Yesterday I posted part one of this two part interview of Jeff Kupietzky. In part one Jeff answered five “halvarez” questions that previously went unanswered which you can read here. Here, in part two of the interview you will learn more about Jeff and Oversee.net.
Q. Tell us about the beginning. How you came to Oversee.net and the two founders.
A. Oversee.net was founded in 2000 when two colleagues got together to create a service to provide advertising listings for web publishers. Lawrence Ng came from USC and Fred Hsu came from UCLA so the joke here is it’s the first time those two arch rivals collaborated on something.
Their business became successful as they discovered many of their customers had been using their service for their domain names that had traffic but no content. They had the foresight to begin registering domain names and become their own client, improving the service for their and their clients’ benefit.
The company began to accelerate its growth in 2004 and started adding more talent. I met the founders in 2005 and was intrigued by the success they had achieved without outside financing, no venture capitalists and no MBAs! In 2006, I joined the company as a consultant to help introduce a compensation plan for the DomainSponsor sales force. That led to a role managing the team, then the business unit and ultimately the division. Continue reading…
Owen Frager has asked me to guest host his Domain Success Power Lunch Show and interview Bruce Marler. We will be live tomorrow, January 13th from 2:30pm to 3:30pm EST. If you would like to listen in register now.
I have a few unexpected questions to ask Bruce so this should be fun.
Have any questions for Bruce? Post a comment below and if time permits I’ll squeeze it in.
Once the interview is done I’ll post a link to the replay right here.
Meet Tim Schumacher, CEO of Sedo.com LLC. Sedo.com is the largest domain name marketplace in the world. Sedo sold 4 of 2009’s top 10 domain sales, Fly.com $1.76 mil, Russia.com $1.5 mil, Call.com $1.1 mil and Server.com $770k.
Q. Who founded Sedo and a brief background?
A. Sedo’s was founded in Cologne, Germany in 1999 as a student project among three friends, Tim Schumacher, Ulrich Priesner, and Marius Würzner, who distributed computer games through the website offensiv.de. After the business was phased out, the three students had to ask themselves what to do with the domain name. “Keep it or let its registration lapse?” Of course, then the question became, “Why not just sell it?” This laid the foundation for Sedo which stands for “search engine for domain offers.” Starting a “real company” in 2001 out with only 5 employees working in a small office in downtown Cologne, Germany, Sedo has grown to an international company with just over 150 employees in offices in Cologne, Germany, Cambridge, US, and London, UK.
Q. Who picked the name Sedo and why?
A. Sedo is an acronym which stands for “search engine for domain offers” – we had a long list of names, but then came down to this name because you can pronounce it in any language (see below), it keeps the business objective flexible and open, and it’s short and memorable. Continue reading…
Meet Michael Berkens, 2009 Domainer of the Year, publisher of TheDomains.com and owner of roughly 75,000 domain names. WHOA, that’s an estimated $525,000 just in renewal fees every year. You can view and place offers on Michael’s domain names at MostWantedDomains.com.
Q. What is your educational background and do you believe this education helped you with your domain business? A. I’m a graduate of the City University of New York Brooklyn College, I have a law degree from Stetson College of Law in St. Petersburg, Florida and a masters in Tax Law (LLM) from the University of Florida. A Legal education certainly helps in any business including this one, so yes I think it has helped me very much. I also have a ton of very good legal domains. But you certainly don’t have to have a formal education to be successful in this or any other business. You do have to keep yourself informed. You do need to keep learning. I’m constantly reading, watching TV, news, sports, seeing what’s new, going on, not only in the domain world and not only in the tech world, but in the overall economy and in pop culture, music, movies, TV, advertising, etc. The wider your knowledge, the broader your interests, the better your going to do. Pay attention to whats going on and opportunities will present themselves.
Q. As you mentioned in the previous question, you have a law degree. What is your field of expertise and do you still hold an active practice?
A. I stopped actively practicing law 15 years ago or even more. When I did practice I did mostly business and corporate law. While I was still practicing, Judi and I got into the 800/900 business and we produced TV commercials, bought ads on national TV and in most of the top media markets everyday, so I started to slowly wind down the practice, stopped taking any new clients and then gave it up completely. I’m still a member of the Florida Bar, but inactive. Continue reading…
On day one of the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference held in Brooklyn New York last week, I had the pleasure of spending some time with Michael and David Castello. Let me just tell you, in all sincerity, these guys are two of the nicest people I have ever met. I had a great time speaking with them and am happy I had the chance to do so.
For the few of you that have never heard of the Castello brothers, their collection of domain names speaks for itself. Their portfolio include names like PalmSprings.com, Nashville.com, Whisky.com, Cost.com, Daycare.com and many many more. Visit their about page on CCIN.com to read more.
They were kind enough to do an interview with me. Now, just to prepare you for the video, I asked one somewhat edgy question. The question was; did you guys luck into the domain industry? Let me explain myself, because this is in no way shape or form how I feel at all. I have heard the following statement too many times, “I wasn’t lucky enough to have registered domain names ten years ago.” I love what David says in the video, “most people will not do something unless other people are already doing it.” I know the vision and courage it takes to be first, because I’ve done it in my prior real estate businesses.
I apologize ahead of time for the video sound quality. Unfortunately there were not many private areas for us to do the interview. As you’ll hear in the background, the hotel staff was setting up for the welcoming party sponsored by DomainAdvertising.com.
On a non-domain related subject, Michael and David were gracious enough to donate a piece of history to The National September 11 Memorial and Museum. This took place only hours before my meeting with them.
From left to right:
Michael Castello, Jenny Pachucki (9/11 Museum), Alexandra Drakakis (9/11 Museum), David Castello
Yesterday I posted part one of this two part interview of Jeff Kupietzky. In part one Jeff answered five “halvarez” questions that previously went unanswered which you can read here. Here, in part two of the interview you will learn more about Jeff and Oversee.net.
