It was November 2000, barely nine months after launching .WS to the global Internet community, when GDI (Global Domains International) announced it had sold over 100,000 .WS registrations to customers such as Yahoo!, Intel, Cisco, Dell Computers, and other companies and individuals in more than 180 countries.
And what were the Samoans doing and thinking about all this?
"They originally wanted to wait to see just how well we performed," Mike said. In fact: "They proposed that, as a test, our Company had to produce 15,000 registrations in just three years. We did that in the first month," Alan proudly stated. "The Nation of Samoa now receives a percentage of all .WS domain sales that GDI generates, and is delighted with our success. Our company is proud of our exclusive agreement to distribute .WS worldwide."
The Samoans, and everybody else involved, was happy with the results.
As proud and exciting as the beginning of GDI's association with the .WS domain name was for Mike and Alan, the future was, and still is, what excites them most.
Just before .WS recorded its first domain name registration, Mike and Alan knew the time had arrived to begin building their business to reflect its quickly changing personality. It was to go from a forty-person shop to a multi-national corporate conglomerate in a short time. Mike and Alan were able to accomplish this surrounding themselves with intelligent people who were filled with enthusiasm, and who had the capacity to help launch the GDI business on an international scale.
In addition, the .WS founders beefed up their marketing outreach with an advertising campaign which placed ads in Fortune Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. Additional ads appeared in the program for Major League Baseball's 2000 World Series, as well as thousands of radio spots which aired in large urban markets.
At the same time, Mike and Alan also invested heavily in the company's infrastructure, ensuring that the anticipated volume of registrations would be handled with relative ease and no server downtime.
What did Mike and Alan have to say about their "idea"?
Well, a little more than a year after their nearly disastrous plane-trip across the Pacific, Mike said, "It's all about taking a risk and believing in a concept enough to drop everything and make it a reality."
Alan concurs. "We are extremely excited about what the next few years have in store for everyone who joins us as we make .WS the global standard for Internet addresses."
