What a wonderful opportunity for me to interview Mike Mann who owns SEO.com domain name in digital marketing. I was very excited to interview him and it took lot of time to get reply from busy person like Mike who runs various companies too. Mike is big domainer and people know him as domain king. I already interviewed lot of domainer on my blog you can check some interviews here.
Mike founded and manages Make Change! Trust, a charitable fund that supports select 501(c)(3) organizations.
Mike is also the founder of several successful, active, for-profit corporations. Three of these corporations were listed among the 2012 Inc 500 fastest growing companies in America, including Phone.com, DomainMarket.com and SEO.com.
In many cases his companies exchange resources, talent and technologies in their never-ending quest to deliver innovative, profitable digital products and services.
In 1994 he founded Internet Interstate, which he sold to Verio Inc. in 1997, then becoming President of VerioDC. After Mike left, Verio went public, and then sold to NTT of Japan in a multi-billion dollar transaction. (Years before Verio, Mike gave Internet training sessions to top NTT executives visiting the US.)
In 1998, he founded BuyDomains.com (now NameMedia), the world’s largest secondary market for domain names, and sold majority interest to Highland Capital and Summit Partners in 2005, along with the “Seeq.com” search engine portal.
Between 1998 and 2001, Mike served as the founding Chairman of the non-profit ByteBack.org, which is an innovator in operating free computer and job training centers serving inner-city communities.
In 2007, Mike and WashingtonVC.com founded Yield Software, a company which delivers cutting-edge online marketing software. Within two years the majority of Yield was sold to venture capitalists Draper Fisher and international marketing conglomerate WPP. In 2011 Yield Software was acquired by Autonomy Corporation, an HP company.
Mike is also the author of Make Millions a book focused on making money in small business so we can better serve society.
As an early Internet pioneer, Mike has received a patent for his groundbreaking domain name technology.
The Domain Name Suggestion Patent “WhoisPlus/NameFind” (Mike’s December 11, 2003 invention) is used or copied by virtually every domain name company, which ultimately represents the majority of end user registrations ever since, many millions of domains.
How many domain names do you have in your portfolio. Can you share some of them?
250,000 Tasty.com HappyBirthday.com Angola.com Lure.com VaticanCity.com Obey.com, please search by keyword at www.DomainMarket.com
Imagine starting out as a domainer today, what types of domains would you register?
I wouldn’t register them, would buy on auctions, just the best .Coms at the lowest prices
Do you spend anytime in domainer forums. Which blogs do you follow in domain industry?
Try not too, too much BS, although my pals have a few good ones Mike Berkens, Andrew Alleman, Elliot Silver, etc
Are new heavily marketer extensions like .tv or .mobi a good opportunity to invest ?
No, bad, and those aren’t new though; others are new like .club .xyz, .web and thousand more new gTLDs, search Google “Mike Mann gtlds” for extensive commentary please.
Which domain tools you use daily in your business. Please share it?
We developed them all internally, big data scans and manipulations to study domain space
How to grab expired domains , any best platforms for finding expired domains?
Again the auction sites are where the most action is, snapnames, etc
What opportunities exist in TLD’s other than .com ?
Too risky to invest in any others unless you are the worlds best investor
How new GTLD’s changing domain industry face. What is our take on it ?
Its useless and confusing, some exceptions for example Golf.Club ABC.xyz are somewhat natural but not many of them and still risky too, search Google “Mike Mann gtlds” for extensive commentary please
What would be your single piece of advice to new domainers?
Com is king
How do make profit on domains, what is your best strategy please share here?
Buy only the best .Coms, for relatively cheap, sell them for as much as possible, hold them as long as necessary, try to monetize them in the interim in whatever way you can
How many 2 letter and 3 letter domains you own ?
Suppose I am newbie domainer or blogger How to do networking with big domainers in the events or on social media. What should be the approach ?
Go to the events in FLA and Vegas etc and drink with them, add value on their blogs and social media
How to build trust in domain industry as there are many frauds happening in domain industry recently ?
Go with veteran people and companies with documented history and reputations, get references and google everyone and read their social media…
How did you grew your domain business, how did you build relationships with big domainers out there?
I grew it by working 24x7x365 studying domains and prices and data, hiring the best people, and taking on lots of risky investments
.I just met the domainers online and at some conferences
-All the best !
