I'm Joey. This is my story.
I didn't go to school for design. I didn't take a bootcamp. I taught myself — with bad hardware, YouTube tutorials, and the stubbornness to keep going until it clicked. MellowMeta LLC is the result of that.
Built from scratch.
Every step.
No shortcuts. No hand-holding. Just curiosity, a bad laptop, and enough stubbornness to figure it out — one project at a time.
A Bad Laptop and a YouTube Search Bar
It started the way most things do — out of pure curiosity. I was a teenager messing around with video editing software and Photoshop on hardware that had no business running either of them. Gaming montages, mostly. Cuts and effects I'd seen in YouTube videos and wanted to recreate myself. The tools were barely working, the computer was slow, and I had no idea what I was doing.
But I kept going. I found tutorials, watched people explain things step by step, and figured it out through sheer repetition. Nobody taught me — I just refused to stop until something looked the way I wanted it to. That stubbornness became the foundation for everything that came after.
Two Years of Graphic Design. Everything Changed.
In high school I enrolled in two years of graphic design courses and it put a name on everything I'd already been teaching myself. Photography, Photoshop, Illustrator, typography, layout, composition — I absorbed all of it. For the first time I had structure around the skills I'd been building in my bedroom.
I wasn't just consuming anymore — I was creating with intention. I started sharing work online, built a small following around what I was putting out, and started to realize that this wasn't just a hobby. It was something I was actually good at. Design started to feel less like a skill and more like a language I was becoming fluent in.
My Uncle's Roofing Company. My First Real Client.
Senior year I built my first website — a Wix site for my uncle's roofing company. Looking back, it was rough. Not something I'd put in a portfolio today. But it worked, the clients were happy, and that was the moment something clicked. I had taken a real business problem and solved it with a skill I taught myself.
From there I built a second site for a family member's fence company. Each project taught me more than the last. I started to understand that web design wasn't just about making things look good — it was about making things work for real people running real businesses. That shift in perspective is what pushed me to go deeper.
Leaving Wix Behind. Learning the Right Way.
Once I outgrew Wix I found WordPress, and it changed everything about how I approached web design. No more drag-and-drop limitations. No more platform lock-in. I taught myself Elementor, dove into how hosting actually worked, learned what makes a site fast or slow, and started building things I was actually proud of.
I went from making websites to managing them — understanding DNS, SSL, cPanel, backups, performance. The technical side of it didn't intimidate me. It fascinated me. And the more I learned, the more I realized I could offer clients something most freelancers can't: design and infrastructure, under one roof, from one person who actually cares.
Filing the LLC Was the Point of No Return.
I filed MellowMeta LLC on April 10, 2026. I did it myself. Nobody holding my hand — just research, paperwork, and the decision to stop treating this like a side project and start treating it like a business. That was the moment MellowMeta stopped being a personal brand and became a company.
Right now I'm still in trades full time — plumbing, finishing up my journeyman certification. MellowMeta runs alongside that, every morning before work, every evening after, on weekends. Trades is paying the bills right now. But make no mistake — MellowMeta is the goal. Every client I take on, every site I build, every invoice I send is a step toward doing this full time. I'm not there yet. But I'm moving.
Building this
in real time.
MellowMeta LLC is not a finished product. It's a business being built while I work a full-time trade job, finish my journeyman certification, and take on clients one at a time. Everything you see here I built myself.
The site. The contracts. The hosting infrastructure. The brand. All of it came from the same place everything else has — hours of research, trial and error, and refusing to stop until it worked.
If you hire MellowMeta, you're not hiring an agency. You're hiring the person who built all of this from nothing. And that person is going to put the same energy into your project that he puts into his own.
Communities I'm Part Of
Not client projects. Not paid placements. The Web3 communities I actually show up for.
Doginal Dogs
10,000 pixel dogs inscribed on $DOGE. My home base in Web3 — the community that pulled me in and kept me here.
Type Media
A decentralized media brand led by creators, for creators. I contribute to the writing and branding side — culture drops, highlights, and community storytelling.
Crypto Spaces Network
A network built around live crypto conversations on X. I host regularly and help connect communities, hosts, and listeners across the ecosystem.
Ready to work together?
You know the story now. If you want someone who actually cares about what they build — let's talk.