Projects
I wasn't really sure what to call this page. I have sites that I run. Some of those sites have become businesses. Isn't [music][music] technically a project?
I'm hoping to piece together some timelines for these projects (both alive and dead. There's also a lot of gaps, as I always have some half baked idea cooking. In the meantime, here's a quick brain dump of the adventures I've taken over the years.
Holiday API
Started as an open source project to help me build a reward system on into another site I was running. The solution at the time was to maintain a list of holidays, updating them annually for the coming year.
"There has to be a better way", I thought. I was right, and after making the hard decision to reposition as a for-profit, I focused on expanding the available data.
Fast forward a dozen years later, I'm proud to say that I've been able to build a 6-figure side hustle (again). The journey's not over as there's still a few nuts that I've been trying to crack.
VPS Showdown
I've hosted with Linode for a long time. But that doesn't mean I'm blind to the options out there. Back in 2013 I decided to see what DigitalOcean was all about. Because I'm always looking for new topics, I blogged about it.
Over the years, I've done more comparisons. While not as successful as some of my other projects, I've done pretty well for myself with this one. The current tally is ~$80k in cash and credits from referrals.
Seeing an opportunity, I eventually expanded into comparing a few other providers. This led to establishing a regular monthly cadence to keep the content fresh. This was good, but a lot of work.
While I had automated a ton of the process to do my VPS Showdown posts, it wasn't fully automated. Also, it was always in the back of my head that I didn't just want my blog to be choked out by this kind of content.
Somewhere in there, I took a break. Then I started back up. Then I decided to see if it was feasible to use agentic coding to build out a fully automated system.
Turns out it was quite feasible, so here we are.
Shark Tank
Still can't believe I snagged the SharkTank.co domain on a whim one day. I originally built this out to keep track of the investments made by the sharks, to make it easy to see how much money was being invested per season, per shark, etc.
This eventually evolved into being more content-based than data-based. I blame my detour back into using WordPress instead of sticking to building out a static site. Also, tracking the investments is hard, so many weird permutations that go on in there.
Little Free Card Shop
If you collect trading cards, specifically if you rip wax, you've run into the problem of having too many cards. They add up quick, especially if you're only chasing big hits, or a couple of players.
I like to set build, and with getting back into the hobby, I explored a lot of different products. Instead of trying to collect pennies selling common cards on eBay, I decided to make packs and drop them in the Little Free Library locations in my neighborhood.
Hopefully the cards are being found by kids and it's sparking some joy, and not those adults I see at the Target camped out for the new card releases.
Parsley Makes It Better
This project's main purpose is proving one simple thesis: parsley makes everything look better. It also serves as a reminder that we eat with our eyes first, and should take a few moments to garnish our home-cooked delicacies.
All of the photos on this site are of real food. Not AI slop.
We're Not Joshing You
The is the premier web directory for humans named Josh.