money4college, sublimenet, and other goofy things I came up with when creating my business…

I almost wish we would have named the company Clickfunnels but we didn’t. Because initially we had 3 software products we were going to build under this brand. It was going to be Clickfunnels, Backpack, and Actionetics, were the 3 software companies we were going to launch with one parent company. We were trying to think of a cool name for it. Most of you probably don’t even know this, but Clickfunnels parent company is Etison. It’s a domain that Todd had bought a long time ago. And we thought it was cool because Thomas Edison is cool. But the whole Edison/Tesla scam thing….the T was kind of for Tesla. So it’s like this weird thing. Initially we were going to give away Tesla’s when people promoted Clickfunnels.

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Good Morning, everybody. It’s an amazing day today. Welcome you guys to Marketing In Your Car. Hey everyone, it is really a beautiful day right now. I’m feeling good, it’s a little chilly, but the sun’s up, everyone looks happy outside, and I’m excited.

It’s going to be a great day. I’ve got to film 21 more videos today for our new Ignite Your Funnel sign up process. We’re rolling out this really cool thing when someone joins Clickfunnels… We’re all about how figuring out how to increase retention and stick rate and get people consuming the product. We’re launching Ignite Your Funnels.

When you sign up for Clickfunnels, you’ll get this 21 day program that’ll walk you through igniting your funnels. It’s going to be really fun. So that’s what’s happening today on my side. Today’s episode is going to be kind of off topic because I thought this was funny. I’m curious for all you guys out there, what your first business name was? All of us got started, where we’re at today is not where we started. I got started over 12 years ago, which is funny. It makes me laugh because, my very email address ever…not ever, but my very first business email address.

I remember I set up a business, because I wanted a very professional business email address. I don’t have the email address anymore, but it’s funny because, my email address I set up was money4college@juno.com and it wasn’t…It was M O N E Y then 4 and then college @juno.com. And in my head I’m like, this is a really good business email address, people will know I’m in this business to make money for college. That was my email address for a long time, not a short time, a long time.

In fact, a few people who knew me back then, Mike Filsaime, a lot of times he’ll see me and still call me, “What’s up, money for college?” It’s so funny now because in my head I was like, this is a really good idea. This will be a very professional business entity. I tried to buy money4college.com, but somebody owned it, luckily. Otherwise my whole business would be based around money for college. That’s was my first email address, I had that probably for 5 or 6 years of my business.

I was doing all my professional business through a free Juno email address. It was funny, the first time we had 5 or 6 employees at the time and I was using Juno still. One of the guys we hired was a tech dude and he was like, “Why don’t we have email addresses at our domain? “ How do we do that? I didn’t even know that was possible.” He set it up so we had Russell at whatever.com. So that was my first awesome business naming thing. A while later I remember… I was learning about online marketing and all these different things. At the time, my degree was in Computer Information Systems.

I was like, “I’m going to be a programmer. I’m going to program stuff.” Unfortunately, it turns out I’m not that smart. I could never actually figure things out. I had this SQL class, I was really excited. The first two days were like the coolest thing, I was like; “This is amazing.” And by the third day I was lost. The rest of the semester I could never get past the third day. It was over for me. I was not going to be a programmer. I thought I was going to be, and I knew that was the route I wanted to go.

I wanted to launch a software company. I spent weeks trying to find the perfect domain name. Everything I checked was gone. This was 12 years ago. It’s funny now, because now you can still find good domain names if you look hard enough. So, I was trying to find a domain, and I finally found it. The one. The domain I knew from the beginning it was going to be… our entire empire would be built off of. My software company was going to be amazing.

So, I was so excited so I went and bought it. I don’t think I knew how to buy a domain back then. I think I spent like $40 or $50 on this domain. I bought it, and I was so excited. I had bought some website builder software. I can’t even remember what it was called. Some website building platform I bought the domain through. I was so excited, I spent that whole day. My wife, we just got married. It was our first year of marriage. Poor thing, she’s been through so much.

It’s shocking to me that she’s still around. So she’s working while I’m at home trying to make millions between wrestling practices. So I’m in there trying to build this site, and I’m learning how to… this is pre, me using Front Page. This is total horrible website building. I’m building this thing out. I bought a bunch of resale rights to a whole bunch of different software products. We’re selling software, this is pretty exciting. In fact, we’re selling exciting software. My domain I bought was exciteware.net. I’m sure that domains… I don’t think I own it anymore. I was so excited, “We’re selling exciting software, this going to be amazing.”

So my wife gets home. I’m like, “Collette, I gotta show you what I just created; this is going to be amazing.” I’m building up the hype and suspense, like I like to do. If I’m like, “This is the domain that I bought”, she’s going to be like, “Alright.” So I gotta build up the hype so when I announce she can hear the angels singing and it can be this big deal. So I’m talking it up, “I’m selling software. I’m selling this software, and this software. All these different software resale rights that I bought. We’re selling exciting software. The domain I bought is Exciteware.net.”

