NamesCon Global,
sharing the same venue and dates and allowing those
with a ticket to either show to attend any sessions
they wish in the other.
WHD
GmbH CEO Christian Jaeger and Soeren von
Varchmin, Chairman of the NamesCon Advisory Board,
are keenly aware of NamesCon's legacy and
wanted to make sure the landmark 10th anniversary
edition of the event, held June 5-8, 2024
at the downtown Omni Hotel in Austin, Texas
lived up to expectations. They accomplished that with
an all-star agenda that brought several of the
industry's biggest players back in person at a
live event for the first time in years.
WHD
GmbH CEO Christian Jaeger (left) and Chairman
of the NamesCon Advisory Board
Soeren von Varchmin on stage at the 2024
NamesCon Global conference in Austin, Texas.
Above:
When Soeren von Varchmin opened the show
Wednesday morning (June 5) he called NamesCon
Co-Founder Jothan
Frakes up to the stage to talk about what
was in store for attendees. Jothan played a key role
in putting together an outstanding agenda for NamesCon
Global 2024. We will be taking you through all of
it this article.
I
had the honor of interviewing three of the all-time
great domain broker/consultants in separate sessions
on opening day, including back-to-back interviews with
Hilco
Digital Assets Managing Director Andrew
Miller and Evergreen.com
Founder Jen Sale that kicked off the show and
another with MediaOptions.com
Founder Andrew Rosener in the
afternoon.
Above:
In a session titled Andrew Miller's High Stakes
Deals: how Does He Do It? we got into Andrew's
business (and life) philosophy that has helped
him close many of the biggest domain sales of all
time, including Chat.com last year at $15.5
million and this year's biggest sale to date (by
far) Gold.com at $8,515,000. For many
other examples and Andrew's life history, see our April
2024 Cover
Story about him. It includes more details
about a topic Andrew discussed in our interview (one
that surprised many) - how the legendary rock band The
Grateful Dead influenced the way he approaches
business and life.
Above:
Immediately after the session with Andrew, I had the
great pleasure of welcoming Evergreen.com Founder
and the best ambassador Australia could ever
hope to have, Jen Sale, to the stage. Jen has
been in this business for more than 20 years and
has handled domain sales totaling 9 figures during
her illustrious career, yet many haven't heard as much
about her as you would expect for someone with her
incredible track record. That is by design. Though
gregarious by nature Jen also values her privacy. This
was her first time back to NamesCon in seven years
so you can imagine how delighted everyone was to see
her and hear what she has been up to.
The
popular Women of the Web group that meets every
year at NamesCon (more on this year's meeting is
coming up in this article) was founded in Jen's
hotel room when she invited a few friends over to
discuss the idea. She has also become a certified
expert and frequent speaker on both digital
wellness and general wellness and is a passionate travel
bug who co-founded GoodJourneying.com.
We talked about all of those things and now that
we've lured her off of her beloved beach Down Under I am hoping
we will be seeing and hearing a lot more from her
going forward!
Above:
The final morning session Wednesday was one of the
best you will ever see on any stage - three of
the best who have ever done it (or ever will do it), Andrew
Miller, Andrew Rosener and Larry Fischer
(GetYourDomain.com),
left to right, talked about Striking Gold
with Domains: The Art of the Large Deal. This
is something they all know inside out. Larry worked
with Andrew Miller on the $15.5 million Chat.com deal
as well as the Home.com sale that the duo
talked about in one of the most memorable sessions at
NamesCon last year. Andrew Rosener sold X.com
to Elon Musk, Prime.com to Amazon
and Zoom.com to Zoom, to name just a few
of his marquee transactions. If you tried to total up
the value of this trio's combined transactions your
calculator would explode. No wonder many left this
session thinking it was worth the price of a
conference ticket for this one alone.
NamesCon
Global runs on two tracks but on opening day,
action on the Moniker Stage didn't begin until
after the lunch break. When it opened, I went back and
forth between the 2nd floor Keynote Hall and the
Moniker Stage (adjacent to the Exhibit Hall on
the first floor) for the rest of the conference to
catch as many sessions as possible. To make events
easier to follow, from this point on I will take you
through the rest of the day on the Keynote Stage, then
through everything that happened on the Moniker Stage.
