Exploring NamesCon Behind the Scenes: Our Adventure with Soren Culminates | Saw.com

Speaker 1: 0:00

Today on the Uncomfortable Podcast, we have Soren von Feinstein, who is the head organizer of NamesCon, cloudfest and MSP Global. Cloudfest is his biggest conference with over 8,000 attendees. But myself, namescon has been a conference I have been going to for at least 10 years. Soren tells us his story, his entrepreneurial background, his dedication to charity and what it was like being in the conference business during the pandemic to charity and what it was like being in the conference business during the pandemic.

Speaker 1: 0:30

Namescon holds a special place in my heart and I told a friend that even if I wasn't in the domain business any longer, I would probably pop in to see some old friends and, being an OG of NamesCon, I decided to ask Soren some hard questions about NamesCon air some gripes, talk about the speaker lineup and much more. If you want to buy tickets to NamesCon, go to NamesConcom, use the promo code COMFORTZONE or click on the link in the description for a 10% discount off the advertised price and I will give you a limited edition Sawcom t-shirt, the very same one that I wore in this episode. Thanks for listening. Can't wait to see you in Austin. So today we have Mr Namescon, cloudfest. Soren von Fashmin, how are you doing today?

Speaker 2: 1:26

That was a good one, thanks, and thank you for having me at your podcast today, jeff.

Speaker 1: 1:32

Yeah, no problem, and we were talking before we started recording your last name. It goes back thousands of years. Yes, is it a royal last name? Are you a count?

Speaker 2: 1:43

Actually my ancestors. They were knights and they were touring what is now northeast Poland, and so the history really goes back and it's basically only my family who carry that name. There's a lot of Fajmins, but there's only our family carrying the name von Fajmin. And yeah, the story is basically there was a castle but this doesn't exist anymore. So my grand-grand-grandfather kind of lost that castle during the First World War and the castle itself and got destroyed during the communist era in soviet union. So the place is still there. I was like lucky to to see it like six or seven years ago when I was driving to kaliningrad in russia, so I drove through and I was able to see the estate, but but yeah, like I said, the castle unfortunately don't exist anymore. But obviously I have von Farschmin the domain in all different TLDs to keep it alive.

Speaker 1: 3:00

Hearing that you have family members going back as a knight and they had a castle. Do you have any artifacts or things that have been passed down through the family? Unfortunately, not Generation to generation.

Speaker 2: 3:13

No, everything got lost along the way.

Speaker 1: 3:18

That's wild. Yeah, I mean, our family came from Italy, and when they moved to the United States, they pretty much had the shoes on their feet and the clothes on their back and left everything else there. So there really isn't much from the old country in our family either, except for our culture. Yeah, and that's really all we have.

Speaker 2: 3:36

Yeah, we keep the culture, I even keep the name. But both of us, we still have to work.

Speaker 1: 3:42

Yeah, unfortunately right. Still have to work. Yeah, unfortunately right. So you know, you're definitely an interesting guy to me because I mean, we know, some of us know the history of NamesCon. That was started by Richard Lau and then it was sold to GoDaddy and then you kind of appeared on the scene. But getting up to that point and getting into the conference business because you also run two other conferences right, it's RDS and CloudFest how did you get into this? Like what's your story to get here, maybe not going back to when grandpa was a knight, but like what got you into this business?

Speaker 2: 4:18

Yeah, I basically I stopped going to school quite early, when I was 16 already, so I don't have a high school diploma. But in Europe, especially in Germany, we have a thing called apprenticeship, which is like a government-controlled or it's basically a framework where in like two and a half or three years you get an education in a certain subject, and so it's 50% education in a certain subject, and so it's 50% work in a company and 50% university. And I did that at Fraport, at the Frankfurt Airport Authority. So basically my profession is to. I learned how to manage an airport. That was what I learned.

Speaker 2: 5:03

I was quite young when I finished my apprenticeship, I was only 18. And so I was too young to start working for a large corporation and I wanted to see the world. That's why I worked for Fraport in the first place during my apprenticeship. So I started my own business, and my own business was a tour operator. So Air Seychelles back then had a weekly flight starting in 93 or 94, like every Friday from Frankfurt to Seychelles, and there were not enough tour operators at that time to fill the aircraft. So that was the sweet spot. So, yeah, it was a very good time, and I concentrated back then on weddings, um or honeymoons, as well as different kind of tv productions or photo productions and sales. So that was before the internet era or during the time the internet became more popular. So I remember like in the first days I was sending faxes back and forth with my colleagues in the Seychelles which was quite expensive, like two or three dollars per fax, and if that was a mistake, oh yeah, the long distance.

Speaker 1: 6:19

Yeah, yeah, the long distance call, yeah, and then it would take like 10 or 20 minutes to fax the documents. Yeah, oh yeah, exactly exactly.

Speaker 2: 6:28

So in 94, I got my first email address. I think in 95, 96, I registered my first domains, a lot of generic domains, but they went with network solutions like super expensive $70, $80 per domain. But I also registered basically the domain in 98, I think it was gondwanatourscom, which was the name of my business. So it was one of the first live websites, basically where two operators were presenting their offers. I sold the business in 2000, and this is when, by complete instant, my story in this web hosting and domain industry got started. So I'm 24 years now in this hosting and domain industry.

Speaker 2: 7:23

We had this small control panel in Germany, this small startup called Confix, completely grassroots and our first company back then who used that control. It's similar to what is now cPanel and Plesk. Basically, confix became Plesk or ended up in Plesk, and now it's this company called Webprose which owns both control panels. And now it's this company called Webprose which owns both control panels. And yeah, so that was the start of a ride, I would say. We sold the company in 2002 or 2003 to Parallels, which was a big when you said we, how many people were there.

Speaker 2: 8:06

When you said we, how many people were there?

Speaker 2: 8:14

We were around back then in 2003, like maybe 100, 150 employees, Maybe 20 shareholders mostly the employees back then before VC and PE. Money came in later, at later stages, yeah, and basically my job was to build out the European and Asian operations. So in mid 2000s I moved to Tokyo and to Singapore, lived there a couple of years to open the Parallels offices China, Tokyo, Singapore, a couple of other countries and then after that I worked for Venture Capital as entrepreneur in residence. That was really interesting to see the ecosystem and the players. And then shortly thereafter I was basically um, working for cloudfest. Yeah, so cloudfest exists since 20 years. There was no CEO for 10 years. For the first 10 years, the company CloudFest before Namescon, before MSP Global in 2014, 10 years ago, when I started, was, I think, less than $2 million in revenue. So it was like good enough as a business to keep it going, but someone had to put concentration on it. You know it was started by Thomas Struer, who was very famous in this web hosting space with his companies which he founded, and he did it as a hobby. So he needed to make a decision decision do we really do this now or do we stop that? You know so, and from 2014 to now, I'm basically working with cloudfest.

Speaker 2: 10:14

Six years ago we took over namescon. We were always owned by some kind of hosting company or cloud service provider. In the beginning it was in tagina. It was a very big hosting company or cloud service provider. In the beginning it was Intergenia. It was a very big hosting company, holding company in Germany. Intergenia got acquired by HostEurope. Hosteurope got acquired by GoDaddy. That's how we ended up in GoDaddy for a couple of years and during the pandemic we now say including me a couple of shareholders were able to buy out the business from GoDaddy again. And yeah, here we are, bigger and better than ever and became really strong back after COVID.

