First client sites
Started building for people I knew — a nail artist, a soccer club, a lifestyle brand. Hand-coded from day one, because I wanted to know how everything actually worked.
About
One person. Every line.
I'm Ariel Harris — the designer, developer and the person who answers your email. BuiltBy1st is my studio in Atlanta, and it's built on a simple idea: a small business deserves the same quality of software a funded startup gets.
How this actually works
I started building websites the hard way — writing the HTML, CSS and JavaScript myself instead of dragging blocks around in a builder. That decision is why the sites in my portfolio load fast, rank properly, and can do things templates simply can't: a live menu that follows a Google Sheet, an ordering system with an owner dashboard, a subscription platform with real billing.
Along the way I stopped being only a website person. I've designed and shipped complete software products — BuildBy1st, a subscription website builder with 201 industry packs and custom-domain publishing; MarketBy1st, a marketing library with over 104,000 assets; PlayBy1st, an arcade of fifteen original multiplayer games. Nobody handed me a spec for any of those. I built them end to end.
That matters to you for one reason: almost nothing you ask for is out of scope. When your business needs the website to take the order, book the appointment, charge the card or tell you a lead came in, you don't need to find a second vendor.
What you get by working with one person
No account manager relaying your feedback to a developer who never spoke to you. No agency queue. You describe the problem to the person solving it, and the fix happens the same day. It's why most sites here go live in days.
I work with local businesses across metro Atlanta, and with clients from Maryland to Alabama. Restaurants, salons, childcare centers, churches, sports clubs, apparel brands, personal brands — the through line isn't the industry, it's owners who need their online presence to actually produce something.
The path here
Four years, compounding.
Systems, not just pages
Boobadoo BBQ needed orders, not a brochure. That project turned a portfolio of websites into a practice of building the workflow behind them.
Full platforms
BuildBy1st, MarketBy1st, WorkBy1st and PlayBy1st — real products with accounts, subscription billing, multi-tenant publishing and AI. Built, launched and running.
30+ sites, 5 platforms
Client work across Georgia, Maryland and Alabama, and a software practice that means almost nothing is out of scope.
How I work
Three things I don't compromise on.
Craft over shortcuts
Every site is written by hand. It's slower to learn and faster to load — and it means when you ask for something unusual, the answer is yes.
Straight talk
You'll get told what will actually help and what won't. If a cheaper option is the right one for your business, I'll say so.
Momentum
Work gets done in days. Long timelines usually mean a project sat in someone's queue, and I don't have a queue between us.
Client results
What clients say about working with me
★★★★★
“Man... I owe you.. at least a free dinner or lunch for you & the fam. People love the site. Consistently higher pre orders. It's been just a great help overall.”
★★★★★
“When he finished the site, all I could say was WOW. Genuinely impressive work — better than I expected.”
★★★★★
“Simple, clean, and to the point. He understood the vision immediately and delivered a landing page exactly what I wanted.”
Let's build
Let's build something that works.
Tell me about your business. I'll tell you honestly what would help and what it costs.
Or reach me directly — arielharrisai@gmail.com · (770) 616-1167