|
broke
it as a professional boxer who became a close friend to Muhammad
Ali. Boxing and becoming a Wall Street wizard are two
disciplines that rarely go hand in hand. But that’s not all.
Hardy was also a sports agent, representing several NFL
and NBA stars, the business advisor to tennis greats Venus
and Serena Williams and a business partner with rap
superstar Master P. To add further spice to the mix, in
1994 he hand registered what would become one of the world’s
most valuable domain names, NewYork.com, a name he continues to
hold today (along with over a thousand others).
How
does one guy touch so many diverse bases? Leland has
always loved learning and there are few subjects he has
not at least dabbled in. That intellectual curiosity has made
his life an ongoing adventure with many chapters still to be
written – but what he has already accomplished would make a
pretty darn good book. If Eytan Elbaz, who recently left Google
to become an independent filmmaker wants to turn it into a
movie, 46-year-old Renaissance man Hardy is still young enough
to play the lead role himself.
|
Hardy
was born in 1961 in Philadelphia where he still makes his
home. He was the youngest of Melvin and Avis Hardy’s four
children, arriving after brothers Melvin Jr. and Gilbert
and sister Judith. Avis was a Registered Nurse who became
the first black Director of Nursing in the history of Pennsylvania
Hospital (operated by the Ivy League’s University of
Pennsylvania, this facility was the first hospital in
America). Melvin was a North Carolina A&T graduate
who went |
|
U.S.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence
Thomas (above) was the college and
law school roommate of Leland's late
brother Gilbert Hardy |
on to hold several management positions in Philadelphia
government, culminating his career as director of the Philadelphia
Housing Authority. Both are gone now – Avis passed away in
1992 followed by Melvin just over a year ago, but the parents
passed a set of great values on to their children.
Hardy
told us, “My parents focus on education, the fact that
I was the product of an intact, nuclear family, and my
having as role models my parents and siblings clearly
shaped my focus on academic achievement.” The
way his siblings excelled did indeed leave Leland with a
high standard to live up to. Brother Melvin Jr., who was
12 years older, graduated from Villanova and got
his Master’s Degree from Columbia University.
Today he is the Director of Fundraising at the University
of Maryland.
The
next oldest brother, Gilbert, was 11 years older than
Leland and he too was an academic star. Gilbert
graduated from Holy Cross and got his law degree
at Yale. In both college and law school his
roommate was current U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Clarence Thomas, who was also the best man at
Gilbert’s wedding. Tragically, Gilbert perished at the
age of 38 in a 1989 scuba diving accident in Morocco.
|
|
| Sister
Judith also graduated from Holy Cross and went on
to get a medical degree from Thomas Jefferson Medical
College in Philadelphia. The Board Certified
anesthesiologist has now switched gears and works as a
Certified Financial
Planner in suburban Atlanta and also spends time
rooting for her son Andre Fluellen, a star senior
defensive tackle at Florida State who is expected
to go high in next spring’s NFL draft.
Clearly
Hardy’s family had set a high standard for him to live up to
and though he also achieved a high level of professional success
he used a different road map to get there. Leland was the
only one of the kids who did not spend all of their school years
in private Catholic institutions. In high school he decided he
wanted to go public at Philadelphia’s famous Central High
School (a school that has been ranked as the best academic
public high school in the country).
|
Leland
and sister "Judi" |
|
“In
high school I was surrounded by the best of the best and the
smartest of the smartest,” Hardy said. “Our valedictorian,
for example, went on to be valedictorian of his class at Harvard.