Speaker 1: 10:58

Got it All right so I got a couple of questions here. So you were working at Runa Capital and then that company had investments and it owned a piece of the company that owned CloudFest right, and your job was to go and find no, that is unrelated.

Speaker 2: 11:23

That is completely unrelated.

Speaker 1: 11:26

Runa Capital won't be far.

Speaker 2: 11:28

But we have a couple of Runa. Capital has a couple of investments which are quite famous in our ecosystem. So maybe you heard about NGINX, the web server it's the most used web server in the world and MariaDB, the database which is the successor to MySQL. Then we had a very good investment, equit, which got sold for 500 million. It was with e-commerce widgets which you can integrate in any kind of WordPress or any kind of website. It was also integrated with a lot of site builders, like, for example, if you go to Wixcom. So some of the e-commerce parts are basically based on Ecwid. And then we had another successful company in that space which I helped in the beginning called Shellastic, which was platform as a service, and we sold it to Beto Ozone.

Speaker 2: 12:29

Yeah, so more like deep tech rather than, let's say, service providers. Like my experience is always like on the vendor side, like I never really worked on the service provider side of things for registrar registry or cloud service provider. Like my knowledge is always on the service provider side of things for registrar registry or cloud service provider. Like my knowledge is always on the vendor side, like how to sell um to that um, uh, to that audience, to that ecosystem and I think that's like really, really helpful for cloudfest and namescon. As an organizer, you know to understand, like the vendors, the partners, the sponsors who put the money in at the end for that conference, to understand what they need and who do they need to sell to, how do they address that and so on.

Speaker 1: 13:16

That's great. I love that. So my company. So you. Let me understand this. So when you said you've owned CloudFest and NamesCon for six years, or you've owned CloudFest for 10 years and NamesCon for six, what was it? Yeah?

Speaker 2: 13:31

yeah, yeah, the latter. So CloudFest is this year 20 years old.

Speaker 1: 13:36

I'm working there since 10 years, yeah, but you've owned it for 10. Yep.

Speaker 2: 13:40

Yeah, and we acquired Namescon, I think six years ago, six or seven, okay, Okay, so, similar to myself, I left Uniregistry.

Speaker 1: 13:54

I actually remember when you came in the office in England to Uniregistry and you're talking to Frank when he was buying like all of your, you must have loved him that year when he bought like all of the sponsorships and and did the club and like everything. You really did it up. But, um, I remember I launched my business in 2019 right in the fall of 2019 sawcom and business was getting going and then, um, it was like mid-march I I remember them canceling the it's called March Madness, the college basketball tournament in the United States. They canceled it. That would only happen if the world crashed into the sun. It's that big of a deal. It's like canceling Carnival or Oktoberfest in Germany Oktoberfest, you know, in Germany, like it's just not something, that's even a discussion. They canceled it.

Speaker 1: 14:50

I was like holy shit, this isn't going to be good and I'd say, less than a week later, my pipeline of deals and I had people working for me evaporated. The business just fell on its face for a number of months and then it took some serious hard work and dedication just to get Pulse and then get the business going again. So I can't imagine being in the trade show business and I'm sure you owed GoDaddy some money from purchasing the show from them, right? So they probably had expectations as to monthly, quarterly, yearly payments or a percentage of the revenue or guarantees. And the world isn't even going in the same room as each other, let alone flying across the world to meet in places. So what the hell was that like watching everything you worked so hard for, kind of fall apart and trying to rethink it. What?

Speaker 2: 15:49

was that like for you? I mean, it was a really tough time. We had Namescon in the last week of January in 2020. I was at it and everyone was worried. Yeah, everybody was afraid, yes, and I was worried, and already a couple of people didn't come, our Chinese friends didn't come and some others worried about that. I came back totally sick Uh, that was before the testing, so I don't know, but I was sick for two weeks and, um, yeah, then we had cloud.

Speaker 1: 16:24

I usually get sick from names Con.

Speaker 2: 16:27

What did?

Speaker 1: 16:27

you say I'm sorry you had CloudFest after that. I get so sick.

Speaker 2: 16:32

I think I got it maybe quite early, I think, before everything got official. But anyway, we had our big CloudFest conference in front of us and I was already feeling the whole of February, something is going wrong, something is going really, really wrong, until there was the official announcement in mid-March and CloudFest was, I think, in the third week of March. That was the first one we had to cancel. That was the first one we had to cancel. But you know, we were owned by GoDaddy and we were treating everything very respectfully. So all our partners who already paid, they got their money back. We canceled everything. You know.

Speaker 2: 17:21

We found solutions with some of our vendors, with most of our vendors, but yeah, I mean we have to pay a couple of employees. We are a rather small company with 15 full-time employees right now and also back then. But I mean, yeah, they need to get paid as well. So the virtual events didn't cover that. I mean I think we did them okay. We also got some money in from sponsors, but I mean a virtual event is nothing like a physical event, especially for the team to organize.

Speaker 2: 18:02

So it was really hard to motivate and get through this time, you know. But also at that time it was a good decision to talk to GoDaddy. I was not part of his talks because I was actively involved in the business, so but it was a good time to talk to GoDaddy because, you know, we never really fit into GoDaddy. We were just passed along, you know, with a couple of acquisitions. So we ended up with GoDaddy.

Speaker 2: 18:35

But you know it was difficult for GoDaddy as well because, like small little things, like small little things, for example, if you buy some painkillers, you know for a, for a speaker, you know for the green room, because he has a headache and he needs it before going to stage. Like how do you put this into the accounting system? You know it's like it's impossible, you know. So, with all the friendship and how we tried to deal doing workarounds and things like that, it was slowing us down. We were always a little bit in the whole mood. But on the other side, I mean, if this pandemic thing wouldn't have happened, we wouldn't be able, you know, to buy out the company and operate it as an independent event organizer.

Speaker 1: 19:26

Yeah, I mean, look, in the end, godaddy is not an event organizing company, right, and I'm sure they went through some serious challenges, like any other company, mobilizing their workforce home. During that time and I'm sure they didn't want to be bothered by you, you know they were worried about how the hell we're going to get 10 000 customer service agents out of the offices and into their homes so they can keep working and we can stay open and somehow we continue offering our 24-hour, around the clock, worldwide customer service without any interruption, right? I mean that that, to me, was impressive on many levels, not not just at GoDaddy, but every major company to move their service people and workers and everybody home. I mean for you, though, like for me, to get any better anytime soon. You start thinking the worst, and so for me, when I left and started Sawcom, I had others that I worked with who had good paying jobs at Uniregistry and other places that joined us, and there was no money coming in, and I remember saying to them like look, nobody's buying right now, but there will come a day when they start buying again. You just got to give people a chance to figure their lives out and let these businesses figure themselves out and once they do, we need to be first in line for who they send the money to and we need to work our asses off. So when that day comes, we're first in line at 100 companies, not one, and you need to stick with it.

Speaker 1: 21:19

And it was tough saying that to them for half of March, all of April, all of May and then half of June. Right, and it's like for you you do your first virtual conference and I'm sure you, even though you sat on your ass organizing it, you were probably twice as tired after that than you were and you didn't make much money at all and you're writing checks to do it and the stress like how did you manage it all, like what did you do, and what were the kind of the darker hours, because when I was telling people you got to stick with it, I didn't really even believe myself when I was saying this stuff. You know, it looked fucking bleak to me on my side. So what was it for you?

