The One Person SaaS Business Making Over $1M a Year

Omer (00:11.840)
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS Podcast.
I'm your host, Omer Khan and this is the show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies and insights to help you build, launch and grow your SaaS business.
In this episode, I talked to Mike Carson, the founder of park IO, a service which helps you to backorder expiring domain names.
Mike is a developer who for many years struggled to find business success.
He was working hard on multiple projects, but none of them were working out and it was a painful time for him.
He couldn't understand why he kept failing and he'd often wonder if he wasn't working hard enough or just doing things the wrong way.
One day he just decided to let go of all that frustration and work on a project that he was curious and passionate about.
He wasn't even thinking of it as a business and ironically that project turned into Parc IO.
Mike is currently doing over a million dollars a year in revenue and he's a one person company.
He has no employees and continues to run the business by himself.
Mike says that he just got lucky with Park I.O.
and there's some truth to that.
We all need some luck from time to time with our business.
But I don't think it was all just down to luck.
And in this interview I deep dive into what exactly he did to build that business, how he's dealt with major problems and competitors, and how he's able to run a one person million company.
It's a great interview with a ton of insights and lessons, so I hope you enjoy it.
Mike, welcome to the show.

Mike Carson (02:02.690)
Thanks for having me.

Omer (02:04.450)
So I'm going to start with my usual icebreaker question.
What gets you out of bed every day?
Is there a favorite quote you want to share or maybe just tell us in your own words, like what drives you?

Mike Carson (02:13.810)
Oh yeah, I thought of a quote.
So I mean this one, like this one quote, I think it's attributed to Mother Teresa, but I don't think she actually said it.
I think it's a misattribution there, but it's not.
All of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.
So I like that quote a lot and I think it actually, there's a lot of good advice in that quote that I try to think.
I hope I can live by that quote a lot because it kind of in some ways is about, you know, I think when you think, I think in a lot of ways what it, what it kind of summarizes is that, you know, I Think a lot of people look to the future for, like, their.
You know, like, I'm working so hard, but, you know, I'm working, I'm doing things I don't like now, but in the future, it's.
I'm going to reach this point where I'm really happy.
And I think this quote kind of says, like, know now it's.
Why don't you, like, put love into what you're doing now?
And, you know, and so I think that's.
Yeah, I love it.

Omer (03:19.770)
So I haven't heard that one before, but where does that kind of mindset come from?
Like, I mean, the quote is a.
Is kind of a great way of encapsulating that.
But have you always thought like that?

Mike Carson (03:31.770)
No.
No, I haven't, actually.
I mean, I think.
I think actually when I came across this quote was kind of a pivotal time in my life.
And I was doing all these projects and I was working hard and struggling, but I just kept thinking, and none of them were really working out.
And I just kept thinking, one day it'll pay off one day.
And it was a painful experience because I was never happy with where I was.
And then I think the time I came across this quote is like, you know, I started to realize that I can be happy where I am, you know, like, with the things I have and just focus on what I enjoy.
And I think a lot of that attitude, actually just a lot of that realization helped parc IO come about, really.
So.

Omer (04:29.930)
So I don't want to get too philosophical here, but I'm going to try.

Mike Carson (04:36.410)
So.

Omer (04:36.810)
So, like, do you find that once when you sort of think like, that when you're kind of more focused on saying, okay, I'm going to focus on being in the present moment.
I'm going to kind of, like, really immerse myself in whatever I'm doing and love what I'm doing right now.
Do you find that, like, better things start happening as a result of that?

Mike Carson (04:57.610)
I do.
I really.
I mean, I think one thing I've noticed that has had a huge positive and I think like a real, like kind of an unimaginable positive change.
Like, unbelievable, really.
Like, positive change is just focusing.
So that attitude, what I had before is kind of like, focusing on the lack of what I had, like, focusing in my life.
It's like it's dwelling on a lack or believing in a lack in my life, like a lack of what I want, like, not having what I want.
And I think when you do that, it, like, kind of manifests in Your life, like, it makes it real.
And I know this is, this is kind of philosophical, but, but, but I do believe it.
Like, you know, once I started think like once.
And maybe it's not so much like.
I guess it is.
Yeah, it's like being grateful for what you have and focusing on, like seeing, just.
Seeing what, just being aware of the abundance in your life and, you know, like, being grateful, having a lot of gratitude.
I think that then in turn kind of manifests more abundance and stuff in your life.
And I, I know it sounds kind of crazy or, you know, like very, I don't know, not very practical, but I really, I think it actually is very.
Has very practical and real results.

Omer (06:21.050)
I don't think it's crazy at all.
And I would say that personally, some of the best days that I have or when I feel that things are going really well for me are the times that I kind of practice being grateful more often.
And you know, there was.
I can't remember who, which book it was.
Maybe it was.
Was it Martin Seligman or whatever.
But this idea of just like focusing on like three good things every day or getting into the habit of writing down three good things that happened every day.
And I know people have taken that idea from like the, the.
The sort of.
The five minute journal kind of has sort of that built in.
But I found when I started doing that, you initially sort of look back at your day and you start like, writing down things that you're grateful for or things, you know, good things that happened.
And then once you start doing that consistently, you almost kind of like start living your day.
Like, okay, I'm sort of looking around for what I'm going to write tonight, right?
So it's kind of like your brain is just on this kind of.
It's kind of programmed to go and look for, like, you know, things that are going to make your day better or make you more grateful.
So, yeah, I don't think it's crazy at all.
I think it's great stuff.
So I want, let's.
I want to talk a little bit about kind of what you did before Park IO kind of came about.
But before we do that, let's just sort of set the context.
And it would be great if you can just explain to the listeners, like, what is park IO?
What does it do?
What problem is it trying to solve?

