Since I've been traveling quite a lot lately I've had a chance to write some more of book two in the Mindwars series. For those of you that were unaware, as well as managing domain portfolios for clients I relax by writing science fiction.

This second sneak preview takes place at the Concord's homeworld and start off with a single Starfire pilot. It's not long before the action heats up.

I should warn readers that this is the first draft of the chapter and edits will be made in the final copy. With any luck I will have book two ready before Christmas....fingers crossed!

I hope you enjoy another journey into "The Mindwars". You can buy book one, "Battleframe" through Amazon by clicking here.

Have a great weekend!

Chapter 9 – Hammer Fall

Lieutenant Barkley looked above at the massive planet filling the upper cockpit window of his Starfire. Swirling clouds spun at unimaginable velocities within dark and light bands of coloured gas. He watched as one spinning storm devoured a smaller cloud before it to, was swallowed. Barkley returned his gaze forward as he shot across the moon, Septem’s barren surface. He loved being alone in space and would regularly volunteer for scouting missions. The majesty and emptiness exhilarated him like nothing else. It could have had something to do with the fact that he was a born and bred spacer.

Barkley flicked a switch on his control column to the wider comnet and said, “Alturus Central, Starfire six, three reporting Kaladon VIII, Septem.”

“CT Starfire six, three, report.”

“Everything looks all clear out here. No sign of enemy activity.”

“CT.”

A brief flash of light caught his eye above and to the right of his present course. “Alturus Central, are there any other ships out here?”

There was a brief pause before the reply of, “Negative Starfire six, three. There are no other vessels in your vicinity.”

“Alturus, I need to check something out…”

“CT Starfire six, three. Waiting your response.”

Barkley pulled back gently on the control column to angle his Starfire towards where he saw the flash.

The central scanning console lit up with a barrage of information and the ships siren immediately blared urgently. In contrast to the urgency, Dora, the onboard Starfire computer stated in a matter of fact female voice, “Warning, enemy missile locked. Recommend evasive maneuvers.”

Barkley wrenched the controls to the left just in time before a missile passed under his right wing. The gas giant spun wildly until it settled below him and the moon’s surface had taken its place. He would only have a few seconds before the missile re-acquired him. He tapped the maneuvering jets and spun the Starfire end for end while still tracking towards where he saw the missile launch. The cockpit siren continued to wail even as the computer said, “Enemy missile locked-on.”

“Oh frap! That was fast!”

Barkley concentrated on finding the missile tracking behind him. “Computer, heads-up display now!”

“Starfire six, three, report.”

“Alturus, I’m a little busy right now.”

Barkley’s controller paused before responding. “Starfire six, three request report immediately.”

The heads-up display in front of him highlighted the missile tracking path behind him. Barkley pushed the control column rapidly first left and then right. The missile tracked him perfectly all the while closing the distance between them.

“Starfire six, three I said report!”

Thankfully, Dora intervened in the conversation in her pleasant, patient tone, “Alturus Central, Lieutenant Barkley is presently distracted by an enemy missile tracking our position.”

Barkley squeezed and then released the trigger for his quad laser canons to fire a short burst. He watched the screen displayed before him to see if his shot erased the target. The missile was still there. “Oh come on! Give me a frapping break!”

“Alturus Central, Starfire six, three continue.”

“Not you Alturus!” Sweat beaded on Barkley’s forehead as he suddenly pushed the controls hard left and swung the ship downwards towards the gas giant. Again the missile flashed past at the unexpected maneuver. “Oh frap that was close! Dora, keep a lock on it before it can speed up again.”

“Acknowledged.”

Barkley spun the ship around again and this time his view was once again in the direction he was travelling. The heads-up display revealed the missile slowly arcing back around and building up speed. Barkley squeezed the trigger and a second later, he watched an explosion form in the distance as his lasers ripped the missile apart. Unnecessarily, Dora stated, “Missile destroyed.”

Sighing with relief Barkley wiped his brow and then pulled back to pull the fighter out of the grip of the gas giant’s gravity well.

“Starfire six, three to Alturus Central.”

“Alturus Central, it’s good to hear your voice Starfire six, three.”

Barkley looked up in awe as thousands of subspace vortices formed around the point he had been heading towards. The Scourge had arrived.

 “Alturus, we’ve got company.”

