New June Cover Story at DNJournal.com: Dr. Chris Hartnett's Billion Dollar Journey

[Duke]

The June Cover Story has just been posted at DNJournal.com and I think it is one of the most amazing personal profiles we have published to date. As you know, domains have made a number of people wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. People like Kevin Ham and Frank Schilling have built companies that earn not just millions of dollars a year, but tens of millions annually. Those individual success stories and the continuing rapid migration of ad dollars from traditional media to the Internet have people speculating about who might become the first domain billionaire.

Which person might take a place among the titans of not just the domain industry but the world of business at large? As it happens, there is already one man in our space who can honestly say, "been there, done that". We invite you to meet Dr. Chris Hartnett and find out how he built a billion dollar company and discovered the real meaning of wealth along the way. You can read all about it here:

http://www.dnjournal.com/cover/2008/june.htm

 

[ddaybofb]

As always another great story.

"However all of this came at a price. Hartnett also came close to dying - three times. Over a period of 13 years, Hartnett was hospitalized 27 times."

Wow 27 times

 

[tonyfloyd]

WOW....WOW....WOW.....speechless!!

Thank you Ron!!!!!

 

[bgmv]

Thats a great article Duke.

By the way theres a typo:

"his healthy was deteriorating just as rapidly."

 

[TordB]

Thaaanks

I just read it now and I have a couple of questions.

Is this what strategy one should have?

"When I am a buyer I want to buy from people who have to sell, then it helps them as well as me" he said. Hartnett added, "You make your money in domains when you buy them not when you sell them and you do that by buying them at the right price." Hartnett takes the opposite approach when selling. "Then I ask for a high price because I would rather shoot for the sky and land in the trees than shoot for the trees and land in the mud," he said.


I have read around 5 cover stories at DNjournal.com and they always talk about what the domainer did as a kid. How could that be valuable for future domain purchases, unless your are specially interested in the guy? I love most of the articles, but I just don't understand that part.

 

[smashfactory]

isnt this what we all do- buy low and sell high? sounds normal to me

 

[Ebiz4india]

Nice Article, Thanks for sharing....!

 

[NetworkMsia]

Everyone out there,

please please please eat healthy!!! Exercise and stay healthy. Eat your fruits and Eat lots of Vegetables.

 

[Duke]

[/I]I have read around 5 cover stories at DNjournal.com and they always talk about what the domainer did as a kid. How could that be valuable for future domain purchases, unless your are specially interested in the guy? I love most of the articles, but I just don't understand that part.

There is so much more to a person than the fact that they buy/sell domain names. There are reasons why certain people are successful. I believe that if you look closely at those reasons they can help you succeed with domains or anything else you do in business or in life.

The thing that really interests me is how did they arrive at the point where they are now? What factors shaped them and their interests, what led them into an entrepreneurial lifestyle? Those influences begin in childhood.

From day one my approach has been to tell entrepreneurial success stories that anyone would love to read even if they didn't even know or care what a domain name was. For me, if I only had to write about a person's domaining activity I would be bored silly and would have quit doing it years ago.

Based on the popularity of our publication I think it is fair to say that a fairly substantial number of readers (thousands daily) find our editorial slant to be to their liking. No editorial direction is to everyone's liking though. Just as there are hundreds of publications on the newstand, our growing industry has many options now so anyone can find something that suits their taste. I think that is a great development for this business and I am fan of many other sites/publications myself.

 

[Salient]

TordB, the articles are an intimate look at people who operate in the domain industry. The value, imo, is the fact we are a part of a small industry and being transparent about who you are and where you came from goes a long way. Go to a conference and you will meet good people, like those profiled in Ron's articles. In fact, you will likely meet the people being written about.

Nicely done, Ron.

FYI: When you quote Dr. Hartnett, "I was earning $13,000 a year on the project, so after it went so well I asked my day for a raise and he fired me!,"

"day" should be "dad," methinks.

Also, I havent met him, but I would love to talk to him about TM. I guess its time for another domain conference trip.

 

[discovernow]

It was very interesting to see what he says about .tv below:

_________________________________________________________________


Though he is basically a value investor Harnett also admits to speculating occasionally, most notably in the .tv extension where he is believed to be the largest private owner of .tv domains in the world. Hartnett owns or co-owns a total of 17,000 .tv names. On the co-owned domains Hartnett works with four partners, one in each of four different verticals.



"They produce almost no revenue whatsoever," Hartnett said, "but I am attracted to them for several reasons. TV, like the word "global" is the same in most widely used languages around the world so there is instant recognition. There is a convergence of computers and the television set and it is happening faster than anybody thought. I feel that text is going to be on .com while
visual content is going to settle more on .tv. Basically it just supplements and glorifies the existing website. If you have the .com and it is working well, having the .tv is only going to give it a deeper and more vertical integration. Would people rather read the story or watch it? I think ultimately they would rather watch it," Hartnett said.

"Why can't we have a .tv site for every product, so I can see a demonstration on how to use it instead of digging through a manual?," he asked. "Why can't we have one for every disease, so if I want to learn about ulcerative colitis I can sit there and watch a program about it? It is an educational thing that you can apply to almost every field. I think .tv is a great extension for that."
_________________________________________________________________

 

[TordB]

There is so much more to a person than the fact that they buy/sell domain names. There are reasons why certain people are successful. I believe that if you look closely at those reasons they can help you succeed with domains or anything else you do in business or in life.

The thing that really interests me is how did they arrive at the point where they are now? What factors shaped them and their interests, what led them into an entrepreneurial lifestyle? Those influences begin in childhood.

From day one my approach has been to tell entrepreneurial success stories that anyone would love to read even if they didn't even know or care what a domain name was. For me, if I only had to write about a person's domaining activity I would be bored silly and would have quit doing it years ago.

Based on the popularity of our publication I think it is fair to say that a fairly substantial number of readers (thousands daily) find our editorial slant to be to their liking. No editorial direction is to everyone's liking though. Just as there are hundreds of publications on the newstand, our growing industry has many options now so anyone can find something that suits their taste. I think that is a great development for this business and I am fan of many other sites/publications myself.

Okay, I see what you mean By the way I love namenewbie.com, I read all the material there.

 

[jlc]

The Duke, the Donny Deutsch of domaining, keeping us all inspired!

JLC

 

[myst woman]

i feel the dot tv market is ready to make the revolution with more streaming networks showing tv shows online. anybody agree? That would make this guy ace high king of a tld subscript right?

 

[grahamhaynes]

Great article Ron - you continue to contribute to the industry, in the most positives of ways.