Mike Carson (07:49.990)
Park IO is a place where you can backorder domain names.
What that means is when a domain name expires, it goes through this process where first it expires and then there's a grace period and then it's deleted from the registry and then it can be registered again at that time.
If it's a, if a good, you know, a valuable domain that a lot of people are interested in, there's a lot of competition to get that domain name at the time that it becomes available.
And so the PARC IO provides a service where we get the, we try to get the domain for people when it becomes available.

Omer (08:36.050)
Got it.
And how is it different to maybe other services out there that help you try to get a domain?

Mike Carson (08:42.990)
Well, we focus specifically on kind of like hacker type domains, which is IO oi me.
I think a lot of the other ones more are focused on.com or net or some others.
So I think we're more focused on that kind of niche.

Omer (09:01.470)
Got it.
Okay.
So obviously there's a lot of great stuff to talk about with Park IO and how you've built that into a business that's doing.
What is it like?
It's over a million dollars a year now, right?

Mike Carson (09:14.250)
Yeah, yeah.
Right.

Omer (09:15.450)
And you're a one man company.

Mike Carson (09:17.450)
Yeah.

Omer (09:17.970)
Which is awesome.
So there's a lot of stuff to talk about there.
But before we get into that, I really want to kind of talk a little bit about what was life like before you, you started park IO.
You worked on a number of other projects and you were trying to build a number of other products and most of those things didn't work out.
So tell me kind of a little bit about that and what kind of things you were working on.

Mike Carson (09:47.920)
Yeah, so I mean, it was just, I guess just a lot of.
It was mostly like projects in my spare time that I thought, you know, I just tried to launch a lot of different projects.
I mean, I thought, you know, if I, you know, I tried to go by the mentality of like, try to fail fast and things like that.
And so I did fail fast with a lot of projects.
But it's.
Yeah, it's like there's a lot of different ones.
I mean, and some of them like seem to take off at first.
That was the most frustrating part really is like I would launch some of these projects and they would get to the front, you know, like number one on Hacker News.
And a lot of people would be really interested at first and then it would just like dwindle, dwindle down and slowly like die off.
And it was really frustrating.
I mean, sometimes it wouldn't even get on the front page of Hacker News or anything like that.
But it's.
Yeah, it was it was kind of a frustrating experience.
Like just, you know, everything.
It didn't seem to really take off.
And then, you know, and I didn't know what it would look like if it, if it did take.
Like, if I didn't know if, you know, was.
Was I not.
Was I not trying hard enough on some of these things?
Was I wasn't putting enough time into it or enough like, you know, trying to do enough marketing and stuff, or what was I do.
I didn't really know, you know, what the problem was.
But now in hindsight, like with park IO, it's clear.
Like, for me at least, like, you know, it's just obvious when a project doesn't work and when a project does work, there's like just a really clear difference, like with the projects that even.
Even if you get traction going on, it's like with park IO there's traction from the beginning and it just kept growing, like every day, more and more users.
And then with other projects it was like, it kind of dwindled down.
And so, yeah, I guess for me, like, there's a.
It's clear, like, I think.
Yeah, I mean, what I recommend to, like, hackers and stuff is just to launch, you know, a lot of projects and you'll know when it works and when it doesn't.
And I think that there's a lot of opportunity for developers and hackers is that there's not a lot of risk in terms of upfront capital and stuff like that.
It's mostly just time, really.
You put up some time and then you have the potential reward of doing really well.
So I. I think the best way to play it, really as a developer or as a hacker, is just to launch a lot of different things and then one of them will hit and you'll know it and then just continue from there.

Omer (12:40.000)
So can you give me an example of something that you built that was one of the ones that you said seemed to.
It looked like a promising idea or seemed to take off early but then didn't go anywhere.

Mike Carson (12:55.910)
Yeah, there's a couple.
One I did was called Ask IO.
And it wasn't really so much for making money.
It was more like it was a way.
So basically it featured somebody could ask a favor of the world each week and everyone would try to help this person out.
And it got to the first number one on hacker news and it took off and it, you know, it started to.
It was really like popular at first and like, there's some articles written about it and stuff, but.
But then it Just died down, I think.
I maybe didn't.
I didn't.
I couldn't figure out a way to keep the users engaged in it and just keep it going.
It just kind of dwindled and died out.
So that.
That was one, and then another one was.
I had this, like, I came up with this idea to do this handwritten letter service that had an API and everything, so that you could, like, send an email or text message to this service and it would create a hand.
Like, we would.
Somebody would actually, like, do a handwritten letter and mail it to the plate to, like, wherever you wanted.
And, I mean, that got some buzz.
Like, a TV station interviewed me and like, Pee Wee Herman tweeted about it.
But yeah, it was like.
So it got a interest at first, but then, like, nobody used it really.
And I.
So.
So I guess those were a couple.
I mean, you know, so, yeah, I guess those were a couple of different.
Different things that didn't really take off.

