Clean up current build process

some duct tape and hope went into the current `start.js` and its largely based on a tutorial.

This should be cleaned up and made more our own.

Start by reading start.js and tracing the current build process to identify the tutorial-based duct tape mentioned in the issue. The issue provides no tests, additional files, or concrete cleanup criteria; done means the build process has been cleaned up and made more specific to this project.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.