I wanted a website for another business I own. The cheap studios gave me generic AI website templates.
The good ones were too expensive for what I actually needed.
So I tried building it myself. It went surprisingly well.
The more I thought about it, the less it made sense. Why should a small business have to choose between a generic template and an agency quote it can’t afford?
So I built the thing I couldn’t find: a studio that puts real craft into a website, at a price a small business can justify.
The balance comes from how it’s run. A lot of an agency quote pays for the agency itself: account managers, project managers and the hand-offs between them. Alrai is one person, so more of what you pay goes into the site.
Why me?
I make complicated things easier to understand. I’ve spent six years doing that in content and communications — first at a B2B agency, then in-house at a Malaysian fintech.
That’s how I approach websites too. Before worrying about colours, animations or what the homepage should look like, I want to know what you’re actually trying to communicate.
- Who needs to understand it?
- What do they need to know?
- What might confuse them?
- What should they do next?
Whether I’m writing a page, planning a site, working on search or designing an interface, I work to one rule: make it clear, then make it useful.
How to work with me
Care about the result.
You don’t need to sign off every pixel, but you need to care enough to have an opinion.
If even you don’t care about your own site, how do you expect me to?
Communicate.
If something isn’t right, give it to me straight. I’m not a mind reader.
We’re all adults here.
Expect a second draft.
Sometimes a client gives me a detailed brief, I build exactly what they asked for, and they look at it and say…
“Actually, not that.”
It happens. Let’s not point fingers, and work it out together.