《Park.io: Making $125,000/Month Selling Hacker TLDs》
《Park.io: 通过销售小众域名创造每月12.5万美元的收入》
网址：https://www.failory.com/interview/park-io

February 21, 2019

Mike Carson, a computer programmer, built park.io, a service that allows you to backorder top level domains that have expired and will be available for registration again soon. He started it as project to solve a problem he was facing. But, with almost none marketing, he was able to grow it to a business generating +$125K per month.

迈克·卡森（Mike Carson），一个计算机程序员，创建了 park.io，这项服务可让您抢注已过期并即将删除供重新注册的顶级域名。他开始这个项目是为了解决他面临的问题。但是，几乎没有营销，他能够将其发展为每月12.5万美元的收入的业务。

Hi Mike! What’s your background, and what are you currently working on?

Hi! My name is Mike Carson and I am a computer programmer and identify as a hacker. I am 41 years old and I am based in the Philadelphia area. A few years ago, I built park.io.
Park.io Website

park.io is a service that allows you to backorder domains that have expired and will be available for registration again soon. It focuses on “hacker” TLDs (top level domains), like .io, .ly, .me and .to. There can be a lot of competition to get good expiring domains, and I’ve built scripts to accomplish this.

I don’t really have a job title, since I am the only employee. I guess “founder” is best. As the saying goes “a founder wears all hats” – so my job duties are basically everything that needs to be done.

嗨，迈克！你的背景是什么，你目前正在做什么？

你好！我的名字是迈克卡森，我是一名计算机程序员，自认为是一名黑客。我今年41岁，住在费城地区。几年前，我建造了 park.io。

park.io 是一项服务，可让您抢注已过期的域名，并且很快就会再次注册。它专注于“黑客”TLD（顶级域名），如.io，.ly，.me和.to。为了获得好的过期域名，可能会有很多竞争，我已经构建了脚本来实现这一点。

我真的没有头衔，因为我是唯一的员工。我想“创始人”是最好的。俗话说“创始人戴着所有的帽子”——所以我的工作职责基本上是需要做的一切。

‍What’s your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

I’m a hacker and spend a lot of time reading Hacker News and building projects that I think are fun and interesting. To do this, you need domain names. One day I was looking for a domain name and found that it had expired. I did a lot of research to see how I could get it.

I didn’t get it, but it lead me to explore the domain name system in more depth.

I started park.io in my spare time while I was working full time at WizeHive. I co-founded WizeHive and was CTO there for several years. I quit last summer to focus on park.io and other projects for Humbly.

I failed at a million other projects before park.io. This is the advice I give other entrepreneurial-leaning hackers: Launch a lot of different things. 99% will fail, but there will be one that is a hit. It is obvious when it doesn’t work, and it is obvious when it does work. Try a lot of things and when you get the one that works, focus on it for a while.

As a developer, there isn’t a lot of risk to launching a software service. Mostly it is just a risk of time, but even if nothing comes of it, you get the experience of trying. And the potential reward is huge. It is a good risk/reward bet to keep launching projects.

In the case of park.io, I didn’t really start with an idea. It was more of just doing things I was interested in during my spare time. Eventually, I had done enough work on my own that I realized I could set it up as a service.

你的背景故事是什么，你是如何想到这个想法的？

我是一名黑客，花了很多时间阅读黑客新闻和构建我认为有趣和有趣的项目。为此，您需要域名。有一天，我在寻找一个域名，发现它已经过期了。我做了很多研究，看看我如何才能得到它。

我不明白，但它引导我更深入地探索域名系统。

我在WizeHive全职工作时，在业余时间开始 park.io。我共同创立了WizeHive，并在那里担任了几年的首席技术官。去年夏天，我辞职了，专注于Humbly的 park.io 和其他项目。

在 park.io 之前，我在一百万个其他项目中都失败了。这是我给其他有创业倾向的黑客的建议：推出很多不同的东西。99%会失败，但会有一个成功。当它不起作用时很明显，当它确实起作用时很明显。尝试很多事情，当你得到一个有效的方法时，专注于它一段时间。

作为开发人员，启动软件服务的风险并不大。大多数情况下，这只是时间的风险，但即使一无所获，您也会获得尝试的经验。潜在的回报是巨大的。继续启动项目是一个很好的风险/回报赌注。

就 park.io 而言，我并没有真正从一个想法开始。更多的只是在业余时间做我感兴趣的事情。最终，我自己做了足够的工作，我意识到我可以将其设置为服务。

‍How did you build park.io?

