For David Schofman, choosing a domain name for his Web-bound golf shop has turned out to be one of his most memorable business decisions. "Of course I had no idea of the importance of domain names at this time," admits Schofman. "Believe it or not, golf.com was not even registered and was available. However, in my infinite wisdom I thought, 'what good is golf.com?' No one will know what we do."
Schofman says that he "feels silly now" but historically his marketing perspective was not off target. In early 1995 few suspected the value of a ordinary noun followed by a .com. A month later, however, golf.com was registered by the NBC television network.
But the naming story doesn't end here.
"I thought of a bunch of different names like CompuGolf, Golfshop, Proshop, and so on. However, once I decided to call the company International Golf Outlet, I felt that the initials IGO were catchy and therefore needed to be included in the domain somehow. So, I just thought that 'igogolf' worked well."
"It wasn't until about a month after we were online that a Japanese customer sent me an e-mail that said, 'I love I-GO-GOLF.' I wish I could say I was that creative, but the truth is that I never made the connection until that moment."
In retrospect, Schofman's initial naming blunder has been only a blip on the course of his business success. While he may have regrets that he didn't use golf.com, he accomplished his primary goal, to offer "the finest golf equipment worldwide at discount prices."
His concept is simple and noteworthy. Schofman didn't want to be just another buying service behind the technology. He wanted to lavish personal care on his customers, which means, for example, that instead of staffing his company with clueless order takers he hires bona fide golf experts. His commitment to reaching beyond the sale is seen in his swelling revenues and astronomical click-traffic.
Launched with $5,000 in October 1995, IGO's revenue growth rate began at 25-35% monthly and now stands at a steady 10%. In 1996 he grossed $600,000. In 1997 his business grew 333% with revenues exceeding $2 million. David Schofman is 26 years old. |
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