How Did Jessica Hische Learn to Build Websites?

Jessica Hische learned to build websites by digging in beside web people she could ask, after a long interest in HTML and CSS for her own portfolio. She went from editing her Blogger CSS to building things from nothing, and she co-founded a software startup with her friend Chris Shifflett.

In her early 20s she shared a studio in Dumbo with Chris Shifflett and Cameron Kozon, who later founded Brooklyn Beta. She arrived from the Pencil Factory in Greenpoint, a stretch among illustrators and one of the best times of her life. After she quit her day job to freelance and bought an apartment, working from the apartment lasted only a couple of months. The Pencil Factory was full, and Tina Roth Eisenberg offered a desk to rent part-time. Sitting with web people, she asked how to do each next step, felt well resourced, and thinks she released 11 different projects that year. She then paused, because each new business still has to be maintained.

She later missed hacking on a weird internet project for a couple of days and putting it out, including The Internet Sends Me Cake, where people mailed her cake, she reviewed the cake, and she linked to their portfolio sites. Chris Shifflett came to mind even though they had not talked in years. She called him and said she thought he also wanted to make stuff for niche markets.