Omer (14:36.400)
So how did you, like, when you came up with the idea for.
For each of these projects, did you kind of try to do some validation or did you just build the thing?
Okay, I think you just answered my question.

Mike Carson (14:52.770)
I still, like, I'm not.
I didn't do any of that.
Like, I feel.
I know I.
Maybe I would.
It would be better if I do stuff like that.
But I think.
Well, actually, I think one of the reasons Park IO succeeded is because it really was just like kind of a hobby.
I didn't do any validation or anything like that.
It's just like, it started out as something I thought was cool, fun, you know, and I was interested in it and I worked on it.
And so it just kind of grew from that, like, not even really having an idea.
And so these other things, yeah, they're just.
I.
Maybe I did a little stuff like that, but I just kind of.
It was more just like, what would be a cool idea?
Let me just build and see what happens.
And so, yeah, I didn't really do any of that.

Omer (15:36.080)
So you're kind of more about just, if you have an idea, just start small, do something quickly, fail fast, and move on and try something else.

Mike Carson (15:46.780)
Yeah.
And I think now, like, what I would also recommend is, you know, just, you know, I don't even know if it's like, I think personally, the best things come about if you're not like, thinking, okay, is this going to be a great business?
You know, like, is this going to.
Because I think those things.
Yeah, it's like, I think it's a Lot more important at the beginning, at least from my experience.
It's a lot more important at the beginning to really be interested in what you're doing and kind of love it, you know, like love what you're doing and have fun with it because then it just flows a lot easier.
It's a lot easier to do work with it.
It's a lot.
If you're that interested in it, you know, it a lot better, you know, than other people will.
So I think that's another thing.
It's like, yeah, do do a lot of things.
You'll fail with like 99% and then one will take off.
But also try, yeah, try to have fun with it and try to do things that are interesting to you.
And then as you get interested in them, you might think of a business idea.
Like you might.
A business might naturally come out of it, I guess.

Omer (16:59.680)
How many of these projects did you work on on Try before you finally came came up with POC IO?

Mike Carson (17:09.110)
That's a good question.
I don't know.
Probably.
Probably 20, 30, something like that.
Yeah.
I don't know.

Omer (17:25.750)
So a fair amount.

Mike Carson (17:27.510)
Yeah.

Omer (17:29.270)
And so you're a developer, so you were building all of these projects.
Right.
Yourself?

Mike Carson (17:35.130)
Yeah.

Omer (17:36.330)
Okay, so let's talk about park IO.
So how did you, like, where did the idea for that come from?

Mike Carson (17:43.770)
Yeah, so that, I mean, that's just, you know, since I am building things, I'm interested in domain names and I knew that, like having a good domain name, like it makes, leaves an impact on people, especially when you're first launching.
So I just started trying to get good domain names and I saw there was one that was expiring, so I tried to figure out exactly when it would become available.
I wrote a script and I still just missed it.
Somebody beat me to it.
And so then I just started researching it a lot more and I wrote my own scripts and I got some good domains that way.
And then eventually, like, it became to the point where I could get every domain that I wanted that had expired.
So then I decided to launch it as a service.

Omer (18:36.710)
So what would the script do?
It would just notify you when it was ready to buy or would it actually try to buy the domain?

Mike Carson (18:46.230)
Yeah, at first it was really simple scripts.
It was just like, okay, it's a script that would tell me the day that it was going to, the day and the time that it was going to become available, and then I would just hand register it.
And that actually worked surprisingly well for a while.
But then some other people had scripts that actually registered it.
And so then I would write some scripts that registered it and then sometimes I would get them, but sometimes some of the other people would get them.
And then, yeah, eventually they just became more sophisticated and fast and then they were able to get them all the time.

Omer (19:21.810)
So initially you just did this because you wanted to buy some cool domains?

Mike Carson (19:25.850)
Yeah, yeah.

Omer (19:27.290)
And then did you start selling some of them?
Is that like how you generated revenue?
Initially?

Mike Carson (19:33.770)
Yeah, I, Yeah, so I got like 20 or so domains and so the costs started to add up and I mean, I just kind of felt that they, they were good domains and I just kind of felt that they had value.
But like I told, you know, I told my wife because the cost started to.
I was like, I bought another domain, like, and you know, and I was like, I think it's worth, you know, something.
And she was like, well, why don't you try selling a couple just to make sure that what you think is, you know, really true.
So I did, I sold a couple.
And, and they did.
Yeah, they sold, they sold pretty well.
And so then I thought, you know, okay, well I'll use this money that I got from these to buy some more and I'll do the same thing.
So I just scaled it up that way at first.