Central High is perhaps the only school in the country where you
can actually earn a BS degree if you graduate with a
sufficiently high GPA with a requisite minimum number of
Advanced Placement courses. Our worldwide alumni network is
dearer to alumni hearts than is any subsequent collegiate or
professional network.”
|
As
early as elementary school Hardy looked like cinch to be
a star at any high school he attended. During a 6th
grade Spanish class he fell in love with foreign
languages and foreign cultures. “Everything about the
language came naturally and easily to me and I found myself
giving classmates hand signals to help them ace our
tests. I
continued my study of Spanish through high school and as
a senior I won the American Association of Teachers
of Spanish and Portuguese national Spanish Contest
as the #1 non-Hispanic speaker of Spanish in the
country,” Hardy recalled. However, that would be one
of the few highlights in his prep career. |
Hardy
speaking at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
East 2007 conference in Hollywood,
Florida |
|
"I
was far from the cream of the crop at Central. I floundered
around in high school and was by no means focused in
any particular direction (though my demonstrated
language proficiencies oriented me toward things
international). I was determined to change that
once I got to college and I did just that,” Hardy
said.
|
College
Days - Leland Hardy
outside IUP's Elkin Hall in 1980 |
“I
went to a relatively small state school, Indiana
University of Pennsylvania (IUP), in Indiana, PA
(birthplace of Jimmy Stewart and the Christmas
tree capitol of the world) where I adopted the mindset
– “If you literally pack up all of your belongings
and move to another city where your sole purpose in
life is to wake up, attend classes, take notes in
those classes, study the assignments given to you, get
free tutoring if needed, and to take tests based on that
study and those assignments, how could you possibly not
get straight A’s?” I remember vividly hearing
comments like “No wonder he gets straight A’s; all
he does is study all the time!”
“Once
I got to college, having mastered Spanish, I studied other
languages intensely, including Japanese, Chinese and French,
while dabbling in others, including Russian and Italian. I ended
up spending five years in undergrad on purpose because I
loved the school itself so much and because I loved
studying and learning in general so much, I graduated from IUP
with the most undergraduate credits in the school’s history.
I was later rewarded for that effort with the IUP
Distinguished Alumni Award, the school’s highest honor,
for which I was the youngest ever and only second
African-American to win the award.” |
|
|
“I
have always tried to be the best in whatever I
pursued. My time at IUP was no different, and that
included my having done so to the extent that I was reprimanded
by the directors of the Program for Scholars. I still
have a circa 1978 letter from the Program admonishing
me for “spending countless hours in the billiard room mastering
shot angles” and for taking non-credit classes
like Practical Uses and Techniques in Hypnosis
when I could have been better using my time,” Hardy
laughed. |
|
Hardy
speaking at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
East 2007 conference in Hollywood,
Florida |
He
wound up double majoring in pre-med and business and
partially due to his foreign language skills wound up
landing a spot in the inaugural class of the Joseph
H. Lauder Institute of Management and International
Studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s
prestigious Wharton School where he earned both
MBA and MA degrees in finance and international studies
with a focus on China, and he was the first ever
African-American fellow.
“For me, it was all about the pursuit of excellence in
a broad variety of fields and endeavors and that brings
me to how I got involved in boxing,”
Hardy said. While I was at
IUP, I and my longtime roommate and a fellow Central
High alumnus, Leon Newsome, answered an ad in the
school newspaper calling for students who were
interested in participating in a boxing exhibition to
come down to the athletic field house for possible
inclusion in a sidebar to an upcoming Golden Gloves
event featuring local prisoners on furlough. |
|
As
a dare and as a publicity stunt of sorts, we
answered the call and showed up for the
auditions
with Leon as my Manager and me as the combatant. I had never
boxed before and, in fact, had only stepped into a
boxing ring once before in my life during a 7th grade
field trip.
I
ended up being matched against a 275-pound offensive
lineman from the IUP football team and when fight
day arrived, I relied only upon what I had seen on TV
from my idol, the Greatest of All Times, Muhammad Ali.
I did everything I had seen him do, including the
Ali Shuffle, the rope-a-dope, shoe-shining and I won
my amateur debut in fine fashion, despite being
outweighed by 80 pounds!” Hardy exclaimed. |
|
“It
so happened that the President of the local Golden
Gloves chapter, Johnny Kostas, was in attendance
that night, After the fight he implored me to come to
his club to try out for his team. After countless
postponements for both real and imagined reasons, I
finally took him up on his offer. I trained as hard
for boxing as I studied in school and my diligence
paid off. I went on to compile a not so shabby amateur
record of 36-5 (and two of the losses were outright
robberies) and I won the Pennsylvania State
Heavyweight Championship in 1983. That led to my
representing the state at the National Golden Gloves
Championships in Albuquerque, New Mexico and
earning a birth at the Eastern Olympic Trials for a spot
on the 1984 U.S. Los Angeles Olympic Team.”
