 |
|
|
Go Daddy's Daddy
A classic entrepreneur, Go Daddy founder Bob Parsons has had his share of ups and downs
by Chris Freeburn
A former Marine with no formal training in computer science, Bob Parsons might seem an unlikely candidate for a software pioneer and founder of fast rising Internet domain registrar GoDaddy.com. But he would say that success comes to those who think positive and persist.
After graduating from the University of Baltimore, Parsons became fascinated with BASIC, an early computer language. At the time, Parsons worked at Control Data Corporation and had access to a computer terminal. Soon he was writing his own programs in BASIC.
Before long he was using his expertise to create an accounting program, which he figured might work for others. So, in 1984, he founded Parsons Technology out of his basement, where he wrote the company’s software applications. “I funded it myself and went broke twice trying to get it running,” Parsons says. “Knowing how to write software and how to sell it are two different things.” After a great deal of trial and error, Parsons borrowed enough money for a cheap full-page ad in a popular PC magazine and Parsons Technology took off. By 1996, the company had annual revenues of $100 million and 1,000 workers. He sold the company to Intuit in 1996 for $64 million.
In 1997, finding retirement not to his liking, he founded Jomax Technologies, named after a dirt road near the firm’s Scottsdale, Arizona, office. After experimenting with web site creation, network construction, and computer education, Parsons had burned through almost $4 million in cash—all of it his own—with little to show for it. He took a tough look at the company. “My father used to say, ‘A smart dog chews his own bone.’ ” That meant, doing what he does best. For Parsons, that meant writing software.
In 1999, Jomax produced Website Complete, a simple program that would allow just about anyone to create a web site. Parsons had confidence in the program, but felt the clumsy name Jomax would hold it back. He came up with Go Daddy on a lark. “The name just sounded kind of cool, and nobody else had it,” he recalls. And, as Parsons points out, it has another benefit: “No one forgets it.”
Even with a good program and a new name, Go Daddy was in trouble. The Internet bubble was beginning to burst. So Parsons took the company in a new direction. He noticed that domain registrars—companies that register web site addresses—were overcharging. By offering discount domain registrations, Parsons felt Go Daddy could make some money and help sell its software along with the domain names. But to do this meant investing another $4 million to develop the company’s systems. He bit the bullet and, in spite of some tough times during the worst of the dot-com crash, the company’s revenues began to spike in the fall of 2001.
Since then Go Daddy’s profile has soared. It was named one of Inc.’s top ten fastest growing privately held firms in 2004. In 2005, the company caused a stir when FOX pulled one of its Super Bowl ads, featuring a scantily clad female model, after the NFL complained that it was “inappropriate.” Parsons defends the ad, but the publicity didn’t hurt the company, which had more than $56 million in annual revenue in 2005. In 2006, Parsons pulled the plug on a widely anticipated IPO, arguing that the market conditions weren’t right. He did, however, announce that Go Daddy had signed Indy Race car driver Danica Patrick as its new “Go Daddy Girl,” which, Parsons says, should make quite a splash.
