The $1 OPC Experiment

What Can a $1 Domain Become?

I bought ChineseFortuneTools.online for about $1.
Instead of letting it expire, I used AI, GitHub and free infrastructure to turn it into a real website laboratory.

Domain cost: ~$1 Monthly hosting: ~$0 Internet revenue: $0

No success story yet. This is the experiment.

See What $1 Built → Follow the Journey →

Company Snapshot

Building a One-Person Internet Company in Public

Starting from $0 — no funding, no team, no guarantees.

Day 1 of the experiment

$0
Internet Revenue
Still trying.
FIRST INTERNET DOLLAR EARNED
$0/mo
MRR
—
Websites Live
—
Experiments Running
Current mission Loading current company state…
Latest milestone Loading…
Last updated Loading…

The Result

$1 → A Real Website

ChineseFortuneTools.online became a playground for small Chinese-culture tools, seasonal experiments and shareable ideas.

Chinese Culture Lab

A collection of real interactive tools built with static-first techniques, AI assistance and zero traditional hosting cost.

Real website Real interactive tools Static-first No database No server bill AI-assisted dev
Visit Chinese Culture Lab →

Real Data

Build. Measure. Decide.

Building is easy with AI.
Knowing what deserves more work is harder.
So I connected GA4 + Google Search Console to a simple experiment dashboard.

Dashboard tracks:

Visitors Tool starts Completion rate Share rate Main-site clicks Google impressions Google clicks CTR Search position Experiment score Graduate Accelerate Observe Retire
Open the Live Experiment Dashboard →

The numbers may be tiny. That's the point — the experiment starts at zero.

The Website Factory

Then I Got Tired of Rebuilding the Same Things

Every new site needed the same boring infrastructure: sitemap, robots.txt, canonical URLs, schemas, analytics, CI, templates, deployment…

So I built a private reusable system for my own small website portfolio.

🔒 Private Internal Tool

One-Person Site Starter

Idea ↓ Site Config ↓ Content + Tools ↓ Build ↓ SEO + Schema + Sitemap ↓ CI ↓ Deploy
Python + Jinja2 + Markdown No React No npm No database Static-first

I use the full version privately. I may eventually release a simplified Starter Lite.

GitHub Superpowers

GitHub Is More Than Code Storage

I started discovering how many paid tools a tiny one-person project can avoid by using GitHub differently.

01Static hosting
02Scheduled jobs
03JSON database
04Static APIs
05AI job scheduler
06Product idea database
07User voting
08Release / download center
09PR testing
10Remote site configuration
11Website health checks
12Broken-link monitoring
13SEO automation
14Experiment graduation system
15Structured content automation
16Founder dashboard
17Open-source demand research

Full article on Ordinary Man Trying:

Read the 17 GitHub Experiments ↗

Progress

The Road From $0

Every checkpoint that matters.

Corporate History

OPC Log

Major milestones only. Newest first.

2026-09

Launched the public $1 OPC dashboard

The public homepage and company dashboard for the one-person internet company experiment.

2026-09

Built the One-Person Site Starter

A private reusable website factory for spinning up new internet properties fast.

2026-09

Started The $1 OPC Experiment

The public starting point of my one-person internet company.

The Actual Experiment

Can an Ordinary Person Build a Real One-Person Internet Business With AI?

I'm 46. I've been learning websites, AI, SEO and online business for months. Internet revenue is still $0.

I'm not teaching from success. I'm documenting the attempt.

▸ First target: $1 earned online.

Follow the Experiment →