When I first joined the domain blogging scene, Tia Wood was already a seasoned domain name blogger, domainer, and web developer. Tia designed several of the blogger’s site that were in use at the time and contributed heavily in the domain forums. It’s been some time since we have crossed paths, so I decided to reach out to Tia to see what she’s up to.

Mike: It’s been awhile since we last seen you active within the industry. What have you been up to these last few years?

Tia: I left freelancing about 4 years ago to join commercial WordPress plugin companies and went back to school focusing on business management and digital marketing. I had been in the development space for a long time and needed a new set of challenges and skills.

I also picked up a new hobby: photography! I love traveling around the country and exploring airports and sights. And the airports love it, too. A couple of airports have taken notice and started reposting my photography. It’s nothing serious but I do it for fun. You can follow me @karunasati on instagram if this is up your alley. (I love exploring. Feel free to leave a comment below on scenic places you recommend.)

The biggest change has been moving from Florida to Indiana in 2018. I needed a new environment. The move was definitely out of my comfort zone but I wanted the new environment even more. So my daughter and I plus three cats made the long drive from Florida to Indiana in two days.

I love exploring Indiana, the surrounding states and the community here is just amazing. I am definitely happy that I made the trip.

Mike: TiaWood.com is dedicated to your web development efforts. Is that a passion you still dedicate much of your time to?

Tia: TiaWood.com has a lot of my old stuff and will be updated this year to reflect my current personal projects and photography. I used it a lot during freelancing but I no longer work under my name. It’s just been sitting there collecting dust lol.

Mike: Are you still involved in domaining?

Tia: Not anymore. I still visit the forums from time to time because a lot of knowledge crosses over into domaining but it’s not something I focus on anymore. Domaining is basically a full time job and although it can be lucrative for some, it’s just not something I am passionate about anymore.

Mike: Why did you choose to step out of the blogging space?

Tia: I was at the point in my life where I needed a change (as described above). I wasn’t sure what that change was but I needed new challenges, new direction, new environment, new adventure. I took a long break from blogging to pursue new goals.

Mike: You have been in the domaining industry for quite some time. What were some of the early lessons learned and how have you applied them going forward?

Tia: I wasted so much time, money and effort chasing too much after my own intuition. Domaining is largely based on data and numbers. Just because a domain sounds “catchy” doesn’t mean that it will sell. Do the research, run the numbers, triple check everything, always. THEN you can go with your intuition. This has also helped me with other areas in life. Being inspired and having ideas is just fine. Creativity is a beautiful process. But always give yourself a reality check via due diligence before you dive into anything.

Mike: You’ve worked the 9 to 5 and been your own boss. Which do you prefer? Which is more rewarding? Why?

Tia: This is a hard one. They both have their benefits and their downsides. I really enjoy working within companies because you have more available brainpower and community plus a dependable paycheck.

Entrepreneurship is great because you steer your own ship but that can also be a bad thing because you are solely responsible for failure.

I am currently back in entrepreneurship. My goal is to marry the two. I’m alone but I don’t want to feel alone. If I can find a way to duplicate the community feel with entrepreneurship then I would definitely choose entrepreneurship.

Mike: What advice do you have for someone entering the domain investing industry today? Is there still opportunity for success?

Tia:My #1 advice: don’t quit your day job.

I am going to make a controversial statement and say that domaining is a failing industry. Here is why:

Over the past five years:

• most products/services once offered by big companies are no longer domainer targeted
• domaining.com has lost significant amounts of traffic representing the overall interest in domaining
• most blogs that post on domaining.com have lost significant amounts of traffic
• the domain industry never properly organized therefore anyone is buying/selling in the forums anymore. of course, you can’t expect much quality in forums in the first place but it used to be much more active
• the market is way too saturated with mediocre domains collecting dust on parking pages
• revenue from passive domaining (such as parking) has plummeted
• the domain industry as a whole failed at teaching the public and businesses the importance of good domain names. I’m not talking about the obvious ones such as computers.com but the decent ones the average person and businesses can afford; revenue that would have provided a major, long term backbone for the industry. Instead, major companies such as GoDaddy have filled that gap and has taken that opportunity away
• no one is protecting domaining’s long term interest. There is no one directing market growth, combating bad press or acting as a leadership body for growth of the industry as a whole
  most people who are in domaining need or keep a main source of income other than domaining

