703: The "Accidental" $10k/mo Side Project

Paul Tyma. He’s the founder and creator of a tool called Mailinator which is an email system. He’s also a startup veteran and has focused on 4 Silicon Valley startups including Preemptive Solutions, Manybrain Inc which owns Mailinator, Home-Account.com which was acquired by Bills.com, and Refresh Inc which was acquired by LinkedIn. He’s a frequent speaker, writer and author of one of the original books on Java called Java Primer Plus. Dr. Tyma has received his PhD from Syracuse University focused on Java/.Net performance.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – Influence
• What CEO do you follow? –  Amy Errett and Bradley Kam
• Favorite online tool? — Linode
• How many hours of sleep do you get?— 8.5
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “How to talk to girls”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 00:53 – Nathan introduces Paul to the show
• 01:48 – Paul started his first company during his PhD
• 01:56 – After getting his PhD, Paul worked for Google
• 02:12 – Paul is still part of the board for Preemptive Solutions
• 02:18 – Refresh had a very visible exit and is currently at LinkedIn icebreakers
• • 02:37 – The acquisition was in 2015
  • 02:45 – Acquisition price
  • 02:54 – Refresh was a consumer application
  • 03:10 – Refresh has raised $10M in total
  • 03:20 – The first round was a priced round
  • 03:53 – Refresh had 100K users
  • 04:30 – Refresh built its own identity from scratch
  • 04:40 – The technology of Refresh
• 05:40 – Home-Account.com was built prior to Refresh
• • 05:59 – Paul was a minor founder
  • 06:15 – Option pool
• 07:23 – Selling a company and staying with the company who acquired it is a cliché in Silicon Valley
• 08:19 – Mailinator was a side project Paul built 13 years ago
• • 08:30 – It was a receive only mail service
  • 08:50 – Mailinator lets you create a disposable email
• 10:17 – Mailinator had some ads which paid for the server
• 11:30 – Mailinator now makes money from affiliates
• 11:47 – Mailinator’s brand became strong
• 11:56 – There was a high usage from QA departments who tested their signups process and welcome email
• • 12:11 – They asked Mailinator for additional features
  • 12:40 – Hundreds of QA teams now are using and paying Mailinator
  • 13:16 – Mailinator also has a private paid domain
• 13:40 – Pricing is $29 for single user and $129 for a team
• 13:56 – Average RPU is $35
• 14:31 – Average MRR
• 14:57 – Paul is now turning Mailinator into a business
• 15:21 – Churn is pretty high
• 15:48 – Less paid advertising
• 16:16 – Mailinator has 45K unique users a day
• 16:44 – 25K new inboxes are set up everyday
• 16:58 – “This is not a DAU product”
• 17:21 – Mailinator has not raised money
• 18:09 – Team size is 3
• 18:30 – Gross margin
• • 18:59 – Server cost
• 19:53 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• A side project can definitely turn into something more—don’t underestimate its potential.
• An email does NOT reflect one’s identity.
• There are thousands of emails being made and sent every day—having a disposable one is almost a necessity.

Resources Mentioned:

• The Top Inbox  – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• Klipfolio – Track your business performance across all departments for FREE
• Hotjar – Nathan uses Hotjar to track what you’re doing on this site. He gets a video of each user visit like where they clicked and scrolled to make the site a better experience
• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible
• Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives