WormMaps

In my last (and first) update, I said the site would be ready to launch "within a few weeks". Of course what I actually meant was "if you take out of consideration life, work and kids, then we will be ready to launch in a few weeks" 😁

Well a little over 4 months later and https://wormmaps.com/ is finally live! I still have my work cut out for me creating / uploading business profiles but it's something that takes about 5 minutes per profile and work that it's the type of work that I can slowly chip away at day by day.

My next steps are:

1. Upload enough data to the point where it will be useful to a lot of people in the USA

2. Setup some basic analytics/tracking so I can measure progress

3. Start sharing it on social media to get that initial traffic going

4. Work on writing high quality articles to drive qualified traffic (people interested in vermiculture and vermiculture products) to the site.

The response from worm farmer / vendors so far has been enthusiastic so far and I'm feeling good about my next steps being the right things to work on.

Last year I picked up a hobby early in the pandemic - I've always wanted to compost at home and learned about vermicomposting from a stall at my local farmers market.

I quickly went from casually vermicomposting to becoming engrossed in the topic - reading multiple scientific publications and a handful of books on the topic. I also joined a few online groups of "wormheads" dedicated to vermiculture.

At some point, I briefly considered starting some kind of local small business around worm farming and helping people to vermicompost at home.

That's still on the table, but I've thought of a better use of my time and skills as a software engineer: to build the next gen niche marketplace connecting buyers with local worm businesses.

I've started building the an MVP after work hours and at this rate I should be ready to launch within a few weeks. Excited to see where this leads!