~1996 — THE BEGINNING
Spring.com BBS Launches
Paul Walhus launches spring.com as a community bulletin board system in Austin, Texas. Running on Unix, accessed via terminal, the BBS quickly grows to 700+ users. Topics span technology, music, Austin culture, politics, and everything in between. The BBS also operates as austin.com — one of the most valuable city-name domains on the early internet.
"I was running the BBS from the Unix command line. A lot of our early posts were sent from the command line. It kind of lent itself to that."
LATE 1990s — THE GOLDEN AGE
700+ Users, Austin's Digital Town Square
Spring.com becomes one of Austin's primary online gathering places. While most of the country is still figuring out email, Austin's tech-savvy community is having real-time conversations on every topic imaginable. Paul becomes one of the most connected people in Austin's early tech scene.
THE HEIST — austin.com HIJACKED
austin.com Stolen via Counterfeit Email
In the Wild West of the early internet, domain theft was rampant and there was almost no legal recourse. Someone submitted a counterfeit email to the domain registrar and transferred austin.com out of Paul's control. Gone. Just like that.
No ICANN dispute process existed yet. No domain locking. No two-factor authentication. A forged email was all it took to steal one of the most valuable city-name domains in America.
"They stole austin.com with a counterfeit email. There was nothing I could do. That was the internet back then — the Wild West."
TRANSITION — SPRING.COM & SPRING.NET SOLD
Paul Sells the Spring Domains
Spring.com and spring.net are sold to new owners. The BBS era is ending as the World Wide Web takes over. But the community Paul built doesn't disappear — it evolves. The handle @springnet lives on as Paul's identity across every platform that follows.
2007 — SXSW & TWITTER
Paul Becomes the King of Twitter
At SXSW 2007 — the event that launched Twitter — Paul Walhus becomes the most popular person on the platform. Profiled by BuzzFeed, Slate, and The New York Times as Twitter's first celebrity. The community-building skills honed on Spring.com translate perfectly to social media.
Handle: @springnet — named after the BBS. 13,000+ followers.
"I got started at South by Southwest. A lot of my friends who went there from Austin discovered Twitter. We all got on and started using it to communicate." — BuzzFeed News
2007-2025 — AUSTINSPRING.COM
The Evolution Continues
AustinSpring.com becomes Paul's web development and consulting hub. Over the decades he builds 100+ websites, manages domain portfolios, works at Builder Homesite International (BHI/BDX), creates BeJane.com for women's home improvement, and continues to be a fixture in Austin's tech community. The BBS community spirit lives on through every project.
2026 — REBORN WITH AI
AustinSpring Comes Back to Life
In March 2026, Paul partners with AI (Claude Code) to rebuild his entire web empire in 48 hours — 20 websites, 103 domains, deployed to a $6/month server. AustinSpring is reborn not as a BBS but as the hub of a network spanning tech news, off-grid living, entertainment, creative communities, and the same spirit of connection that started it all 30 years ago.
The BBS is dead. Long live the network.