2982: Com Laude - How Valuable is a Domain Name?

[00:00:01] Have you ever wondered about the complex world of domain names? And how those domain names impact our digital lives? Well, today here on Tech Talks Daily I have the privilege of speaking with Hayath Hussain from a company called Com Laude.

[00:00:19] And she is a veteran in the domain name industry with more than 20 years' experience and she has navigated the evolving landscape of domain extensions from the early days of manual processes to the advanced automated systems that we see today. And with a Master's Degree in Information Systems Analysis

[00:00:39] and a rich background that includes tackling DDoS attacks, protecting intellectual property she is bringing with her today a knowledge of insights into our conversation. I want to take a time out to express my gratitude to everyone who supports my mission of delivering daily content to you in 165 countries.

[00:00:59] I couldn't do it without you and I couldn't do it without my sponsors. And today I want to give a quick shout out to Kiteworks who recently told me that defence contractors are facing immense pressure to comply with things like CMMC 2.0 security standards.

[00:01:14] And finding a secure, easy-to-use file sharing platform that meets those guidelines can be a big challenge. So, quick shout out to any defence contractors listening out there. CMMC 2.0 compliance doesn't have to be a headache. Consider Kiteworks your fast track to authorisation and as a FedRAMP moderate authorised solution

[00:01:35] they cover nearly 90% of CMMC 2.0 level 3 requirements. For you that means less time, less effort, less cost and while others struggle with DIY approval processes and clunky apps you'll breeze through with their Zero Trust Framework so don't let compliance slow you down is what I'm trying to say.

[00:01:55] Simply visit Kiteworks.com to get started. That's Kiteworks.com to learn more about Kiteworks' secure content platform for CMMC compliance. But with my thank yous out of the way it's now time to jump right into today's interview with our fantastic guest. So buckle up and hold on tight

[00:02:15] as I beam your ears all the way to the Dolomites today. I think that might be a first. What a beautiful setting for a podcast as my guest will discuss the ever-growing importance of domain names and also explore how continuous learning and a commitment to potential over-experience

[00:02:32] can ultimately drive success in this digital age. So, a massive warm welcome to the show. Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do? I'm Hayat Hussain. I'm the Chief Operating Officer at Comlaude

[00:02:51] and Comlaude is a domain registrar for those who don't know what we do. Domain names are fascinating world and yeah, how I ended up in this subject is a story of another... It needs another podcast now because I ended in this industry by slum.

[00:03:13] I moved to London 24 years ago and as a young person or not that young, I was looking for a job and my second job was at a company that's one of the biggest domain registrars currently based in South Summer in South London.

[00:03:33] I did my first temp job there and I never looked back. So, I moved from one registrar to a registry to in-house back to where I am today. So, that's me in a nutshell with moving to London. My background, I have Information System Analysis Masters in that

[00:03:55] and I studied in Sweden. Originally, I'm from Kenya. So, I've moved around the world. I did my Masters in Sweden but I did my Bachelor's in Melbourne and RMIT. So, you can just see how crazy my world has been and ended up in London, Columbia where I've been.

[00:04:17] This is my 17th year. Wow, what a fantastic story. A real citizen of the world in every sense and today you're talking to me in the Dolomites as well. That's true, Neil. That's true. Not having, whatever I lay my heart is my home.

[00:04:35] That's what I normally say, I don't belong anywhere. Love that, so refreshing to hear. I think as well, I think as you said, there's a whole podcast episode waiting to be recorded on your origin story, maybe even a book on there.

[00:04:50] But for today's episode, I mean 20 years in the domain name industry and also you've seen, I would imagine you've seen this evolution of everything firsthand here. So, what do you believe are the most significant changes in the industry during your career?

[00:05:04] Because you must have seen so many trends and things come and go. But what have you seen here? Has it evolved? It has evolved, boy has it evolved. And when I started my career in the domain names, we had maybe 20, 30 extensions or max 50 extension. Currently they're over 2,000.

[00:05:24] So, that just tells you how many extensions have happened the last 20 years. Also, initially when I started my career in domain names, a lot of what we did or what we do now used to be quite manual. So, you needed people to do the job.

[00:05:43] Technology and systems were not that advanced. Registries were not as advanced as they are today. Registrars had to depend on a lot of people to do the jobs. Clients were not, brand owners, I call them clients, brand owners were not as educated or aware as they are today.