In this video, Richard shares some of his background and how he became a domain investor. He then moves onto his passion for the Water School, a charity to helps save lives. He also discusses the beginnings of the first NamesCon and where the huge domain investor conference is headed into the future.

The video is full of personal experiences, adecdotes and insightful thoughts about the domain industry. Richard is one of those special individuals that is willing to take the time to help others in their life's journey.

I hope that you enjoy this video as much as I did in talking with Richard.

I should mention that there has been a correction to the NamesCon discount code mentioned in the video. It's actually "AlwaysThankful". This code provides $200 off the registration price and will expire midnight on November 11th.

Click Here to Go Directly To the NamesCon site with the code applied.

I’ve been reflecting on some of the great companies that are being built in the domain industry and I couldn’t go past .CLUB. When you consider the new gTLD have only been in the marketplace for a couple of years it’s remarkable what .CLUB has achieved. There are so many new extensions launched and yet everyone seems to hold .CLUB in high regard. So the question I have is why?

Every company is not built on an excellent team and I just want to highlight a number of the team members that I regularly catch-up with at all the different domain shows around the world. I think that their attitudes and focus really provide a valuable insight into the .CLUB success story.

Colin Campbell (CEO)
There are a number of things that strike me about Colin and the first is passion. He’s passionate about .CLUB and provides such a focused drive to see it succeed. That being said, I’ve watched from the sidelines as he’s conducted deals that are beneficial for both parties. He isn’t a scorched earth CEO that has a win at all costs mentality but rather a collaborative one that wants to see others be successful as well.

Dirk Bhagat (CTO)
The first time I met Dirk we were sitting around a fire pit at a hotel somewhere (can’t remember where). Underneath his easy going exterior ticks an incredibly smart individual that, like Colin, has seen the ebbs and flows of the technology industry across many years.

Jeff Sass (CMO)
As chief marketing officers are concerned Jeff would have to be right up there with the most frequent milers ever clocked up. He’s everywhere! We recently chatted in Fort Lauderdale and he headed immediately to Cologne, Germany and we met up a few days later in Hong Kong. Not only does Jeff clock up the miles but he brings an incredibly creative mind to promote .CLUB to so many different cultures.

Michele Van Tilborg (VP Bus. Development, COO)
Like the rest of the .CLUB team, Michele, clocks up the air miles as she makes sure that things happen in one country after another. To understand how dedicated she is to the .CLUB cause, while at DomainFest.Asia in Hong Kong, I watched as she had meeting after meeting, when she really should have been in bed due to being sick. She's a real powerhouse that gets things done.

There are other’s in the .CLUB team that also contribute but the above four are the people I have had the pleasure of interacting with directly. What I’m highlighting is the fact that a great, passionate, focused team is what’s driving the .CLUB brand. At .CLUB's core there is one particular value that seems to stand out more than everything else and that’s generosity.

It’s not often that you can call a business generous….after all, isn’t the goal to make money? When I look from the outside, .CLUB is generous (not stupid) in everything they do. They support the industry through their many sponsorship activities and are very generous with their time. They do whatever they can to help promote up and coming .CLUB based businesses.

For example, they are getting right behind George Verdugo (awesome, fun guy btw) in his plans for hotels.club. George has some incredible ideas for the website and with some of the rates he showed me it won’t be long before he climbs the travel websites ladder of success!

Another example of generosity, is one evening during “The Domain Conference” in Fort Lauderdale, Colin and his wife invited about sixty people to their home for dinner. The food was exceptional, conversation awesome and getting to know Colin’s wife was terrific…..you can really see the real power behind .CLUB :-)

.CLUB is inspirational on many fronts and I’m sure that over a few drinks the team will also share about the many mistakes they’ve also made. Which brings up a last point I would like to make…..they are a fun group to just hang out with. I think this last ingredient is what makes them a very special company…..they all individually and as a team seem to be having a great time expanding .CLUB to the world. Well done!

I thought that it was about time that I wrote about .CLUB as they are really and truly a real beacon of success for the new gTLDs. I really do believe that it's early days for the registry and it won't be long before .CLUB domain extensions are being used everywhere.

I want to state up front that I was not asked to write this article by anyone and that no one has twisted my arm in any manner whatsoever. I believe that great companies should be lauded and .CLUB is one of them.