Speaker 2: 22:04

It was really, really difficult. Like I also had some personal problems at that time. So if I look back at that time it's a little bit blurred, you know, but like I have a very strong survival mode and I think that is kind of what kicked in. You know to okay, we have to do something, you know. And also, if you yourself you're feeling down, you have to motivate other people. You know that as well. But to actually, to be honest, to motivate other people helps to motivate myself as well.

Speaker 2: 22:41

And back then what I did is like with my friends, you know, like tom stroh and jochenberger, who, who basically started cloudfest 20 years ago and they own a couple of hosting companies now, like contabo hosting and a couple of other ones. Um, back then, like jochen, he was always like doing his grassroot thing, but he was building schools in India because his wife is originally from India. And back then there was the decision okay, let's make that a little bit more professional and let's not build two or three schools per year, let's do this as a real foundation. We set up everything, we hire some people to manage it and we build 60 schools per year or 30 schools per year. I think that's more realistic 20 schools per year and that kind of started during this process or during that time, you know, in in mid 2020.

Speaker 2: 23:41

So I got very involved and I would call it a hobby. You know I'm a little bit of a fundraiser but it's very nice to see, you know. I mean obviously from a CloudFest audience and ecosystem. We have some of the large players you know who donated over the past. Good Eddie has two or three schools, for example, but there's also a couple of domain investors and brokers.

Speaker 2: 24:07

Whenever they make a big deal like a seven-digit deal, I know, okay, I can expect a check right now for one of our schools coming in. So we have our five, six domainers and brokers in our ecosystem here which are supporting that as well, and I mean, I still love doing that. It's one of my favorite things and that helped me to keep sane during that period.

Speaker 1: 24:34

Specifically, when we're done with the podcast, email me the details on that and I'll put it on this episode and let others know about it. Yeah, that would kept your sanity. I think watching Tiger King with my wife and drinking a lot of wine kind of kept me held together and I think we all kind of had some some mental and personal issues during that time. So you said after the you said earlier so after COVID was over and you put together your first one back in Austin, covid was over and you put together your first one back in Austin. Exactly, how did that one go and how has the conference business been since.

Speaker 2: 25:14

For you, the good thing was, or still, is that the marketing budgets at least what we experience, you know seem to be more open and bigger than before COVID. So I mean, like a lot of the large corporations you know, they're happy to be back, happy to do physical conferences again, happy to meet people in person and customers and so on. So I would say, especially in 2022, like there was more budgets available than I can think of any year before COVID. So that was really helpful and it came naturally. I mean, everyone wanted to spend money again on conferences. You know, haven't spent anything in two years.

Speaker 2: 26:09

And then what was a real good decision is that we added CloudFest USA, our little outlet let's call, you know, to names con. There might be some overlap, but it's maybe less overlap when you think, you know, but it's at least complementary from the subjects we are covering. But you know, what is important to understand is like when you organize a conference, you always have a bottom cost, you know so you can't change that, you know. You know so you can't change that, you know. So the economy of scale comes only if you scale it in number of people or number of exhibitors, because the base cost is always the same, you know everywhere, and having two conferences in one venue is a big, big advantage for us, you know, to put more money into the production and the quality of the event.

Speaker 1: 27:15

So I didn't know this, I had no idea. I didn't really even know what CloudFest was until you combined it with Namescon and those who are in the domain business. Can you explain? Look at balloons. Can you explain to everybody what cloud fest is in germany, because it's a massive conference? And rob, who works for me, went there this year to sell hostingcom and and he met a lot of great contacts there and and hopefully we can get it sold to one of them because of going to that conference and he sent me a video of you guys doing like the server toss and there seemed to be a massive party and there's thousands and thousands of guests. I never realized it was that big. So can you tell us a little bit about that and then we can get into more of the NamesCon and that. So that conference is held in March, right, and you've been doing that at Right. It's at a theme park in March, right, and you've been doing that at a theme park in Germany, right? So I'll let you explain it.

Speaker 2: 28:14

You can go from there. Yes, so Think Disneyland. It's called Europa Park. It's the largest theme park in Europe. It's larger actually than Disneyland Paris. It's the largest theme park in Europe. It's larger actually than Disneyland Paris and we have the complete theme park. The theme park is closed to public, so we have a complete theme park including all surrounding hotels in a circle of 20 miles around the theme park, as well as the Europa Park hotels themselves, completely blocked for our audience. So we have around uh 8 700 visitors.

Speaker 2: 28:50

We had in this March attendees, 200 exhibitors and um. The attendees come from more than 90 countries. We are quite proud of that. So you can think about that, the market we address. Well, our main marketers are the cloud service providers, the companies such as DigitalOcean, vultr, godaddy, a2 Hosting, dreamhost, yonos, hostinger, webcentral, just to name a few, basically, who are selling email, domain, shared hosting, dedicated hosting, website builder, those kind of services.

Speaker 2: 29:39

And you can think about it this way we have basically the product managers and executives from the market leaders in each country, you know, from the godaddies in each of the countries. Like a local web from brazil, they would come to to um to germany, or latin cloud from argentina or from indonesia. You know they are the clear market leaders in their certain segment and they come there basically to meet their exhibitors, their partners. So the interesting thing is it's a theme park and we are doing that now for, I think, 12 or 13 years already in Europa Park and we grow together with them at that specific conference, and also for the owner family it's still like the highlight of the year because it's the only time when there's no kids in the theme park. It's only drunken adults all over and I mean you can get very playful and creative. So this year we launched or we did the world championships in server throwing.

Speaker 2: 30:45

So you basically get a real 19 rack server, you know, and then when there's some videos online, I mean you can, you can watch it. It's quite funny.

Speaker 1: 30:55

So who is the person who will go down in history that won it? What's his name or her name? Do you know? The world champion server thrower.

Speaker 2: 31:04

I have to look it up.

Speaker 1: 31:06

Oh, no, you forgot.

Speaker 2: 31:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I forgot, but I have to look it up, sorry.

Speaker 1: 31:14

You should have a company sponsor the belt next year. They could win the. It could be like the GoDaddy server toss belt. Right, that would be pretty funny. So let me ask you this how do you even? You were just sitting there with your friends and you're like why don't we rent this place for CloudFest next year? And did you guys like laugh about it? And you're like you know what the fuck? I'll give them a call and see what they say. And did one of you guys just call them? And when you call in, were you like hi, I'd like to rent the theme park for a weekend. And they're like, oh, hold on a minute.

Speaker 2: 31:55

And they just back to you.

Speaker 1: 31:57

We've never thought about that before.

Speaker 2: 31:58

Is that a common thing that they do? Um, how does that?

Speaker 1: 31:59

even happen. I called, I was in your disney world, so you know and I called disney and said I want to rent the magic kingdom for a weekend.

Speaker 2: 32:08

Yeah sorry, go ahead we built ourselves a good reputation in that event industry. I mean, especially in Europe. It's considered by many, many people, you know, the best business event in the world. You know from like various. For example, I was just the other day I was in the airplane and in SAS Scandinavian Airlines flying to Stockholm or whatever, and I was reading the board magazine and then I stumbled about CloudFest. Like it was an article about the coolest conferences in Europe, like in Scandinavian Airline magazine, you know, in the board magazine. So I mean it's a little bit like you say, you know we sit there and we get a crazy idea and then it's like okay, fuck, let's make that happen. You know, like how do, what do we do to make this happen? I can give you two or three examples. I mean I'm still super proud of it In 2015,. We were the first conference CloudFFest who had Edward Snowden speaking.