While I believe it’s highly unlikely the average person can enter into the domain industry and expect to earn a full time living today, there are still opportunities. It takes some creativity and entrepreneurship. What worked for Rick Schwartz or Frank Schilling 20 years ago is not going to work for you today.

Don’t get me wrong: the wisdom and knowledge that highly successful domainers have handed down are valuable and insightful. But you have to keep in mind they entered into domaining over 20 years ago during a completely different era.

Today, there is a lot more competition with much deeper pockets and they have significantly squeezed most opportunities from the bottom. You either need a lot more money to play or you need a strategy parallel with domaining.

Bottom line is; you have to work way smarter and harder now. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you go out and buy a few domains and that’s it.

Develop a good business plan and make sure you have a secondary source of income because full time or even part time domaining could take a while.

Mike: Any projects you want to share?

Tia: Yes! We are about to launch UserCreative.com which is management, marketing and consulting for businesses on the WordPress platform. We figured out how to take the needs of online businesses and roll them into monthly plans. We also have options for one-time projects such as development and website reviews. This will be officially launching very soon. You can sign up at UserCreative.com for launch notification and more information.

Gumroad is a pretty cool e-commerce platform that also helps build an audience. As the website itself states, “Gumroad is for independent writers, designers, software developers, musicians, artists, teachers, filmmakers, and anyone in-between. Whether you sell digital goods or physical goods, you can use Gumroad. Simply put, if you make stuff for people to buy — Gumroad is for you.”

Gumroad founder, Sahil Lavingia, took time out of his schedule to answer my questions.

Mike: Where did the idea for Gumroad come from?

Sahil: Quite simply: I wanted to sell an icon I had designed in PhotoShop. For just a buck, to just my audience. I looked around and couldn’t find an easy way to do that. There were huge marketplaces and things, but I just wanted a link. So I built Gumroad.

Mike: Prior to launching Gumroad, you worked at Pintrest. What was it like to be an early employee there and did you learn lessons that you could apply at Gumroad?

Sahil: It was great! I learned a lot, shipped a lot of product, and got a ton of feedback. I also learned about being an early employee–what I wanted from the company I worked for–so that when I started growing Gumroad, I had that perspective.

Mike: Your Linkedin Profile states that Gumroad has “…put more than $77,000,000 in the pockets of musicians, artists, writers, and more.” Amazing! How does that feel to be responsible for this?

Sahil: We should update that! It’s over $175,000,000 now! It feels great. But there’s a lot of work to do! I’m hopeful we can get to that first B in the next 3-4 years.

Mike: I’m a domainer at heart. I was pleased to see you own your own name as a domain at sahillavingia.com. What is your philosophy on owning your own name? Should everyone attempt to do that? What can we expect from your musings when subscribing?

Sahil: Yes! It was a little easier with my relatively unique name. It just keeps things simple. Instead of having to invent a brand, it’s just my name. Easy! With my newsletter, I want to share thoughts about the creative process. As I write, paint, and of course ship software–the differences and similarities and how they all interconnect for me.

Mike: At the time, when you launched Gumroad, how did you promote it and enable the business to gain some traction? That seems like a difficult task.

Sahi: Honestly, a lot of cold emails. Just finding people already selling stuff in a janky way, or people with audiences that weren’t selling stuff yet–and letting them know Gumroad existed now. That is really it. A lot of that.

Over time, people started to know what Gumroad was and it became easier. But I still do that today!