“Unfortunately,
I didn’t make it through. The 1984 class was our
greatest Olympic boxing class ever, with the likes of Mark
Breland, Tyrell Biggs, Meldrick Taylor,
Pernell Whitaker, Virgil Hill and Henry
Tillman winning Gold medals, and Evander
Holyfield getting a disputed Bronze. Even Mike
Tyson was in our class, though he lost back-to-back
matches to eventual Gold Medalist Henry Tillman and
never made it to the Olympics,” Hardy said.
“I
had already established a plan that included my getting
into Wharton in the event that I didn’t make the
Olympic Team. Unfortunately or fortunately, I didn’t
make the team, so I enrolled at Wharton but two weeks
after getting my degree I turned professional and made
my pro boxing debut on ESPN.” |
Leland
Hardy photo
courtesy of Brady Dillsworth |
At
Wharton, Hardy’s Lauder Institute Fellowship required that he
enter the program with a minimum level of fluency in at least
one foreign language, and that he select a target language with
which to pursue mastery through immersion in a country of the
target language. “I decided to focus on Chinese since I
had become fluent in it while at IUP,” Hardy said. “As a
result, I spent the summer of 1984 at the Beijing Foreign
Languages Institute in Beijing. Because the school’s
administration had been misinformed that my roommate,
Lauder Fellow Keith Abell, and I were fluent in reading
and writing characters (we were essentially illiterate),
they had developed lesson plans for us based on our assumed reading
and writing abilities.”
“When
we explained that we learned the language using PinYin
Romanization (A to Z phoneticization of characters) and that we
could neither read nor write, save for a few characters, they
were in no way compassionate or understanding. Their response
was “Too bad! I guess you’ll have to study extra
hard then.” Thus began what was literally about 100
consecutive 20-hour days of intense immersion in Chinese
language and culture,” Hardy ruefully recalled.
|
This
photo of Leland Hardy
appeared in Sports Illustrated |
“One
day, about two weeks after my stay began, I received a
message that some people were waiting downstairs at my
dormitory for me. I thought “who in the heck could
possibly be waiting for me literally half a world
away?” It turned out that the local
representatives of the People’s National Boxing
Team became aware of my being there because the
State Government informed them of my background as a
nationally ranked amateur boxer in the U.S. They sought
my help in teaching them the latest training methods and
boxing techniques. As if 20-hour days weren’t
already taxing enough, I began working with the team as
Guest Coach for one hour on Mondays, Wednesdays, and
Fridays. To this day I retain the friendships that I
established with my students and I had them come to
train with me in New York in the mid 1990’s,” Hardy
said.
“During
my second year at Wharton in 1985, I was watching the James
‘Broadax’ Broad vs. Tim Witherspoon fight on TV
with a fellow |
| Central
High and IUP alum, Kevin Hall, when I heard a
commentator laughingly mention that Muhammad Ali, who
was shown in attendance at ringside, was on his way to a
goodwill mission in China and that the
commentator, Vern Lundquist, was going to be his
interpreter. Being Ali’s biggest fan, I
immediately began brainstorming about who I knew who
could introduce me to him,” Hardy said. |
| “I
thought of a close friend, Elmer Smith, who was the
Sports Editor of the Philadelphia Daily News and
was the only full time boxing writer at any major daily
newspaper in the country. Elmer did some digging for me
and, to make a long story short, he arranged for me to speak to
one of Ali’s handlers so that I could explain my unique mix of
boxing, Chinese fluency, and near idol worship of The Greatest.