Speaker 1: 33:14

So for me, you know like getting him back.

Speaker 2: 33:17

You know it's called for uncomfortable podcast. That was really uncomfortable for me, to be honest. Back then I had to fly to Berlin, I met some lawyers, I had a lot of cash with me, you know, and it was very weird, you know, I didn't have any phone, I had to leave my phones in the hotel and so on. So that was a real adventure, you know. But we made it happen. Or this year in march, we made a session about social engineering. I always wanted to do that, you know, and it's it's a very interesting field. So what we did is we had a mentalist who was basically explaining how easily the audience can be manipulated, either as a whole, as a crew or with certain people on stage. So he did this one fact to show how easy it is to to get passwords through social engineering. He did this thing where he was basically guessing the name of the best friend of a person who was standing next to him on stage. You know, it's no tricks, it's just mindset. Mindset, you know, and knowledge and so on.

Speaker 2: 34:34

And after the session, you know, knowing how easy we all can be manipulated. We had this great panel and one of our panelists was the head of cybercrime from the equivalent of the German FBI, and that is obviously something, you know, which the audience really loves. You know, it's not always the big name, the big speaker, you know it's, it's the story behind it yeah, I agree totally, and it doesn't have to be the world renowned known person.

Speaker 1: 35:05

It's just somebody with a really interesting story, and some of the folks that I've talked to on here hearing their story I find a lot more intriguing than someone if I got you know some famous actor, someone if I got you know some famous actor or something like that that you know, like who cares, you know? When I look at CloudFest, though, and you said you had 8,700 people show up this year is that a good year attendance-wise? Is that the highest you've ever gotten for the show, or is it going down a little bit?

Speaker 1: 35:34

Really, I remember this was the biggest that you've had, the biggest highest attended show that you've had at CloudFest in Germany this year, right, is that what you said?

Speaker 2: 35:51

Yes, it was the biggest one, 8,700 people this year. I think last year we were around 8,000 or so, so it was slightly more.

Speaker 1: 36:02

Cool. I mean, I remember right when Europe started to open up and we could come as long as we had our vaccination cards and you would have to get your COVID test when you landed. And I remember that I actually wanted to go to CloudFest because I'm an investor in link and I was going to go and go with Vaughn to the conference at the yeah, and we were going to go to the theme park together and I wanted to see it and learn more about hosting and all that. And I remember thinking to myself I could land in Germany and then get stuck in quarantine for two weeks. But not only that. I could land in Germany. I could get on the train for two hours, get to the theme park and then test positive when I get there and then get stuck in the hotel there, maybe quarantined in some random ass place, for two weeks, or get sick on the way home. And I was like you know what? It's way too dicey. I was more worried, not about my own health, just about getting trapped in a foreign country. So I was like forget it.

Speaker 1: 37:09

But then this year Rob went and he said it was an awesome show and he said you guys did a great job with it and he said he wants to go again next year. So maybe we'll make that happen. Now let's talk about so you have this massive conference in Germany, 8,700 people, but then you kind of have a satellite, or you had a satellite CloudFest conference. So you had its own CloudFest in the United States, but it hasn't grown as quickly or as popular in the United States, which I find surprising that it isn't at least a few thousand people that went to it. So how many years has that little separate American one been around for?

Speaker 2: 37:53

I think it's. Is it only it's? This year is only the second or the third year? I think it's only the second year. Okay, so it's always just been.

Speaker 1: 38:01

Cloudfest was always with. It was always. Cloudfest in the United States was always with NamesCon right. Oh, I thought it was its own separate one. But you just kind of added CloudFest onto it Got it Okay, correct, and so this year for Namescon and CloudFest. How many attendees do you anticipate going to that?

Speaker 2: 38:25

Yes, we are on track to get 1,200 attendees to the event and it's really more or less 50-50 split between Namescon and CloudFest Got it.

Speaker 1: 38:42

And then, like for me, I can see for like a domain broker or someone that owns like a domain marketplace, maybe people from the hosting business aren't really. I mean, we're selling hostingcom, and if we had other hosting names to sell, meeting those people makes sense, but as a domain broker, hosting isn't really that important to us. But to a registrar, I'm sure there's a lot of overlap right, and to someone that owns a GTLD or multiple GTLDs, they could get the hosting companies, because a hosting company a lot of times also has a registrar, you know. So the gtld managers would want to meet with them too, and some other suppliers are offering other technologies. So I can certainly see how it makes sense.

Speaker 1: 39:27

My question is, though have you considered making uh name badges that are different colors? Uh, like, if you're from domain fest, it'd be like pink, and if you're from cloud fest, to be orange? I find that last year, for example, I was networking and meeting people and you're talking to someone. They're like, you know, once you talk to them for a few minutes and they're like, oh, I'm in hosting, it's just like, yeah, like I gotta go, like I only have so much time to meet people. You know what I mean, you just know that it's kind of like oil and water in some cases, and I heard that feedback from some other folks that it was kind of tough for them because they would be spending time with the wrong people. Have you guys considered that?

Speaker 2: 40:12

Jeff, I will check that and I will take this recommendation home. I will talk to the team about that. That's a good one, definitely.

Speaker 1: 40:20

Okay, all right, and then I have some other questions, though. Is this the last year it's going to be in Austin, or are you going to do it again there?

Speaker 2: 40:32

Justin, are you going to do it again there?

Speaker 2: 40:36

That's a good one, you don't have to answer if you don't know yet. Yeah, I mean, no, I'm very open and transparent we don't know it yet. It's difficult to make everyone happy. Yes, we get some complaints, but on the other side is, we clearly don't want to go back to las vegas because we think the event is too small. The uh, the whole ecosystem is too small. You know you, you will feel lost. Topicana doesn't exist anymore, anyway, luckily, um, but um, I mean we will. But I mean what I can tell you is, after the show, we will take a new approach, a new look where it's going to be in 2025.

Speaker 2: 41:22

We don't know it at this point yeah, I think like I really liked.

Speaker 1: 41:29

I think, if I had to choose between the two venues, if they're just hotels next to each other, as a conference of venue itself, I think the Tropic, to choose between the two venues if they're just hotels next to each other as a con, a conference of venue itself, I think the Tropicana was pretty good because there was only really three places where people would gather and so it always seemed busy. And being in Las Vegas, the other thing I liked about the Tropicana, the hotel obviously wasn't the best, but like if you forget your badge in your hotel room at the venetian, that's about a 45 minute walk back to your room, you know. And if you're at the venetian or you're at the win or you're at mgm, right, these places are fucking massive and so it's like, or you just want to go up to your room and send some emails for 20 minutes. You know that is an hour and a half commitment to walk back 20 minutes of emails and walk back to the show. That I don't like. You know, and I think it's great in Austin that you want to go up to your room right in that hotel, zoom right up, do what you got to do, come right back down. I think it's good.

Speaker 1: 42:30

I think the thing with Austin is that I don't like and I know there's no perfect place, but the thing that I don't like as much about Austin is that everyone seems to gravitate in that coffee shop and it's packed, and then right kind of out front of it a bit and then a lot of the people that have the booths to the right don't get the traffic as much as they should and then you have a lot of people up. You have to walk up the stairs to go to those, to where the speakers are, and it seems like there isn't as many people as they really are where. When we were in Las Vegas, the booths were in that one big room and then the speaking doors were open and people would finish Someone's finished talking, the people would empty into where the tables were, the booths were, and then people hung out in there, which gave it the appearance that there was always a lot of people and it and it kind of even it would probably was less people than a thousand people than you just said, or 1200 people. It gave that appearance that there was more going on. Um, I personally think and I know nothing about the trade business and I've actually asked um the people that organize I can conferences this question.

