I’m excited to introduce a man that I had a pleasure of meeting, Frederick Schiwek, aka Freddy. I remember  watching an AfterMarket.com auction and the highest sale of the auction was VooDoo.com.  I later find out that Freddy was the seller and Donny Simonton from Parked.com was the buyer. When I saw Freddy last year at the Ad-tech convention I asked him about the sale, Freddy proudly answered I bought the name for $31k and sold it for $300k. Wow, I was amazed to hear that Freddy had bought the name for so cheap. This is the one thing that I admire about domainers who find the time to search for domain owners and turn that purchase into a histological profit.

Freddy has his hands in Domains for more than 10 years. In the mid 90´s he was a Webmaster and Marketing Assistant for the MLM Company; later he managed the Sales Department for a local Luxembourgish ISP. That was not enough, and he moved unto EuroDNS. With his support, EuroDNS.com (created in 2002) has become a leading Domain Registrar. He followed up this success only two years later with VoipGATE, a European Voice over IP Company, where Frederick is a Co-Founder. Now part of the same group, both companies share values of openness and excellence aimed at consumers and broader markets.

Since its creation, EuroDNS has sought to offer a global and direct service to its customers by strengthening links with a continuing addition of Top Level Domain Registries around the world. As a “one stop shop” for customers willing to consolidate their portfolio in several extensions and the Domainer Community, EuroDNS offers a variety of automated and streamlined services to ensure the market becomes as unrestricted as possible. This makes it possible for everybody to benefit quickly from the marketing potential of Domain names, across the globe. A firm believer in accessibility of Domain Names for everyone, Freddy supported as one of the first Registrars to offer Proxy Registrations in .FR, .IT and .DE and has successfully lobbied for the opening of other ccTLDs in the region.

Freddy, I see that you are industry for quite some time, how long exactly?

Uff, it has been a while. You say “Industry”, when did Domaining become an Industry? In the Internet Industry I am since ´96 or maybe earlier, lets call it earning money because of the Internet. My first Email Address I got in the early 90´s. Yes, a long time ago.  It took a few years until I registered my first domain, but this happened in ´96, at this time I was definitely not commercial enough to see the potential of the Domaining (Domain Industry).

What was the highest amount that you ever paid for domain name?

We paid around half a million USD for a .de domain name. At this stage we do not want to make public which name it is, but I will let you know as soon we will publish it.

Freddy tell us a bit about DomainInvest and what are the goals for the company?

Most domain investment companies concentrate on the .com market, of course there are some big domainers investing in ccTLD´s. But we had the idea to raise money from very rich individuals and from professional investors, so we raised more than 10 Million Euro and going for more. What we are doing is buying out Domainers which maybe want to exit our industry or sell a part of their portfolio. We did some very nice deals last year, because not so many Investors are able to pay a few million for ccTLD´s.  The main goal is of course to park these domains, but also to resell them like we did with the voodoo.com 300,000 USD or with Gartenmoebel Gartenmöbel.de for 300,000 Euro. Looks like all our names going for 300k, if it stays like that I am happy!

I was there with you when you purchased Whiskey.com, what are your plans with the domain?

Oh, I forgot about that one! No way! I am kidding. Hmmm, it was an opportunity acquisition. It simply looked like a good deal. I swear we had not planed to buy it! Today it is in our cellar parked with thousands of other names, of course this name is praying for being developed, but developing domains is not our main business. Maybe tomorrow someone will show up with this great and perfect idea and we might partner.

How many domain names do you own? And what percentage of them are dot coms?

We have around 20,000 Domains today, 50% are .com but they are getting diluted. We concentrate now totally on ccTLDs, on which exactly, I do not want to disclose, sorry. All I can tell you is, that these are not only Europeans, we look also into south America and Asia.

Do you develop any of your portfolio or are you strictly concentrating on buying and selling?

There are some plans to develop a few in 2010.

If you are parking your domains which platform are you using?