It started as simple scripts to check when expired domains would be deleted and available for registration again. I would just hand-register these domains when they became available. I got some really great domains this way.

Eventually, my manual registrations were not fast enough, as someone else was doing it automatically with a script and was able to register domains before I could get them. I reached out to the guy – a German programmer – and we chatted a lot about it. It was interesting because we were the only two people in the world who had decided to do this, so we had something very much in common. Yet, we also were competitors.

Eventually, I got to the point where I was able to get every expiring .io domain that I wanted, so I decided to sell it as a service on park.io. Since I already had the infrastructure in place to grab the domains quickly as they became available, it was simply a matter of setting up a user interface and tying it together with the backend. It was a week or two of grunt work. I remember the quote “Rome wasn’t built in a day” going through my head a lot during that time. Then I launched park.io in June 2014.

The initial product was pretty bare bones, but it provided the user a way to backorder domains and manage the domains that they owned. My goal was to just get the most basic, usable version live, and then to automate the things that people used the most.

I think probably the biggest doubt I had at the beginning was in regards to the ethics of the service. Was I just a domain squatter? Was I supporting domain squatters? Eventually, after seeing how happy people were to buy the domains, I realized it must be doing something good. One time I received a thank you card and gift in the mail from a happy customer who was able to get a domain for their business. I think a lot of this lead me to realize the importance of having happy users. I think it is really important and makes the business and your life so much better.

As for pricing, I wasn’t sure what to charge. I remember getting advice from a Wharton professor, who had studied pricing for his entire career, and his advice was something like “if you aren’t pricing it so high that people turn away because it is so expensive, then you aren’t pricing it high enough.” So, I thought $99 was a good number because it was pretty high, but still in the 2-digit range. Honestly, I didn’t think about it that much, but luckily it worked out pretty well.

您是如何建立 park.io 的？

它最初是简单的脚本，用于检查过期的域何时被删除并再次可供注册。当这些域名可用时，我会手动注册它们。通过这种方式，我得到了一些非常棒的域名。

最终，我的手动注册速度不够快，因为其他人使用脚本自动完成注册，并且能够在我获得域之前注册域。我联系了那个人——一个德国程序员——我们聊了很多。这很有趣，因为我们是世界上唯一决定这样做的两个人，所以我们有很多共同点。然而，我们也是竞争对手。

最终，我能够获得我想要的每个即将到期的.io域名，所以我决定将其作为 park.io 上的服务出售。由于我已经拥有了基础设施，可以在域名可用时快速获取域名，因此只需设置用户界面并将其与后端绑定在一起即可。那是一两个星期的繁重工作。我记得那句话“罗马不是一天建成的”，在那段时间里经常在我脑海中回荡。然后我在 2014 年 6 月推出了 park.io。

最初的产品非常简陋，但它为用户提供了一种抢注域名和管理他们拥有的域名的方法。我的目标是让最基本、最有用的版本上线，然后自动化人们最常使用的东西。

我想我一开始最大的疑问可能是关于服务的道德规范。我只是一个域名抢注者吗？我是否支持域名抢注者？最终，在看到人们购买域名是多么高兴之后，我意识到它一定在做一些好事。有一次，我收到了一封感谢卡和礼物，来自一位快乐的客户，他能够为他们的业务获得域名。我认为这在很大程度上使我意识到拥有快乐用户的重要性。我认为这真的很重要，可以让企业和你的生活变得更好。

至于定价，我不确定要收取什么费用。我记得我从沃顿商学院的一位教授那里得到过建议，他整个职业生涯都在研究定价，他的建议是这样的：“如果你定价不高到人们因为价格太贵而拒绝，那么你的定价不够高。所以，我认为 99 美元是一个不错的数字，因为它相当高，但仍在 2 位数范围内。老实说，我没有想那么多，但幸运的是它效果很好。

Which were your marketing strategies to grow your business?

I never did much advertising. I feel like this is one indicator that your project is going to be successful. If you don’t have to do any advertising and you get more and more users every day, then that is a good sign. I put up a parked page that linked to park.io for every domain that we were able to catch, and this lead to many of the first users.

I was surprised when I launched it and I had a couple of orders the first day. It just happened like that – each day a few more users would sign up and place orders.

