In a few days, I mark the day that I got my very first Domain Name. LipService.com on December 26th 1995. I have had several monikers along the way. RickS, Mr800King, Webfather, DomainKing but I have always been Rick Schwartz.
It really was not until months later, in May, that I got my 2nd and 3rd domains. A birthday present from my brother. My 2 company names at the time.
Then I sent him an email and asked if he could get me 1 or 2 others. Then 1 or 2 more. Then 1 or 2 more and after a while he got sick of the work (Smart) and says go to this link and register them yourself.
AND THAT was my first day in Domaining.
I did not know how to cut and paste. I did not know how to search. I could barely navigate anywhere and when I did get there, I had no idea where I was, how I got there or how to got back.
So my only point of reference was a domain name. I knew how to type in http://www.lipservice.com etc. But it would take me a while to grasp the http:// part and you had to put in the www in those days. (Some sites still have not figured out that one)
So I was a know-nothing lost pup in a land of techies. Techies and I see a different sun and a different moon. Oil and water.
I was an idiot in their eyes. They were right of course. But I had a different path that they could not see or get their head around.
How do you advertise 125.66.139.81 on tv or radio or magazines or Billboard? Of course I was an idiot for asking that cuz everything comes from SEARCH.
“You don’t advertise on TV, you have links you idiot!” And that was how the table was set.
This idiot was dependent on those idiots!!!
I got kicked off my first host because of makeout.com and listing party chat lines. So I had to find another provider and another idiot to deal with. After a few idiots I finally found a host that understood how to point as many domains as I wanted to one page. Redirecting.
Redirecting. Wow!!
Funny part is all the genius idiots I had already dealt with told me what I wanted to do was impossible. So maybe now you understand why genius idiots don’t impress me. I actually like SMART people not those that think they are.
So remember I am in the wilderness. I am BLIND to where I am. I've been having the genius idiots lead me until then. I was dependent on idiots. And they were idiots for multiple reasons. They thought they had a 9-5 job as a hosting company for starters.
Their servers were up and down like yoyo’s and they had no sense of urgency. I was out of business, they were out of business and all their clients were out of business but they were GONE!! Gone on weekends and gone 16 hours a day.
Now they are CERTIFIED IDIOTS!!
So I discover I am a businessman in a sea of idiots. That sounds like opportunity to me. So I find this guy in Pennsylvania that hosts and has a brain and still has issues being a techie, but we found common ground. Maybe paying $1500/month for my domain hosting helped!
But I would have to rely on him to make update changes to my page or link changes. Until the day I learned to FTP. LIFE-CHANGING!!
I could finally take updates in an instant and not rely on 9-5’ers that may take DAYS and a 2nd email or even 3rd email to get something done.
The next thing I learned was to cut and paste. CONTROL-C, CONTROL-V, Then CONTROL-F
I was in pig shit heaven!!
With those simple tools, I was able to change my destiny. To this day I can’t do much more. Though I do know now how to search like a bloodhound now!
Through all this I am alone. I know nobody. That is until I started hitting the chat boards and getting banned from those chat boards and my posts pulled.
Then I stumbled into Ynot.com Life-Changing!
Professional businessman many of them with adult sites. They were talking BUSINESS!!! The business was TITS and ASS, but the discussion was almost all business!
That was when I finally came out of the wilderness for the very first time. Little by little I worked my way into the group. It took me about 2 weeks to make a name for myself.
“Serge” was the guy on board that everyone feared. One day Serge offered a $5 challenge. I stepped up and I said I would take that bet.
I lost!
So now I owed Sege $5. Serge was in New Jersey, I was in Florida. Serge sends me his addy, I send him the $5. But it was the manner that I sent the $5 that got the attention of Serge and everyone else.
I spent $12.95 to overnight that $5.
Well, Serge knows class when he sees it and of course he loved it!! That $5 check is framed and still hanging on his wall, until this day. That made me a name. That made me credible and in a cyber world of the invisible, that made me real.
I always say all successes and failures happen at the start. That ladies and gentlemen, that was my start.
From there I developed the most potent traffic any of them had ever seen. My domain traffic sold at rates 100 times MORE than the rest! They need 10,000 visitors to sell a membership, my traffic needed less than 100 to sell one.
Remember, there is no mainstream back then. There was CNN and now much else. Amazon is 1 year old. Google was yet to be founded. eBay was months old. Graphic User Interface, GUI, had just barely arrived. Remember MSDOS?
It was truly the dark ages of the Internet.
But I took a good chunk of my earnings and kept buying mainstream names even though there was no mainstream. Mainstream rejected the Internet. Mainstream tried to bury the Internet. Mainstream tried to discredit the Internet.
They were all schmucks and idiots cuz they should have been embracing it. They rejected the idea of selling cars online. Rejected it!! How much were those sales worth that they rejected??
They did that for a DECADE before they figured it out. They were IDIOTS for letting so many years pass. I simply can't excuse their shortsightedness nor should anyone. They failed miserably and hurt their companies.
Give them an award! What the hell you want me to do? Praise them!!?? They did not see the single biggest tool in business history. So whatever education they had, did not work as planned.
And even today, 25 years later, they still have not figured out the value of great and strategic domains. And while they dither, those domains went from $15,000 to $15 Million and now accelerating.
I will leave you with a few recent Twitter thoughts and DEEP beliefs!
I hope I have explained my attitude towards idiots and where it came from and why it is so strong. But how do you respect incompetence? What is the point of having a degree or degrees if you miss something life-changing like the Internet itself? They failed the biggest test of their lives and that does not make them smart! It may make them irrelevant.
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
Recent Comments