I Built an Interactive Worldbuilding Website for $12

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A real, grown-up, (hopefully) revenue-generating plan. I was going to finish a low-ticket product called AI Operator Quickstart.

It fits neatly into my new content strategy and would give me something to sell. Smart move.

Instead, I spent half the week building interactive worldbuilding tools for Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars, deployed them to a website that cost me $12, created a PDF guide and a $7 Gumroad product, and somehow ended up with a 7-part brand framework I didn't know I was building when I started.

Classic procrastination? Maybe.

It started when I read a Substack post by Kim Doyal about worldbuilding her brand using Claude and the Harry Potter universe.

Worldbuilding has been on my mind for a few weeks since my business partner had started talking about how community really is worldbuilding. And just this week I started reading Ben Settle's book on the same topic.

Three inputs, same theme, all within a couple weeks.

So I did what any reasonable nerd would do: I opened Claude and asked it to analyze Star Trek through a worldbuilding lens and turn it into an interactive visualization.

That conversation snowballed as I completely nerded out on how cool what Claude was building for me.

Star Trek became Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Rings became Star Wars. Somewhere in between, a methodology emerged for testing whether a worldbuilding element is truly structural or just decorative.

And since the whole thing started from thinking about brands, along the way, I kept asking how all this applied to building a lasting brand that people want to be part of.

Eventually, Claude and I landed on seven structural forces that survived our stress testing.

And then I figured, I want to share this, and maybe this can become a product (that makes me rich). Okay, not expecting it to make me rich, but maybe it’ll turn into a few bucks.

I started this all with Claude.ai, and had built out three interactive visualizations for each world (Star Trek, LOTR, Star Wars).

But to share them, I wanted to tie them together into a real website. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been setting up and integrating Claude Cowork into my life and systems.

Yet Claude Code was sitting there like a tease.

All that promise. Coding, building cool stuff.

So I figured, now’s the time. Since I was down this rabbit hole, and motivated to keep digging it, and this was a good use case for Claude Code, I figured I should at least get some new learnin’ done.

I had Claude package everything up - including a full write-up of everything we’d done - so I could download it.

I had Claude Cowork help me build out the structure for Claude Code inside our shared folder.

Then I had Claude Code start building it all together. I just typed what I wanted it to do, how I wanted it to look, what I wanted it to say — and it built everything for me.

The most technical thing I had to do was create a new GitHub repository for it to post the completed files to.

Then I had Claude Code start building it all together. I just typed what I wanted it to do, how I wanted it to look, what I wanted it to say — and it built everything for me.

The most technical thing I had to do was create a new GitHub repository for it to post the completed files to.

I'm no GitHub expert, but I had previously set up an account and created some repos during my OpenClaw exploration. This is what I keep saying about all these AI experiments starting to build on each other — there's a kind of compound effect. Even if one doesn't work out, it creates skills or infrastructure that pays off down the line.

I didn't even need to know what Claude Code was using under the hood to build the site (though I did remember to ask it to run a security audit, to make sure there were no open doors that could be used to access it or my computer).

For me, it's just files in a GitHub repo that auto-deploy through Cloudflare Pages. The only cost was a $12 domain name and my Claude subscription (I did kind of lie in the subject line since I’m on the $100 Claude Max plan…but at least I got you this far! And that $100/month gets me a whole lot more than just a website).

I had set up an account and created some repos during my OpenClaw exploration. This is what I keep saying about all these AI experiments starting to build on each other — there's a kind of compound effect. Even if one doesn't work out, it creates skills or infrastructure that pays off down the line.

I didn't even need to know what Claude Code was using under the hood to build the site (though I did remember to ask it to run a security audit, to make sure there were no open doors that could be used to access it or my computer).

For me, it's just files in a GitHub repo that auto-deploy through Cloudflare Pages. The only cost was a $12 domain name and my Claude subscription.

Everything else, the hosting, the deployment, the code, the content, was either free or AI-generated.

I also built a PDF Worldbuild Your Brand guide and set it up as a $7 product on Gumroad. Claude.ai wrote the copy for the guide collaboratively with me, Claude Code turned it into a formatted PDF, and the sales page copy came out of another Claude session. Even the cover art for the Gumroad listing was AI-generated.

I’m not gonna lie. I still feel kind of guilty that I didn’t finish my AI Operator Quickstart.

But I did something else.

I had fun. I built something cool.

I learned about branding and about my favorite worlds.

And I got Claude Code set up and working for me. And I mean literally working for me. It can do stuff (right now I have it working in another browser to see if it can create the drafts of this newsletter for me so I have one less thing to copy and paste.)

Which I can now leverage to do more things like finishing the AI Operator Quickstart.

Not bad for a week of "procrastination."

Check out what I built: worldbuildyourbrand.com

Thanks for reading!

Nathan Rodgers

👋 Say hello on Substack and LinkedIn

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