I haven’t done much to grow park.io. I have tried to make the service work really well and I have added some TLDs. I have also done some interviews. But other than that, I don’t think I have done anything else – it has grown by word of mouth and I think just the growth of .io domains, in general, has helped the growth of park.io.

I would advise hackers to simply focus on the product and put love into their product. Build it so that you have happy users. You can do some interviews or blog posts and put them on Hacker News, or things like this, but you shouldn’t have to do too much or spend too much time or money on marketing. If it is one of the 1% of your projects destined to success, it should grow quickly on its own.
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您发展业务的营销策略是什么？

‍我从来没有做过太多广告。我觉得这是你的项目将成功的一个指标。如果你不必做任何广告，并且每天都有越来越多的用户，那么这是一个好兆头。我建立了一个停放页面，链接到我们能够捕获的每个域的 park.io，这导致了许多第一批用户。

当我推出它时，我很惊讶，第一天我有几个订单。事情就是这样发生的——每天都会有更多的用户注册并下订单。

我没有做太多事情来成长 park.io。我试图使服务运行得非常好，并添加了一些 TLD。我也做过一些采访。但除此之外，我认为我没有做任何其他事情 – 它是通过口口相传增长的，我认为.io域名的增长，总的来说，有助于 park.io 的增长。

我建议黑客只专注于产品，并将爱投入到他们的产品中。构建它，以便您拥有满意的用户。你可以做一些采访或博客文章，把它们放在黑客新闻上，或者类似的东西，但你不应该做太多的事情，或者花太多时间或金钱在营销上。如果它是你注定成功的项目中的1%之一，它应该自己迅速增长。

What were the biggest challenges you faced and obstacles you overcame?

One thing I have learned with park.io is that it can often seem like there is a big obstacle that is going to bring down the whole business, and yet usually you can find a way around it.

One example is the .io registry decided to sell their own backorders only a few months after I started park.io. I thought I would surely have to close the site and quit, because how could I compete with the registry? Luckily our systems were different enough that there was still value in the service that park.io was providing. Also, I was able to incorporate their system and leverage it with our own.

What I learned from this and other obstacles is that being a hacker with programming is similar to hacking a business to make it work. It’s about being resourceful – you just need to find a way to make it work with the situation you find yourself in.

‍您面临的最大挑战和克服的障碍是什么？

我从 park.io 学到的一件事是，通常看起来有一个很大的障碍会拖垮整个业务，但通常你可以找到解决方法。

一个例子是.io注册管理机构在我开始 park.io 几个月后决定出售自己的缺货订单。我以为我肯定必须关闭网站并退出，因为我怎么能与注册表竞争？幸运的是，我们的系统足够不同，park.io 提供的服务仍然有价值。此外，我能够整合他们的系统并将其与我们自己的系统结合使用。

我从这个和其他障碍中学到的是，成为一名编程黑客类似于黑客企业以使其发挥作用。这是关于足智多谋 – 你只需要找到一种方法来让它与你发现自己所处的情况一起工作。

Which are your greatest disadvantages?

I am very introverted and sometimes have a hard time expressing my opinions to others. This is probably part of the reason I have not built a team for park.io. Perhaps I could do more with a team – it can be difficult as the only person doing everything for the company.

A big disadvantage is not having a second opinion or a second set of eyes to review code and business decisions. My wife helps me a lot, but she isn’t a developer and can’t review the code.

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During the process of building & growing park.io, which were the worst mistakes you committed?

The worst mistakes, in my opinion, are the mistakes that affected the users in a negative way. Like one time I sent a hundred duplicate emails to a user, or one time a user was charged three times for one order. Things like this cause me a lot of pain. I want to be helpful to my users and provide them with a service that makes their lives easier or better, so it hurts me to make mistakes that do the opposite of this.

With mistakes like these I always try to reach out personally and be very honest about the situation, and I usually credit their account or offer something like this. I hope to turn it into something good for them.

It is difficult for me to come up with mistakes, mostly because I believe that everything happens for a reason and even the things that seem to be the worst are actually great things.

But one other thing I can think of is pretty early on I listed the company for sale on Empire Flippers. I thought to myself “why not? There isn’t really any risk and maybe I will sell the company.” But I think this was a mistake because it ended up taking a lot of time and energy. There were several calls, and many questions to be answered, many reports to gather. It was a lot of time and energy that I could have spent on the company and code.