I did just that and was asked to meet Ali’s party in Washington,
DC so Ali could see for himself if I was for real. I made
the trip to Washington and there was no Ali due to a
scheduling conflict of his. Of course, I thought that no meeting
would ever occur and that my leg was being pulled,”
Hardy recalled.
“A
few weeks later I received another call asking me to
come to the Chinese Embassy in Washington so that
I could meet Ali and arrange for the traveling
parties’ visas in Chinese. This time,
Ali was indeed present and |
Muhammad
Ali (front left) and Leland Hardy (standing
at
center of back row) on Ali's goodwill trip to China in
1985 |
| the first thing he did was
start throwing a barrage of punches at me saying
“You look like Joe Frazier! You look like Joe
Frazier!” After his legendary sidekick, Drew
‘Bundini’ Brown, calmed him down, he took me
inside the embassy to put me to the test to see if I was
qualified to be his official interpreter for the
goodwill trip to China. When I passed with flying
colors, the rest, as they say, is history.”
Hardy even wound up getting to spar with his hero in
China as shown in the photo below. |
|
|
|
“Ali
took me in like he had known me for 20 years. He
took me out to his Hancock Park home in Los
Angeles and had me at the dinner table with the then
toddler, now female boxing champ Laila Ali. He
stuffed a fist full of hundred dollar bills in my
hand and put me in a cab telling me to go and see all of
the sights and to be back by morning so we could head
for the airport for our trip to China. I established a
lifelong friendship with Ali and his family and I am in
regular contact with them to this day,” Hardy said.
|
|
“Based
on my experiences with him I use him as a barometer of what
grace is and what greatness is. I learned from him how to treat
people and how to show love and respect, no matter whether
someone lives in a hut or in a palace. I try to live by Ali’s
mantra that “service to others is the rent we pay for a
room in heaven.”
You
would think that all of these experiences would have left Hardy
with no time to discover domain names – let alone grab a gem
like NewYork.com. But at the same time the events above were
playing out, Hardy was also following a path that led him to his
domain treasures.
“I
was always intrigued by computers once I became exposed to
them,” Hardy said. “At IUP I remember studying FORTRAN
and COBOL, and using the old card punch printing
machines. Then at Wharton from 1984–1986 I thought that
I had died and gone to heaven when the 10MB hard drive
was introduced. I, and many others like me, thought that one
would never need another storage device and that 10 MB
would |
Ali
and Hardy
look over business
documents in Ali's L.A. home - May 1985 |
| hold one’s life’s entire work. I didn’t own my own
PC and to save on trips to the computer lab to use the 10 MB
PCs, during that same period I got my hands on a terminal that I
would use to log into the ARPANET-based mainframe at
Wharton. It was there that I was first exposed to what would
become the Internet,” Hardy said. |
|
Screen
capture from Hardy-Padilla
fight on YouTube.com |
That
provided Hardy with a computer/web foundation that he
would come back to a few years later, but first he went
to Wall Street, worked at Bear Stearns and
helped set up General Motors’ vehicle
manufacturing operations throughout China. He also boxed
professionally from 1986–1991, winning Madison
Square Garden’s “Fight of the Year in 1989”
which Boxing Scene Magazine called one of
the “Top 20 Fights of the 80’s.” “That
knockout win, Leland "Sugarman" Hardy
vs. Ike Padilla, is considered the greatest club
(non main event) fight of all time and is a YouTube
favorite today’” Hardy said.
Around
1994 Hardy started getting back into what was now the
Web. “In so doing I became aware of the domain name
space and I had visions of what it could evolve
into,” |
| Hardy
said. “In 1994 I reserved the name NewYork.com and
over the years I amassed a small portfolio of about
1,000 domains, 99% of which are dot coms, which I
favor greatly over .nets, .infos and other TLDs.” |
The
endless potential of a domain like NewYork.com is so obvious
today that it is shocking to hear what Hardy originally had in
mind for the name when he found it sitting there available for
anyone who wanted it in 1994. “The first concept for the site
was as a shopping service for people around the world who wanted
to get access to the famous faux products from Canal
Street in New York’s Chinatown. That plan was never
implemented as we couldn’t justify the potential risk of
dealing in what is essentially contraband, especially
when we would eventually want advertising and other
relationships with major brands - counterfeit versions of
whose products we contemplated selling through the website,”
Hardy said.
|
Fortunately,
he soon discovered a far better use for the domain.