Speaker 1: 43:47

So don't think I'm picking just on you. Why not? Why not pick a place in the United States that has the most direct flights to it from all over the world, like Atlanta or Washington, dallas or Chicago, and make that the place? Don't you think? I'm sure there's like 20% are European or 30% are European that come to Namescon in the United States. So I mean, to be able to get a direct flight is more important, necessarily, than the city. Do you disagree with that?

Speaker 2: 44:28

No, I don't disagree. I think you're totally right and I mean we kind of have a similar approach and when looking in austin, um, I think it was like only one place worth than las vegas for um, for incoming flights. Yes, so a lot of people don't know that actually, but it's, it's in the list. It's like las vegas is number 11 and austin is 12, something like that. You know, so, um I was also surprised.

Speaker 2: 44:58

Also, I heard the complaints yeah, it's very difficult to get to austin. I said no, it has as many flights as las vegas, it's almost you know, but uh, so it's not true. Yeah, but I get your argument and you're right. It it's like but on the other side is you need to find a location you know where you can produce it, also for the cost. You know which caters basically the number of attendees and the money coming in from the partners. So we were looking into these?

Speaker 2: 45:31

Yeah, we were looking. I mean Washington, washington, dallas, I think. Back then I did a conference in 2005 for Parallels in Reston. We have to look. I mean we will take a new approach.

Speaker 1: 45:44

But I got your argument, totally makes sense yeah, I mean I, and I said the same to ICANN, and ICANN is going to have one of their conferences this year. I think is in, not Somalia, but it's you know. There's one in Africa, there's going to be one in Turkey, there's Rwanda, you know, and that's a challenge to get to. So, you know, I ask, and they say, well, we're one world, one internet and we're supposed to have an ICANN at all these different places. But it's like, well, one world, one internet, we're supposed to have ICANN at all these places. But wouldn't it be a more successful show if it's in a much more accessible place? And they said, well, people from Rwanda would never be able to attend an ICANN.

Speaker 1: 46:30

If you think that way, and I said it would probably be better if, if someone from rwanda wanted to go to the conference, that you just flew them wherever it was than having a whole conference there to appease, you know, to say we did it and check that box like why wouldn't you pick five or ten major airports around the globe that many more people can get a direct flight to? Like imagine, like ship hold in amsterdam? You know, I've done a lot of flights in frankfurt and germany as a connecting flight many times. London heathrow, I mean, those are three major airports that anyone in europe can get a direct flight to. Right, uh, you have hong kong, toky, somewhere in Australia, I'm sure, and then you go LA, chicago, atlanta, dc, you know, I'm not even saying Tampa, you know where I live, I'm not even bringing up Miami, I'm being quiet.

Speaker 1: 47:25

You know it would be nice, but you know I don't. Again, it's not an easy airport. There's not as many flights, you know. So I'm just, you know, just saying that. Anyways. Now my other question is I was looking at your RDS conference. That you do is in October, so that's similar to CloudFest. I think it looks like there's some parallel to RDS and CloudFest. Is that right?

Speaker 2: 47:52

Yeah, it's actually MSP. Msp Global is the name of the conference and MSP stands for Managed Service Providers.

Speaker 1: 48:02

I don't know why I called it RDS. I'm sorry.

Speaker 2: 48:07

No worries. Msp Global Managed Service Providers the idea came over the last year. So, um, you know, if you look at our original or let's say the og audience which we have from cloud service providers are the cloud, yeah, cloud service provider ecosystem is what was called web hosting. So, um, at cloud cloud fest we have other cloud service providers. But over the you know like there was so much consolidation because either GoDaddy or Newfold or anyone else bought everyone, you know. So if you have consolidation, you know, and if you have a lot of private equity in the game, you have less and less people. It's good in the beginning when private equity hurts, hits a certain industry, but if you come in the laggard phase, you know you have less and less people coming from your original audience because there's less and less companies. You know, at the end phase of consolidation, but still, our fortress was growing every year and we were wondering where do we get all these new people from? So so this is two things. So we got them. Either these are internal IT departments like CTO, cio from Fortune 1000s, or managed service providers, and managed service providers is a non-consolidated industry. It's kind of.

Speaker 2: 49:32

There is consolidation in the US. In Europe it's just starting right now. So UK and Netherlands are the forerunners in the consolidation of MSPs, but beside of that, it's still extremely fragmented, and fragmented markets are very good for conferences because more people are coming, and this is why we said, okay, I mean there's so much potential, because I think only in Germany there's 30,000 MSPs. I think in the US it's like 200,000 or something like that. It's like an incredible number. You know, the market is 10, 15 times bigger than our CloudFest industry and it's at least 100 times bigger than the Namescon industry. So MSP Global is a good new thing for us, because also there are a couple of MSP events and conferences but no real good ones. So we come here in with our concept what we have at CloudFest and do that with MSP Global as a standalone event. This event is going to happen also in a theme park nearby Barcelona, 40 minutes from Barcelona, in October, second week of October.

Speaker 1: 50:50

So because it's at the end of the second week of October, is that why you do NamesCon towards the end of June, to kind of spread out the three shows based on bandwidth and just timing and everything Does that. Is that really the main reason? Within the May, june? Yeah, yeah, well, that makes sense. Sense, um, because I think, like in the united states, I've said to some folks too, talking about the conference in general, and I mean, you're only, you're a human is that the end of june, in the middle of may, until the end the middle of june, is tough, because in the united states that's when all, like the kids are graduating, high school school is ending and it's just a really busy time, uh, during the year. You know, and that's why I always like, I always liked it when you had the conference in january or february, because, um, well, two reasons is january for me isn't it's a busy month, but it's not. It's busy for business month, it's not busy for family month, and um, and then also what like about it, which was important to me in January, february, is, if I spoke to a registrar or a company, not like an individual domainer but a company, I still have a chance to get in there, that year's roadmap, like if I spoke to someone in January, I still can potentially or hopefully get into 2024, and maybe even in the first quarter, because they haven't decided what they want to do yet.

Speaker 1: 52:22

But by the time I talked to somebody at the end of June or beginning of June, then that guy's going to go on vacation, possibly for two or three weeks, and then that excitement or the fire of it is gone. Or he's like, yeah, let's do it. Oh, but my developers are gone in July. You know I'm going on vacation in August and then by the time they talk about it it's like October, but 20 new things came up and then you have to have that. You know, it's like you're kind of it kind of loses that a little bit and I think that you know that's why I like conferences in January. But that makes sense for you in the roadmap. And I mean, cloudfest is the bread and butter, that's the biggie. So you don't want to change that and people probably have it marked on their calendars every year. So I'm sure you don't change the dates of that at all, right. And then this MSP one is a relatively new conference, right. How many years old is. That is a relatively new conference right.

Speaker 2: 53:14

How many?

Speaker 1: 53:15

years old, is that we only started?

Speaker 2: 53:16

last year. We had our inaugural event last year in November, so this is only our second edition this year.