I was talking with one of my daughters the other day and she was sharing about some plans she was forming for her future. As a father, there is no greater privilege when your children feel they can openly share with you about their own life.

In the course of the conversation I shared about what I thought was one of life’s greatest mysteries and that is learning about yourself. It sounds quite introspective but I’ve found that learning about myself, my strengths, weakness and capacities is extremely satisfying.

Along life's journey, I can learn how to augment my strengths, guard against my weaknesses and be very aware that I have a limits.

For example, when I was a child I had a really bad temper. If my brother or sisters said anything I didn’t like then I let them know about it in no uncertain terms…..in short, I would lose control.

Over the years I’ve learned about my tempter weakness, worked on it and I’m somewhat proud to say that it now takes an exceptional situation for me to lose my cool. To come to grips with my problem I first had to recognise I had one and then work away at it (maybe the subject of another blog).

A number of people have asked me why I invited a partner to work with me in ParkLogic. When ParkLogic first started I didn’t need any money and what I recognised was that I had a set of skills in one area but needed help in others.

I made the decision to essentially gave away half the company to help me learn about my own weaknesses and improve myself. A great bonus is the fact that David Gibbs (my business partner of 10 yeas) is a fantastic guy to work with and I’ve now learned an incredible amount from him.

There's one thing I've learned over the years, money will come and go but your character will stay with you for ever. So the fact that I could sway some money to help me improve myself was an awesome investment!

All of us have strengths, weaknesses and limits to what we can do. Being aware of these things is the first steps in the adventure of life. Improving all three of them is the second, third, fourth and onwards steps.

What will happen is life will inevitably bring people or circumstances across your path that will challenge you in infinite numbers of ways. How we approach these challenges will really show how far we’ve learned about ourselves and how much we’ve developed our character.

So as I was chatting with my daughter I said to her, “Remember there is no such thing as a mistake, only opportunities to learn about yourself.”

This immediately removed much of the pressure to make the “right” decision from her shoulders as she fully embraced the adventure of learning about herself. She opened her eyes up to how circumstances and other people were teaching things about herself.

For me, I was rewarded with my daughter’s smiling face as she began her first steps towards understanding one of life’s greatest mysteries.

Have a great weekend!

I watched the recent debate between presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Since I live Australia, you may ask why? I wanted to see whether either of the two candidates really seemed to understand the economic knife edge the world is currently balanced upon. Sadly, I was disappointed in what both of them had to say.

Other than a number of sound-bites there was nothing on issues such as China’s burgeoning debt Crisis and the impact this will have on the global economy.

Back on the 11^th May 2016 the Financial times reported the Chinese Communist party’s flagship newspaper, the People’s Daily, published a front-page interview with an “authoritative figure” who warned that the country’s soaring debt levels could lead to “systemic financial risks”. This doesn't sound good....

On the 29^th August the Australian Financial Review reported that prominent investor, George Soros, as seeing an “Eerie resemblance between conditions in China now and those in the US leading up to the financial crisis in 2008.” Remember, Mr Soros was the man that broke the bank of England in one of his currency trades.

What’s concerning is that Chinese debt levels are around 282% of GDP and China still hasn’t taken the foot off the debt accelerator. For example, right now debt is growing at around 13% and the IMF is forecasting China’s growth to drop to a 25 year low of 6.6%. This roughly means that it takes $2 of debt to fund $1 of growth….clearly unsustainable.

Some people are sitting back and saying, “So what! It’s China, that’s not us.” This is a naïve perspective of a highly interconnected world. As the world’s second largest economy (after the US) if China screeches to a halt then it will impact everything and I mean everything.

So what does this mean for domain investors? You only have to reflect on the last twelve months to see the impact of debt on the domain market. In an effort to get their money out of China and into more flexible assets many Chinese investors raised margin loans against share positions. They then took these loans off market (you can’t do this in most markets) and bid up the prices on short letter/number domains with the ultimate goal of flipping the assets into US dollars.

Last year, I attended DomainFest.Asia and upon returning home my business partner and I sold every domain we could get our hands on at top dollar rates. This year I attended the same conference and I can now buy the domains I sold last year for around 35% of the price I received for them.

So what happened? Debt combined with key market makers is what happened. This created a rapid downward spiral to the present valuations….it will be interesting to see what will happen to the price of all of the Chinese held domains in the event of a Chinese economic meltdown.

