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What’s in a name? Plenty — if you’ve strategically bought 2,000 domain names as island entrepreneur Skip Hoagland has through his new-media empire, DomainsNewMedia.com.
But before he could start claiming the world wide web name by name, Hoagland had to start somewhere. And that somewhere was right here on the Hilton Head, 37 years ago, when he came here to work for Sea Pines developer Charles Fraser.
“I started off as a young guy scrubbing boats in Harbour Town,” Hoagland said.
Through operating a charter boat service and offering instruction on captaining big boats, Hoagland then got involved in tourism marketing with his first publication, the Official Guide to Hilton Head. It later merged with Island Events magazine.
Hoagland’s empire stayed local until a local banker aptly named Paul Profit gave him a loan enabling him to expand his service into Savannah and three other cities. Soon, his list of publications grew to include Savannah Scene.
“It’s still a very good business today,” Hoagland said.
In the mid-’90s someone asked Hoagland if he feared losing his business to Internet sites offering tourism information. This was in the nascent days of the dot com boom, and Hoagland smelled opportunity.
He began buying up domain names for locations across the Lowcountry including Hilton Head, Beaufort, Bluffton and Hardeeville — some for as little as $200.
“These are becoming primary destination marketing assets,” he said. As with his print ambitions, his online empire soon stretched beyond the boundaries of the Lowcountry. But it hasn’t all been smooth sailing.
Hoagland’s purchase of myrtlebeach.com for $10,000 in 1998 met with resistance from the resort’s chamber of commerce. Hoagland prevailed in the ensuing trademark lawsuit and the domain name went on to become a multi-million-dollar asset for his company.
“As an entrepreneur I’ve had my share of what I call my ‘entremanure’ days,” Hoagland joked. “Luckily the entrepreneurial endeavors have allowed me to cover my failures as an ‘entremanure.’”
He recently fired a shot across the bow of the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce, accusing the organization of entering into competition with local media companies and failing to “shop local” for services.
Hoagland, now 64, divides his time between Hilton Head, Naples, Fla., and Buenos Aires, Argentina, the headquarters for his company’s Internet marketing services.
His computer-savvy wife Cathy has helped out over the 31 years of their marriage, handling accounting and registration of the domain names.
“The Internet changed my world,” he said. “I would never have imagined being a publisher of magazines and running an entire company on my iPhone.”