We will do the same for day two Thursday and day
three Friday (Saturday was a closing Fun Day
with a single event for all that we will close with).
Above:
The lunch break is always a popular time for people to
take a walk through the Exhibit Hall and catch
up with their favorite service providers and see what
is new from others. That's is where we also headed at
the break on opening day.
Above:
The GoDaddy booth attracted one of the most
illustrious guests at the entire conference, Dr.
Paul Mockepetris - famous for playing a key role
in inventing the entire Domain Name System (Dr.
Mockepetris was also interviewed onstage Friday, June
7). Dr. Mocektpetris is standing (with arms crossed)
between Senior Director (Domains) Alan Shiflett
and another famous Paul, GoDaddy Vice President
(Domain Investors) Paul Nicks. Thanks to
James Iles (standing between Alan and Dr.
Mockepetris) for the photo.
Above:
A little further up the hall the Atom.com (formerly
SquadHelp) and Sedo/InterNetX booths
welcomed a steady flow of visitors throughout the
show.
Above:
Around a corner, appropriately enough, Nathan
Parker and Liz Corona were holding down the
fort for Above.com.
Below:
After a stroll through the Exhibit Hall (the
first of many during show week) it was time to head
back up the stairs to the Keynote Hall for the
start of the Wednesday afternoon sessions.
If
you thought Wednesday morning was busy with its three
standout sessions, the pace actually accelerated
in the afternoon with seven more sessions on
the Keynote Stage alone! The first of those at
2pm (above) featured (left to right) moderator Todd
Ryan (CEO at American Business Capital Corp. and
ABC Productions), eCorp Leader Chad Folkening
and MediaOptions CEO Andrew Rosener. They broke
down the increasing popularity of .AI Domains and
the prospects for Web 3 with features like
fractionalizing and tokenizing while pondering the
future of domains.
Above:
When it was time for the next session at 2:40pm, Andrew
Rosener stayed on stage and welcomed me, rather
than vice versa. I had the
enviable job of sitting down with Drew for an in depth
talk about his Climb to The Top. Andrew
put in an astounding amount of work to start
MediaOptions.com from scratch and turn it into
the powerhouse it his today. He entered the domain
world after a successful career in seafood brokerage
and though he was new to it, he obsessively went about
learning the ropes of an entirely different field and
once again rose to the head of the class. A lot of
people are good at learning new things but it takes an
extraordinarily competitive fire to do what Andrew has
now done multiple times.
During
the talk, I recounted how we had spent three hours
non-stop on the phone last year when I interviewed him
for our May 2023 Cover Story - Andrew
Rosener's Amazing Ride From Historic New England to
Domain Sales Nirvana. The result was one
of our most widely read stories to date, so I asked
NamesCon to give us another three hours
Wednesday but they weren't having it (go
figure)! Still, we were content to hit on some of the
many highlights from Andrew's amazing story in the 45 minutes
we did have, enough time for the audience to learn a
lot about what makes Drew tick and what it takes to
reach heights few have been able to scale. If you
missed our story, put it at the top of your reading
lost, you won't regret it.
Above:
After our session, I stepped outside to take advantage
of NamesCon's afternoon coffee break. While
doing that I walked over to a couple of Exhibit Hall
booths that were on the second level next to the
Keynote Hall rather than on the first floor where most
were set up. That's when I learned that my long-time
friend, attorney Stevan Lieberman (center) had
started a new crypto-related venture at Nicky.me
with Short
Dot Founder & CEO Lars Jensen
(left) and Thomas Fredericksen (right). I don't
know the details yet but with these three involved,
whatever the service entails it will be done well.
