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In
a social media driven era when so many new enterprises
seem to be built on non-stop hype of unproven
products, it is encouraging to see that slow and
steady can still win the race. Dynadot, a long
time favorite with domain investors, is one
of those companies that is not just still standing,
it is explosively expanding. Meanwhile, most of
those ephemeral enterprises that were built solely
on style rather than substance, have faded
away.
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When
you want to understand how an
entrepreneur built something that has stood
the test of time, you have to know what
makes him or her tick. The way they
think about things and do things are usually
ingrained long before they arrive in
the business world - and that was certainly
the case with Todd Han.
"I
was born in Taiwan but my family
moved to the United States when I was
4 years old," Todd began. "Growing
up, my mother was always telling me
things like "Study hard in school
or you won't be able to afford nice things
in life" or "You better finish
your meal, there are starving children
in the world." I rolled my eyes
when I heard those things growing up, but
now I am saying them to my own children!,"
Todd smiled.
When
his family settled into their new home in
the San Francisco Bay area, Han immediately
showed a knack for building things,
spending hours at a time constructing
spaceships and robots with his favorite toy,
Legos. He also soaked up new
technology like a sponge. "I |
Todd
Han (left) with his brother in Taiwan |
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discovered
computers in middle school and I have
loved them ever since," Han
said. "I especially loved programming
computers. My first computer was Radio
Shack TRS-80 that I programmed in the
Basic language." |
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College
days at UC-Berkeley |
When
Todd reached high school he quickly
stood out with his mastery of
math and science.
"I was a obsessive about doing
well in school," Han recalled. "I
studied hours every day and graduated near
the top of my class." His academic
record got him into UC Berkeley, a
school that, along with UCLA, is tied for
the #1
ranking of America's public
universities.
As
Todd told Leona Chen in a 2021 article
she wrote for the Dynadot
Blog, "My parents
had very high expectations for my
brother and I. So I worked very hard
to graduate 3rd in my class at Palo Alto
High School. Looking back, it was pretty
difficult and required a lot of sacrifices
but I would say my background gave me
the grit and perseverance to succeed as
an entrepreneur. There will always be
mistakes and obstacles that come up when
you’re running a business and my
upbringing taught me how to recover and
recuperate from setbacks. "
After
college, Todd's first job was with a startup
called Wink Communications. "The
company wrote embedded software for set
top boxes for the cable industry. I
worked there as a software engineer for four
years. |
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We
programmed in C and a little assembly. Then
I went back to graduate school at Stanford
and after getting the Masters degree I took
a couple years off and learned web
programming," Han said. |
The
next step in 2002 was the one that set the
path he has been on for the past 21 years -
launching his own domain registrar with Dynadot
- a name he created by merging the
words Dynamic and Dot. "I started the company out
of my house to keep costs low," Han said.
"For the first few years I did everything.
I wrote the code, I did customer service. I did the
bookkeeping. Even on vacation I would be checking
customer service, which was very annoying to my
wife!"
This
is where is all started for Dynadot - a small office
in founder Todd Han's home.
"I
still remember getting our first order. I was
so excited I was jumping up and down in my
home office!," Han remembered fondly. At that
time the registry charged $6 wholesale for a
domain and there was no ICANN fee. Dynadot charged $7.99
retail. However, before Han made that first
sale he had already learned that there was going to
be a lot more to make a domain registration business
work than he originally thought.
"When
I first applied back in 2001, there was a $3,000
ICANN application fee to become a registrar. I
remember asking Ellen Sondheim if I would get
my money back if I wasn't approved. They also
required a bank account with a $70,000
balance," Todd recalled. He made it over those
hurdles but now had to contend with the kind of
expenses business owners of all kinds have to deal
with.
"Our
largest expense by far is registry fees,"
Han said. "After that it is payroll for
our team. We run a very lean operation to keep our
prices as low as possible. I like to believe we
treat our employees well. Many of our early
employees are still with us to this day. They
are all managers now and basically run the business.
I am just the coordinator at this
point." Even so, there is a lot to co-ordinate
these days. Dynadot, who is based in San Mateo,
California with additional offices in Toronto
and Beijing, has over 100,000 customers
representing 108 countries around the world
and a staff that has grown to over 130 team
members to take care of them.