[00:06:07] So, from number of extensions to technology advancing, it threats becoming even more. So, we were forced, everybody has been forced to up their game, making sure that you have the best technology, you have the best people, you have the best clients. So, for me, from having country codes,

[00:06:31] few country codes to generic top level domains to companies owning their own brands and their own registries and being responsible for their own security is something I thought I would never see, but yeah, I've seen everything. And then margins, small registries, registrars, everybody started buying each other

[00:06:53] and the competition became a bit more stiff. You see a lot of changes within the industry from registries, registrars, clients themselves, brand owners, others, people who are in that industry, we had to learn. And one thing with domain names, and in the industry, internet as a whole,

[00:07:14] it's never a dull, there's never a dull moment, there are changes. Every day, there's something, either there's a threat you need to think about, there's a new technology or there's a new registry, or there's a new regulations, there are new verifications.

[00:07:30] You can hear Brexit had its own issues, geographical politics and everything that you see. So, it's not some, as I said, it's not a dull moment in this industry and things have changed, and boy, have they changed. So, that's why I learn every day.

[00:07:49] And now we have AI. What is the impact of AI in the industry we are in? Clever people will find that solution, but yeah, things have changed from, as I said, few extensions to over 2,000. And the challenges for any brand owner in any company is,

[00:08:08] do I need to register all of those domains? Because if you want to protect your brand, the first thing you think, I need everything everywhere. But those days are gone. Nobody has that much money to do everything. We can talk about that later on.

[00:08:25] As you said, there's so many big changes. One of the things I try and do on this podcast every day is getting people thinking differently about technology or their perception of certain technology. And we all know what a domain name is,

[00:08:39] but in your experience, so much has changed. What is the true value of a domain name to its owner here in this AI-driven age? And how has that perception changed over time too? That's a very good question, and this is a question and discussion I have

[00:08:57] with our clients and brand owners from time to time. I look at a domain, when you register, let's say neil.com. Just neil.com as it is, hasn't got any value in your eyes or in anybody's eyes. If it doesn't do anything, it hasn't got a value.

[00:09:19] But for a domain to have a value, you have to have a website. In today's age, everybody's talking about social media, but at the bottom of everything that happens, there's a domain name. Your email don't work without a domain name. And when you look at website,

[00:09:40] they wouldn't work without a domain name. We still depend on our website. We still want to put information out there. So a domain name without just registering it for defensive purpose doesn't show you the value of it. But then when you look at the traffic

[00:09:58] it brings to your website, the value, monetary value when you have an online presence, the awareness of a brand, the perception changes. But it has to be a domain that makes sense for your brand, a domain that suits the business that you're doing.

[00:10:17] And these are discussions I have with clients. When you have these domains, don't just let them there. Redirect them to your website. Let that domain have a return of investment. Let that domain be part of your education, the awareness of your brand, the awareness of your business,

[00:10:38] the awareness of what you want to do. When that happens, then a domain is valuable. And the moment that domain is set to lapse or is taken by somebody else, that's when you hear the screaming and the nervousness with brand owners.

[00:10:57] Oh my God, I did not mean to let this domain go. Now how do we get it back? Because somebody somewhere thought it's not valuable. It's not doing anything. So for brand owners to avoid that, this is not valuable, make it work for you. Let it do something.

[00:11:17] Because domains used to be cheap a long time ago, but a good domain name, people are buying it for millions. Somebody was telling me the other day, there's a one character domain, there's a brand that has just changed to one character.

[00:11:31] I think they paid half a million for that domain. So there is value in that, but it has to be generic domains are quite valuable. Three character domains are quite valuable. The brands as well, when you have your brand,

[00:11:46] that is your post, that is the identity you have online. And another area I know you're particularly passionate about is DDoS attacks and intellectual property protection. And there are a lot of cyber squatters out there. So how do you see these threats evolving in the next few years?

[00:12:04] And what should companies be doing to prepare for things like this? So domains are key intellectual property assets for brand owners. There's no way any of us is going to sit here and think, oh, I'm going to protect myself from DDoS attacks and I'm going to be safe.

[00:12:26] That is something none of us can do. But what can a brand owner do? What can an intellectual property owner do on these instances is to have a security. Everything a brand owner does is to have a good security strategy around their domain names to mitigate DDoS.

