Paving the way for New Domains: A short Q and A with .build CEO George Minardos

Every great idea starts on the ground floor, and for George Minardos, founder and CEO of the New Domain .build, the ground floor was a big idea to provide more Web space for the building industry.

From applicant to registry operator, Minardos has watched the potential for .build grow into an ever-expanding digital community, offering domains to all building-related industries and professionals, no matter which definition of “build” these industries and professionals choose. Minardos was kind enough to sit down with us and discuss this exciting New Domain, it’s inception, Minardos’ lifetime love of building, and the almost $8 trillion dollar industry this dynamic domain serves.

(.build is available right now for pre-registration. Interested? Click here.)

name.com: Who is .build meant for?

Minardos: .build is for builders of all kinds, from those who build small projects to those who build skyscrapers. The largest vertical segment of .build is the building and construction industry, which is valued at over $7.8 trillion and projected to grow to over $12 trillion by 2020.

This industry represents over 13 percent of world GDP and employs over 110 million people. That’s huge, and that’s just the construction industry. When you expand the horizon to anyone who builds anything, the market is truly staggering.

Why did you choose .build?

First and foremost, I am a builder. I used to follow my father around as a toddler as he worked on projects around our house. At age three, I was taking everything apart—from doorknobs to thresholds. I’ve spent the rest of my adult life fascinated with building and putting things back together.

I also believe that everyone is a builder of sorts. We build companies, projects, families, relationships; our creativity is endless. “Build” is a word understood by many people in many languages, and it is fundamental to our existence on our planet. Every civilization’s legacy is based on their beliefs and represented by what they built.

Literally every day is better than the next, as we are all a part of the domain name industry and we are recreating and co-creating what I refer to as the “New Internet.” The process of going from entrepreneur and ICANN applicant to registry operator has been nothing short of a global odyssey. I feel like this will be a story that I’ll be telling my grandchildren one day.

That’s what is so great about the open-ended nature of running a registry, especially a namespace like .build, which is potentially so large, meaningful and broad. I think there are so many innovations coming, literally on a daily basis—from how names are valued, deployed and managed to what people do with them. I think there is a large opportunity to use a domain name for better emails, for example.

There is also huge potential in high-value generic names associated with the .build. Tools like “search.build,” generics like “concrete.build,” and geographies like “NYC.build” are just a few examples. As an entrepreneur, I feel like ICANN has given me the opportunity to create an endless platform for innovation in the building industry (and related industries) for other entrepreneurs to build!

Just a few of the advantages of a domain name ending in .build include immediate description and recognition of what the person or company does. So many businesses in the building industry are a family name, for example. JohnSmith.com doesn’t say a thing about John, other than he was the first to buy the .com or paid a lot for it.

JohnSmith.build, however, immediately tells his audience what he does, either on his website or on his email. Our building community in general was a late adopter of the Internet and therefore didn’t necessarily fare well in getting the name they wanted originally. A great example is Turner Construction, which has a very long URL because Turner broadcasting has the .com.

As a registry, we are partnering and possibly creating other tools for our community so that when you buy a .build name you also get customized products and services to help your business, such as industry-specific Web templates, directory listings and other industry tools to help users build their businesses.

Do you have any questions about .build or how to register a .build domain? Ask below and we’ll answer.