Back to Making DNSimple (Changelog Interviews #637), with Anthony Eden.
How Did No Outside Money Let DNSimple Win Big Companies?
On the show, DNSimple has never grown a ton aside from the very early days. The growth rate stays steady, and a steady rate is exactly what was wanted in a business.
A conscious choice at the start of DNSimple was not to take other people's money. DNSimple was not a rocket ship meant to return tens of thousands of dollars for each dollar put in. The business was meant to facilitate a chosen life. Four kids, the last almost ready to graduate high school, were kids throughout DNSimple. Time was there for the vast majority of their childhood. The family traveled and enjoyed life together. There was no need to spend 80 or 90 hours trying to help somebody else become rich. Being already rich in time was an essential part of the construction of the business.
DNSimple has grown and continues to grow. Engineers are still the champions, and DNSimple has found ways into enterprise-level contracts. Many enterprises remain on legacy software or legacy registrars and are really suffering. DNSimple helps them on board and move domains off other providers, then gives a stable, consolidated system. A year and a half to two years ago, DNSimple launched a domain control plane. Domains managed at Route 53 or in Azure can connect from DNSimple so the domains can be seen and edited, with bi-directional synchronization between DNSimple, Route 53, Azure, and CoreDNS on-prem.