I'm providing free APIs for anyone to use at data.joeczubiak.com. Our first API serves important public data about COVID-19. The idea is to provide a way to give myself and others useful tools to build interesting things with.
It felt like a more or less simple idea at the time. Create an email alert system for Form 4 Insider Transactions on the stock market. Months of working late into the night later I had a database full of millions of historic transactions and a functional website.