Above:
After getting re-caffeinated, it was back into the
Keynote Hall to catch this session on Innovation
Beyond Boundaries: Your Unique Digital Footprint
that featured, left to right, Brian Lonergan
(VP of Product Strategy, Identity Digital), Vaughn
Liley (General Manager, Nova Registry), Steve
Webb (Co-Founder, Impervious), Francesco
Cetraro (Global Head of Strategic Alliances,
Freename AG) and Sandy Carter (COO,
Unstoppable Domains). The panelists explored Web3
domains, groundbreaking digital identity products and
the upcoming TLDs that are gaining traction.
They
were followed by Lever.io
Co-Founder Art Malkov (below) and Domain
Name Wire's Andrew Allemann for a session
titled Real Numbers, Real Insights. Andrew
and Art (whose company is a a marketplace for
companies and influencers in the Web3 space) shared
illuminating sales data from experienced domain
investors that gave the audience some benchmarks to
compare the performance of their own portfolios
against, including sell through rates, average sale
prices and more.
Above
& Below: Next up at 4:35pm the audience listened
intently to a panel discussion titled Don't @
Me: The Evolution of Online Identities in a
Multi-Platform Era. The experts on stage
included, left to right above, Rachel Sterling
(CMO, Identity Digital), Jacqueline Daly (VP of
Marketing, Dynadot), Carla Bourque (CEO,
Rebrandly), Andrew Merriam (COO, Porkbun)
and moderator Soeren von Varchmin.
The program synopsis noted, "In today’s
multi-platform era, individuals, businesses, and
creators constantly adapt how they show up online.
Social media volatility, fragmented discourse, and
uncertain access to audiences inspires innovation from
makers in the digital sphere. This panel examines new
opportunities and how these shifts are shaping the
future of our industry."
Above:
At 5:05pm Marc McCutcheon (Business Head at
Moniker and Head of Retail for Team Internet) told the
audience about the rebirth of one of the most popular
registries from the early days of the domain
investment industry. In his Moniker Returns:
Building Legacies in the Domain Industry talk
Marc shared some untold chapters of Moniker’s
journey and provided a glimpse into its future and how
his team plan to build upon its legacy.
Above:
The curtain on the opening day agenda in the
Keynote Hall was brought down with a 5:25pm
closing session on A Day in the Life of a
Full-Time Domain Professional that featured,
left to right, Braden Pollock (Legal Brand
Marketing), Louis Pickthall (Co-Founder
& VPO, BrandForce.com) and Dennis Tinerino
(DomainSmoke.com). This session detailed what it takes
for your hustle to pay off on a daily basis. Braden,
Louis and Dennis shared their different perspectives
and techniques on staying nimble and profitable—from
investment strategies and generating business to daily
productivity techniques.
Now,
let's reset the clock and take you over to the opening
day activity on the Moniker Stage. Sessions
there didn't begin until after the lunch break. A pair
of partner keynotes from Opeyemi Awoyemi (President,
OlaCV Inc. - operator of the .cv TLD) and Jesse
Friedman (Head of WP Cloud at Automattic)
kicked things off. Unfortunately, I was not able to catch those
because I was onstage in the Keynote Hall interviewing
Andrew Rosener when they were speaking.
Above
and below: When I arrived at the Moniker Stage, this
session on how to Master the gTLD Aftermarket
was winding down. It had a great lineup of speakers
that included, left to right, Ajene Watson
(Managing Director, Dot Hip Hop, LLC), Rolf Larsen
(Chairman, Nameblock), Claus Barche
(Head of Sale, InterNetX), Shayan
Rostam (Founder, Internet Naming Co., D3 Global)
and Frank Michlick (Chief Domain Nerd, WHC.ca).
The gTLD aftermarket is a jungle of competing
platforms, valuation methodologies, and points of view
so it was very helpful to have these experts provide
some guidance through the thicket, including what’s
influencing the value of the name you want to buy or
sell, which version to focus on, the best marketplace
in which to search for it, and who you can get to help
you conduct the transaction to your advantage. They
also covered the selling of entire gTLDs!
