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While
the
NamesCon
conference
covers every aspect of the domain
business the show (which will make
its 3rd annual run Sunday through
Wednesday (January 10-13, 2016)
at the Tropicana Hotel in Las
Vegas) has served as an
especially effective showcase for new
gTLDs. All of the major players
in that category (as well as many of
the smaller ones) will have
representatives at the show to
answer questions about their
extensions.
One
of them will be Rob
Rozicki, Senior VP at StartingDot
Ltd. and Co-Founder of
the company's .ski TLD.
StartingDot also operates .bio
and .archi (for the
architecture world). I first met the
personable snow skiing
fanatic at the first WHD.USA
conference in Pennsylvania last
spring and am looking forward to
seeing him again at NamesCon. Like
so many people in our industry there
is an interesting story behind how
he arrived at his current position
in this business. While Rozicki's
focus is on the company's new TLDs,
he is not new to the space.
"I’ve
been involved with domains and the
Internet in some form or another since
2000." Rozicki said, "My
first exposure to domains was
working with large corporations and
brand
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Rob
Rozicki
Senior VP at StartingDot Ltd.
and .Ski Co-Founder
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owners
on their domain portfolios. The
early 2000s were an exciting time
in the domain name industry. People
were beginning to understand the
value of the web as a business
driver and importantly how domains
influenced peoples Internet usage. I
learnt a lot about what drives
people and businesses to register
domains, which was a great
experience and took me around the
world."
"In
2010 I left the domain name industry
for SEO, helping to
successfully grow one of the top SEO
technology start-ups in New York.
This gave me a real entrepreneurial
itch and new gTLDs gave me the
opportunity to scratch the itch."
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"Launching
the .ski extension was a
natural selection for me
to get into new gTLDs. I’m
a passionate skier and
know that community like the
back of my hand. If you look
at the demographics of the
community and role
technology plays in modern
ski culture its easy to see
how important it is for
skiers, businesses and
brands to have their own
piece of internet real
estate like .ski. Spending
lots of time in the |
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community
made it really easy to see
there was a viable
business model in the
.ski extension,"
Rozkicki said, adding ".bio
and .archi are the
same. Both service
communities that really see
value in having their own
TLD and its great to see
their growth on a daily
basis, validating our
assumptions." |
"One
of the best parts about working with
these three TLDs and StartingDot is
that I get to work with people who
view the space in exactly the same
way. Godefroy Jordan, our CEO
and Founder is a serial French
entrepreneur, who brings a wealth of
business and community experience to
the organization, showing you really
don’t need to be a domain name
veteran to build a successful
registry. Stéphane Van Gelder
is a real domain industry insider.
He was Cofounder and General
Manager, INDOM for over ten
years and is heavily involved in ICANN
as the ICANN Nominating
Committee Chair Elect and a member
of the ICANN Business Users
Constituency, GNSO. With this
balance of skills and experiences
between myself, Godefroy and Stéphane
there is never a dull day at the
office!," Rozicki declared.
"We
also have an amazing international
team supporting the business, which
we couldn’t live without and are
really the engine room of the
operation."
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Not
many people get to combine
something they most love to
do in their free time with
what they do at work.
Rozicki is one of those rare
birds and he realizes how fortunate
he is. "It's
not every day you get to
apply what you are good at
with the thing that you are
passionate about and then on
top of that get to see real
results from that,"
Rozicki agreed. "This
is what makes doing this
really special for me.
I’ve grown up a skier
(apart from a few years
snowboarding) and it’s a
sport that just stays
with you. The feeling of
community, friendship,
adventure and shared risk
all skiers have is an addiction.
I love the way all-cultural
and language barriers disappear
when you’re on the ski
lift, about to drop into a
line or having a beer after
a powder day. I could go on
for hours," Rozicki
laughed.
"Being
able to build a business in
snowsports is a dream come
true for me. I love every
conversation with
business, brands, athletes
and skiers about .ski. And
people love .ski, which
makes it even better. Its
early days but it really
feels like we’re building
a |
Skiing
image from Bigstock |
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legacy
for the snowsports
community. A real resource
that will become part of the
norm," Rozicki said.
"Another bonus is that
promoting .ski keeps me out
of the office and on the
mountains!" |
Of
course, new
TLDs are just that – new
– so, as with the hundreds of
other news extensions, the biggest
challenge StartingDot faces is making
the public aware that .ski exists.
"Awareness
is a huge challenge for us,"
Rozicki acknowledged. "That’s
why we took a very different
approach to other TLDs when it
came to raising awareness. Many
waited to launch before marketing
and promoting their TLDs (and some still
don’t). We’ve were promoting
.ski to the community for at least two
years before launch. This really
paid off. A survey we ran
across brands, individuals and
resorts showed there was over 60%
awareness of a new .ski extension
over a year before we launched. With
.ski we have a very top down
approach. Our goal is to get
resorts, brands, athletes and media
adopting .ski domains and they are.
One example is that almost 1500
resorts already have their .ski
names because of the partnerships
we’ve created with national resort
organizations around the
world."
"Once
the community begins to realize they
are naturally using .ski domains to
visit their favorite .ski sites, we
hope they will think about .ski when
it comes time for them to launch
their site," Rozicki noted.
"But that’s not it. We’re
also really active in the
community. We’re at resorts
and mountain, at shows and
competitions, involved in the
governing bodies and heavily promote
.ski in social media. This
approach is the same for .bio and .archi.
It’s a model we’ve developed
that has been proven to work"
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With
bigger new TLD operators
running dozens or even
hundreds of extensions, we
wondered if StartingDot has
ambitions to run more than
the three TLDs they started
with. Rozicki told us,
"We
have our hands pretty full
at the moment managing just
three. However, if the right
opportunity came along,
we would certainly look at
it seriously. The right
opportunity would need to be
a TLD that fits into our
wheel house of expertise, be
easy for the community its
aimed too understand, have a
global community big enough
for the TLD to be successful
and can where our marketing
strategy can work."
In
closing Rozicki added,
"I also think there is
something to be said for
building a portfolio of
related TLDs. I think there
are a lot of TLDs in |
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certain
sectors that are
underdeveloped. Sports TLDs
is one example. I think
we might see registries
build small portfolios of
similar TLDs whether it is
sports or something
else." |
If
you see Rob at NamesCon be sure to say
hi. I know sometimes people are
uncomfortable approaching someone
they don't know and wonder how to
break the ice? In this case, just
mention skiing and Rob will
take care of the rest!
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