I would recommend to others not to list their company for sale unless they are sure they want to sell and are willing to devote the time to it. I was never really that interested in selling the company, and thankfully I did not sell it at the time.

你最大的缺点是什么？

我非常内向，有时很难向他人表达自己的意见。这可能是我没有为 park.io 建立团队的部分原因。也许我可以和一个团队一起做更多的事情 – 作为唯一为公司做所有事情的人，这可能很困难。

一个很大的缺点是没有第二意见或第二双眼睛来审查代码和业务决策。我的妻子帮助了我很多，但她不是开发人员，无法查看代码。

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在建立和发展 park.io 的过程中，你犯了哪些最严重的错误？

在我看来，最严重的错误是以负面方式影响用户的错误。比如有一次我向用户发送了一百封重复的电子邮件，或者有一次用户被收取了三次订单费用。这样的事情让我很痛苦。我想对我的用户有所帮助，并为他们提供一种让他们的生活更轻松或更好的服务，所以犯与此相反的错误会让我感到很痛苦。

对于这样的错误，我总是试图亲自联系并非常诚实地了解情况，我通常会记入他们的帐户或提供类似的东西。我希望把它变成对他们有益的东西。

我很难犯错，主要是因为我相信每件事的发生都是有原因的，即使是看起来最糟糕的事情实际上也是伟大的事情。

但我能想到的另一件事是，我很早就在Empire Flippers上列出了待售公司。我心想：“为什么不呢？真的没有任何风险，也许我会卖掉公司。但我认为这是一个错误，因为它最终花费了大量的时间和精力。有几个电话，许多问题需要回答，许多报告要收集。我本可以在公司和代码上花费大量的时间和精力。

我建议其他人不要将他们的公司挂牌出售，除非他们确定要出售并愿意花时间出售。我对出售公司从来都不是那么感兴趣，谢天谢地，我当时没有卖掉它。
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If you had the chance to do things differently, what would you do?

I think a lot of life has to do with your current mindset. I think most of the failed projects from my earlier years had a lot to do with how desperately I wanted them to be successful. It is like reaching out for a balloon, only to push it away with your fingertips. At some point just before park.io, I started to realize that I didn’t need anything else in my life to be happy, and suddenly a successful project happened. I don’t think it is a coincidence or just an indirect outcome of a positive attitude. I think it is literally a direct result of this realization. One of my projects for Humbly is a new religion I started. You can read more about it here.
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‍如果你有机会做不同的事情，你会怎么做？

我认为很多生活都与你现在的心态有关。我认为我早年大多数失败的项目都与我多么迫切地希望它们成功有很大关系。这就像伸手去拿一个气球，却用指尖把它推开。在 park.io 之前的某个时候，我开始意识到我生活中不需要其他任何东西来快乐，突然间一个成功的项目发生了。我不认为这是巧合，也只是积极态度的间接结果。我认为这实际上是这种认识的直接结果。我为谦卑的项目之一是我开始的新宗教。您可以在此处阅读有关它的更多信息。
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Apart from mistakes, what are other sources of learning you would recommend for entrepreneurs who are just starting?

I would recommend to do a 10-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat. It had a huge positive impact on my life and I use what I learned from the course every day. There are no charges for the courses – not even to cover the cost of food and accommodation. It is non-sectarian, with no hidden agenda. You basically meditate for 12 hours a day – no reading, writing, talking, or listening to music, etc. It is kind of like meditation boot camp, and you really get an idea of what meditation can do for you and how to do it.

And Hacker News is a great resource.

除了错误之外，您还会为刚刚起步的企业家推荐哪些其他学习来源？

我建议做一个为期10天的静默内观冥想静修。它对我的生活产生了巨大的积极影响，我每天都在运用我从课程中学到的东西。课程不收取任何费用 – 甚至不包括食物和住宿费用。它是非宗派的，没有隐藏的议程。你基本上每天冥想12个小时 – 不阅读，写作，说话或听音乐等。这有点像冥想训练营，你真的知道冥想可以为你做什么以及如何去做。

Hacker News是一个很好的资源。

Where can we go to learn more?

You can go to park.io and my parent company, Humbly. Thanks for reading!

我们可以去哪里了解更多信息？

你可以去 park.io 和我的母公司，Humbly.com。感谢您的阅读！