[00:12:49] DDoS is something that has always been here with us and it continues to be here with us. It's been bad actors are getting more sophisticated. They will find ways of attacking out of malicious approaches, but you need multifaceted approach when you're considering the security of your domains

[00:13:14] and making sure that you use any kind of DNS. This is a message to all brand owners for any critical domain name that is valuable for your company. If I would leave one word with you, it's to make sure that the domains are using DNS

[00:13:31] that are in any kind of DNS, have got multiple nodes, multiple connection points. So if there's a DDoS attack, one point of failure, the traffic is switched to another and to another in different locations, different countries, wherever you can. And also making sure that you audit your portfolio,

[00:13:52] domain portfolio, you make sure that if you don't need that domain, you clean it correctly, you delete everything that you have or used for it. We all leave what I call an online footprint because if anything you do, the internet remembers. So have time to reduce that traffic,

[00:14:18] make sure that everything is forgotten and then delete the domain. But one advice for any brand owner and as domains are intellectual property, they used in the old days, when I started this industry, domains were managed by the legal function in most of the companies.

[00:14:39] And what a trademark attorney or legal function thinks about is they look at it from brand protection standpoint. They don't look at it from what happens if technology, making sure security is incorporated in what they do. It never came naturally, but as years have gone,

[00:15:00] domains, they sit in a multifaceted functions. Now you have input from the legal team, you have input from the security team, you have input from marketing, you have input from the digital team. So for any company, I would advise them to look at domains

[00:15:19] and not just sit with one function, but have that multifaceted group that look at all aspects of domain names. Because DDoS is not something we can say it will never happen, but there are ways to mitigate.

[00:15:32] And one of the ways of mitigating is using any kind of DNS, making sure you have single sign-on, making sure that the authority of who has access to these domains is approved. If somebody leaves, make sure the access has been taken on, single sign-on and all of that.

[00:15:49] So that's what I can say about domains and DDoS. And although this is a tech podcast, one of the themes I always have on here is that technology works best when it brings people together. And we often lose sight of that, especially in this age of AI.

[00:16:07] And one of the things that attracted me to you and wanted me to get you on here is you advocate for hiring based on potential rather than experience, which was incredibly refreshing again because I hear a lot from especially younger members that listen

[00:16:22] or younger listeners that they, whenever they go for work, they're told they haven't got the experience. But how do they get that experience when they can't get the work? So can you share a success story around this and how this approach has made a significant impact?

[00:16:37] Exactly. And you've just hit the nail on the head. How would young people get experience if we don't give them the chance? That's a question I ask myself. And my younger me, if somebody didn't give me that chance, I wouldn't be where I am today.

[00:16:51] And we have so many success stories at Comloudy. And when I joined Comloudy maybe now 17 years ago, the company used to recruit from our camp, from our competitors. So that was what people did. And when I joined, I thought you can't just bring people

[00:17:10] that know what they're doing and you have a culture that you want to build, you want to have, you want to shape the business in a certain way. And I told my boss, this is what we're going to do. Somebody has to be educated, of course.

[00:17:26] That's the first ticket. But then if I have three people and somebody has a 2.1, somebody has it, I look for attitude. There's something about that attitude I can do, I want to learn. So I have a young lad in my team at the moment.

[00:17:45] He went to university, wanted to be a teacher. He hated it. Then he went to be a bartender. He worked as a bartender for 10 years. And then he had a friend who worked for us. We interviewed him. One of my CEOs looked at me and he said,

[00:18:03] Hi, how are you going to tame a bartender to sit on a desk and do this job? And I looked at him and I said, That is a problem for me, not for you. And that lad is one of the best domain strategists we have in the company.

[00:18:22] It didn't come natural in the beginning from being a bartender and learning all of this technology. You have to learn rules, you have to learn processes, and you have to learn how to communicate to the client.

[00:18:36] You have to be a client-facing at the same time and doing the job. And, yeah, we have different walks of people from different walks of life. That's how we backfill our team. We bring them in as support team. We train them.

[00:18:51] It takes somebody at least 12 months to feel confident, oh, I can take a step and take my own clients. Sometimes people are different. Some people 18 months, 12 months, and people two years. So that's how it's happening. We have so many success stories in terms of that.

[00:19:11] And as you said, nobody is going to give you a chance. We need to. We're companies, small companies, big companies. We leaders need to look at how can we help, how can we give these young people chances. And, yeah.

[00:19:26] And I just love that approach there and having people from all walks of life. And I think many businesses forget that all of their customers, no matter what industry they're in, their customers are going to be from a variety of backgrounds, diverse backgrounds.