Speaker 1: 53:24

Oh wow, that's good. And what made you think, hell, let's add on another conference? You're like, I got the recipe for it, so you're like, what the hell, let's do it.

Speaker 2: 53:36

Yes, I mean it was a good time. We came back strong from after COVID.

Speaker 2: 53:42

You know, after the pandemic we are all grassroots, you know there's no investment in the company, but we kind of structured, some deals, you know, with partners, and you know we were able to get it out, you know, to make an amazing first MSP Global we had. It was immediately two times bigger or three times bigger than Namescon, you know, with 60 or 80 exhibitors we had 1,500 people. So it was immediately big, you know from day one. However, I mean, NamesCon is very important for us, you know, not misunderstanding that, and I like your feedback, what you're giving regarding the month of June, it's not an excuse. I just want to give some history to that.

Speaker 2: 54:29

So, after COVID, when we came back and then we were able to do the first physical Namescon event again, we were looking at the timetable with the Omni Hotel. You know when can we do that? Basically, when can this happen? And, like, early June or end of May was the best they had, you know, because, like once after pandemic, everyone came back, all the big event companies who wanted to organize events. You weren't able to book anything, or to astronomy prices, you know. And so this is how it happened, but it changed from January to June. But I'm completely on your side, you know. I think the event would be better in the last week of January again.

Speaker 1: 55:20

Yeah, and then? So let me ask you this question as a business owner. Right, I own a small business. You're similar sizes as mine and when I'm looking at obviously, attending NamesCon, I've always felt like I've gotten a great value from it. I've never left saying I had a bad NamesCon. I've always left happy. I've always learned something new, I've met new people, I have new opportunities to make money Always.

Speaker 1: 55:49

And for those who don't know me, I met Soren when I was at Uniregistry and Frank's strategy and his attitude was very hard and heavy on advertising and so he paid Soren.

Speaker 1: 56:04

I have no idea, I wasn't part of these conversations, but he paid Soren a lot of money and like to the point that the Uniregistry logo was like with lights on the walls in Vegas and they had like big letters that said Uniregistry and it was just Uniregistry, everything, which was great and you guys did a great job with it. But as a small business owner like myself, where I'm trying to determine should I just come this year, should I bring somebody? I just come this year, should I bring somebody? So if I bring somebody, you know I get to pay for the ticket, uh, flight, food, hotel. It's a few thousand dollar investment to bring somebody to the show, then myself, again a few thousand dollar investment, so let's say it's five, six grand all in.

Speaker 1: 56:49

When it's done, um do and I debate this do you think it makes sense and the kind of return that I would get as a small business owner if I were to pay to have sawcom on the wall when I walk in and I see my logo there? Do you think that that's going like the extra $2,000 or $5,000 or whatever it is Like? How would I get that money back? What do you think that that would do for me as a small business owner and why should I buy?

Speaker 2: 57:25

Okay, I mean, first of all, when I compare the audience of CloudFest to Namescon, at CloudFest we have only corporates, you know, mostly large corporations and basically the employees. So basically I mean, everyone loves CloudFest, you know, but the employee gets paid by his company to go there. The difference is at Namescon, you know, but it's um, the employee get paid by his company to go there. The difference is that namescon, you know, it's guys like you who have a small team with two or three people and you need to decide or think about beside of me who else should go from my team. It's a tough decision because you're a small business which you fund yourself, but for us, as organizers, we see that, you know. I would like just to make that clear. We see that that the effort for someone coming to namescon is much, much higher than coming to cloudfest, because we talk about personal money. But why you should do that is the following where do you live right now? Temper, you said how many domainers do you have in Tampa area beside of Ron Jackson?

Speaker 1: 58:40

I would say I do business with three right now in Tampa, not including Ron Jackson. There's three in the area.

Speaker 2: 58:49

So you can meet them for lunch, you can meet them for coffee, you know, if you like, but it's a very limited group and you all work from home or from WeWork or whatever. You know WeWork doesn't exist anymore, but you're working from home, most of you guys are working from home and Namescon it costs you money, but it's the only time of the year, beside of maybe an ICANN meeting which is reachable from where you live, that you meet your peers. And you know, I think, especially for someone working from home and being basically alone more or less through the whole business here, you know this is one of a few possibilities where you can meet your peers. And this only works for the physical conference. You know, when people ask me why don't you publish any recordings of the sessions, you know thereafter I say no, we don't do this. We want people to come physically to the events. You know they will be more happy, they can socialize you know, will be more happy they.

Speaker 2: 59:53

They can, uh, socialize. You know, they learn, it's educational. They can go to the sessions if they want, but definitely they come home with business.

Speaker 1: 1:00:02

So I, I encourage everyone you know to make this decision and come I agree and I I do say it's a good show, like I I said before. But what I was I guess I should have reworded it was for a smaller business. Like how can I realize bigger returns from the show if I were to pay you for a sponsorship? Like, how does that work out? And how do your current people paying for sponsorships like that I see?

Speaker 1: 1:00:26

Like I guess what I'm trying to say is I see the same companies sponsoring NamesCon every year, right, a similar one, some drop out, but usually there's a core number of companies that are always advertising, whether they're large, and there's some that are smaller, like a domain broker or some of these bigger places or whatever, but they must be getting a good return. You know what kind of return or what is the value that they are getting from that sponsorship. And me, as a small business owner, if I was interested in paying for that that's what's going through my mind, not if I'm going to go or not. If I was going to pay that little extra to get more exposure or booth or something, what would it be?

Speaker 2: 1:01:06

Yeah, yeah. I think for a registrar, registry or marketplace, it makes definitely 100% sense to exhibit. Okay, registrar and domainers are my focus. Registry let's take Identity Digital as an example. You know they have two interests. They have the interest to talk to the registrars which are on site and educate the domainers about the premium domains in their portfolio and in addition to that, they sell to the CloudFest USA audience. So that is maybe the best example right now, like a company like that. But if your marketplace registry registrar makes sense to exhibit, if you are a broker, to be honest, I'm not sure if it makes sense unless you have a certain mission. You know that you, um, that you have, I don't know, want to hire people or I don't know you. You need to have a certain mission. But other than that, I think for domain brokers, I'd rather see you as the attendees, not as the exhibitors.

Speaker 1: 1:02:22

Got it. Yeah, I mean, see, what I think is is that if I was going to give you like I'm just I don't know what the prices are I was going to give you 3000 bucks to get a booth in my logo on the website and on on the piece of papers and whatever. I could give you 3000 bucks to get a booth in my logo on the website and on on the piece of papers and whatever I could give you that. Or I could pay that three grand and have another person who works for me come and we can go, shake hands and kiss babies you know twice as many and I would be able, with a thousand people, be able to cover that place 10 times in the four or five days that I'm here with that person. And I think that that in and of itself would be more valuable to me. But maybe I'm not seeing it, maybe that's why I was. I was asking, but yeah, I think that answer makes makes perfect sense. So here's one more screwball.

Speaker 2: 1:03:07

I'm going to throw at you. Go ahead. Yeah, one thing you know we have. Do you know Jack from China dncom? Yeah, absolutely so. He just sent me an email five minutes before we started the recording and he will try out a booth this year, so, but I think it's one of the first times you know that we have specifically a domain broker.

