Marc Ostrofsky
Marc Ostrofsky | |
---|---|
Born | October 28, 1961 |
Occupation | Author, Entrepreneur, Investor |
Genre | Nonfiction |
Notable works | Get Rich Click |
Marc Ostrofsky is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, New York Times Best Selling Author and public speaker.[1] He is the author of the books Get Rich Click!: The Ultimate Guide to Making Money Online,[2] and Word of Mouse: 101+ trends in How we Buy, Sell, Live, Learn, Work and Play!.[3] Get Rich Click was in the top ten of the lists of bestselling books compiled by USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.[4]
Career
His career began developing companies for voice mail and voice processing, private pay phones, operator services, telecom reseller and VOIP, and prepaid telephone cards in the United States.[5]
Before writing his first book, Ostrofsky was a domain name investor.[6] His venture capital firm has created a number of telecommunication, publishing and internet based companies, and he is the co-founder of hundreds of web properties.[7] He was a co-founder of Internet REIT (iREIT) (also known as www.iREIT.com), which acquires, develops and sells internet traffic wholesale to Google for them to resell to others on a pay per click basis with partners Ross Perot and Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks.[8]
In 1999 he sold the DNS domain Business.com $7.5 million to eCompanies, which was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for what was at the time the most expensive domain name ever sold,[9] Ostrofsky owned a stake in Business.com which was sold in 2008 for $345 million.[10] He coined the phrase "Domain names and web sites are the real estate of the Internet" when he bought Business.com for $150,000 in the mid 1990s, which had been the most money ever paid for a domain name at that time.[11]
Ostrofsky founded five high tech Internet and telecommunications magazines and a dozen technology trade shows,[which?] which were later sold to Advanstar Publishing for $8,000,000.[citation needed] He later created and sold Multimedia Publishing Corporation (another firm holding magazines, trade shows and web sites) to Primedia for $35,000,000.[12]
Ostrofsky was the first outside investor in Blinds.com and a member of its board of directors. In 2014, Blinds.com was sold to Home Depot,[13][14]
He currently owns the web sites CuffLinks.com, SummerCamps.com and eTickets.com. He also owns the domains Bachelor.com, p2p.com, SalesTraining.com, Photographer.com, Consulting.com, HeartDisease.com, BeautyProducts.com, TechToys.com, and over 300 other top level domains.[15]
He also founded www.idNames.com, an international domain name registry service that was sold to Network Solutions, and is now a division of VeriSign.[16]
In 2001 Ostrofsky donated a sculpture to the City of Houston, Texas that now resides at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Terminal B, Houston, Texas.[17]
Ostrofsky is a professional speaker domestically and internationally on entrepreneurship on the internet. He was a member of the National Speakers Association (NSA) and was the founder of the Internet Commerce Association (ICA).[18]
References
- ^ "Marc Ostrofsky on The View - 7-8-11 discussing Amazing Smartphone Apps". YouTube. 2011-07-09. Retrieved 2014-01-28.
- ^ "Marc Ostrofsky's first appearance on The View and how to make money on the internet". YouTube. 2012-06-11. Retrieved 2014-01-28.
- ^ "Tech trends businesses need to know now". Fox News. 2013-09-12. Retrieved 2014-01-28.
- ^ http://www.getrichclick.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/1-Bestseller-sheet-all.pdf
- ^ "Inside iREIT: How a Startup Company Became an Industry Giant Almost Overnight". Dnjournal.com. 2008-04-01. Retrieved 2014-01-28.
- ^ "Tech wildcatter sells company for $35 million". Houston Business Journal. 1999-10-10. Retrieved 2014-01-28.
- ^ Sloan, Paul (2006-08-29). "Next Big Thing: Internet real estate gets a foreign accent". CNN. Retrieved 2014-01-28.
- ^ "Typo.com". Forbes. Retrieved 2014-01-28.
- ^ "Kids Portal for Parents - Site Map". 4to40. Archived from the original on 2014-02-03. Retrieved 2014-01-28.
{{cite web}}
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suggested) (help) - ^ "R.H. Donnelley to buy Business.com for $345 mln". Reuters. Retrieved 2014-01-28.
- ^ http://www.circleid.com/posts/domain_roundtable_to_address_explosive_growth_of_internet_real_estate/
- ^ "Tech wildcatter sells company for $35 million". Houston Business Journal. 1999-10-10. Retrieved 2014-01-28.
- ^ "The Home Depot Acquires Blinds.com". Wall Street Journal. 2014-01-23. Retrieved 2014-01-28.
- ^ http://www.dnjournal.com/lowdown.htm
- ^ http://www.whois.sc
- ^ [1] Archived May 2, 2005, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ ""Moonwalker", Houston, Texas, USA - Figurative Public Sculpture on". Waymarking.com. Retrieved 2014-01-28.
- ^ DN Journal Newsletter Archived 2016-12-20 at the Wayback Machine January, 2007
External links
- Forbes Interview
- The Name Game by Robert A Mamis, Inc. Magazine, May 15, 2000
- Teen Business Forum interview