[00:19:39] So serving that audience, serving those customers, you need to have the same diversity within your organization. And the concept of fostering diversity and inclusion in hiring, of course, is essential for innovation. So is this something that's important to you? It sounds like it is. It is important.

[00:19:57] It is important. When you look at our company, we have people from nine different nationalities. And that tells you, you have that culture, different cultures. You have different approach, different thinking. You have females who have males. And that's enriching us as human beings. I learn from them.

[00:20:16] I don't look myself as being their manager or their boss. What I look at, I look myself as being their mentor. I'm there to help, but I learn from them every day. And everybody brings something to that table. They see things differently, different cultures.

[00:20:35] How I see how I want to solve a problem, I say to somebody else, they look at it in a different way. And we discuss that and think, okay, I see where you're coming from. Let's try this.

[00:20:46] And anything we do in life is I don't look at it as a mistake. What I see in life is an experience. So, I take that forward. That's an experience for me. I foster that within the team. We humans will make mistakes.

[00:21:02] We might not do the right thing. But if you sit there and feel sorry for yourself, you're never going to learn from that. So, look at it as, oh, that's experience. Let me see what I can do next time.

[00:21:11] Very interesting company, Tua, is a company which gives young people opportunities to start a career. And domain names, there's no university to go and study a domain name. But this is what you learn by doing. But you need other qualities. And we're talking about opportunities here.

[00:21:32] And I think the old days, once you've recruited somebody, very often staff could be rotting almost because they're not challenged. They're not continuously learning. They're not being invested in their training and development. And I think right here, right now, everybody needs to be on a journey

[00:21:49] of continuous learning from the entry level to the boardroom. We're all learning on a daily basis. So, when it comes to the importance of ongoing training and development, what strategies do you employ both for new and existing employees too?

[00:22:05] With a new employee, when it comes to domain names, we have processes. We have our own training guide. You have to do it to learn. There's no book, go and read this book or do this exam.

[00:22:21] So, the starting point is identifying all the words we use in this industry, registry, registrar, transfer, registration, modification. There are so many things that come natural once you've done it. So, that is one part of it. And then we have external training.

[00:22:39] At the moment, we are working with a company to come in and do some training because we are not – you want to help clients, but it doesn't come natural to everybody on being that confident to talk to a client.

[00:22:55] And what we want to do is to try and give them the platform to be confident to know what words, right words. That helps them. Even if they leave Comm Laude, they leave Comm Laude with –

[00:23:08] they've learned something that they can take to the next job they go into. It doesn't necessarily mean that they need to go and work in a domain industry. They could go and work in a customer service somewhere else, but the tools to help them we have online.

[00:23:25] We've signed up to Udemy, which has so many thousands and thousands of courses. We pick up. We tell people to do it, the teams to do it as they go for their own personal growth. We do mentoring, internal mentoring. We sit. We have our own workshops. We attend.

[00:23:45] We send them to industry workshops and industry meetings so that they can get that exposure and networking. So, it's a learning every day. The industry itself, every day there's a rule change. Every day there's something new that's happening.

[00:24:02] So, we have a whole team that keeps us on our toes, oh guys, this is changing now. We have these two. We have this. We have this regulation from the European Union. We have this from the U.S.

[00:24:14] It's a constant learning nail whether we should like it or not. Like, yep, I need to up my game. I need to learn. And they're the team that faces the clients. So, it feels like they really want to learn to be able to convey that message

[00:24:32] to their clients. And going back to your bartender story there, I think it's so important to inspire the next generation of tech talent. And that's one of those stories that will stay with me for a long time.

[00:24:43] And I mean, those young people out there who might want to pursue a career in tech but then they talk themselves out of it. They say, well, I'm not a maths whiz. I'm not techie enough. I'm not a stereotypical tech pro.

[00:24:55] I come from a different background and very often talk themselves out of it when the reality is we need these people in technology. We need these different backgrounds and different ways of thinking, neurodiversions, so many different areas. Anything you can share around that and how you attract

[00:25:10] and bring in more talent like that? The word technology is daunting because what we associate technology is coding, sitting somewhere and code and doing that. But no, there's a lot of other faces of technology, understanding how security works, understanding how DNS works, understanding how NSSL works.

[00:25:35] All those aspects are part of technology. But when people hear technology, they say, I don't know how to code. Am I supposed to build a system? No, there are people who want to do that. But when you work in the technology industry,

[00:25:48] as domain names are partially technological area, but at the same time they have another face. So what makes – if somebody doesn't give you a chance to see that technology is not that, you need to know how to code CC+, or JavaScript, or I don't know what.

