in the summer of 2023, I moved to Copenhagen.

I am currently 21 years old. I like to work out in the gym, preferably 4 times a week in my sparetime, otherwise I would spend 1,5 hours meeting in early at the office for six months to allocate some time teaching myself how to code. I quickly realized, that I really enjoy this kind of problem solving and having the periods of solid ‘flow-state.’ Where, I might not have finished the entire project, but I got e.g that button to work or something similar - the small wins fuels me. When I’m not at the gym or at the computer, I like to cook or spend time with friends. During Covid I had a little too much time on hand, so now I am the proud owner of a dehydrator, a vacuum packer, a pasta machine and at one point also all the equipment needed to make kombucha - in general I just enjoy exploring my creativity in many different areas.

One of my biggest areas of interest are startups and innovation in general, so I try to educate myself a lot, but solely reading about it is not particularly giving if not actions are taken. You can view the books I read here.

I often try to think if there’s a conformity between the thoughts I have and the actual actions I take - at one point I realized that wasn’t necessarily the case, so I felt the need to change and I decided that I wanted to pursue a bachelors degree as a software developer at ITU starting in september 24, until then I would need to take extra math classes at Niels Brock from monday - friday 08:30 – 11:45.

I believe the future is shaped by people that create… I want to get into that bucket - the builders.

My process building this site

For context, I had extremely limited knowledge of how to code anything before building site, I still don’t, but now it is a tiny bit better. But I had some vague thought that I could just get chat-GPT to make all of it for me with limited knowledge and insights into how the different components worked together, and although that is probably true in essence, in practical it is not some holy grail that solves all of your problems, although chat-GPT4 helps a lot.

So I just went at it, trying bit by bit with the images and vision I had in my head and quickly realized that the learning curve would be steeper than first thought.
The first week was mostly just mental breakdowns, procrastination, doubting myself and thinking everything was difficult.
Second week has been a blast, most of what I’ve tried to implement worked as I wanted it to, nothing has really changed, but action produces information and things slowly making more sense and also you start to find work-arounds on the issues faced.
I guess I could implement some motivational quote with something about not changing the goal, but the plan on how to get there…

You can view how the site originally looked after one week - here.

And how I intended the site to look, after redesigning it - here.

What I've learned

I think one of the most valuable lessons creating this site has been learning to learn.

I know that I don’t know anything, but having the courage to know that with whatever challenge I’ll be faced with, there will eventually come a point where I can solve it, despite not having a single clue starting off tackling it. Not a record breaking new discovery, but a good reminder to put one self in uncertain situations ever so often.

I also learned that you can constantly come up with things you want to perfect, but then nothing will ever really see the light of day, so I often decided to say ‘F it’ and leave it be, as the relative effort it would take to solve, would not necessarily be worth the investment made.

I finally learned what programmers mean when they say “I still don’t know how to center the < div >”.

Thank you to...

I just wanted to give a thank you to some of people that helped me in my job search and development of this site

• Kolade Chris for the website template and guide
• Joachim Krøyer for help and guidance
• Micky Weis for helping and guiding me on my search
• Oliver Ifrahs website were a big design inspiration
• Martine Myrups website for CV lay-out inspiration (designed by Jens Nielsen)
• My friends for providing feedback and giving their thoughts
• A mix of Foo Fighters and State Energi for keeping me fueled