Omer (20:21.840)
And again, were you using some kind of like, how were you figuring out whether a domain was valuable enough to sell?
Was there some research behind that?
Or again, was it, you know, I

Mike Carson (20:37.320)
like the domain mostly at first it was like to me it kind of felt obvious or like it just, I just had this feeling like, or I could imagine a service and actually this, you know, getting domains like this helped with ideas.
You know, it's like, oh, this is a cool, I could imagine a cool service with this domain.
Or, you know, so I think at first, yeah, it was just like, you know, like, ask that IO.
When I got that, it's like, yeah, this.
I mean, come on.
And then there's like, you know, the shorter it is, like there's some two letter IO domains and I was like, these got to be worth something, they're so rare.
And then, but yeah, eventually one thing I figured out is that if you type the name of the word the domain before the IO.
So like for ask IO, if you type ask into GitHub search and the number of results that come up, that corresponds closely to the value of the domain.
So the more search results that come back for a term that you type in, the more value that domain will have.

Omer (21:47.420)
Really?

Mike Carson (21:48.060)
That's.

Omer (21:48.540)
Yeah, I wouldn't have thought of using GitHub as a way too, I think for.

Mike Carson (21:52.780)
It works well for IO domains.

Omer (21:55.260)
All right.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
So you sold them and you made a little bit of money there.
How much did you make from selling those two domains?

Mike Carson (22:07.420)
I think I sold them like, so I registered.
I think they were to both two.
Two letter domains and I think.
So I got them for like $49 and sold them for, I think around $2,000 each.

Omer (22:21.710)
Nice.
Not bad.

Mike Carson (22:23.230)
Yeah.

Omer (22:24.350)
Okay, so.
So at what point did you.
Did you decide, okay, I'm going to turn this into a service?

Mike Carson (22:32.910)
It was.
Yeah.
So I started at the end of 2013, getting into domains and registering domains and I think by June, I launched Park IO at the end of.
So around six months later.
And mostly it was at the point where I knew that I could get a lot of the domain.
Like, I knew I could get almost all the domains, so that's why I put it up.

Omer (23:00.650)
And so like, what was the first version of the product like?
And like, how long did it take you to build it?

Mike Carson (23:09.130)
Yeah, the first.
I mean that.
So working on the scripts to catch the domains was really fun and researching that and it's really competitive and kind of thrilling.
It's like right at this time the domain becomes available and it's like you anxiously await and then the time happens and then you check to see who got in.
You're competing with everyone in the world.
It's like exciting.
Yeah, I got it.
But then building the interface, you know, that was just like grunt work.
It was like, okay, I got to build a user interface.
I got to make a way for people to submit orders and pay for them and like manage the domains and stuff.
And so it wasn't nearly as fun.
But yeah, so I just remember.
But I knew that, you know, it'd be cool and I could even.
I could use it too, like for myself.
So I.
It's like, you know, it was.
It wasn't as fun to build it, but I still worked pretty hard and for a couple of weeks, I think, like a couple of weeks and then it was still very simple.
Like, a lot of it was not.
There were a lot of things not automated.
It was kind of very bare bones and at first, you know, just like the very basics that could go up there.
So.

Omer (24:24.310)
And did you do well?
How did you get the word out?

Mike Carson (24:28.710)
Yeah, I didn't.
That's the thing.
Like, and I think, you know, this is one way.
I mean, it's probably specific to this type of business domain thing.
But, but yeah, it's like, it's just.
That's how you.
That's how I knew it was obvious that there's some value here, because the first day I put it up, I didn't tell anybody.
And I got a few orders already.
Like the first day I got a few orders and they found it because what.
The only.
I guess one good thing that I did that helped is for the domains that we caught, I would put up a parked page that said this domain was caught by Park I.O.
and then put a link to Park I.O.
and so I think that's where a lot of the users came from.
It's just the parked pages from the domains that they were interested in or were waiting.

Omer (25:23.720)
So from what I understand, the way that Park I.O.
works is that you're showing domains that are about to expire and if I like something, I can go and place an order for it.
And if you get it, then I pay you for it.
Right.
Like, is it like 99 bucks or something like that?
Yeah, but it sounds like what you were doing in the early days was you had already bought the domains and you were selling them because you obviously that's how you were getting the park page set up.

Mike Carson (25:51.990)
Yeah, so the domains that I had caught earlier, like the domains that I had got before I launched a site, I put up parked pages.
So like for some, like for the two letter iOS or some, like some that had recently become available, that had just expired and become available for registration like the week before, I put up the parked page.
And so that's how, that's where the first user came from and placed the first order.

Omer (26:18.040)
Okay, so big difference from maybe some of the things that you'd done earlier where there was excitement, but not necessarily customers.
This one you didn't.
Sounds like you didn't do much at all.
And you got sales like literally on the first day.

Mike Carson (26:37.880)
Yeah, yeah, literally without telling anyone or like putting it anywhere, really.
Yeah, so that, that was, it was a striking difference, you know, right from the beginning.

Omer (26:47.560)
Wow.
Okay, so there's, there's definitely signs of life there.
Like, what were you thinking?
Like, like where were you, where did you decide to sort of take the business then?
I guess you didn't.
Were you even thinking of it as a business at that time?

