Last week I had the privilege of interviewing the one and only Rick Schwartz. Rick Schwartz is the founder of T.R.A.F.F.I.C., the events that turn out the who’s who in the domaining industry. Rick either owns or has owned domain names like Candy.com, Property.com, Properties.com, Porno.com, Ass.com, CD.com, Widgets.com, Men.com and many many more HIGH END names.

Just a brief background on Rick.  He has gone from working in the retail furniture business to owning an extremely successful drop ship company.  Rick sold the home based drop ship company in 1998 for over seven figures. Through marketing of his own home based business he realized the importance of domain names and having an online presence. Rick purchased a set of domains for his business and then a set of domains related to the adult industry.  The adult related domains started producing steady income from $25 a day to a couple years later $500 a day.  This at the time was just a hobby. These events and a few others lead up to the day were Rick purchased Porno.com for $42,000, which at that time was unheard of. After Porno.com came Ass.com, eRealEstate.com and Men.com. The rest is history and if your in domaining you know what has come of this.

Q. At the last T.R.A.F.F.I.C. event in Brooklyn NY 250 Rick Schwartz bobbleheads were handed out. Who came up with this idea?
A. I was contacted by Warren Royal who is a domainer that bought Bobbleheads.com and asked me if it was ok to do one of me to promote his new business. I thought it would be fun and agreed to it. They did a really good job and shows the depth domainers have when it comes to business. Warren also recently authored a book and has several other projects going.
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Speak Your Mind (7)

Estibot.com is one of if not the most popular free domain name appraisal service available, for this reason I had to find out more about the man behind the site. If for some reason you have not used the service please visit Estibot.com. The appraisals are free, they also offer a paid membership which helps you find domain names.

During the interview process I learned some interesting facts about Dr. Esa, yes I said DOCTOR. I am just going to let everyone read for themselves.

Q. How old are you Esa?
A. Let’s just say I’m in my 30′s. My son is 10 months old

Q. What is your educational background?
A. I have two doctorate degrees, an M.D. and also a Ph.D in Neuroscience. I originally majored in IT for a year but then decided to pursue a career in medicine and life sciences. I’ve come full circle now. I think that my scientific training has helped me to develop a systematic approach to domain valuation and other domain name research.
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I came across Jamie’s work while visiting Domaining.com.  For those of you not familiar with Domaining.com it is a site that showcases the latest headlines via RSS feeds of all the major blogs.  I often go to this site to check what is going on with the industry.  While visiting the site I noticed DotWeekly.com several times a day actually.  I further looked and found a great domainer blog with tons of information and tips.  After familiarizing myself with them I also realized that Jamie was a fellow member of NamePros forum, my favorite forum I must add.  Not only was he a fellow member but come to find out he was voted member of the month (MOTM) for August 2008.  MOTM is a very nice award to get in my opinion.  What’s better than being recognized for your hard work by the peers you chat with every day.  I think with everything he has done for the community it seemed like a good fit for an interview. 
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Speak Your Mind (2)

I am a personal reader of Mark Fulton’s work.  Mark is a young busy entrepreneur, it took about a week to get this interview completed, but worth the wait.  He has created a great domainer blog through DotSauce.com.  In fact, congratulations to Mark for being one of six domain blogs featured in the July issue of Modern Domainer Magazine.

Lets get to the questions and answers.

Q: How old are you Mark?
A: I am going on 25 years November 6th, where I will be at the Texas Domainers & Developers Conference, come celebrate with me!

Q: What is your educational background?
A: I attended the University of North Carolina at Wilmington for almost 3 years and decided to launch my own internet businesses which took up too much of my time. While some might call me a dropout, I consider myself on an “extended break” and hope to finish up my last year sooner than later! I hope to major in Professional Writing.

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