Mike: I imagine the are some top sellers using Gumroad. People that really rake in the sales. I won’t ask you to reveal numbers, but can you tell us about any of these top sellers?

Sahil: Yes, we have creators that are multi-millionaires off their Gumroad sales. Just last month someone made almost $900,000–in a single month!

It’s all about building an audience that trusts you. It has to have a significant size, sure, but it’s more important to prime them for your upcoming launch.

There are no hacks or secrets. It’s a lot of time, hard work, and giving away your learnings as you grow–so that you have a dedicated audience when you’re ready to sell your product.

Mike: It’s one thing to start a company as a founder, but quite another to run a successful company as CEO. Was it a natural transition for you? What challenges or lessons can you share?

Sahil: It’s not too different. The focus is still the same: ship a great product. Build a great team.

It’s easier if anything, because now we have thousands of creators telling us what we need to build, and a lot of data to learn from.

Mike: Are there any changes or evolutions in the internet or technology that you are anticipating and will need to adapt to for long term success?

Sahil: Honestly, no. I am just constantly iterating on Gumroad. Not trying to scope out some grand future, but betting on the obvious stuff: more mobile usage, for example. But really we’re a nimble startup, so we can react to change pretty quick.

Mike: Where did the name “Gumroad” come from and does it have any meaning?

Sahil: My mom 🙂 – I like names that take two words and combine them. It makes it easier to remember and spell, in my opinion. So…yeah. Nothing too deep!

Mike: What is one book that you have read that has impacted you and you would recommend to others? Why?

Sahil: The Golden Compass is my favorite book of all time. That whole series made a pretty profound impact on me, I think.

I won’t recommend non-fiction, because everyone already does that 🙂 – read more fiction!

Dana Khomyak is living in Sweden and creating the biggest event streams aggregator in the world. She is co-founder of Events Terminal and is passionate about making information and education accessible globally.

Mike: What is the goal of EventsTerminal.com and how are you toward achieving that goal?

Dana: Before developing Events Terminal, we (Co-Founders of ET) organized business events. Indeed, thanks to this experience we’ve seen what problems events organizers and events visitors have. One of the most boiling was that it’s hard to visit an event that is in another city or even country.  Therefore, we created a marketplace for knowledge-sharing events streams and records, so people wherever they are based will be able to watch and learn. A couple of months ago we successfully launched our website eventsterminal.com and within a few days had 250+ users from 40+ countries.

Mike: How did you come up with the name for the company?

Dana: Honestly, it wasn’t that quick and easy to find a good company name. We spent a few weeks discussing different options before choosing Events Terminal. Thinking about a name, I knew that it should be somehow connected with events. Later I saw in the internet word “Terminal” and thought it should be a good match for us as terminal is a machine where you can buy a ticket. You also can buy tickets to events on Events Terminal. After discussing this option with another co-founder, we agreed on Events Terminal, that’s it.

Mike: The company has been up and running for about a year, what challenges and success have you faced?

Dana: When you’re a startup, challenges are with you all the time. And if you can’t make challenges your friend, you will lose. Since we founded the startup, we have faced  challenges literally everyday: finding a team, working remotely, building a prototype, building a website, finding your first customers and hundreds more. We like challenges (we don’t call it problems) because overcoming it we become wiser, smarter and stronger. If you don’t like it, I suppose building a company will be a really tough thing for you.

Mike: You were a project manager intern at a startup accelerator. What lessons did you learn there?

Dana: Startup Depot is rather a business incubator and I had an opportunity to have an internship there. It was one of my first working experiences and I learnt a lot of good staff there – starting from work with the MS Excel ending learning how to be a team member, now I see it was a really good push for my further career.

Mike: Events Terminal appears to be backed by Think Accelerate. Explain what it means to work with an accelerator and your experience thus far.

