Latest posts
-
I Built This Blog in 4 Days Using AI — And Now I’m Running a Live Experiment in Public (Follow Along)
This post is pinned and updated continuously. Think of it as a live reality show — except the budget is ¥700 (~$100) and everything is real. Come back anytime for the latest episode. A Declaration Before We Begin My child is in high school right now. Graduation is roughly five years away. I have five…
-
AI Can Build Almost Anything. Today, It Helped Me Decide to Build Nothing.
I nearly built a calendar puzzle game after watching a short video. AI made development easy, but competitor research and SEO data showed me why not building it might be the smarter decision.
-
I Found a Better-Looking AI Website. Then I Compared Its Business With Mine.
I discovered two AI design websites and compared their costs, pricing, SEO, conversion rates, and profit potential with my own $4.99 product, CutDone. The surprising lesson? In the AI era, building software is cheap—but finding paying customers is still the hardest part.
-
Maybe I’m Just Not Meant to Make Money
I built a website, sent over 100 outreach emails, and watched Google Analytics show almost nothing. Then I remembered someone telling me that some people simply aren’t destined to make money. At 46, I’m starting to question what failure, luck, and trying really mean.
-
How Much Should a Digital Product Cost? I Asked AI, Studied the Market, and Changed How I Think About Pricing
How much should a nearly finished digital product cost? I thought $4.99 sounded reasonable—until I started comparing real products, running the math, and asking AI what price would actually maximize revenue. The answer turned into a deeper lesson about value, pricing, and why small founders should stop competing only on price.
-
Should I Build One Big Website or Many Small Ones?
A Thought From the Subway Exit One evening after work, I walked out of a subway station and noticed something I had seen many times before. There were shared bicycles everywhere. Dozens of them were parked around the station exit. In China, using one is extremely easy. You open an app, scan the QR code,…
-
The Photos You Almost Delete Today May Become Priceless in Ten Years
I built a private family photo server for thousands of old pictures and discovered something unexpected: ordinary photos often become our most valuable memories.
-
I Finally Fixed the WWW Redirect on CutDone.
Today I fixed a very small problem on CutDone. It was not a new feature. It did not make the site look better. And it probably will not bring me any traffic tomorrow. I simply made sure that www.cutdone.com permanently redirects tocutdone.com.It sounds tiny. Maybe even boring. But this is exactly the kind of thing…
-
I Bought a Domain for $1 — Here’s What I Built With AI + GitHubI Bought a Domain for $1 — Here’s What I Built With AI + GitHub
I bought a domain for about one dollar. That sentence sounds like the beginning of one of those internet stories where, three paragraphs later, the writer tells you how they turned $1 into $10,000. Here are 17 lesser-known ways to use GitHub. https://ordinarymantrying.com/ai-taught-me-17-surprising-ways-to-use-github-for-a-one-person-website-business/ This is not that story. My internet revenue is still: $0. I…
-
AI Taught Me 17 Surprising Ways to Use GitHub for a One-Person Website Business
For a long time, I thought GitHub was basically Dropbox for programmers. You write code, you upload it, other developers look at it. That was about it. Then I started building small websites. One of my newest experiments is: ChineseFortuneTools.online It is not meant to be a huge business yet. It is a laboratory. I…
-
AI and I Came Up With a New Website Idea. Then I Asked: Are We Selling Combs to Monks?
A cheap server, too many website ideas, and one business idea I’m still not sure anyone actually wants. There is an old Chinese business story about selling combs to monks. Monks traditionally shave their heads, so selling them combs sounds absurd. The story is usually told as a lesson in creative sales: perhaps the monks…
-
I Bought HotPot101.com Because I Think Food Might Be One of the Best Ways to Understand China
Wondering why I suddenly started building websites? Check out this article — it’s because Hostinger’s hosting is just too cheap. Of all the websites I have started building, this one might be the most fun. I bought HotPot101.com because I kept thinking about one simple idea: HotPot101.com Hot pot is probably one of the easiest examples. You…
-
I Built ChinaRules101 Because Understanding China Is Different From Learning About China
Wondering why I suddenly started building websites? Check out this article — it’s because Hostinger’s hosting is just too cheap. You can read hundreds of articles about China and still make a very simple mistake when you actually interact with Chinese people. You can know what a Chinese New Year red envelope is. You can know what…
-
I Built a Website to Help Foreigners Create Chinese Names
Wondering why I suddenly started building websites? Check out this article — it’s because Hostinger’s hosting is just too cheap. At some point while building websites about China, I realized something. There is a big difference between learning about China and having your own identity in China. A person can learn about Chinese culture for…
-
I Built a Website to Help People Explore Chinese Fortune, Zodiac and Traditional Culture
Wondering why I suddenly started building websites? Check out this article — it’s because Hostinger’s hosting is just too cheap. One of the first questions I kept asking myself while building websites was simple: What do people outside China actually want to know about Chinese culture? Not what I think they should know. Not what…
-
Is ChatGPT Plus Worth $20 a Month for Building Websites? My Real Experiment
September 6, 2026 I have been asking myself a surprisingly simple question lately: Should I pay $20 a month for ChatGPT Plus? And the current Claude? It just doesn’t cut it anymore. For most people, the answer probably depends on how much they use ChatGPT. For me, it is a little different. I am trying…
-
I Broke My Own Google Rankings. Here Is Exactly How I Did It (And How I Fixed It)
I accidentally told Google to stop crawling 1,500 pages of my website. It took me three months to notice and one afternoon to fix. Here is what happened, what I found, and what the recovery looks like.
-
We Almost Built ChinaEntry101. Then We Bought HotPot101 for $11.
I almost built a visa website. Then I spent $11 on a hot pot domain instead. Every time I finish one website, I can’t help but start thinking about the next one. So far, I’ve built three: ChineseFortuneTools.com — a collection of tools for exploring Chinese traditional culture, including the Chinese zodiac, BaZi, Feng Shui,…
-
Five AIs Helped Me Choose a Domain Name. So I Bought It.
I had a problem. I wanted to build another website. Not another personal blog. Not another AI wrapper that generates something nobody needs. I wanted to build a small English website for foreigners who want a Chinese name. The idea was simple enough: You enter your English name and a few preferences. The website gives…
-
AI Just Saved Me $8 a Year on My Domain — And Walked Me Through the Entire Transfer
August 31, 2026 I almost paid $19.18 to renew a domain. Then I asked AI a very ordinary question: “Namecheap wants $19.18 to renew my domain, but Cloudflare says it costs around $10.80. Should I transfer it?” A few minutes later, I was transferring my domain. A little while after that, I was staring at…
-
How to Build a Website With AI Fast — My 6-Day, 260-Page Experiment
I built a 260-page website in 6 days using AI. Then I asked Claude, ChatGPT, Grok, and Gemini what to build next. Here is what happened.