Speaker 1: 1:03:30

You know getting a booth, yeah he must get out of my head. You know he's thinking exactly what I'm thinking and it, you know it doesn't. It doesn't hurt to try, you know, especially if you do something different than everybody else. So, going back before, you kind of came on the scene and I don't remember which conferences were which and milling it all together, but from conferences that I remember it all together, but from conferences that I remember we've had Don King, the boxing promoter, speak. We've had Biz from Twitter. We've had Kim Kardashian.

Speaker 1: 1:04:09

You mentioned it before that you had the cybersecurity professional. We were actually at Uniregistry. We didn't end up hiring her, but we were this close to paying her. We were going to bring in this woman who is a professional negotiator. She's negotiated like hostage situations with terrorists, the PLO, just teaching the basics of you know negotiating, whether it's in person, email, phone.

Speaker 1: 1:04:34

You talked about the master manipulator. You know, when I look at and including myself, because I'm on a panel this year, so this isn't to knock anybody in any way I just see a lot of the same faces this year speaking than I have in previous years and I think that a lot of the subjects are going to be similar. So would you consider and I know like an Edward Snowden would be really expensive. But would you consider getting somebody of an interesting, you know background? That is different than what the normal thing is, and I know like Andrew Miller is a great negotiator. You know he's going to talk about his massive sale and he deserves to have a panel and people want to hear him talk and that's totally fine. But I'd also like to hear or have somebody guess my password to my email in front of the well, maybe not my email, but my password to something or do something. That is something really interesting to me and us as a community, and there's a handful of things I think would be. Cyber security is one like you already mentioned.

Speaker 1: 1:05:45

You know negotiating, I think you know, especially if there's like a written section of that, and I don't think like a really good negotiator would be super expensive. You know, um, maybe someone who works at chat, gpt, but it's not not Elon Musk, maybe it's just somebody who knows a lot about AI. I think everyone who's going to that show is interested in that or whatever. What are your thoughts about having like more of a speaker like that? I think it would attract more attendees because it seems to me that I know a lot more people that go to the show to network and they say I don't even go to the sessions, you know. And so what do you think about that?

Speaker 2: 1:06:27

If you look at the demographics of Namescon, it's kind of 50-50. It's 50% newcomers who come for the first time and 50% repeating for the first time and 50% repeating. Then a question to you, jeff, something I asked once in a while like how many people do you think are in the world who do domaining full-time, either as a broker or a domainer, as their main?

Speaker 1: 1:06:59

core business, yeah, their bread and butter their livelihood. Who can live from it? I would say it is less than 5000. Okay, maybe 8000 people probably what I would say that can live off of it. Yeah, I'd probably go with that If you told me how many brokers and quotes that GoDaddy has. That would help me with my number, but yeah, Okay.

Speaker 2: 1:07:34

No but I was actually thinking it's less people, so my estimation was a little less. But in any way, you know what I'm trying to say is, when you look at the demographics, how do you make a program from the agenda which is catering both audiences the new kids on the block, the new ones and who are doing that as a side hustle, which is the majority of people of attendees we have, and then the ones who are doing it as a full-time living in one way or another. If you look at the ones who are doing it full-time, you know we have we have a lot of orgs like, I think, more than in the last years, we have some of them who haven't came to conferences since 2019, before COVID, like Drew Rosner, for example, after six years, now five years. So I think, from that perspective, it is.

Speaker 2: 1:08:32

If you look at the program which we're going to reveal next week, the agenda there's a lot of content, obviously for this 80%, for these newcomers you know who the 101s, you know they, they need to learn and they are happy to see you on a panel or other people like drayden and amar, people you had in your podcast before. Um, yeah, so that is one thing. The other thing is how to get the superstars without paying too much money on them, you know, and kind of make it part of your calculation. That's the difficult part. So for this year, since we put development of domains a little bit higher on the list on the priority, we have Matt Mullenbeck from uh, the inventor of WordPress, who actually lives in Austin.

Speaker 1: 1:09:26

So that's a very good, very impressive when it comes to developing it.

Speaker 2: 1:09:30

Yeah, then, one thing which we are announcing, um uh, also this week is Vint Cerf, who is considered the godfather of the internet. He's the one who invented the TCP, ip protocol.

Speaker 2: 1:09:47

So, along with Steve Crocker, you know, who made the ARPANET transition to the internet. He's considered the main person in inventing the internet, in inventing the internet. So, and then we have one more guest on Friday the inventor of DNS, paul Mokapetris. So this year it's 40 years DNS and I think you know, like these internet heroes, you know the ones who wrote protocols or invented things which we use as a nowadays space is something of what we learned as organizers is very important for our attendees. So our attendees love it more than any kind of celebrities we put on stage when we do surveys after the show, when we do surveys after the show. So, paul Mokapetris, you know 40 years DNS. He's the guy why we all have a job or why we can sell domains. You know this will be an interesting conversation. It's a celebrity in our field, but it's not a celebrity from TV or social media or whatever.

Speaker 1: 1:10:57

And I prefer that, and I didn't realize you're having this. These are the exact kind of people that I'm going to go and listen to talk, right, and I can learn something from them, you know, and I find them extremely interesting, you know, and that's good and I'm happy that you're doing that, because it just seemed to me in the last couple of years I think it was it just seemed like a lot of the same stuff. But it's true, if you have a lot of rookies there, you have to have a lot of the same stuff, you know, and it makes sense, and I actually also said to somebody else that it doesn't seem like when I got in the business 14 years ago, a lot of the domain investors I met which have grown into bigger, more successful domain investors like one being Daniel Nogari, you know, and he owns xyz now and he has a massive domain portfolio you know, he was probably in his mid 20s, you know. And then Yanni, who's one of the other people on the show, again early 20s, you know. And then Yanni, who's one of the other people on the show again, early 20s Merlin, early 20s. There were a lot of these. A lot of these domain investors were in their early 20s, mid 20s and and they're still hanging around, they're still part of the industry.

Speaker 1: 1:12:12

But I don't see many young faces in the domain business these days and I see a lot more people like me with white hair. You're a little whiter in the whiskers there my friend too, from the last time I saw you and it seems like the average age is creeping at NamesCon and I believe the week before or a few days before is the crypto conference in Austin as well, and I find it interesting. I'd find it interesting if you got a lot of people from the crypto conference to come to your conference for a couple of days, if they want to do both. Like I know, grant Shellhammer is going to go to the crypto conference and he's going to go to your show, but I'm wondering if that's going to help attract people, like the Consumer Electronic Show and whatever it was.

Speaker 1: 1:13:03

In Vegas there was the Affiliate Summit. It used to be that same time, but anyways, getting back to it, it just seems like the Namescon crew. We're getting old and I don't see a lot of new young blood in it. So the rookies that are coming, do you think they're there in their 20s?

Speaker 2: 1:13:25

Let me answer this question a little bit differently. The inventor of DNS, paul Mokapetras. He became a good friend over the last years, so he invented that 40 years ago and he's saying that the changes to original code that he wrote are so marginal you know that it's more or less it can be considered as something which was written 40 years ago, nothing changed. So what can you expect from an industry where the standard you know which we are using is not evolving, um where basically the scheme how domains are sold is also 25 years old, you know, from registry to registrar, to maybe a reseller in between to end customer?

