Next Monday’s announcement will be an absolute game changer.Competitors, take note!#Domaining #Domains #Domainers

— Domainsville (@Domainsville) September 6, 2012

I think the term “game changer” is often overused, but Abdu Tarabichi from Domainsville.com posted a tweet earlier today indicating that he is going to be making a domain industry announcement on Monday that “will be an absolute game changer,” and he warned his competitors of the forthcoming news.

I am not privy to this news or anything about the news, and I am curious what you think the game changing announcement will be.

Post your guesses below. If you guess correctly come Monday, you’ll get a virtual high five from me.

Over the last several years, I’ve done quite a bit of business with Buy Domains. For a couple of years, I worked with Sonia Doubet when I needed to purchase a domain name from the company. I understand she was one of the top brokers at the company, and I always enjoyed  working with her, even if we couldn’t strike a deal.

When I first started working with Sonia, I learned that she wasn’t based in NameMedia’s Waltham, Massachusetts headquarters, and that was because she was a legacy employee of the company that was founded by Mike Mann. In fact, Sonia started her tenure at Buy Domains in May of 2003.  I was disappointed last year when I learned Sonia left the company (although I now enjoy working with Aaron Visaggio).

I recently inquired about and ultimately purchased a domain name from Mike Mann’s Domain Market. During the negotiation phase of this deal, I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email from Sonia. It turns out that she has once again teamed up with Mike Mann, and she is a top broker for him once again.

Mike is very happy to have Sonia working on his team again. “Sonia has worked with me for a long time and has done a great job for her many happy customers, a consummate professional,”he told me.

Having employees you trust is essential when building a business. It looks like Mike made a wise move in re-hiring Sonia for his startup.

I reported on Domain Market’s Inc. 500 listing yesterday, and I found another well known domain investor’s company also on this year’s Inc. list. South Florida domain investor (and entrepreneur) Darren Cleveland’s City Advertising is listed on the 2012 Inc. 5000  list of America’s fastest growing companies, coming it at #587.

City Advertising was listed at #189 last year because of its higher growth rate (1,595%), but its three year growth rate reported  at 619% this year is not too shabby! In addition, revenue grew from a reported $2.2 million to $2.8 million this year. The company also hired an addition three employees year over year.

The company operates a number of directories and informational websites, where it sells advertising to local businesses. The company currently operates  FuneralHomes.com, AccidentAttorneys.net, and PoolCleaning.com, among others. One directory the company owns is PaintingContractor.com, a domain name I sold them a few years ago.

I reached out to  Darren Cleveland, CEO of  City Advertising, and here’s what he had to say:

“We are excited at our company’s growth and future in the local advertising  space.  Category controlling domain names are the foundation of our success,  however we did not get here overnight.  Like any business it takes a lot of  hard work, dedication, FAILING and re-strategizing, and more hard work &  dedication.  We are fortunate to have a great team on board without them we  would not achieve the level of success we have.  So I owe them a thank you  and congratulations.”  

City Advertising is doing what I am trying with some of my websites and what others are trying as well. I continue to wish them great success as the company sees solid growth.

Last week, I wrote an article about three of Mike Mann’s companies earning spots on the 2012 Inc. 500 list. Phone.com (#262), DomainMarket.com (#292) and SEO.com (#491) were all included on the list, which had not been published at the time of my article.

The 2012 Inc. 500 list is now available on the Inc. magazine website, and we are able to learn some additional information about Mann’s companies. As a domain investor though, I am most interested in reading about the growth of Mann’s Domain Market business, which is a domain name aftermarket sales venue.

According to the Inc. 500 page for Domain Market, the company earned $2.1 million in 2011, and it has a total of 9 employees. The company was founded in 2007, and in 2008, the company reported just over $150k in sales.

Domain Market will almost certainly show considerable growth this year as well. In early March, Mike Berkens reported that Mike Mann’s Domain Asset Holdings had already closed over half a million in sales in 2012. I assume that number would be attributed to Domain Market, and if so, it would put the company on track to smash 2011 revenue records. This is just an assumption though, and DAH may be a different company entirely from DM.

Whatever the case is, it is impressive to see Mann grow Domain Market into a domain sales machine. He did the same thing with Buy Domains, which he eventually sold for a lot of money. Looks like he’s well on his way to building another big business.

According to a Facebook post from Mike Mann, three of his companies have made the prestigious 2012 Inc. 500  list of fastest growing companies in the United States. The full 2012 list has not been published online by Inc. yet, but it is expected that the list will be posted in the next week or so.

Mike’s Phone.com was the highest ranked of his three companies, coming in at #262. Next on the list was DomainMarket.com, which debuted at #292 on the list. These were followed by  SEO.com, which ranked at #491 on the list. When the list is published, you’ll be able to see the self-reported revenue numbers for these companies.

As you could expect, Mike was excited to hear the news. “I am so happy that all our hard work destined for charity is being recognized, and we hope to keep launching lots of new great socially conscious ventures,” he told me. You can read about these charitable and business ventures on MikeMann.com.

If you aren’t aware of the list, here’s more information about it and its history from the Inc. website:

In 1982, Inc. introduced the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing privately held companies in the United States. Since then, this prestigious list of the nation’s most successful private companies has become the hallmark of entrepreneurial success and the place where future household names first make their mark.

Congratulations to Mike and the people who work for these growing companies.