Mike Carson (27:07.750)
Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I launched it and I was, I guess I was happy.
Yeah, I was happy that, Yeah, I was happy that orders were already coming through.
I was happy that it was profitable right from the beginning.
Like, you know, I wasn't There was people who had already paid and like they're paying more than I was paying for the domains.
So.
So yeah, right from the beginning I was pretty happy that, you know, and I didn't know how big it would get.
And I.
And so I thought, well, this could just be a nice side thing that I'll just keep running.
And also I didn't know how, like, there's a lot of competition.
I didn't know how long that I would be able to have the competitive advantage.
So.
So I guess, yeah, at first I thought this is nice, but I don't know where it's going to go.
I guess that's how.
And then, you know, it kept growing every.
Every month and got bigger and bigger.

Omer (28:03.450)
And like in the first year, did you do, did you do any marketing?

Mike Carson (28:11.130)
I mean the marketing that I, I mean the main thing is doing the parked pages like for the domains that had expired or you know, domains go to auction if more person orders it.
So I think those, basically the domains brought most of the users in.
But other than that, I mean I, I have like, I had an auto, you know, an automated newsletter that goes out once a week and automated Twitter posts and I did a couple of interviews, like podcast stuff, but other than that I didn't really.
Yeah, I didn't really do any marketing.
And like I post.
Maybe I posted attacker news or something.
Maybe it did a blog post and put it on hacker news or something like that, but nothing real.

Omer (28:57.350)
What kind of an automated newsletter?
What did you send out in the newsletter?

Mike Carson (29:01.990)
It's just every week it sends out the current auctions that are going on and also some domains that are going to be dropping in the next week.
So domains you can place orders on and then also the sales for the last week, the domain sales.

Omer (29:24.070)
And then so like how once you launch.
So you said you launched sometime in 2014?

Mike Carson (29:32.150)
Yeah.

Omer (29:33.110)
Like how much were you earning, like after the, by the end of that year?

Mike Carson (29:40.070)
I think.
Well, it started out as like, I think doing like $5,000 a month, you know, at first.
And then one big, like after four months or so we got one domain, SMTP IO and there were a few companies that, yeah, that were, that were interested in that and Sendgrid actually ended up getting it.
And so it was a high auction.
Like it was, I think it sold for 5,000 something.
So it kind of doubled the revenue.
And also I was just really happy to get Sendgrid as customer.
And so then after that, yeah, it just kind of continued growing and probably a lot of the growth just had to do with the interest in IO domains.
I think at first they weren't as popular, and then they just kept getting bigger and bigger.

Omer (30:36.740)
Wow.
Okay, so you're doing about $5,000 a month.
That's kind of.
You round out 2014.
At what point did things really take off for the business?

Mike Carson (30:51.060)
I think around.
See, I think around maybe June 2016, it started to get really crazy.
Like, I think our.
For that month, I think the revenue doubled the previous high.
So it was like more than two times the previous.
And yeah, it went into like, the six figures.
And I think, you know, from there it.
Yeah, I think that's.
That was like a notable time.
And I think a lot of it had to do with a few different things.
I think IO domains became a lot more popular.
There were some games like Slither IO and some other things that became really popular with, like, mainstream.
And so I think that made people, a lot of people become aware of IO domains.
And then I think also around that time, domain investors became more interested in IO domains because of this.
So I think those two things coming together kind of made it explode.

Omer (31:58.630)
And did you do anything different with the marketing or was it still the same approach that.
That you'd been using back in 2014?

Mike Carson (32:06.600)
Yeah, it's pretty much the same.
I didn't really do.
So, I mean, I basically, like, I don't know if I'm the right guy to ask for advice.
I lucked out.
I completely lucked out.
No, I mean, it was.
It was.
Yeah.
I mean, I do feel very lucky and I did, you know, a lot of it is.
Is just luck, really.
So, I mean, I didn't do a lot of, you know, I didn't do a lot of marketing or stuff like that, but.

Omer (32:40.070)
But, yeah, well, I think the PARKED pages is.
Is kind of, you know, a marketing tactic, and it clearly works, right?
Because, I mean, you can't get any more targeted than that, like, in terms of, like, reaching people who want to buy the domain.

Mike Carson (32:58.240)
Yeah.

Omer (33:00.320)
Okay, so.
So did you say you, you were, you were doing six figures in 2016?
Was that six figures a year or, or you hit six figures a month by then?

Mike Carson (33:14.320)
Yeah, that was a month.
Per month.

Omer (33:16.400)
Wow.
And.
And how much of that money, like, is profit?

Mike Carson (33:22.800)
It's.
I mean, it's.
Yeah, it's a, It's a.
It's.
It's a pretty profitable business.
I mean, I don't know what else to say.
It's.
It's.
It's.
Yeah, sorry, I don't really know how to answer it.
I don't know the exact number of how much profit, but it would be like.

Omer (33:43.320)
Like, 80%, 20 is profit, or 50.
50.

Mike Carson (33:46.970)
I think it's probably around 70% profit or something like that.
Yeah, there's not a lot of.
I mean, I'm the only employee.
The server costs are low.
The domain expenses are pretty low.
So.
Yeah.

Omer (34:00.490)
Okay.
All right.
So you're making all this money.
The business is just growing.
You're not having to do really any marketing.
Apart from the stuff that you tried from day one and kind of continuing to do that.
Did you think about hiring people to sort of help you?