“After careful study of what people actually wanted
and with the benefit of the likes of Google, Yahoo!
and MSN search, we evolved into what we
think at present is a maximal exploitation of the
business model, the provision of all of the things that
users visit a multiplicity of sites for - hotels,
restaurants, shopping, sightseeing tours, etc., all at one
domain that happens to be the easiest name in the
world to remember,” Hardy said.
“Among
the strategic partnerships that help us accomplish that
are Barry Diller’s Interactive Network, the B2B
hotel |
Hardy
napping under NewYork.com sheets
(photo courtesy of Brady Dillsworth) |
| reservation
component of which is helmed in part by my good friend, Sunil
Bhatt, Google, Hollywood Media, Viator
and others of that kind.” |
As
an athlete and sports fan it is not surprising that several of
Hardy’s other early domain registrations centered on sports
themes. “I got things like GolfSchools.com and DaBulls.com
(as the Chicago Bulls are affectionately known by
their die hard fans). I used that domain when Michael Jordan was
at his peak. But none of them compare to NewYork.com and he is
thankful he never gave up his grasp on that gem.
“To
be sure, I field offers all the time to buy the name or to
partner with me in the exploitation of the name, but my partner,
Tom Stafford, a prominent Philadelphia businessman, and I
have weathered many a storm and many an enticement to accept
offers for sales and partnerships,” Hardy said. “We have a
very long term view of what the Internet will become,
and we regard ourselves as the stewards of arguably, and
certainly potentially, the single most valuable domain in
cyberspace. That said, as sensible businessmen, we’re
obviously open to the right strategic relationship and the right
potential liquidity event(s).”
| While
Hardy has been aware of domains since their earliest
days, it was only a few years ago that their vast
commercial potential really dawned on him. “I always
knew that having quality domains was a real value play,
but it wasn’t until about 2003 when I visited with Ron
Sheridan out at |
|
Leland
Hardy and LeaseThis.com's Carron Allen
at the
T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East 2007 conference in Florida
(photo courtesy of Barbara Neu) |
his
Oversee.net offices in Los Angeles (at the
introduction of my friend and Account Manager at Google,
Jana Lidz) that I really appreciated how
enormous the business is,” Hardy said. “It
didn’t take too many sales, like Business.com
and Sex.com, whose multi-million dollar prices
shocked Main Street, to fully appreciate the magnitude
of the industry.”
Hardy
finally made it to his first T.R.A.F.F.I.C.
conference last month in Hollywood, Florida where
he saw the hammer drop on another blockbuster – Computers.com
at $2.2 million in Moniker’s live
auction. But it was a smaller sale at that event that
really caught his attention. Hardy said, “More
importantly, at that same auction RapVideos.com
sold for $70,000. I say “more
importantly” because, as arguably the only Black
domainer of some repute, I feel it incumbent upon me
to expose the lesser represented among us, not just
other Blacks, but the lesser |
| represented
around the world - in Asia, Latin America,
Africa, and right here in America -
to the domain industry. As the founder and original
registrant of NewYork.com, and as someone who sat in the
auction room when RapVideos.com – something completely
relevant to a large segment of our culture – sold
for $70,000, I can bring a lot of credibility when I
advise audiences that their $9.99 investment with
the likes of a GoDaddy.com domain purchase could
yield such astounding returns.” |
“As
a result, I am launching Internet
Equality which is a broad based global initiative
to educate the masses about the importance of their being
connected to the Web and, most importantly, exactly and
specifically how to do so. I will be joining GoDaddy.com CEO Bob
Parsons as his live in-studio guest on the weekly GoDaddy
Live radio show November 14th at 1:00pm
(U.S. Pacific Standard Time/4:00pm Eastern) to talk about
this very important project. In addition, I will be giving the
keynote address at Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius’
Martin Luther King, Jr. state holiday observance on Jan. 17,
2008 with a speech titled “From Racial Equality to
Internet Equality – Applying Dr. King’s Principles to the
Internet Age”.
| Some
of Hardy’s appreciation for the potential of a domain
like RapVideos.com comes from his close association with
one of the world’s best known rappers and music
impresarios – Master P. “Master P is a close
friend and arguably the hardest working man in show
business,” Hardy said.
