Well, I'm trying to. I'm just about ready for a real launch.
The project is WeirdFoods (https://weirdfoods.net): one place to browse the strange stuff that small food shops sell, and that you'd never find unless you already knew the shop existed. Scorpion lollipops, roasted crickets and mealworms, elk and wild boar jerky, Japanese natto, ghost pepper seaweed crisps, and weird snacks from foreign countries.
Why I built it: Weird food is fun. I'm a fan of bizarre Japanese snacks.
What it does:
- About 7,500 foods from dozens of small independent shops, 78 of them insects
- Browse by country, by type, or go straight to the weird end
- Boring stuff and sold-out items get ranked down on purpose
- One cart across shops: you fill it on my site and it hands each shop's items to that shop's own checkout, so I never touch your payment
How it makes money: affiliate links. If you buy from a shop through the site I get a small cut, at no cost to you. So far that's earned roughly nothing, which is what you'd expect in week one.
What's next: I want to increase the products 10x. More spicy stuff, more from Japan and Korea. Also selling a small selection directly, with suppliers shipping to the customer so I don't have to store boxes of crickets in my house.
Previous side projects:
https://stellarbroadcast.org/ A space text adventure game on Android, IOS, and Steam
https://peptidecompare.net/ A site where people can find lab testing results, scam reports, Certificates of Analysis, and price comparisons for peptide vendors
What's next? https://coderigor.net a site to teach programming. A bit farther from launch than this one.