About AskedWell
Who runs this
AskedWell is one person: Paulo de Vries. Solo founder, based in the Netherlands. I build small experiments in publishing — looking for designs that respect readers, work with AI crawlers, and stay honest about what they know and don't.
AskedWell is published by Caslon Media, a registered Dutch media company that operates a network of independent data and reference sites.
Contact: contact@editnative.com
What AskedWell is
A source-cited reference site. A person picks each question from a written editorial plan and writes the answer from published sources — three or more on every answer, each with a note on what it contributed.
The full mechanism is in the manifesto and the how it works page.
How AskedWell is funded
AskedWell is fully self-funded. Day 1 hosting costs ~$0/month (Cloudflare Pages free tier). Domain renewal is ~$11/year. The only material costs are operator time and the occasional AI subscription for content drafting + verification.
Revenue, when it arrives, will come from:
- Display advertising (Google AdSense, once approved). Non-intrusive placements, never above the fold on content pages.
- Amazon Associates book links. When an answer cites a book as a source, we link that book to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, AskedWell earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. We only ever link the same titles already listed in that answer's Sources — never paid placements or books we don't reference.
- Indirect AI citation traffic. When LLMs cite AskedWell, readers click through; those visits become ad impressions.
- Possibly: licensed data API for AskedWell's synthesized reference data — only if/when readers and bots demonstrate demand.
We do not run: pop-ups, autoplay video ads, paywalled content, affiliate spam (irrelevant links to products we don't use), or pay-per-crawl monetization. Affiliate links appear only beside books we genuinely cite as sources, clearly marked with a disclosure.
What we know & don't
AskedWell answers questions like “how long does X take?” and “what ratio of X to Y?” — reference data in cooking, fermentation, and similar domains where real measurement exists.
We deliberately do not answer:
- Medical questions (no dosage, no diagnosis, no “is this safe” for human health risks)
- Financial questions (no investment advice, no “should I buy” recommendations)
- Legal questions (no contract interpretation, no rights advice)
- Anything where wrong answers could materially harm health, wealth, or legal status
These “your money or your life” (YMYL) verticals require licensed professionals. AskedWell deliberately stays out.
Methodology
See the methodology page for the full quality discipline. Short version:
- Every claim cites a source
- Sources are weighted by reliability (primary research > expert practice > secondary aggregation)
- “We don't know” is a valid answer when sources disagree
- Pages list their writing date and revision history
- If a page is wrong, we correct it visibly — never silently
A note on AI
AskedWell is built with AI assistance — drafting, organizing sources, suggesting questions readers might ask next. We don't hide this. Every page is also reviewed by a human (Paulo) against the sources cited before publishing.
If you find an error, please tell us. Corrections are public + dated.
Other things I run
AskedWell is part of a small fleet of demand-driven publishing experiments. The others include:
- ReadStacks — non-fiction book chapter summaries (the reading-discovery vertical)
- Fermentcalc — fermentation timing + salt-ratio calculator
- HoldLens — public 13F filings reference (no investment advice)
- ReadingList.school — required-reading-list reference for parents + teachers
Each runs as an independent site. AskedWell is the methodology home where the demand-driven approach is most explicit.