Speaker 2: 1:14:14

so you have all these schemes which hasn't changed since decades? How do you expect coming young people into this legacy world, you know, which is for them, very boring, like what? What is basically the latest cool stuff we heard in the domain industry? We talk a little bit about web3 since three or four years. We have now fractional ownership, but beside of that, nothing really happened. We're still doing the same thing like 25 years ago. That is my personal opinion on that, but uh, it's. It's difficult, you know, um to to bring crazy new innovation stuff to something which is so legacy. You know, that is obviously something which we have to deal with. As an organizer, we try to give new impulses, but we can't change the way the industry is set up. We can just give a neutral platform to discuss it and hopefully there will be some changes at one point. But yeah, that's how I see it.

Speaker 1: 1:15:25

I think my opinion on that, though, is I feel like even if I was 20 years younger, looking at domains, and what the best part about domains is is that if you own a thousand domains, each of those is, in essence, a different company about a different subject, and you get to learn something new. And talking to buyers, talking to sellers, researching these names doesn't get old, and I think, like you're a pretty resourceful guy, you're selling tours to Mauritius when you were young, so you pick tours because you saw an opportunity. If I can go into a GoDaddy auction and I can invest in some inventory for you know, hundreds of dollars and turn that into thousands, I can't imagine that any resourceful young guy wouldn't want to give that a shot and be able to do it on their own time Right, and be able to do other things with those domains while you're waiting to sell them, and it allows you to do different things. Now, comparing myself and what I do on a daily basis and who I get to talk to as a domain broker and the circles of people that this business has opened me up to, I can see trends in technology. I can learn about new business ideas that are coming out. I learn about new service ideas that are coming out. I learned about new service ideas. I was telling my friends and explaining what ChatGPT was to them ages ago and half of them still don't even know what it is. These are pretty savvy people. It's allowed me to stay on the forefront. I got into crypto very early but I wouldn't have known that if I wasn't in this business.

Speaker 1: 1:17:21

And then usually those that are in the domain business have their fingers in new things. You know what I mean. It just seems like it's. It just keeps going, and so that that's why I'm saying is like. It seems like I guess I would call domaining is almost like a gateway drug. You know, everyone says marijuana is a gateway drug and it opens you up to, you know, get more drugs and do different things. Well, I think with domaining it does. You know, wholeheartedly, and I find it to be really interesting. But the person who used to do SEO for me told me it's a very boring subject and you're probably the only one who really likes it, you, um. So you know, I guess it's all in all in what you like. Some people sell watches, you know. Other sell domains, um, other people rake leaves, you know, but anyways.

Speaker 2: 1:18:12

So do you have anything to uh anything else to tell us about Go ahead, I just wanted to say I like the word gateway truck. I experienced it. Similar, actually, I learned a lot from domainers, like things outside of the domain industry. Yeah, definitely, I agree with you with this here. And I would like to add one more point regarding the new kids on the plot, or the younger plot to get to the conference.

Speaker 2: 1:18:44

So this year I'm working very, very closely with Dennis from Domain Smoke on the agenda for this year's Namescon, and Dennis is one of the younger persons, I think, in this domain industry for sure, and also one of the ones who just only entered a couple of years ago but is very, very active with his newsletter of expired domain auctions and, I think, a very well reputation inside our small ecosystem and industry. And like specifically with dennis, like on each panel we set up currently, we ask ourselves how we can we bring more diversity to this, to this panel. So, first of all, diversity in matter of male and female, but also diversity in matter of oh, I saw Jeff already on 20 panels before versus bringing a new one on yeah. So this is something we really try, you know, and we try to get the best out of it, but you know, at the end we can only give a neutral platform to make things better inside the industry. You know we can't change boringness, you know, of, let's say, technology stack, you know, or how things are sold because it's done 25 years already. Like this, we can give impulses and we can give a neutral platform, you know.

Speaker 2: 1:20:18

But using it as a gateway track to learn, I also totally agree with you. I mean, this crowd we have there is amazing and after this conference I have so many ideas in my head. I want to start like three companies right away. You know, until you come down a little bit, but it's true, it's a lot of intelligent people we have in our small industry and each one. You know, in order to be a successful broker or domain investor, you need to look beyond and you can clearly see that and that's also one more argument to come. You know you meet peers which are looking beyond. They're not in their little cave, in their little cave, in their whatever job they are doing, which might be boring. So it's amazing people and you learn from them a lot. That's what I really like about that. I learn more at Namescom than at CloudFest.

Speaker 1: 1:21:23

Well, you're too busy on the rides, you know. But I think the thing is, I think what I also love about the domain industry as well, is you talk about diversity. I personally don't care when people talk about diversity. I personally don't care if when people talk about diversity. The best thing that ever happened to me, or one of the best things that ever happened to me, was living abroad, in the Cayman Islands, and when we live there and building a sales team there.

Speaker 1: 1:21:55

There was one point where we had somebody from Africa, we had someone from China, we had people from the Cayman Islands, we had people from England, we had people from, obviously, the United States, somebody from Mexico, we had somebody from New Zealand, somebody from Australia, we had all these Jamaica people from Jamaica as well. I mean India. We had someone from Goa, india that worked for us, and then another part of India and to me, in the domain industry, it's like there's a lot of Germans but there's also others from China and wherever else, and that's the diversity I like, and hearing their points of view and their culture and their stories and the way they think is always a little different, you know, than us as Americans think. You know, and to me. You're right. I mean, there's diversity of the individuals, but the diversity of culture and the way that they are is really important.

Speaker 1: 1:22:52

And before I entered this industry I never did business with a German, you know, I never did business with somebody from South Africa and I love it and I think that's great. And I think someday when I retire, I'll probably do like a trip around the world and go visit all my friends from the domain industry, because I know I'll have a place to sleep in pretty much almost every country around, at least a flight away from each other. I can do a puddle hop to each place. So, you know, and I think that's pretty cool too. But yeah, it's been good. And do you have anything else that you want to tell our listeners before we wrap this up, soren?

Speaker 2: 1:23:36

Come to Namescon June 5th to 8th.

Speaker 1: 1:23:40

June 5th to 8th in Austin, Texas. All right, Well Soren, how can people get a hold of you if they have any questions about the show? How would they get a hold of you?

Speaker 2: 1:23:54

Yeah, sure, please feel free to drop me an email at Soren, which is S-O-E-R-E-N at namesconcom. Soren, s-o-e-r-e-n at namesconcom. All right, and if you send me, an email. I will give you a yeah, okay, thank you. Thanks a lot, jeff. Sorry, I had some problems the whole time because your audio is like three or four seconds delayed so I was never sure when you were finished with your sentence or not.

Speaker 1: 1:24:32

So I hope it's working out it'll be fine.

Speaker 1: 1:24:37

It's okay, it's not a big deal, um, but what we can do is, if you want, I can, um, you're going to do a promo code or something like that, um, or if you email them, I can put in the description. It doesn't matter to me. I mean, hopefully you can get some tickets out of it or not. I can just put the link to where you can buy tickets in the description. Works too. So when we're off, when we're when we're done, send me an email with the school info and then any info for NamesCon that I can put in there CloudFest, so people can sign up and hopefully you can make some money.

Speaker 2: 1:25:13

Thanks a lot. It would be great to sell some tickets, but it's looking not so bad right now. It will be full.

Speaker 1: 1:25:20

Good, awesome. Oh man, what time is it? By you, it looks bright out 6.30. 6.30 pm. 2 in the afternoon Nice.

Speaker 2: 1:25:37

It's Barcelona. We never have bad weather, so same as you there you go.

Speaker 1: 1:25:44

All right. Well, thank you, soren. I hope you have a good day and I can't wait to see you in Texas. All right,