Parkside Labs
About Parkside Labs
We're a small team of experienced engineers and designers building original software products in the creative and publishing space.
Our Story
Experienced engineers who decided to build something they believe in.
Parkside Labs came together from a team with deep roots in enterprise software — product leadership at Fortune 500 companies, principal engineering at scale, decades of shipping software that millions of people use. We know how to build things that work.
What we decided to do with that experience is focus on a space we care about: the platforms, tools, and products that help stories get written, published, and found. That’s what Parkside Labs is built to do.
What We Focus On
AI made truly personal stories possible. We build the products that deliver them.
Our products turn a family’s photos and ideas into original printed books and comics where the child is the hero. Personalized books used to mean a name dropped into a fixed template. Generative AI changed what’s possible: every order can be an original, with its own story, its own art, and the people who actually matter in it.
Building that well takes more than a model. It takes careful product design, honest review tools, and a production pipeline that ends in a book worth keeping. We treat the story as the point rather than a use case, and we sweat the details because the character on the page is someone’s kid.
See what we’ve builtPersonalized storybooks
Hardcover books where a child becomes the hero of an original story, written and illustrated for one family.
Personalized comics
Original comic adventures starring the people you love, panel by panel, from first idea to printed issue.
The pipeline behind them
Generative AI plus careful engineering: story generation, consistent characters, customer review, and print-ready production.
How We Work
A studio model, not an agency model.
We design, engineer, and launch products as a single integrated team. No handoffs, no silos, no misaligned incentives.
We choose what we build
Every product starts with a problem we believe is worth solving. We're not taking briefs — we're making decisions.
Engineering is the craft
We write software the way a good writer approaches a draft — with care, revision, and an eye on what the reader experiences.
Design is not decoration
Product design starts on day one. How something feels to use is as important as what it does.
Small team, full ownership
A small team that owns the whole problem makes better decisions than a large one that doesn't.
The Team
The people building Parkside Labs.
Rob
Co-Founder / Product & Business
Rob has spent more than 30 years building software and web products, including 15 years at GoDaddy working across hosting and productivity. At Parkside, he works where product, engineering, and business meet: deciding what to build, helping turn it into something customers can actually use, and finding a path to market. He helped create Genie in a Book and Genie Comics, Parkside’s first products. Outside of work, Rob is an Army veteran, longtime skateboarder, and enthusiastic traveler.
Mike
Co-Founder / Engineering & AI
Originally from Europe, Mike has spent 18 years building software, including senior engineering roles at Ticketmaster and GoDaddy. At Parkside, he leads the technical systems behind its products: AI workflows, consistency tools, and production pipeline that turn an idea into a finished book or comic. Mike follows new language and image models closely, but he is more interested in what they can reliably do inside a real product than in the hype around them. Away from work, he enjoys skiing, hiking, and time with his son.
Shaun
Co-Founder / Frontend Engineering
Shaun brings nearly two decades of frontend engineering experience to Parkside, including work on products used by millions of people. He specializes in design systems, performance, and the small interaction details that make complicated software feel straightforward. At Parkside, he shapes how customers move from an idea to a finished story without needing to understand all the machinery underneath. Outside of engineering, Shaun is a longtime gamer and spends time with his wife and kids, who provide plenty of material for new stories.
Ashley
Head of Client Success
Ashley leads client success and strategic partnerships at Parkside Web Development, ensuring every customer feels supported from onboarding to long-term growth. With a background in sales and customer relations, she helps businesses unlock value from our solutions while building trusted, lasting relationships. Ashley bridges the gap between service and strategy, aligning client goals with measurable outcomes.
Lindsay
Head of Product Experience
Lindsay brings a background in UX and product design to Parkside Web Development, where she leads the design vision for our software and client-facing platforms. She focuses on creating intuitive, elegant user experiences that drive engagement and efficiency. With a deep understanding of user behavior and modern design systems, Lindsay ensures every interaction reflects Parkside’s commitment to smart, accessible solutions.
Get in Touch
Interested in what we’re building?
Whether you want to follow along, explore our work, or talk about something you’re building — we’d love to hear from you.