I remember writing about the crazy inflationary domain prices post the New York TRAFFIC conference. At the time key market makers pushed up prices and debt first entered the domain space (eg. companies like Domain Capital). This easy access to debt fuelled the price boom in much the same manner as the one Chinese investors just experienced.

So what else am I concerned about? Since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 I’ve been keeping a close eye on the world’s major central banks as they tried to stimulate their way into recovery. This was attempted through combinations of lowering of interest rates, government spending (fuelled by debt) and quantitative easing (ie. Print lots of money).

Despite the massive injections of stimulus nothing has really worked. As can be seen from the chart below the global growth is still at a lackluster rate of 2.4%. In the case of Japan, the central bank has recently issued negative interest rates. This means it costs you money to keep your savings in a bank…..sounds crazy but true.

The main goal of dropping interest rates is to devalue the local currency by making it less attractive to foreign currency traders. Put really simply, if you can borrow money in the US at 2% and get 3% for depositing it in banks in Australia you can effectively make 1% for doing absolutely nothing. This effectively makes the $AU more in demand and increases the value of the $AU versus the $US.

So when the reserve bank in Australia lowers interest rates the margin gap between the borrowed and deposited money shrinks and this increases the risk. The $AU receives less demand and it sinks in value against the $US. This will ultimately mean that Australian goods and services are cheaper if paid with $US….which in turn stimulates the Australian economy. Sounds great in theory but there’s a problem.

In the case of the Global Financial crisis all the central banks simultaneous dropped interest rates/printed money. This has meant the competitive gap between nations didn’t materialise and central banks ended up scratching their heads while they played a global game of chicken with each other…..who will drop first?

Here’s what I’m concerned about, when central banks approach zero interest rates (or below) where do they go from there? All of their “gun-powder” has been used and we’re now rapidly approaching the 7-8 year economic cycle.

For years, economists have talked about a 7-8 year cycle as being like the heartbeat of the global economy. Guess what, back in 2008 was when President Obama first took office and literally weeks later he faced the sub-prime mortgage fiasco that caused the global economy to nose dive.

So now, after an interminably long campaign, we have Trump and Clinton coming up for election. If we imagine the two candidates as the captains on the economic titanic, as far as I can work out, Hillary is saying, “steady as she goes” while Trump is saying crazy things that amount to, “we need to instantly build a submarine.”

Let’s face it, both candidates are more focused on themselves then acknowledging the global problems that the US is caught up in. Neither is actually espousing a concrete plan with some sense of vision. I’ll be interested in viewing the next round of debates to see if there is any light at the end of the dark tunnel. It's sad to say but I think everything is down to how we all cross our fingers and hope something good will happen.

What the UK Brexit debacle has proven is a lack of decisive leadership around complex global issues leads to disaster. We elect leaders to lead and not to hand back their leadership in a referendum so they can say, “The disaster wasn’t my doing but the people’s”.

My hope is that once elected, either Clinton or Trump will rise to an unseen level of leadership that will inspire the entire US nation rather than foster the division that seems to be prevelant.

There are a lot more economic indicators than I’ve mentioned in this article that are pointing to troubling times ahead. So as a domain investor, what am I doing? Two words, gold and cash.

I could be wrong with all of my doom and gloom but there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years…..I’ve never regretted having excess cash. Cash provides the flexibility to move quickly and seize opportunities. If I’m right and in the first half of 2017 there is a financial meltdown, then there will be bargains aplenty for a person with cash.

I remember after the 2008 crash I picked up heavily discounted domain portfolios as people struggled to pay crazy high mortgages and tax bills. I’ve been enjoying the proceeds of these portfolios ever since. This time I think that I will be also looking at the more traditional markets and once again, domain data will help me pick the right companies to invest in. What I really want to keep an eye on is the Chinese domain market…..will it fall further or are there other opportunities that will play out in a downturn?

Just an aside, a recent report by management consulting firm McKinsey and Co. showed that Israel was one of the few countries in the world that was rapidly retiring debt. There’s one thing I know about the Jewish community, they’re generally pretty savvy when it comes to money.

So reduce debt, get cashed up and hang on for the ride….hopefully the cycle will pan out just fine but if it doesn’t, then make sure you’re ready.