Morning Folks!!
What really amazes me.........
When I look back at those 15 years I think the one that really impresses me the most is that I saw something before there was something.
There were no Domain Forums. Matter of fact, there were very few forums. Nothing like the forums of today.
There was no Google.
There was no PPC
There were no ebooks
There were no blogs
There were no Domain Trade Shows
There were no domainers
There was nobody else to talk with or compare notes.
There were no commercials
There were barely any websites of importance at all.
It was a desert!
It was barren
It was lonely
Less than 10% of businesses had an Internet connection
Less than 5% of homes had an Internet connection
It was a huge risk on something that was new, had little traction and basically went to a bunch of dead ends.
The domains were $100 each and there was but one registrar who was completely incompetent.
Network Solutions was probably the worst run company any human being had ever seen. I can’t tell you how many different domains I had to register 3x to actually get the domain. The 9 month lag in sending the invoice to get paid was my “seed money” to get into business. So while this was the worst run company I have ever seen, it also took them 9 MONTHS to send out the invoices to actually get paid. That financed my entire endeavor.
I never saw a company FORGET to put in a cash register for the product they were selling. Network Solutions was the first in History I think. I believe.
Now I don’t want to turn this into a “Knock Network Solutions Post” because they have improved so much over the years. But try to get your head around the following example.
NSI had a monopoly on every domain registration. They had 100% market share. Very few companies ever had such a deal like they did. 100% of the marketplace and selling a product for $100 with no real cost basis other than the service aspect. From there they got their lunch eaten over the next 10 years. Godaddy comes to town with a funny name and then knocks NSI off the throne before NSI could throw a single punch back.
So who is responsible for this calamity? I don’t care either way, but what a stunning story.
Whoever is reading this all I can say is that even if this is your first day in the world of domains, there has never been a better opportunity that was available to more people than this. Never in the history of mankind. 99% may choose not to believe that. That is unfortunate for them. And while I would have expected that 15 years ago and got more laughs than you folks will ever know, today we have 15 years of history and sales and accomplishments. Facts speak louder than every post all of us have ever made and I have waited 15 years to say that. The real game starts NOW. So nobody is too late. Take what you know and recalibrate.
The first thing to do when you recalibrate is to stop what you are doing, see where you are, List what you have accomplished, List your disappointments, consider the different directions and then modify whatever it is you are doing just enough to have a big impact.
