Ingredient line parsing is a really small market and something that sounds like a fun project to work on but is probably not a business venture that has room to grow. The number of companies that have enough recipes to justify automation, profits to justify paying for it and nobody inhouse who can implement it is really small. There's no viable price point for a product like this when you factor in the cost of customer acquisition.

Content based consumer sites are also really hard to get off the ground and it's not something that I'd recommend any bootstrapper to try unless you can charge for it.

I'm sure it's all a great learning experience though and if Michael keeps iterating the way he is now he'll definitely end up finding a worthwhile business venture.

> Ingredient line parsing

if he can scale his tech to more general cases, it can be very strong proposition.

I think you’re underestimating the effort and luck involved in building a successful growth startup.

> Why not shoot for the moon?

Some times it’s better to throw a few things at the wall and see what sticks, before going all-in on one idea.