We have some at Streamic, DDC, Sedo, Parklogic, Domain Sponsor, Skenzo, TrafficZ and so on, we really use everybody.

What is a typical day for you?

I think its very similar to most other domainers. In the morning I check the blogs and forums like the most of us, and then try to fight the incoming emails. In the early morning I work with the Asia/Pacific market, during the day with Europe and in the afternoon till the night with the Americans…. A typical Euro-domainer life!

BTW, where do u live? Married? Any kids? Girlfriend?

I live in Germany, very close to the the Luxembourg border, maybe just 300 meters. I am married  nearly 10 years and have a 9 year old son, he wants to become a domainer, “Oh My G-d”!

Any advice to my readers?

You chose the right industry! Just keep your eyes open, opportunities are every day in your inbox. The big boys usually don’t need any advice. From the smaller domainer I hear sometimes complains about paying the fees for attending Targeted Traffic, DomainFest or Domain RoundTable. I can tell you that it is worth going there. You learn a lot from people, just by listening to them. You can not find a better place to make better deals in a short time. And if you think it is not worth the time and money, then you did something wrong. I usually get paid back on the first day, you buy there a domain which u would not have not bought if you stay at home, like I did with wishkey.com, or you sell a domain, even better! Put domains in the auction and if you go to the event do marketing for your domains. The only way to become bigger and better in this industry is to get a training, the best training you can get is to learn from your competitors face to face. ( Great advice Freddy).

And last the question Freddy: If you can change one thing about this industry what would that be?

I would add a zero to all my sales, just one, I do not want to be greedy.

Well thats all folks, I know you want to read more about Freddy but thats all for now. I want to thank Freddy for taking the time to do the interview with me. I wish him more success in all that he does and look forward to interviewing him in the future again.

Stayed tuned to my next post where I interview a man who went from being in the car business  to an executive position with the biggest domain company in the world.

Welcome all to DomainersDigest.com. At DD I will attempt to introduce to you the domainers and advertisers that thrive our industry. People that I’ve interviewed are in some way or another have an influence on our  industry. With my questions and their answers I hope that we can all learn from their practices and services they offer and take their advise as a learning curve.

My first person to interview is Andrew Rosener. It’s interesting how I met Andrew. We were introduced by Tess Diaz  our account manager at Godaddy. Being that Tess manages both our accounts she felt that Andrew and I had lots in common. Sure enough I made the connection with Andrew and the rest is history.  I’ve compiled a list of questions for Andrew that I believe my readers would love the answers to. Here we go…..

When did you start domaing and why?

• I started “domaining” in 1998, but unfortunately, I didn’t have the foresight to grab up as much real estate as I could have. Not to mention, I was buying what I refer to as “Clever Names” instead of simple generic descriptive names. My education was in Database development and Management Information Systems. I saw the web and basically saw the tremendous opportunity to reach out and touch a lot of people fairly easily. However, I didn’t know what I wanted to tell them. I registered probably 10 domains or so and never did anything with them except the one for my name which I essentially made into an online resume. Unfortunately, as the stock market started going through the roof, I let most of my domains expire and used the cash to buy stocks (mostly .COM companies which eventually went bust).

Are you making money domaining? I know that you have sites launched, but are they making you money?

• I am making money with my domains, but not the kind of money I was making in the Seafood Business. Primarily, my domain marketplace (www.MediaOptions.com) and newsletter is where I’m making the majority of my revenue through domain sales and brokerage commissions. We aren’t making the money yet that I would like to be making, but it has been a better start than I expected when we launched MediaOptions.com in January 2009. We are getting around 1,500 – 2,000 visitors per day at MediaOptions.com and are adding hundreds of new domains to our catalogue each week.
As for development, I just started developing and experimenting with my domains very recently. We have sites like: www.SWFrance.com which is generating around $2 – $5 per day as an informational portal on the South West of France and the wine and cognac of that region. The site is heavy on content and light on design. We built this one free using DevHub. We’ve got online pharmacy sites, like: www.EDMeds.com generating a few hundred dollars a month, but require some marketing and lead generation. Then we have sites like: www.CascoViejo.org which we just launched with a totally different business model, no advertising or PPC, just selling premium listings for local businesses in that small geographic area (a Unesco World Heritage site in Panama). So far we have enough commitments to cover our costs and once we put some more time into sales, I expect it will generate around $400 – $500 per month.
As most domainers will tell you, PPC is barely showing signs of life, so we have been experimenting with other platforms like: DevHub, SmartNames, RootOrange (very interesting, but no results yet) and a fixed rate development platform called CustomSimple.

