Rick Schwartz has made everybody's life much easier... That is if you are involved one way or another in the domain industry. If it wasn't for Rick Schwartz, things would of sucked. Big time. The guy is a genius and one of the domain industry's top superstars. Since 2004 he has now organized 15 domain conferences. Not just any conferences but pretty big and successful ones. Events that draw record crowds and mainstream press.. That is a huge accomplishment. Big congrats to Rick Schwartz for all that you have done.
Rick Schwartz has also made my life much easier as of late.. He has been going at it hard when it comes to blogging and covering the various domainer issues and hot topics. Writing stuff that actually matters and keeping it real for the most part. Sure, he has a pretty clear agenda when it comes to promoting his conferences and the generic domain valuations... What did you expect?! The guy is a sales and marketing genius and worked his magic all over the place offline, even before he got involved with domains in mid 90's... But still, he is one of the few bloggers that knows what he is talking about and provides some very insightful and useful 100% solid advice for newbies and pros. It's great!
I used to bring up various domainer issues on here such as domain sales and monetization as well as the dark side of domain parking and the very popular and controversial domain typos and the billion dollar empire piece... Why? Because I had all this stuff in the back of my mind from over the years and finally I had an outlet to put all of this stuff out there... I am very passionate about the domain industry too since it's been very good to me. It's where I made most of my money and got my head start but I'll just leave it to Rick Schwartz to take care of and bring it home! You can do it.. Yea!! Charge!!!
He is the Domain King after all. He is doing a pretty good job and I hope he continues to go at it even harder. I try to focus as much as possible on development and SEO as of late if you didn't already notice. I'll write about domains from time to time though.. Why not. If you don't visit Rick Schwartz blog daily... Well, you need to!! It is an absolute must read. It is why Rick Schwartz' blog is listed #1 on my recommended domain links page. Rick's blog is the best domain blog out there by far. Nobody else comes even close. Nope!
So first time I read about Rick Schwartz was in late 2003 as I was lurking at the various domain forums and just getting started in the domain industry. There wasn't much positive stuff out there about Rick Schwartz back then when I did find his name mentioned in some of the discussion threads... Everybody was making fun of him and in general he was perceived to be like some kind of a jerk. He wasn't really respected, not to mention welcomed at the public domain forums by any means... I later found out exactly why though. Haha... Duh!!
All of those people talking smack were jealous losers and newbies. They didn't know any better. They heard this and that through the grapevine and joined in with the rest of the newbies and ganged up on people.. I mean, what else could they do?! It's fun and all... But silly. Whatever. To each his own. I am glad that things have cooled down a bit.. But still, there is a lot of people on the forums that don't like Rick Schwartz and absolutely hate his guts and everything that he stands for... But hey, when you are so successful, it's what happens. He handles everything pretty well though I must say. What a cool cat :) Ahhh!
So in early 2004 I finally signed up at all of the forums and started selling domains to various people and so on... I immediately struck a few friendships here and there and met some people who started to clue me in. One of them was Steve Sacks, who we did a lot of deals with back in the day... You probably don't know much about him... Well, he is the guy who works for Kevin Ham. Steve handles the domain acquisitions for Reinvent Media Group since 2003... For over 6 years now! I haven't really seen him around much as of late, but he was a great guy who definitely knew what he was doing and I thank him tons.
So anyways, one day Steve hits me up and tells me that I need to join up Rick Schwartz private board.. Because that is where all the action is. That is where there isn't so much noise and where the domain industry's professionals were doing lots of biz. At that time, I was already a member at dozens of other domain, adult, SEO and affiliate marketing forums and I was like... Ahh!! Another forum?! I don't know...and it's run by this Rick Schwartz guy who I have read nothing good about. I will pass I think. No thank you!!!
So I do a few more deals with other people on the various domain forums and they tell me that Rick Schwartz isn't what he is made out to be on the forums by newbies and that the private board is a must if you are serious about domaining... You cannot afford to miss out on it. You gotta be there. I was like, OK OK.. That's cool. I will seriously consider it. Then one day Jarred Cohen hits me up, who now helps run Bido... Another domainer veteran.
So we speak on messenger for a few and he is like.. Come on Mike, stop bullshiting.. Join up Rick's board!! It's the place to be. So I went ahead and signed up at last... Why not. What's the worse that can happen?! It was 2005 and it was a pretty interesting time for me as far as biz goes because I was either going to quit domaining for good or continue going at it harder because things were really changing fast and the opportunities were drying up too... I later quit and moved onto other things though at the end of that year but sticked around over at Rick's board and remained active right til the board got shut down which was unfortunate. It happened on one November day in 2008.
The place was truly a special and one of a kind forum filled with the domain industry's finest and thanks to it I did at least a million dollars in domain / ad sales deals over the 3+ years that I was privileged enough to be a member there. All because I met the right people --- with the similar goals and interests. All thanks to Rick Schwartz bringing the best of the best into one place. He did it with his private board. He continues to do it with his Targeted Traffic conferences. It's important being at the right place... Ahhh. Indeed :)
The man has done so much good for the industry but never gets all the credit he deserves. It's all good though... I am sure he is way over all this online drama and enjoying life to the fullest at this stage. He has a beautiful wife, few houses, cars, boats, lots of friends and a few thousand amazing domain names. What more does a guy need?! :) He was never about being the cool type. He was never about winning popularity contests. Fuck that... No worries!
All Rick Schwartz knew was that... Domains are the most important / valuable investments on the internet in our lifetime and he stuck to his gut. Planted those seeds early on. Much sooner than most of us did. It paid off big time. You need to read his blog often... I highly recommend it. You will learn lots. I was lucky enough to read Rick Schwartz daily personal thoughts in his forum, starting in 2005... Way before he started publicly blogging a little over two years ago over at Ricks Blog - but it is never too late to learn. Go ahead and visit Rick Schwartz blog. Bookmark it. Subscribe to the feed.. Happy reading!
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05/08/2010: Dozens of exact match product / shopping related sites at auction now @ Latonas.com 03/19/2010: All domain development = $99 per domain... Pretty good deal, don't you think? 02/18/2010: New year.. New products... New prices.. New staff... Lots going on in the development biz! 02/06/2010: Must see auctions at Bido! Five days, back-to-back all this week.. Over 100 keyword domains priced to sell! No offers will be turned down 12/01/2009: Domain Stryker pre-registration now officially open... Launch date set for later this month!