Dana: Last autumn (’18) we’ve got an opportunity that I won’t lie if say we’ll be grateful for the rest of our lives. We were accepted into one of the best Swedish Accelerators – Think Accelerate. Think team provided our team with an office, great mentors, advice and an environment where we could develop our startup quickly. During this program we’ve finally launched our website, established cooperation with Swedish organizations and gained traction. Such an amazing time, people and priceless experience.

Mike: Are there any books that have inspired you or shaped your style that you would recommend to us?

Dana: I like how books can make us think from a different perspective, change our mind, feelings or even actions. I’d recommend you to read “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking” by Susan Cain, it will make you appreciate and love yourself the way you are more. Also, all we know that a lot of women nowadays have different working conditions, salaries for the same job and attitude comparing to men, read Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead” to know why it’s not just a stereotype, how to overcome it and become a real professional having a work-life balance.

Cybele Negris is CEO & Co-Founder of Webnames.ca, Canada’s original .CA Registrar and accredited registrar for hundreds of domain extensions as well as provider of webhosting, email and web development and many other services. The multi-million-dollar company has an impressive client list including many Fortune 500 companies. Webnames.ca’s Corporate Services division specializes in premium concierge service for medium to large businesses and organizations with large domain portfolios requiring specialized tools and security.

Cybele is a hall of fame inductee and four-time winner of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful women in Canada amongst many other awards. She is a serial entrepreneur having successfully started and exited multiple companies. She’s a seasoned board member serving on the board of the Royal Canadian Mint and numerous other boards. She’s a mentor, columnist and speaker at over two dozen events each year including TEDx.

Mike: Tell me a little more about Webnames.ca. What makes it special?

Cybele: Webnames is Canada’s original domain registrar. We started as a spin-off of the .CA Registry founded in 1987 by my business partner John Demco. He ran the .CA Registry as a public service for thirteen years, free of charge, and has been recognized as one of the pioneers of the Canadian Internet. Webnames.ca was incorporated in 2000 and the .CA registry was sold and transitioned to the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA). What continues to distinguish us today is our deep expertise in corporate domain management, which comprises a large part of our business, and our exceptional customer support. Now, I realize that a lot of registrars have good support and can quantify it as we do with great response times and customer satisfaction ratings, but it runs deeper than that. Our approach has always been to do more – we support customers above and beyond the use of our products. This might be a website update for a retail customer who is struggling with their CMS, a late-night DNS change for a Corporate client, or the development of a new domain management feature for a reseller. In turn, we’re fortunate to have loyal customers, many who have been with us for ten, fifteen, or more years. We also have an incredible team that our customers know and trust. A majority of our staff have been with us for more than five years, and a third of our staff for more than ten. We have no weak links, everyone is truly an expert at what they do, and there is an incredible amount of knowledge transfer that goes on.

Mike: How and when did you become interested in domain names?

Cybele: I met John Demco the founder of .CA in 1999 as I was doing some consulting work at the University of British Columbia after I exited another company. He had been running the .CA Registry with about 100,000 domains under management. It was time to move from a volunteer effort. I was fascinated by what I had heard from John. I visited his office and saw the piles of documentation used to verify an individual or corporate entity’s entitlement to a .CA domain. Back then an individual would register yourname.vancouver.bc.ca or yourname.toronto.on.ca. A provincially incorporated entity in Alberta for example would register companyname.ab.ca. To register companyname.ca a corporate entity had to be federally incorporated or provincially incorporate in more than one province. We worked with the technology transfer manager at UBC, brought on developers to build the first generation website to take orders, hired a small team of students to help with support and subsequently sold and transitioned the Registry operations to CIRA. As we transitioned the Registry, we were having so much fun working together that we decided to become one of the accredited registrars under CIRA. We grew from 4 to 30 people in 4 months and by capturing pent up demand under CIRA’s newly liberalized rules to allow anyone to register yourname.ca, we were able to generate multiple millions in revenue in year one to fund future operations and growth. The domain industry has continued to explode over the last 19 years I’ve been involved. Today, Webnames offers over 600 different domain extensions and I still love what I do!

