Built a Portfolio platform in 2013
Abhi Singhal
Building a web portfolio platform to help fellow architecture students and grads share their work online.
Tools
WordPress Multisite, Facebook Pages
Where / When
SPA Delhi (2013-2017)
Context
As an architecture student, portfolios are the backbone of job and internship applications. But PDF portfolios are laborious to put together and clunky to host. SPA Folios started as a small utility to solve that for me and fellow SPA students and graduates. This was in 2013.
A free, easy way to publish work online and get a custom shareable web URL.
Step 1
Simple opt-in to gauge interest before building
Shared it through a Facebook page among college groups.
Step 2
Launched an MVP to 136 registered users
Just one template option and basic features.
I built the platform from scratch using WordPress Multisite. I was already very familiar with Wordpress development, so this wasn’t a big leap from my skillset at the time.
Step 3
Added features as the service scaled to 223 total users with 17% active users over 3 years.
Custom logo and resume uploads and ability to filter projects by category.
Created a support wiki at help.spadelhi.org to document common features and FAQs.
Retrospective.
I handled setup, hosting, updates and bugs single-handedly. Running this for four years gave me firsthand lessons in maintenance, usability, and being accountable for a live product.
Running a service in a small community was super fulfilling. Along the journey, several active users started chipping in for hosting costs to keep the service alive — signalling real value that SPA Folios was providing to students and graduates.
SPA Folios came to an end in 2017. Four years run. Not bad for 19 year old me.
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Posted Apr 23, 2026
Developed a web platform for fellow architecture students and graduates to share portfolios.
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Timeline
Jan 1, 2013 - Dec 31, 2017