Todd
Han (at far right) with some of the Dynadot
crew
at the 2023 NamesCon Global conference in Austin,
Texas.
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Many
of Dynadot's most loyal customers are domain
investors. They first popped up on my
radar over a decade ago when I saw members
of the NamePros
domain forum raving about the registrar (to
this day Dynadot wins an annual Favorite Registrar
poll at the forum year after year). Han has
appreciated that support and the love is
mutual. |
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"Due
to our low prices and powerful control
panel, we naturally started attracting
domain investors," Han said. "We
started receiving feature requests
from them and really started tailoring
our system for investors. Now
we support almost anything an investor might
want including an extensive API, a
powerful control panel, low prices, and
responsive customer service. Our aftermarket
services are also substantial with full Afternic
and SedoMLS integration, free
for-sale landers, free domain watch list and
tracker tools, an active marketplace and
expired auctions." |
This
summer Dynadot users saw a major makeover of
the brand's website.
A lot more goes into a project like that than most
people realize. "Although
we have our own design team, we decided to hire an
outside firm to work on our rebrand," Han said.
"Fresh eyes can bring new inspiration, a
new calculus. After interviewing five or six
different firms, we choose Flowstate Branding
based out of Colorado. It
was actually a difficult creative process. Countless
meetings, discussions, revisions. Our designers are extremely
exacting, and Flowstate had a new vision that
took us a while to digest. We restarted from scratch
a couple times. However the best art arises from
constraint and conflict."
A
screenshot from our bookmarked domain search page on
Dynadot's revamped website.
The bottom row is a scrolling list of domains
currently listed in Dynadot auctions.
Looking
back at how far Dynadot has come, Han has good
reason to be happy. It has been a long journey and
while he could have ramped up growth more quickly in
the early years it would have come at a cost he
wasn't willing to pay. "I
decided from the beginning not to take investment
from private equity or venture capital firms,"
Todd said. "I wanted to maintain control
of the company, so we could make the best
decisions for our customers and our team.
Because of this we grew slowly at first. We took our
time building an amazing team and technical
foundation for the company and after we hit a
million domains we reached critical mass.
The growth the last few years has been particularly
strong."
Dynadots's
year-by-year growth chart
shows the registrar's surge over the past 5 years.
Looking
ahead, Han said, "My
hope is that Dynadot continues to build beautiful
products and provide excellent customer service. A
full 52% of our team is in engineering and
design. Another 32% is in customer
service. We are fully committed to the customer
experience. Our current business goal is to reach 10
million domains. We will be a top 5 registrar
worldwide at that time and we anticipate
reaching that goal in the next few years."
As
with any business, the health of the general economy
will play a role in Dynadot's rate of future growth.
Han noted, "I
am cautious about the economy. Europe and China
are in recession. The US Fed overnight rate has
risen from 1% to 6% in less than a
year. Rising interest rates are bad for all asset
classes including domain names. The US
commercial real estate market is in decline already.
That said, Dynadot is still growing steadily.
We are on track to have our best year ever in
2023. Though I think our growth is at the
expense of other registrars, and not due to industry
growth."
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After
reading about Han's obsession with academic
achievement in his youth and business
success over the past two decades, you might
expect him to be a workaholic but he still
has a firm grasp on what is most
important in life. "I
spend a lot of time with my family
and we have twin daughters who are in high
school now. My favorite hobbies are ultimate
frisbee and Argentine tango dancing,"
Todd added. "I guess you can say I have
been bitten by the ballroom dancing bug."
"At
work I spend all my time in front of the
computer thinking deeply about company
strategy or writing Java code. Dancing
allows me to decompress and live
in the present. It allows me to express
my non-logical artistic side and I get to
meet all kinds of people and have made many
new friends."
At
right and at far left below: Todd Han
unwinding on the ballroom dance floor. |
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Below:
Todd Han mixing it up in a different arena during
an Ultimate frisbee game.
Whether
it is at work or at play, Todd Han will
continue to rely on the values he learned in
childhood - strive to be the best you can be in
whatever you do!
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