Is your future MediaOptions.com or are you concentrating on other projects?

• For the moment, we are focusing on growing MediaOptions.com. We feel we have a good shot at being one of the top domain brokerage firms and marketplaces for people who want to sell their premium domains to end users. I come from sales and I’ve never been shy about picking up the phone and tracking down a potential buyer. I’ve sold many of my own domains and had great success so far with many of our customer’s domains. Other than Rick Latona, there isn’t anyone else out there whose really targeting end users, I see a huge demand that is not being filled. We get over 5,000 domains sent to us every week from people who would like to sell their domains or help them sell their domains. Unfortunately, most of it is not worth our time. You need to focus your resources where they will be the most profitable, and selling $500 domains for someone else, is not profitable. Our traffic on MediaOptions.com has been growing very quickly and steadily with very little more than grassroots marketing and networking. I expect next year that we will begin advertising with a more aggressive strategy. But we wanted to be sure our framework and platform was sound before we ramp up.

Approximately how many domains do you own in your own portfolio? And which one is your favorite?

• I own a little over 2,000 domains myself. Although I am still actively buying domains, both from owners and expired auctions, I am actually trying to widdle down my portfolio by around 50% (which is why we’ve been blowing out a lot of domains nearly at cost recently). There is too much administration involved with owning so many domains (as you know) and it eats up time and resources that could be better spent on development, marketing and sales.

Of course, the first question anyone ever asks when you tell them you are a domain investor is “what is your favorite or best domain?” It is a tough question to answer. There are the highly liquid 3 Letter .com’s like: CFJ.com and then there are domains which I like for one reason or another like: Hungrig.com (“Hungry” in German), iHospitality.com (Hospitality is the second largest industry on the planet behind Tourism), and ItalianAuto.com (I am a car enthusiast and there is nothing like Italian Automobiles). However, by the numbers, these probably are not my “best” domains.

What was your highest sale and what was your highest purchase price?

• My highest sale so far (I only started selling my domains a year ago) is OralSpray.com for $15,000. I’ve also had several sales around $10,000. But the majority of sales have been between $1,000 – $2,500. As for purchases, I have shied away from making any outlandish purchases. I like the economics of buying low and selling high, even if I could buy high and sell higher. Probably the most I’ve spent for a domain is around $6,000. However, I am currently looking at making a single large purchase of a domain for a development project for next year. That domain is around $25,000.

Do you park your domains and with whom?

• I do park the majority of my domains, but domains which fit verticals in which I have developed or semi-developed sites, I forward the domains to the developed site in order to catch the long tail and improve rankings. I have tried out nearly all the different parking companies, but at this point with so little PPC revenue, I have started moving many of them over to Sedo for the simple fact that the brokerage fee is less if the domain gets an offer. I also forward many of my domains directly to their for sale page at MediaOptions.com. This has been a very effective sales strategy and I may implement it further with more of my portfolio.

Where do you live?

• That is a tricky question! I am from Rhode Island and my wife is from Germany. We lived in Rhode Island until about 9 months ago when we moved ourselves and our business to Panama (Central America). We were looking for a warmer climate, fresh environment for both of us and a place which was neutral for us, meaning not English, not German and not surrounded by either of our families and friends. We couldn’t be happier with our choice. Panama has first world infrastructure, a huge Expat community and a very diverse population and landscape. We can drive from our place on the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean in just one hour! In Panama, we live in the ‘Old City’ called Casco Viejo (www.CascoViejo.org). It is a beautiful 16th Century Spanish Colonial neighborhood on a peninsula in Panama City.