Mike: Do you personally own any domain names?

Cybele: I don’t have a massive portfolio but I do have some. Most are .CA or .COM but also some .TEL and new gTLDs.

Mike: What is it like running a registrar? What are some things the average domainer may not know about the position you hold?

Cybele: It is way more complicated than one would imagine. We spend a lot of resources and effort on security, systems improvements and new product innovation. We are constantly trying to excel at what we do rather than become complacent. We have to deal with issues around compliance with ICANN, individual registries and their rules, privacy rules across various countries, compliance around data storage, taxation of individual provinces and different countries, anti-spam legislation across various countries and much more. We often get dragged into disputes where a complainant wants us to take down a website due to its content, sometimes where it is objectionable but not against the law or fraudulent in nature. We also have to deal with fraud, DDoS attacks, and other nefarious activity. We must navigate the complexities of systems that serve customers with one domain name or hosting account as well as domainers, resellers or Fortune 500 companies with thousands to tens of thousands of domains.

As a woman leading a technology company, I have many opportunities to speak to media and to entrepreneurial groups. Having a phenomenal team internally allows me to spend a significant amount of time giving back to the community serving on government boards, in economic development activities or non-for-profit initiatives such as raising money for early cancer detection. I have also been involved in numerous mentorship activities such as advising on the creation of MentorshipBC or acting as a mentor through the Women’s Executive Network for 7 years.

Mike: What is your prediction of the future of domain names… let’s say, 10 years from now.

Cybele: I think domains will continue to be relevant for some time to come, despite the growth of apps and self-contained online ecosystems. With the growing distrust of walled gardens like Facebook and Instagram, the need for independent websites, and therefore domains, is not going to go anywhere. Over the next few years, the remaining gTLDs from round one will launch some with more fanfare than others as has been the case over the last few years. Adoption of these less recognizable extensions will continue to grow, albeit slowly. Some will fail to survive, and we will see further consolidation in the industry with successful registries buying up the less successful ones. I do think there will be a round two launch of gTLDs but that will be a few years out given the policy work that needs to be done by ICANN working groups/subcommittees, approvals by the board, publication of a new applicant guidebook, public comment periods, and revisions.

I also think domain aftermarket will only become more important every year. We’re seeing that now. Business people have learned the value of a great domain and its importance to branding and digital marketing. More people are recognizing that it makes sense to purchase the best domain you can get for your business, if you’re in a position to do so. The trend in aftermarket will continue to value short or one-word .COMs highly but premiums in other extensions will continue to gain popularity. The continued growth of IoT and smart cities may drive the further domain name growth as all things in a home become connected to the internet.

Mike: When is a .ca name better than a dot com or any other TLD?

Cybele: If you’re a Canadian that’s targeting Canadians or doing business primarily with Canadians, .CA may be a better bet for you than .COM for a few reasons. A .CA domain offers some geo-targeting benefits on search engines when searches originate in Canada – it signals that your site is Canadian and probably more relevant to Canadian users. Studies have also repeatedly shown that Canadians, when given a choice, prefer making online purchases from Canadian businesses and retailers. It’s also going to be easier to rank locally in Canada with a .CA. As an added bonus, there is much better domain availability in .CA than .COM.

All that said, if you can get your .COM – do it. If you can get both your .COM and .CA, all the better. As the most recognized domain extension globally, .COM transcends borders and audiences. The bottom line however is to make sure that the domain you choose – be it .CA or .COM – is both clear and memorable for your users. All domains have equal opportunity to rank, so focus on branding.

Many of our clients register multiple domains under multiple extensions and forward them to specific landing pages on their main website or to a blog. With the low cost of domain names many businesses have come to recognize the value of protecting their brand and generating traffic through a strong domain strategy.

Mike: As a leader, what book would you recommend to entrepreneurs trying to get off the ground?

Cybele: Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It..and Why the Rest Don’t by Verne Harnish is one of my favourite and that of many entrepreneurs. It is a sequel to his Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.