“I
had been representing athletes for many years as a
Certified NFL Player Agent and Certified NBA Player
Agent when I learned of Master P's interest in parleying
his prominence as a Rap music superstar, potential
NBA player (he made it to the final cuts of the Charlotte
Hornets and Toronto Raptors in 1998 and 1999,
respectively) and member of the Forbes Magazine
"40 Wealthiest Americans Under Age 40"
list into prominence atop the sports management world. Our
collaboration was a match made in heaven as I brought my
considerable agent representation experience to the
table to compliment all of his strengths. No
Limit Sports Management, named after his very
popular No Limit Records, was born. We
enjoyed a great run that included representing the 1999 Heisman
Trophy winner, Ricky Williams, and numerous
other NFL and NBA players, like 7’7” star Manute
Bol.” |
Rap
Star Master P |
“After
a few years, we transitioned into different aspects of the
sports business - Master P focusing on the development of his
basketball prodigy son, Rap star, Lil' Romeo, who recently
signed a letter of intent to play his college basketball at Southern
Cal, and me on the educational side of professional sports
with my B.I.C.E.P.S. Program, the Business Institute
for Continuing Education in Professional Sports, the program
that I created from my original concept to deliver
customized business education to professional athletes and
entertainers. My program is what you see on the news each
off season since 2005 with packed classrooms of NFL
players attending business classes during their off season at Wharton,
Harvard, Stanford and the Kellogg School at
Northwestern University.”
|
Hardy
served as the family Business Advisor
for tennis stars Serena Williams (left in
the
photo above) and Venus Williams (right). |
Hardy
said "I was also the family Business Advisor for
tennis’s Williams family for some 15 years from
the time that Venus and Serena were 6 and 7 years old
respectively, until they reached majority. I'm
credited with single-handedly bringing the PUMA
brand back from oblivion by signing the then 16-year-old
Serena to the world's only multi-media apparel and
footwear agreement with PUMA. The 8-figure plus
deal included Internet provisions, feature film
appearances, TV commercials, and Serena personally
designing her own line of athletic wear in concert
with the company's designers. All of this and she
was ranked only #100 in the world and had never swung a
racquet as a professional!” Hardy declared. No
surprise that Hardy won the 1999-2000 Advertising
Age Magazine "Marketing 100" Award as
one of the top 100 marketers in America.
Hardy
added “By the way, Emira and Jabari Stafford,
the 10 and 12 year old children of my partner in |
| NewYork.com,
Tom Stafford, are better than Venus and Serena
were at the same ages, and are arguably the best ever
in history at their age, so I advise your
readers to look out for them soon.” |
Hardy
now has his sites set on plans to develop more of the domains in
his portfolio as he has done with NewYork.com. “I plan
to unpark many of them, having a first-threshold goal of 1,000
fully operational websites by the end of 2008, covering a
broad range of topics, ranging from energy conservation (CleanBiodieselFuel.com),
to crime prevention (CatchPedophiles.org), to sports (FastEddieChambers.com)
to everything in between,” Hardy said.
|
Hardy
protege "Fast" Eddie Chambers
The unbeaten heavyweight has a
30-0 record with 16 knockouts. |
“In
the latter connection, Phase I of the FastEddieChambers.com
website went live on the morning of November 2, 2007 to
support the professional boxer whom I represent, ‘Fast’
Eddie Chambers, as he prepared for his November 2nd
elimination fight to fight for the Heavyweight
Championship of the World. Chambers is universally
recognized as the best American heavyweight and boasts a
perfect professional record of 30-0 with 16
knockouts. Our mission is to bring the Heavyweight
Championship of the World back to American soil. In
terms of the Internet, the mission is to have him be the
first professional athlete, certainly the first ever
professional boxer, to have a comprehensive global
e-commerce based Internet strategy as part of his
armamentarium,” Hardy said.
