How quickly can you launch a website? 9 Minutes.

I work with technology, and I shouldn’t be surprised by this… but today, I was delighted all over again — by how quickly one can publish a website (with an embedded form).

Let’s first establish the definition of a website — it is “a set of related web pages located under a single domain name…”

Now > here are the 5 steps (from start to finish) — and the time I took to complete them. 🚀

1. Buy a domain name: ~1 min
2. Write and publish a simple Notion page: ~5 mins
3. Set up a simple Subscription Form on Airtable: ~2 mins
4. Create a Tiny.cc link (to track visits): <1 min
5. Set up Domain Redirection: ~1 min

Note: The timing is accurate, but it presumes that you can quickly form a game plan, and are already logged in to both Google, Notion, Airtable; and maybe a URL-shortening service.

This is how the page looked like at launch.

Details

Here’s how this got started…

I started the ‘Singapore Inc.’ Club yesterday, when Clubhouse released an update enabling users to start a club in-app. After I did so, someone suggested getting a unique domain name to better manage the club.

And so I did.

⓵ I bought a domain name on Google Domains — 1 Min

Because I already knew the domain name I wanted, and I was already logged into Google (with my credit card details saved) — this literally took a minute.

⓶ I wrote and published a simple Notion page — est. 5 Mins

I’m a *huge* fan of Notion. I use it, along with Airtable, to manage almost everything in my life and work. Because I already had a Club description written, it took me only 5 minutes to make it a ‘homepage’.

And of course — publishing it to the website — was done in seconds.

Notion is amazing!

⓷ I added a Subscription Form, by embedding Airtable — 1+ Mins

Airtable is my other can’t-live-without tool. I created a simple subscription form in just a minute, and embedded it on the Notion page (above).

You can also create automated workflows on Airtable, and I may do that later — so that subscribers are automatically added to a newsletter service — and enable me to easily send Club updates to subscribers.

I create Airtable bases and forms to organize and automate as much of my life as possible.

⓸ Used URL-shortener — as an intermediary — to track visits — 1 Min

I used the URL-shortening service — Tiny.cc — not because I wanted a shortened URL for my Notion page. But because Tiny.cc tracks all clicks.

And since Notion doesn’t give me the data — Tiny.cc is a hack to obtain a simple indication of web visits.

⓹ Finally, I redirected the Domain Name to the Notion page — 1 Min

Again, this can be super-fast —especially if you know where to find the ‘Manage Domain’ option. Just 3 fields, and you’re done.

I generally like Google Domains, but find a glaring limitation — they don’t do blind redirects.

So, visitors won’t see the domain name (in this case: www.SingaporeInc.club) after being redirected. Instead, they will eventually see the Notion page URL (which doesn’t look very pretty). I can live with this outcome.

So — that’s it —it took me just under 10 minutes to publish a simple website (complete with subscription form).

www.SingaporeInc.club

Technically, this could have been completed much faster, but I wanted to ensure:

1. the website is at least a little interactive — with a form, and ‘mailto’ links
2. I have simple analytics

Hope this was helpful! 😀