Mike Carson (34:18.349)
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, there.
Yeah, I thought about this early.
You know, once it started growing and there was, you know, started making profit, I was like, okay.
You know, there's a lot of conventional wisdom that, like.
Well, like, on Hacker News and stuff, it's like, how to grow, and, like, there's a lot of pressure, basically.
It's like, if you have something that starts to take off, you're supposed to grow.
You're supposed to, like, hire a team, grow it as big as you can, and, you know, you know, try to, like, ipo, I don't know, or whatever, like, get bought for a billion dollars.
So I.
At first I was like, okay, I got to do this.
And I started, like, talking to people to hire and, you know, having conversations and.
But then I, you know, it.
Yeah, I'm kind of.
I'm very introverted, and I think I, you know, I was just really enjoying what I was doing.
You know, it's.
When it's just yourself, you can.
You can make decisions really fast.
You can move really fast.
You can make changes really fast.
You can.
You know, you have a lot more control.
You don't, so.
And there's not much time wasted.
Like, it's very efficient.
It's very, very efficient.
So, you know, even just talking with these people about potentially hiring them and having conversations, it took a lot of time.
And the conversation, you know, it's like, how much progress do you make during a conversation?
I don't know.
It's just.
So I decided.
I kind of decided I didn't want to do that.
I didn't want to try to take that route.
I was happy where.
Where it was and how things were going, and I did.
I didn't know if that.
I didn't think that was the best way for my happiness.
And I don't even know if it's the best for the company.
I.
The way that this business Is.
And it may, I mean, maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe it would have been better to.
I'm sure I could have used some help in some ways, a lot of ways.
But I think being able to move quickly, I've really valued that.
So, yeah, I decided not to try to grow it.

Omer (36:29.430)
So I mean, I find that fascinating.
Firstly that you went against conventional wisdom and yeah, sure, maybe Park IO isn't 100 million dollar business, but maybe it doesn't need to be.
Right in terms of you have a business that allows you to be working on something that you find fulfilling is kind of taking care of, you know, whatever your financial needs are.
I mean, that's, that's awesome.

Mike Carson (37:10.150)
Thanks.

Omer (37:10.950)
You know, and I kind of, you know, told you, we spoke before we sort of started recording and I just think it's.
I, I just love your story because of that, because you, you kind of have, you're showing people that there isn't just one way to do things right.
And it's just like sometimes we're, we get caught up in this, this mind trap of thinking that we have to do things in certain ways.
And I think it's so refreshing when I meet people like you that you show, you show people that.
No, there are other ways to kind of, you know, build a business or do things.
But one thing I'm kind of curious about is like if you're running a business that's doing over a million dollars a year, there's got to be a lot of work, right?
Like, isn't there?

Mike Carson (37:58.100)
Yeah, yeah.
I mean there is a lot.
Yeah, there is a lot of work and I'm sure, yeah, it would be nice to have help.
But you know, I think that's one advantage.
Another advantage like a developer has is that like you can automate a lot of things.
So you know, if you, if you, you know, if you're doing something over and over again, you can just kind of automate or write a script or something.
So in that way I've been able to reduce a lot of work.
So a lot like most of the work now, like half the day is spent like communicating with like doing support stuff basically, like communicating with customers, helping them out and stuff.
So that's like half the day and then the other half is, you know, there's some business type things like taxes and stuff like that or business like talking with registries and stuff.
And then there's development.
So I don't have as much time as I would like.
It would be nice to, I probably should hire somebody to Help with some of the stuff.
But yeah, so there's a lot of work.
But at least there's a lot of ways to automate a lot of stuff too.

Omer (39:20.520)
So just out of curiosity, what does your typical day look like?
Like what time do you get up?
How many hours do you work?

Mike Carson (39:29.960)
Yeah, so I, well I have a one year old son now, so I get up pretty well.

Omer (39:37.720)
He gets you up early?

Mike Carson (39:39.080)
Yeah, he gets me.
I used to sleep a lot later but I get up around six and then pretty much until lunch I just work on just like support and answering emails and helping out customers and stuff.
And then after lunch I try to focus on, I have a to do list of things like either developing or fixing things or more code related things that go on until around 4, 4 o' clock or so.
And then I mean I do some things in the evening too just because some domains drop in the evening.
So I just make sure that that's all set up.
So I do some things after dinner also maybe like work an hour or so after dinner too.

Omer (40:30.410)
And it sounds like automating is a big part of what you do, right?
I mean it was interesting.
You said, you know, hey, automated newsletters and you know, tweets and whatever else you were doing.

Mike Carson (40:44.740)
Yeah.

Omer (40:45.300)
So do you think that that's one of the big reasons that you're able to, to run this business yourself?

Mike Carson (40:51.540)
Oh yeah, definitely.
I mean it's.
Yeah, I mean there's just.
Yeah, this is like the type of business that like my, my father couldn't have done.
Like it's just not, I don't know that this type of thing is possible.
Like back just, you know, like this is something that is kind of like a new type of thing.
Like how?
Yeah, I just think that the way that the Internet has formed the services that have come out like Amazon web services and stuff, like it's just made it to a point where this type of thing is now possible where one person can run something like this.
So I think that's kind of an advantage that we have right now in our time is something like this is possible.

