Leaves.com Launched with Help from Claude

I bought Leaves.com in 2019. Shortly thereafter, I received and declined a $100,000 offer for the domain name. Depending on who you ask, perhaps I should have taken the offer. I’ve had numerous inquiries and offers since then, but $100k was the highest offer.

Last week, I received an offer for Leaves.com, but it wasn’t enough to get a deal done. The offer put the domain name at the top of my mind, and I thought it could be a great platform for a website that tracks fall foliage across the US. Living in New England, I have always loved the fall season as the leaves slowly change color before eventually falling as winter hits.

I’ve been following a number of domain investors who are building websites and platforms with the help of AI. Last week, I saw Ken Lin announce the launch of Karts.com. I had a quick look since I’m not much of a gamer, and it seemed pretty neat.

With Leaves.com at the top of my mind, I thought I would try my hand at using AI to develop a Fall foliage website to track the color changing leaves. I opted to use Claude for this project. I explained that I wanted the website to be a tracker so people could see where it was peak leaf peeping season and what stage the leaves were at for specific areas in the US. In addition, I wanted the website to explain why leaves change colors, what types of trees are in each region, the colors these leaves turn during the year, and everything else someone interested in trees, leaves, and Fall foliage would want to find.

I primarily use AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude for domain investing research, but I found the creation of this website to be a fun, rainy day activity. I am happy with the way the website turned out, and I continue to iterate as I find things I would like to improve and add to the website. For instance, I wanted the website to answer a question many leaf peepers in New England may have following the weather this weekend – will a nor’easter impact fall foliage.

One thing I would like to add in the future is a leaf identification tool. Someone can take a photo of a leaf, upload it to the website, and Leaves.com will identify the tree based on the leaves in the photo. I am a bit reluctant to offer upload/download features without being certain I can ensure safe uploads and downloads without risking cybersecurity problems.

There are two downsides to a website like this. For one thing, it’s not monetized and I don’t have any monetization plans as this came together quickly. Perhaps I will sign up for Viator and/or travel website affiliate accounts and link to those websites. It is a seasonal website though. The other issue is that a developed domain name may be harder to sell. Actually, it is for sure going to be more difficult to sell.

All in all, this was a fun project that I will continue to work on for as long as my interest holds.