Drawing from her experience working in design and lighting, Lights.com co-founder, Sheva Knopfler had a thought: buying well-designed, well-crafted lighting should not be nearly as complicated or expensive as it is. In the age of the internet, why are we buying four-figure chandeliers from pushy salespeople in a showroom? Instead, why not provide outstanding value by offering thoughtfully-designed goods directly to our customers?

Sheva’s husband, David, joined her in this vision, bringing to the table his expertise in marketing and business development. They cultivated a team of people, not only knowledgeable about lighting, but also well-versed in art, fashion, technology, and interior design, lending outside perspectives on what a lighting company can and should be. Together, they are striving to surpass industry norms and to discover new ways to offer their customers exceptional product and exceptional service.

Mike: Tell me a little bit about how David and Sheva decided to launch Lights.com?

Josh: Sheva, one of our co-founders, had been working in the lighting industry for several years and realized there was a huge gap in the market for well-designed, responsibly sourced and fairly priced lighting. The only options at that time were either mass-produced, poor quality or ridiculously expensive. She realized this better option could be accomplished by avoiding the traditional showroom model and selling directly to the customer online, and so Lights.com was born.

Mike: What has the growth been like over the past five years since they began?

Growth has been continuous. We certainly share challenging moments that come with the kind of expansion one sees in a small business, especially in a dynamic consumer goods industry. The challenge is staying ahead of consumer demands and updating product lines, while maintaining a tight supply chain that is uncompromising in both quality and design. At the same time, we ensure that our customers have access to our full line of lighting products at fair prices. We invest in quality and are proud of the outcome.

Mike: How did they acquire the name? Can you tell us the cost?

Josh: When we were a pretty small company, we received an email late one night from a domain broker who offered to sell us the name, Lights.com. It was a chance for Ambient Lighting to have the kind of reach and growth that would let us expand in a way that competes in a global sense.

David’s real estate background taught him to always say yes to a good deal and figure out finances later. This is what he did. Although it proved much harder to finance a domain name than real estate. The deal included an NDA so we’re unable disclose the price but we paid a good sum. It turned out to be a great investment.

Mike: You play an important role in the company as Marketing Director. Can you tell us more about your role?

Josh: I oversee the team here that manages all of the marketing for Lights.com. We currently focus heavily on digital channels, primarily social media advertising, SEM, SEO and email. As an online-only business, the performance of our website is deeply intertwined with our marketing results, so I lead all update and optimization projects, working with our designers and developers to make sure our site experience is the best it can be.

Mike: What challenges or benefits have you found in running an online business? Is it harder than most people think?

Josh: The most challenging aspect is that the challenges are constantly evolving. You will see another retailer (or ten) pop up that uses your exact value prop, with similar products, for the same price or less. Amazon continues to dominate e-commerce more and more and pull customers away from independent retailers. The barriers to entry to start an online business continue to get lower and, while a positive in many ways, this has cluttered the marketplace and driven up costs across advertising channels. It requires being more creative to get in front of the correct audience than it did even 2 years ago.

Mike: How many employees does it take to keep the “lights” on in a business like lights.com?

Josh: We have 17 people in our NYC office and 8 in our Los Angeles warehouse.

Mike: What role has the key word domain name played in the companies success?

Josh: Aside from receiving some traffic from people optimistically navigating directly to our website, I believe having a domain like Lights.com offers an air of legitimacy to the brand that would be harder to develop otherwise. The only downside is that because of how broad the name is, it takes extra effort to identify and communicate a strong brand personality.

Mike: What type of traffic do you see from people strictly typing in the domain name?

Josh: Metrics for this are tough to measure but anecdotally I’ve heard from customers who have found us this way. They’re typically a little less tech-savvy and may not be aware of the other methods for surfacing the products they’re interested in finding. They may also just be curious, and then we enjoy pleasantly surprising them!