Built from the Ground Up: The New ConnectHV Website

The new ConnectHV website is the online directory for Hudson Valley creators and businesses, along with a repository of free drone footage and much more.

You’re looking at the newly-rebuilt ConnectHV website, which I’ve been working on for months and am very happy to have out-the-door.

If you’ve never been here before: welcome! Plenty of people know ConnectHV from the IRL meetups or from the Slack community, so there’s a decent chance you don’t know that this online directory was how ConnectHV started.

Some history

ConnectHV has existed in some form for a decade.

It started out as an online professional network called Hudson Valley Talentbase, which never got much traction. I shut that down after a few years and replaced it with Creative Hudson Valley, an online publication featuring interviews with people doing interesting work in the region. And then, because I’m a product person at heart, I ended up continuing to pursue the idea of an online directory. That’s the current iteration of ConnectHV, circa ~4 years ago.

This version of ConnectHV has flexed and morphed as the shape of the project has changed. It’s slowly grown to include all the other facets of my various Hudson Valley projects, until now it’s the mesh that weaves them all together: the blog, the directory, the Slack instance, the events, all under one roof.

The shape of the redesign

With this rebuild, I set out to do a few things:

1. Migrate the various pieces of ConnectHV into a single stack. This meant, specifically, migrating the interviews/blog from Ghost into Statamic, so it could be managed from the same pane of glass as the directory. (I should clarify that Statamic is a drop-in CMS solution for Laravel projects, and ConnectHV is built in Laravel, so… same pane of glass!)
2. Reintroduce features that I’d launched prematurely and then removed. Earlier instances of ConnectHV included features like business profiles and a navigable map. I was very enthusiastic about these features, but almost nobody else was, so I eventually sunsetted them in order to focus on “core” functionality like user profiles. I’ve never given up on the idea that those pieces belong in ConnectHV, though, and now that the project has traction, I think it’s time.
3. Build with an eye towards the future. The previous iteration of ConnectHV was held together by twine and duct-tape, and I’d become afraid to make large changes for fear of toppling the whole thing. The rebuild follows much more rigorous engineering practices — less like a side project, more like a true product-product — so I can build and tweak with more confidence. That means less stress for me and more velocity for everyone.
4. Make it feel less cold. The previous versions of ConnectHV overused the brand color (a lovely teal), but that made the site feel too cold. I reworked the colors to balance the teal with a warmer, amber-tinged neutral. It’s a little more refined and feels more sophisticated.

The highlights

The map

Part of the thesis of ConnectHV is that we can use networked technology (read: websites) to both overcome and reinforce geographic proximity.

In other words: ConnectHV is about cultivating a sense of the Hudson Valley as its own region, while making it easier for those of us spread throughout the region to find one another.

And so, as someone who’s always loved maps, that means… ConnectHV should have a map!

Whenever you browse the directory, you’ll see the map zoom in and out to reflect what you’re looking for. If you search for wedding planners in Dutchess County, it’ll zoom in on Dutchess County. If you search for lawyers in Kingston, it’ll zoom in on Kingston.

Similarly, you can explore the map and click into any location to see the directory filtered by that location.

Drone footage

One of the most popular features on the site is the repository of free, public domain 4K drone footage of the Hudson Valley. It’s all footage that I’ve taken, as an FAA-certified commercial drone pilot, as part of building ConnectHV — in the spirit of “sell share your byproducts,” it’s available for anyone to use.

This release adds more Unsplash-like functionality to the drone library, making it easier to find the exact thing you’re looking for. You can search for footage of Kingston in the fall that’s oriented for mobile, for instance.

Business profiles

If you own a business, you can now create a profile with certain business-specific features. Add a street address, hours of operation, and more.

What’s next?

Next is to take a nice long break, because I’ve been building this for months while also working a day job (psst, use Natoma for all your enterprise MCP/agentic needs!) and parenting.

Then, I’ve got a backlog of interviews to publish, since I’ve been holding off until the new site was ready. And it’s time to start planning the next round of ConnectHV meetups!

Please create a profile, poke around the site, and let me know if you have any feedback, suggestions, bug reports, or ideas.

Even better: become a sponsor!