Above:
Next up on the Moniker Stage another standout panel
talked about When UDRPs Go Wrong: Lessons from
the Internet Commerce Association on Terrible,
Horrible , No Good UDRPs (the actual session
title and one that fit like a glove)! It featured,
left to right, Jeffrey Neuman (Founder &
CEO, JJN Solutions, LLC), Nat Cohen
(Director, Internet
Commerce Association), Jason Schaeffer
(Counsel, ESQwire.com P.C.) and moderator Todd Ryan
(CEO, American Business Capital Corp. and ABC
Productions). They dissected the most
bewildering UDRP decisions from the past year,
navigating through the bizarre rationale (or
lack thereof) that led to some notoriously bad rulings
and their ripple effects on the domain industry.
Above
& Below: Next up the topic was Domain
Development: Advice from the Pros featuring,
left to right on stage at top left, Matt Holmes (CEO,
Handshaking.com), Simon McCalla (CEO
Online, Team Internet Group), Luke Burgess
(Director or Product, Dynadot), who is also seen in
the photo below, and moderator Robert Jacobi
(Director, Global Alliance, BotGuard). They shared
proven strategies for navigating domain development
across various industries, and how to avoid common
mistakes when launching online businesses. The
audience took home valuable information on the
building, launching, managing, and scaling of
successful websites.
Above
& Below: Wrapping up on the opening day agenda on
the Moniker Stage was this 4:45pm session titled Outbound
in Where It Goes. From prospect to client, the
experts detailed how to pinpoint interested buyers,
build and nurture relationships, and successfully
close deals. Everyone on stage has been there and done
that over and over again. They included Dave
Evanson (Senior Broker, Sedo), Daniel Koleshchuk
(Domain Advisor, Hilco Digital Assets), Kirstin
DiCecca (COO, Hilco Streambank) Brooke Hernandez
(Senior Domain Broker, Saw.com, also shown in photo
below) and moderator Jonathan "JT"
Tenenbaum (COO/GC at MediaOptions.com).
Below:
With the first day of business done, everyone from
both stages (as well as from the Cloudfest USA
conference that ran side by side with NamesCon Global)
could head to the opening night reception held
in the Omni Hotel's spacious atrium that also served
as the Exhibit Hall during the day.
Above:
Among the first people we bumped into at the
reception were, left to right, Peter Schwinge
(CEO, Nyback Media and an indispensable member
of the NamesCon/Cloudfest production team), Dennis
Tinerino (Founder, DomainSmoke.com and NamesCon
moderator) and Mark Ghorafi (AKA Mr. Premium,
Sedo Premium Domain Broker).
Below
(left to right): Todd Ryan, Maxam Magnata
(President, DomainGems,com) and Abigail Harris
(VP, DomainGems.com) unwinding after a busy first day
at NamesCon Global.
Above:
The opening night reception is always a great place to
catch up with friends you haven't seen since the last
NamesCon and make new ones along the way.
Below:
In this case, we did both, catching up with a
friend of more than 20 years, Page Howe, and
meeting his daughter Julie who not only shares
Page's exuberant, outgoing personality but also his
love of domains! There aren't many second
generation domainers like Julie, but if the young
people coming into the business are like her the
industry's future couldn't be brighter.
One
last thing before we move on to Day 2 Thursday (June
6) at NamesCon Global. While Wednesday was the
official opening day, long time NamesCon attendees
know things actually get started the night before
with an invitational pre-conference party hosted by Sedo
and InterNetX that has become a tradition
in its own right.
Above:
This year's Sedo/InterNetX party was held at Pete's
Dueling Pianos Bar in Austin, just a few
blocks from the show hotel.
Below:
Sedo CMO Christian Voss and Senior Broker Dave
Evanson were among the familiar faces welcoming
guests as they arrived Tuesday night.
Above:
InterNetX Head of Sales Claus Barche will do whatever
it takes to rise above the crowd - even if it means
standing on a piano!
Above
& Below: For
me, the best part of going to NamesCon is the
opportunity to catch up with old friends. After 20
years Ammar
Kubba (at left with me above and at far
left below where he is seen greeting JT Tenenbaum and Andrew
Rosener) still automatically makes me smile
with an infectiously upbeat personality that brightens
every room he is in.
With
that it is time to move forward to NamesCon Global
Day 2, Thursday, June 6, 2024.
CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE!
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