Do you read blogs and if so, who’s?

• I don’t have a lot of time to read blogs, but it is important to stay on top of current events. So when I get a chance I mostly read ElliotsBlog.com, TheDomains.com (Michael Berkens) & DNJournal.com. I recently upgraded my membership at DNForum (thanks’ Adam) to Platinum, so I’ll likely start spending more time on there as well.

What is a typical day for Andrew Rosener?

• I usually start my day around 7:30 in the morning reading emails while downing a few shots of espresso (check out my recently launched site BuyEspresso.com). Once I’ve answered my back log of Emails, mostly from project managers, developers and people looking to sell their domains, and taken appropriate actions on them, I scan through the keyword domain lists which get emailed to me every morning from various services. If there is anything interesting I backorder it or bid on it. Once 11:00 rolls around, I’m usually switching over to sales mode and start seeking out and contacting potential buyers for domains which I am either selling myself or brokering for another customer. Right now we are brokering, among other domains, the 2 letter .COM domain: HX.com. Later in the afternoon I’m usually involved in a handful of expired domain auctions and then I get back to work selling. On Monday’s and Wednesday’s I also spend a few hours putting together our Domain Deals Newsletter to go out the following day (Tuesday’s & Thursday’s). I usually am at my desk actively working until 7:30 – 8pm, but thanks to my Blackberry, the fun never really stops until I go to bed.

Do you work with other domainers (partners) or are you basically on your own?

• I’ve made a lot of friends in the domain industry and in some sense I would like to call them partners; we share ideas, information, new development concepts, experience with different models and parking platforms, etc…but I don’t have any direct partnerships. My wife, Anna, works with me, mostly handling marketing, design, newsletter management, and managing the administrative tasks for our own domain portfolio. We also have several individuals who are not employees but outside contractors who we employ on a regular basis. These include a Graphic Designer, Web Development Team and our SEO expert. We are currently looking at a partnership agreement with NameMedia in order to list and sell their domains on our platform, however, we have not moved ahead with that yet.
We are very open to partnership opportunities either on specific domains or business in general. If anyone has an idea that you think will be beneficial and/or profitable for both of us, please contact us.

Are you domaining full time or do you have another day job?

• As I’ve said before, I used to be a Fish Monger. I traded frozen seafood commodities worldwide. I loved that business and it was extremely lucrative, but I decided to leave it behind last year and go into the domain industry full time. That’s what I’m doing now and intend on doing for the foreseeable future. I’m sure my business model will change, but the internet is in its infancy and I intend on making a mark before it grows up…or at least owning my share of it.

Any advice to a beginning domainer?

• I get hundreds of emails every single week from what appear to be rookie domainers. They are all pretty much the same: “Hello, would you be interested in buying MyFloridaBakedSugerCookies.com for $3,000? This is a great Geo domain!” I feel bad for these guys and I honestly want to reach out to them and help them but I just don’t have time! The single best piece of advice I can offer is be more disciplined. Do your research and be highly critical of what you buy. Buy less, but higher quality. These guys send me a list of 100 domains they own and want to sell. If we assume that they are buying these domains on backorders and no one else is bidding on them, then they are paying $60 – $70 each for them. That means their list of 100 names cost at least $6k – $7k. Instead of 100 names which I would pay a registration fee for, they could have bought 5 – 10 excellent names or even 1 fantastic name for the same amount of money. Those names would be much easier to sell, much fast turnaround, and potentially much higher profits which could be reinvested into even better names. Patience and Discipline!

And that’s all folks, as you can see Andrew is a busy guy and thank you Andrew for taking the time to answer my questions. If anyone is interested in listing their names with MediaOptions.com please do so and also check out his site, it’s fantastic.

MediaOptions.com