Can you give us a brief background on yourself?

Sure. I was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I still live today with my wife and three children.

At 6 years old I was introduced to BASIC programming, and have been drawn to computers and computer programming ever since. In the early 90's I was involved with the setup and operation of several BBS's, which was my first experience managing an online community. After spending a couple years mostly offline for college and work in 95 and 96, I returned online in 1997 to find the Internet was really starting to "take off". It was at that time I became interested in domain names and website development.

When I was laid off of my full-time job in 1999, I decided to try working for myself on the Internet. And so I have done, to this day. I founded NamePros in February 2003.


What gave you the idea to start NamePros?

At the time I started NamePros, there were very few domain related forums in existence. My primary interest on the Internet was buying and selling domain names, and I really wanted to be a part of a fun (and free) community with other domain owners. I saw a need for such a site and started it, and fortunately have been quite successful in filling that niche.


Do you own or administer any other sites, and if so, what are they?

I do own many others -- fan sites, informational sites, directories, and even a dating site. A current project of mine now is Jam.com, which is in development as an online community for musicians.


Do you have a job outside of NamePros, or is that your full time job?

This is it. I work odd hours, but it equates to a full-time job. I have other sites that provide income, but by far I spend the most of my time and efforts on NamePros.


What do you do to relax, or "get away" from NamePros?

It possible for forum owners to relax? It's rare that I'll be away from NamePros for an extended period of time. Even when I vacation for a few days, I'll take my laptop with me so I can work while I'm away. But those times I am offline I usually spend playing or watching movies with my kids.


If you had to convince a webmaster to join NamePros over any other forum, what one reason would you give him or her?

We have the friendliest community of domain owners anywhere. Newbies and pros alike are welcome. Many call NamePros their online "home" and you might too if you joined us.


What is your biggest pet peeve regarding members in your forums?

Members that don't follow through with their deals really create a lot of unnecessary work for our staff. While we can't guarantee the successful outcome of transactions on our site, we do our best to assist in resolving disputes that occur.


How do you select your staff?

Staff members are invited from the general membership based on their past participation and willingness to help other members. When we feel the workload is beyond what our current staff can handle, adding more staff support is discussed by current staff and voted on. Only if the consensus is unanimous will we add another staff member. There's nothing worse than having staff members that don't get along.


Have you ever wanted to give up on NamePros, and if so, what kept you going?

There have been occasions where it feels a little overwhelming. My to-do list can get quite long, and administrative tasks can be time consuming to the point it starts to feel like a job. But overall, running NamePros has been very rewarding. Not monetarily, but in other ways. I wouldn't say there has ever been a time I've wanted to give it up.


When did everything seem to "click", or in other words, when did you know that NamePros had succeeded?

Although I expected the site to succeed from day one, it was about four months after opening the site did I start to see a steady increase in forum regulars (return visitors) and that's when I felt things "click."


What was the biggest contributing factor to this success?

First, I made no effort to attract visitors from other forums. I focused all of my initial promotional efforts outside of places you would normally expect to find members for a domain name forum. Often we were an introduction to the domain industry for those who were brand new to it. I'm proud to say many people have made the transition from someone who knew little about domain names to full time domainer because of NamePros.

In time we did have regulars from other forums and plenty of experienced domainers join us to find a vibrant community of members they wouldn't find anywhere else. Today you'll find an excellent mix of members at NamePros from all walks of life and experience.


How much bandwidth does NamePros use and what kind of server(s) is it on?

At this moment we're on a dedicated Dual Xeon server. Unfortunately it's not handling the load well. I'll be moving NamePros to a dual core Opteron server this week, and plan on adding a second server soon to share the load. Bandwidth usage is reasonable. We use around 12 GB per day.


What is your biggest regret or mistake at NamePros?

For a long time, we ran NamePros with a staff of only four staff members. I purposely kept the number low because I really disliked forums with an overbearing presence of staff. You know, like when it seems there's more staff than regular members? However, when NamePros grew to the point that moderation and administrative duties just became too much for our small staff to handle we added a new role of Forum Leader and invited a group of past "Members of the Month" to give it a try.

Each Forum Leader is assigned one to three forums specifically to focus on improving and moderating, and have Super Moderator abilities in all forums. Reported posts are displayed in a private forum viewable by all Forum Leaders. Moderation duties are shared so it is not a burden on anyone. I chose the title Forum Leader (rather than "Moderator") because I feel it's equally important to encourage and promote positive participation as it is to moderate bad behavior.

Once new Forum Leaders were added, I wished we had done so a lot earlier. There has been an obvious improvement in overall quality around the forum.


What does the future hold for NamePros?

More domain related service offerings are in the works. We currently provide real time domain registration services through NamePros (integrated with vBulletin) and we plan on expanding on this into other areas of the domain name business.


What is the most common mistake you see other forum owners making?

A lot of forum owners focus more on monetizing their ad space than building and participating in their community. I'm not saying running a forum should be a charity project, but if your primary reason for running a forum is to get rich you're in the wrong business.


What advice would you give new forum owners?

Look for ways to be unique, rather than just copying from other forums. Give people a reason to join that they can't find elsewhere.

Nothing's worse than an empty forum to discourage registrations. Rather than starting with dozens of forums, start with a few general topics and split them into sub-forums as the activity dictates. Tap into your friends and family to join your forum and help get conversations going.

Once things do take off, surround yourself with trustworthy staff that care about your community. Make sure your members are treated fairly. Oh, and make sure you're doing backups of your site at least daily. Someday, you'll be glad you did.


Firefox or Internet Explorer?

Firefox is where it's at! I like Opera too.


Tell us something interesting that we don't already know about you.

One of my favorite hobbies is genealogy. I teach a weekly class on it and tutor people interested in tracing their family history. It's interesting work.

Thanks for the interview AdminFusion!








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