Omer (41:35.880)
So one thing that strikes me is that you've been in business for I guess what, almost four years now.

Mike Carson (41:45.640)
Yeah.

Omer (41:46.760)
And so a couple of things.
Right.
I would have thought that we're talking about competitors.
Right.
So on the one hand you're going to have some kind of more, you know, I don't want to call them established, let's just say bigger companies who are offering a similar service as Park Park IO potentially like Getting into your space and kind of going after the same domains that you.
You sell.
And then on the other hand, I guess the more you.
You're out there sharing your story about park IO, I wonder how many kind of copycat sites are kind of appearing, trying to do the same thing as you.
And, you know, and I guess a big part of your success is, I guess your secret sauce is the way you figured out how to get these.
These domains.
But, like, what has been kind of like the competitive situation, like, for you?
Like, you know, have you.
Have you seen it get more competitive?
Is that something you worry about?

Mike Carson (42:58.680)
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
I mean, it.
So at first it was.
There wasn't much competition, and then actually the registry, the IO registry, decided to sell their own backorders.
I think it was because of PARP IO, I'm not 100% sure, but.
So that was like, I thought the business was over at that point, but it actually turned out their system was a little different.
It didn't.
People were still interested using park IO, and so it didn't actually hurt business, and business actually did really well.
And then they shut that down.
And then things.
Yeah, and then more competitors.
Like, a lot of.
Yeah, there's a lot of change.
A lot of things happen.
Like, so then the IO registry changed management, and so the whole system changed.
And then it became like I lost some competitive advantage at that point and more competitors came in.
And then, like, so just the end of last year, like, I was.
I was getting pretty concerned.
I told my wife I didn't think this year was going to be that good.
And then luckily we acquired a competitor and now, yeah, things are really good again.
Like, we're getting every single domain.
So, yeah, it's like there's constantly things coming up, and I don't.
I have no idea how things are gonna.
I'm always.
I'm always, you know, thinking that, you know, it's not.
It may not last.
It probably.
I don't see how, you know, it could last forever.
So.
But.
But, you know, it's just, I think, you know, you just.
This is one thing I realized recently, too.
It's like, so I consider myself a hacker, and that's like computer stuff.
It's like to be a hacker, you're resourceful and you just kind of build with what you have.
You have some things and you make it work with what you have.
And what I realize is that business is like, it's very similar.
It's like exactly the same thing.
It's just not code.
It's just business.
It's like you just have what you have, and you just try to be resourceful with it and make things work.
And it's.
So it's like hacking.
It's exactly like hacking.
It's just.
There's not code and involved.

Omer (45:11.750)
Yeah, yeah.
That's a good way to think about it.
Okay, so in terms of, like, monthly revenue, what are you doing at the moment?

Mike Carson (45:25.030)
Well, so January is our best month.
And then.
And then February was even better than January, so it's doing really well.
I mean, it's still, uh.
It's like between 150 and 200,000.

Omer (45:45.260)
So this year, 2018 could be over $2 million.

Mike Carson (45:54.940)
Possibly close to it.

Omer (45:56.540)
Yeah.
Wow.
Dude.
And.
And also, it's worth pointing out, this is not.
This is not mri.
This is not monthly recurring revenue.
Right.
There's no subscription behind this business.

Mike Carson (46:08.550)
Yeah, yeah.

Omer (46:09.750)
So this is.
This is.
These are transactions, like people coming individually one at a time to buy these domains.

Mike Carson (46:19.270)
Yeah, Yeah, I know.
I sometimes wish I had a recurring because I feel like I could just relax a little more that way.
But, yeah,

Omer (46:30.890)
I love it.
All right, let's talk a little bit about a couple of other projects that you've got going on, because it sounds like even though Park IO takes up a fair bit of your time, you're still pursuing some other projects at the moment, right?

Mike Carson (46:57.230)
A little bit, yeah.
I mean, when I have the time, I don't have a lot of time, but I do.
Yeah.
I still try to do some other things.
I'm still interested in some other things, too.

Omer (47:06.670)
So.
Can you tell us about one of them?

Mike Carson (47:10.110)
Yeah, well, I mean, I guess File IO is another one that I did.
It's kind of, you know, in some ways, it's similar to some of my other things that started out with, you know, it was on Hacker News, like, went to maybe number one on Hacker News when I first launched it, and it got a lot of interest.
And then, you know, well, it was free, so I didn't really make any money.
And so after a while, I was.
You know, I thought.
Well, I thought my.
My thinking was, like, it's kind of a cool thing, and I'll keep it up because, you know, it's not.
Doesn't cost that much.
It's just servers and it's.
And, you know, maybe some people find Park IO through it or.
I don't know.
So I decided to keep it up.
But then after a year, I was like, I don't know, maybe I'll just shut it down because it's not making any money.
It's just an expense.
But then I was like, okay, I'll try to charge just to see.
And then kind of like just happened.
At that time, a client wanted a white label version of it, and so I worked a deal out with them.
So it was.
It became profitable, but still not that much.
So I kept it running.
So it's.
I mean, it gets a lot of daily use, but it's not like making a lot of money.
And I would like to.
I mean, there's a lot of things I would like to do with it, but I haven't really had the time or like, it's hard to justify because it's not making that much money.
But I would like to make it so that it's hosted with IPFs.
So it's like, you know, it's not centralized to basically Amazon and stuff.
So, yeah, there's some things I would like to do with it there.
But yeah, I've got.
And also I've gotten interested in the blockchain and like, bitcoin stuff, and I have been working a little bit on Lightning and just getting that running and thinking about trying to integrate, like, Lightning Bitcoin payments on park IO.

