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We
saw a number of interesting new domain businesses make
their debut in 2010. One of them was Boxcar.com,
a platform that allows portfolio owners to run their own multi-name
auctions, much like the big boys at venues like Sedo.com,
the AfternicDLS and Aftermarket.com do.
While Boxcar.com is a new offering, the man behind the
company, Mike Fiol, is no stranger to the domain
business. To the contrary Fiol is one of the industry's
most seasoned and respected veterans, a person who is
often called on for advice as one of the principals at DomainConsultant.com.
In
the event that you don't already know Mike we felt it is
high time you did, so we decided to use this final
newsletter of 2010 for an interview with him that will
fill you in on both his history in the domain industry and
what he is currently up to with Boxcar.com (and
DomainConsultant.com).
DN
Journal: Mike,
most of those who have been in the industry for any length
of time know you well, but for those who have not had the
pleasure, give us a brief bio – where you grew
up, went to school and early business experience.
Mike
Fiol: I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico
and grew up the son of a neurologist and a history teacher
in Edina, Minnesota. We moved there because my
mother had a skin condition aggravated
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Mike
Fiol
Founder, Boxcar.com
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by the sun. After high
school, I attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison
where I graduated with three majors; history, film and
English. It was at UW
that I started my first company - a cake delivery
business that I would sell when I graduated. After
graduation I started a golf company which patented and
manufactured golf accessories. That would also be sold and
that is where I met the Internet, back in 1997.
I had
started a product placement firm for television and
movies and needed a 'brochure' for my services. The best
option seemed like the Internet. So I went out and bought Front
Page and taught myself to build websites. Since then I
have done work for dozens of Fortune 500 companies
including 3M, MLB, Motorola and more.
Interestingly enough, one of my first clients was Don
Ham (of Reinvent
Technology whose brother Kevin was
dubbed "The
Man Who Owns the Internet" by Business
2.0 Magazine).
After
working as a designer and developer for many years, I was
finally able to stop in 2003 (when domain income
surpassed design income) and focus entirely on the
domain side of things.
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At
the very first T.R.A.F.F.I.C. conference
in 2004 Mike Fiol (left) received a special
recognition award from conference Co-Founder
Rick Schwartz for designing the show's
website. |
DN
Journal:
Tell us a little bit more about your initial
experience with domain names and what you focused
on in your early years in the business.
Mike
Fiol: My
first domain was for my placement service but I
really got interested when a local video company
hired me to do online marketing for them.
One day the owner told me he had bought a domain
for $60,000 and wanted me to market it.
Once it was set up, I realized it got a bunch of
visitors every day so I knew there was something
there!
My
early and late years are pretty much the same. At
a certain point I had to decide whether to focus
on quantity or quality but not both
because I lacked the resources. I chose quality
and have spent most of my career searching and
buying single-word generic domain names like Fiesta.com
or Acre.com.
They
do not make as much as 'keyword' domains using
traditional sources but the resale normally pays
for it ten times over and they make great
brands if you do develop them. Boxcar.com
is another good example of my type of domain. |
DN
Journal: Speaking of Boxcar.com, for
your latest venture built on that domain, you have come up
with a very interesting twist for the aftermarket,
a venue that allows people to run their own auctions
featuring as many 100 domains at a time. Tell us what
motivated you to go in this direction?
Mike
Fiol: Boxcar
seemed like a natural evolution for DomainConsultant.com.
We had run so many auctions on others' platforms and run
into issues and bugs every time. So we finally ran our
own auction on our own platform in March 2010 with Domain
Madness 2. It went off better and smoother
than any of the others - that's when we knew our best
option was to build and manage and offer our own platform
to owners and brokers (as well as for our own auctions).
DN
Journal: Boxcar.com
has just started but from the response you’ve gotten in
the first few weeks the platform has been open, how would
you say it is being received?
Mike
Fiol: Of
all the projects I've done in the past, this one has
received the most "you're on to something"
emails. On the other hand, domainers have been slow to
use, even understand the site and concept. As you said, it
is very new but at the same time domainers have been
registering faster than anticipated - we have plenty of
buyers.
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But
people are still feeling
their way around and getting used to
the idea of a platform - not an auction service,
but a forum for anyone to hold a lot auction they
then promote and manage and facilitate. Boxcar
lets you be Moniker or Sedo and run your own
auctions as they do. Key is to promote as they
do and as I said, I think it will take time to
fully grasp all the opportunities Boxcar has
opened - the different and alternate
opportunities.
DN
Journal: By the way, you mentioned
liking domain names as brands and I have to
tell you that I really like Boxcar.com as a brand
– perhaps because boxcars have a lot of
sentimental value for me. The house I grew up in
was near railroad tracks and a switching station
where the empty boxcars were parked. We spent many
days climbing in over and around them (until the
rail workers chased us away)! I don’t know
how familiar young people today are with the term
but boxcars held massive quantities
of goods and were instrumental in |
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| moving
them around the country. They were (and I’m
sure still are) a critical link in commerce
due to their ability to expedite the flow of
goods in large quantities. How did you acquire
the domain and what were your thoughts in
selecting it as your brand? |
Mike
Fiol: You
nailed it - moving domains to market! We
bought the domain in a private sale for $7,500. The
second I saw it, I knew it was the one because as you say,
boxcars are used to speed product to market. It is also
short, easy to say and spell and fit perfectly with the
site concept as a boxcar holds MANY items (like
domains) and not just one. So
when you register, you get your own 'boxcar' and
can fill it with names you're watching, bidding on or
selling.
Boxcar.com
is a wholly new idea. It is not about selling an
entire portfolio - it is about LISTING an entire
portfolio and allowing people to buy the ones they like
instead of the whole deal.
For a domainer like myself, who really never knows what
the market will and won't like, I have the option of
putting up 100 names and letting the market choose the
ones they like. It's meant to help owners turn over
inventory and brokers sell inventory. Fortunately for
members, we are buyers, sellers and brokers and built it
with consideration to all of these angles.
DN
Journal: earlier
I mentioned that you have been involved in another venture
– DomainConsultant.com - for quite some time now. Tell
us a bit about that business and the services you provide.
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Mike
Fiol at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Down
Under in Australia (Nov. 2008) |
Mike
Fiol: DomainConsultant.com
is a free-flowing concept I started many
years ago with a few other domainers. It is
designed to be whatever we need it to be at any
given moment, as we don't need the money, so it is
done to promote or educate or further the
industry in some meaningful way that benefits
all.
We
do offer appraisals and consulting on all manner
of domaining plus for awhile ran auctions for
third-parties. That evolved into Boxcar, so now we
promote Boxcar and run the blog
- with its current focus being on forces great and
small that mold our business as well as a forum
for development of our valuation and pricing
system, DCV.
We
feel DCV finally offers justifiable means for
domainers to price and value their domains,
something we feel is necessary for the greater
health of the industry going forward. If we can
help eliminate arbitrary pricing, then this
long journey through domaining will have been
worthwhile. That is why we are not charging |
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or
running it through a cookie-cutter script, this is
open-source for the sake of encouraging debate and
hopefully adoption.
So
DC is hopefully also a reminder that great things
await if we all work for the collective good
instead of the almighty dollar every time. |
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