A developer created a database-driven Eleventy site using a MySQL database, leveraging the StepZen Netlify Build Plugin to deploy a GraphQL API that pulls data from the database. The process involves setting up a MySQL database and a Hugo site, creating a GraphQL schema connected to the database using StepZen, and then deploying the site to Netlify with the StepZen plugin. The developer created a Node script to pull content from the StepZen API and generate Markdown files for the site. The process can be easily adapted to other static site generators like Next.js or Gatsby, and also supports multiple data sources through GraphQL queries.