“In
so doing, we recently formed a marketing alliance for
Chambers with domain legend Michael Mann and his Washington
VC/Grassroots.org operation for the promotion of
their Phone.com telephony services. Phone.com
branding on Chambers’ apparel, on his website, and in
certain of his public activities will expose
Phone.com’s next generation telephony services to
millions of prospective customers worldwide,” Hardy
predicted. |
Hardy
has to balance his domain related endeavors with a full-time
career in the financial world. “I handle all global business
development for Hennessee
Group LLC, the world's preeminent hedge fund
advisory firm and the creators of the Hennessee Hedge Fund
Index, which, more than any other benchmark, is quoted
and referenced in the financial news media, and is relied upon
by traders and others as THE definitive information
source for all things hedge funds,” Hardy said. “I'm quite
proud of the fact that over the Index's 20 year life from 1987
to the present, the Hennessee Hedge Fund Index has
dramatically outpaced every major benchmark, including the Dow
Jones Industrial 30, the NASDAQ, the Russell 2000,
the Lehman Brothers Bond Index, and the S&P 500.
(Click
here to see the comparative indices chart and click
here to see the comparative indices scatter diagram).
|
“The
company also publishes the Hennessee
Hedge Fund Review monthly, which provides a
comprehensive hedge fund performance review, statistics,
and market analysis. One of my focuses is to market and
promote the Index's enviable returns to large
institutions, like corporate and government pension
funds, sovereign funds like China's $200 billion China
Investment Company Ltd., and others of that ilk, as
well as to quasi-institutional and other high net worth
individuals. Specifically, Hennessee Group provides
clients with investment strategy consulting and
direct hedge fund investments,” Hardy said.
With
all of that on his plate, Hardy still views domains as
an investment category well worth spending his time and
money on. “I think that the business has huge
upside potential for years to come,” Hardy said.
“What with the emergence of new TLDs, and a better
understanding of the value of the most appropriate
domain for one’s business, I think we will continue to
see ever higher prices paid for domains. I also believe
that what I call “longer, more
intuitive names”, for example NeverGainWeight.com
and |
Leland
Hardy photo
courtesy of Brady Dillsworth |
| DubaiCraneRentals.com,
will have increasing value as users increasingly type
what they want directly into browsers rather than
search for what they want using search engines.” |
Hardy
added “I would like to play an increasingly important role in
the space by judiciously acquiring names through original
registration and through strategic acquisition. I believe that
there is a real opportunity to institutionalize the
arbitrage of name acquisition/sales and I am looking at putting
together an M&A operation, if you will, for the domain
space.”
| However
things play out in the years ahead, Hardy will always
remember his visit to T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East where he met
so many fellow domain investors face to face for the
first time. “I felt a sense of camaraderie unlike
any I have felt in any other industry, and I have
been involved |
| in
a number of disparate endeavors. It is as if domainers
recognize that we are a small, nuclear subculture within
the Internet industry and we operate by our own sense of
honor and self regulation,” Hardy said.
“I
especially enjoyed meeting legends like Frank
Schilling who has some 450,000 domains in his
portfolio, and Michael Mann, who is arguably the
most prolific domainer of all times - not because of the
sizes of their respective portfolios, but rather because
of how genuinely nice each guy is. I also
thoroughly enjoyed meeting those who provide the
services that help us domainers maximize revenue from
our parked pages, and the journalists who keep us all
informed, not the least of whom is the editor of this
very publication and his lovely wife,” Hardy said. We
certainly enjoyed meeting him as well and appreciate
that Leland has proven once again that the greatest
thing about this business are the people in it. |
Leland
Hardy and Forbes Magazine
publisher
Steve Forbes at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East 2007 |
*****
|