[00:26:09] But technology is understanding how to get from A to B, understanding how to mitigate risks, understanding this. That's what we do. At Comlade now we have in the tech department, we have girls who work for us. You rarely see women doing this.

[00:26:31] If we don't give them a chance, how would they understand coding, if that's of their interest? You need to give the youngsters chances. Back in schools, girls are not told that, oh, you're very good, you can be who you are.

[00:26:47] Oh no, this is not – you could go and do something else. We need to encourage our youngsters, whether female or male, that they explore it. You might find a niche within this technology world that you thrive in, that you enjoy, that is not daunting, that is not coding.

[00:27:09] Absolutely love that. And once we've got these people on board and we're looking at things like career progression and moving along the movement of talent within an organisation, any tips you can share around that or how you manage that?

[00:27:24] What we do with our teams and we have a few people that have – they want to test. You let them work and shadow the other department, brand protection or marketing or finance or operations and say, would I enjoy – or legal, would I enjoy this?

[00:27:47] Most of the time they go back to what they really love, not what you want them to do, but the opportunities there. When we're recruiting what we do, we first ask internally, is anybody interested in this role?

[00:28:00] Would you want – and people apply for that and you give them the first chance. If nobody applies for it, then we go out and look for it. So charity starts at home, Neil, and if we cannot give our people the first chance, then something is wrong with us.

[00:28:18] And we're talking so much about everybody else and how you're helping everybody else. I've got to ask, how do you help yourself? How do you self-educate? How do you keep up to speed with this constant speed of technological change which seems to be moving at breakneck speed?

[00:28:35] You know what? I like learning and it's not – and I like learning from people. I like learning by training. I'm a big fan of mentoring. I'm a big fan of seeing youngsters coming in not knowing anything and then understanding.

[00:28:58] So with the industry we are in, I can't understand everything because it goes so fast. So what I do, I learn from – I sit down and say, okay, how do we do this? I read a lot. I listen to podcasts. I read books.

[00:29:12] But also, I like talking to people, understanding, and talking to our clients and understanding how can we help if there's anything in their heads that we're not able to help. I'll go and find that solution.

[00:29:26] And I'm those kind of people that I don't take no for an answer, Neil. I will get to the bottom of it, and that way I will look at it and say, okay, next time I have this, this is how I'm going to tackle it.

[00:29:39] It's a constant learning because it's an industry. Yesterday and today are two different days. Wow, what an amazing journey that you've been on. And I love how you're not just sitting at the present here. You're continuously moving forward and continuously learning.

[00:29:56] For anyone listening wanting to find out more information about your work, maybe connect with you or ask your team a question or find out more information about everything we talked about today, where would you like to point everyone listening?

[00:30:09] They can contact me directly at hired.hussain.comlaudey.com or go to our website, comlaudey.com, www.comlaudey.com, email info at comlaudey.com. Any channel that you get, we are here to help and brand owners. That's what we would like to hear from you.

[00:30:36] We educate you is a partnership. There's so much I've learned about our conversation today. Yes, we've talked about domain names, DDoS, DDoS attacks, intellectual property protection in a language that everyone can understand, but also the importance of people, not just looking after your existing employees,

[00:30:54] but giving the younger people an opportunity and bringing people in from a variety of different backgrounds. There's space in the tech industry for everyone. I just love the positive message you're sending out there and proving it with your actions too, living what you breathe.

[00:31:08] Huge breath of fresh air for me. So thanks for joining me today. Thank you, Neil. It has been a pleasure and thank you very much for taking the time. So what does the future hold for the domain name industry

[00:31:19] and how can we continue to evolve with this changing technological landscape? I think my guest today left me with a deeper understanding of the complexities and most importantly, the opportunities in this field. And I think her emphasis on continuous learning, mentoring

[00:31:37] and hiring for potential over experience offers so many valuable lessons for everybody listening and myself in any industry. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on this fascinating discussion. How do you see the role of domain names evolving in your digital strategy? Please share your thoughts and insights.

[00:31:57] Join the conversation. I'm at neilchues across all social channels, nice and easy to find. But until next time, keep questioning, keep learning. Stay ahead of this ever evolving world of technology. Exciting times. But that's it for today.

[00:32:12] So I will speak with you all bright and early tomorrow morning. Bye for now.