Hacker Bits, April 2016
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Lean Domain Search — January 2012<br />
Lean Domain Search — Today<br />
R&R after I got back, the first of<br />
which I spent with my wife on<br />
vacation in Maine, the second of<br />
which I launched the first version<br />
of Lean Domain Search.<br />
I continued working as a<br />
project manager at Hanscom Air<br />
Force Base until my commitment<br />
ended in September 2012. My<br />
wife and I then moved back to<br />
Florida to be closer to family<br />
and I decided to work on Lean<br />
Domain Search full time.<br />
Acquired<br />
Remember I mentioned Domain<br />
Pigeon, my original domain<br />
name generator? When<br />
I launched it in early 2009,<br />
Matt Mullenweg, co-founder<br />
of WordPress and now CEO of<br />
Automattic, saw its launch on<br />
<strong>Hacker</strong>News and shot me an<br />
email saying he thought Domain<br />
Pigeon was neat and that if it<br />
didn’t become a full time job<br />
there were a lot of opportunities<br />
to work on domains at Automattic.<br />
We chatted briefly on Skype,<br />
but I was a second lieutenant<br />
at the time and still had over<br />
three years left on my Air Force<br />
commitment so it didn’t go<br />
anywhere.<br />
In early 2013 after I had<br />
been working on Lean Domain<br />
Search full time for several<br />
months, I remembered Matt’s<br />
old email about Domain Pigeon.<br />
I checked out Automattic and<br />
WordPress.com and decided to<br />
reach back out to Matt to see if<br />
there was still an opportunity. I<br />
found his original email and responded<br />
to it again, this time 4<br />
years after he sent it. I reminded<br />
him who I was, explained that I<br />
was working on a new domain<br />
name generator, and that I saw<br />
an opportunity for it to be put to<br />
use on WordPress.com to help<br />
users find better domain names.<br />
He encouraged me to apply for<br />
a developer position which I<br />
did and in the end Automattic<br />
wound up hiring me and acquiring<br />
Lean Domain Search.<br />
That period from August<br />
2011 when I deployed to June<br />
2013 when I started at Automattic<br />
was probably the most<br />
intense period of my life. I am<br />
extremely grateful that things<br />
worked out the way they did. In<br />
the end I wound up with a small<br />
acquisition, an amazing job at<br />
Automattic, a deployment that<br />
I’m really proud of, and experiences<br />
that will stay with me for<br />
the rest of my life.<br />
If you’re considering working<br />
on a startup but can’t make the<br />
leap to do it full time for whatever<br />
reason, remember that even<br />
a few hours per week can have a<br />
huge impact in the long run.<br />
Stick with it. Amazing things<br />
can happen. •<br />
Reprinted with permission of the original author. First appeared at mattmazur.com.<br />
hacker bits<br />
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