Omer (49:09.720)
You don't really think of these as businesses from the sounds of it.
Right.
It's kind of more like.
Like you're kind of pursuing some projects that you're interested in.

Mike Carson (49:17.300)
Yeah, probably for those.
Yeah.
It's just more kind of interest.

Omer (49:20.820)
But maybe just like with POC IO, maybe they become a business in their own right.

Mike Carson (49:26.580)
Yeah.

Omer (49:26.980)
Yeah, it's fascinating.
All right, Mike.
I kind of feel like we could just keep chatting for hours.
You know, it's just like, you have such a unique and interesting story.
I've got so many questions that I still kind of want to ask you, so maybe I have to try and convince you to sort of come back, but I know we're kind of almost out of time, so I think we should just wrap up for now.
So I'll get onto the Lightning round.
I'm gonna ask you seven questions.
Just try to answer them as quickly as you can.

Mike Carson (50:04.030)
Okay?

Omer (50:05.160)
All right.
What's the best piece of business advice that you've ever received?

Mike Carson (50:11.240)
Yeah, I think, I guess, like, keep it simple and focus on what you do better than anyone else.
I guess that.

Omer (50:18.680)
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?

Mike Carson (50:23.640)
I think this book, Shoe Dog by Phil Knight, the founder of Nike, is really good, especially if you.
If possible, if you're a runner and you can Listen it, listen to it on audible while you're running.
I think it's really good.
But it talks about, you know, how.
I think one thing that I could totally relate to is like all these problems come up all the time.
Like obstacles are just constantly coming up and you think it's going to end the business, but then there's like a way around.
You figure out a way around it.

Omer (50:50.830)
I'm going to have to check that out.
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful entrepreneur?

Mike Carson (51:00.830)
I think being resourceful, I think that's one of the most important.

Omer (51:06.460)
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or habit?

Mike Carson (51:11.500)
I think the thing that has helped me the most is actually it's.
It's vipassana meditation, like meditating.

Omer (51:21.100)
So what's that?
What's the passana meditation?
What's.
How's that different?

Mike Carson (51:25.020)
Vipassana.
It's.
They actually.
So if you go to dharma.org d h a m m a dot org they have this organization where you can.
They have these 10 day meditation retreats all over the world and they're completely free.
You don't even have to pay for food or lodging or anything.
And it's silent.
It's ten days of silence.
So you can't read or write or talk or listen to music or anything.
You just meditate the whole time.
Yeah, it's intense.
But it really helped me in my life in a lot of ways.

Omer (51:57.820)
Wow.
What's a new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the extra time?
I'm not even sure I should ask you this question, man.
It's like of all the things you've got going on.

Mike Carson (52:09.020)
Well, one thing I would love to do, which I just haven't got.
Yeah.
Just haven't had the time.
But I would love to do at some point is I think DNS, the domain name system, would be great on the blockchain.
Like on a blockchain.
So I think it would just.
Because right now it's really centralized around registries and like icann, like organizations.
So I think that like, if it was decentralized, I think the Internet would be a lot more free.
So I think that would be really cool.

Omer (52:37.920)
What an interesting idea.
Yeah.
All right.
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?

Mike Carson (52:48.400)
Well, I used to be a professional subway musician in New York City for a while.

Omer (52:55.990)
What is the professional musician?

Mike Carson (52:59.270)
That means I did it for a living, but I barely was able to make a living on it.
But I did it for a few months.

Omer (53:06.790)
Wow.
And finally, what is one of your most important passions outside of your work?

Mike Carson (53:13.190)
Well, I'm really interested in, like, consciousness and, like, just, like.
Yeah.
Meditation and just, like, trying to understand, you know, like, I guess, spirituality.
I'm interested in, you know, understanding why we're here and, like, bringing that into, like, a practical way to live.

Omer (53:33.920)
Awesome.
All right, so I definitely need to figure out how to get you back one day.
I have to kind of convince you to do that.

Mike Carson (53:44.070)
Sure.

Omer (53:44.390)
You know, thank you.
Thank you for making the time to do this.
You know, I really appreciate that.

Mike Carson (53:48.470)
No problem.
Thanks for having me.

Omer (53:50.310)
If people want to find out more about park IO, they can go to park IO.
If you're looking for a domain, you can go to park IO.
And if people want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Mike Carson (54:04.310)
You can humbly.com is, like, the thing, the company where I launched all my other projects on.
So you could go there.
You can contact me there or sign up for the.
The newsletter or.
Yeah, that's probably the best.

Omer (54:19.070)
Awesome, Mike.
Thanks again, and I wish you continued success.

Mike Carson (54:23.550)
Thanks.
Thanks for having me.

Omer (54:25.310)
Cheers.