I remember she looked at it. And she didn’t hear the angels singing. She didn’t get excited. In fact, she had this concerned look on her face and she said, “When I hear Exciteware, I think lingerie”. I was like, “What?” She’s like, “I’m not going tell my mom you own a website called Exciteware. She’s going to think you sell underwear. Exciting underwear. “ I’m like, “No, it’s exciting software. This is really cool.” She’s like “No, this is embarrassing.” My whole world collapsed. I spent months trying to figure out.. Oh crap, a cops coming out.

Please say he’s not getting me. I wonder if it’s illegal for me to be talking on the phone like this. Hopefully that’s not why he’s pulling behind me. I don’t know the laws. Cross your fingers, otherwise you guys get to hear a cop pull me over. There’s a cop in front of me too. I wonder if this is a sting operation. “We listen to Marketing In Your Car, Russell. We know the route from your house to your office, this is a sting op. We’re going to take you down.” I hope that’s not true. We’ll find out in a little bit. Alright, so where I left off… So my wife is just like, “No, that’s a horrible name.”

I was devastated because I spent $40, which back then was more than I made in an entire year. It was all my money. We had zero disposal income. I was making exactly $0 a year my wife was making less than $20 grand a year. We did not have money, so I didn’t have $40 to spend but I spent it. I was devastated. I remember being depressed. This was the foundation for my empire.

You just destroyed it because you think it sounds like exciting underwear. I thought that was kind of funny. So last night, we were in bed talking and I was like, “Do you remember Money4College?” and she was like, “Yeah, do you remember Exciteware?” Oh dear me. We’ve come a long way since then. I thought it was funny. So, I kept trying to think of other company names. I remember for some reason I always thought the word sublime was the coolest word. SUBLIME. It’s like a slide. SUUUU and BLIME and you bounce off the end of the slide. Sublime.

I thought sublime was cool. So I was like, “The only idea I have is sublime. I like that word.” So I ended up buying sublimenet.com that was the company name for the next 4 or 5 years. Which is weird, it didn’t mean anything. But that was the only other idea I had that wasn’t exciting software. So Sublimenet, is a horrible name. Anyway, that‘s what it was. Sublimenet.com was the business name for the next few years. I remember I used to buy domain names and they would be part….Sublimenet would be the company, but I’d have different…Zipbrander or ForumFortunes.

All these different products underneath there. I kept trying to find the perfect name. I remember one night; I was on buydomains.com or one of those sites. I’m typing in tons of ideas trying to find one. All of the sudden I found it. It was DotComSecrets.com. I remember, I was just like, “That’s it! That’s the name!” It was amazing for me. It’s funny now because now, a lot of times, I’m like, “should I try to build the info business around that name, or should I not?” The two cops took a right. The sting operation was unsuccessful they didn’t catch me.

Anyway, even when I titled my book, DotComSecrets, Jeff Walker told me, “It’s the worst name ever!” But I’m like, that’s my thing. Anyway, I still like DotComSecrets. I actually think it’s really cool. Some people think it’s dumb, but it became the name. It was much better than Sublimenet or Exciteware. Now where the info for the coaching side of our business kind of grew from, which is kind of cool. I remember with Clickfunnels….I almost wish we would have named the company Clickfunnels but we didn’t.

Because initially we had 3 software products we were going to build under this brand. It was going to be Clickfunnels, Backpack, and Actionetics, were the 3 software companies we were going to launch with one parent company. We were trying to think of a cool name for it. Most of you probably don’t even know this, but Clickfunnels parent company is Etison. It’s a domain that Todd had bought a long time ago. And we thought it was cool because Thomas Edison is cool. But the whole Edison/Tesla scam thing….the T was kind of for Tesla.

So it’s like this weird thing. Initially we were going to give away Tesla’s when people promoted Clickfunnels. Anyway, the company name is Etison. So we were going to have Clickfunnels, Backpack, and Actionetics, as the 3 software products. But after we launched Clickfunnels and it blew up way bigger than we ever thought. Instead of making separate software companies, we made the decision to build everything internally. Now all those products are inside of Clickfunnels.

I wish we would have named the company Clickfunnels. We didn’t. It’s similar to 37 Signals. 37 Signals is kind of a random business name. Then they had Basecamp, High Rise, all their different software tools. Recently they changed it so their business name is just Basecamp. Maybe we’ll switch it to Clickfunnels someday. I don’t know. But there’s the history of naming of my companies. That’s about it, you guys. So I hope that was fun. I know there’s not really any educational purpose to that outside of just making fun of myself. I’m sure all of you guys got cheesy names in your business domain name, email address history.

I hope it makes you smile when you think about some of the goofy things you’ve done along the way. There you go. I’m at the office. I’m going to go film 21 videos to help people ignite their funnel. Good stuff’s happening today. I’m also going to make a cool upsell video for our Funnel Catcher course. Yesterday we made a sweet sales video for Funnel University that I’m really excited for. There’s a lot of cool stuff happening. February is going to be insane.

I’m trying to get out a lot of things before our March event. The March event ticket sales are going crazy. In the last 3 days we sold 40 more tickets, I don’t even know how sales are coming in, but it’s exciting seeing it. Because I’ve been stressing out, we’re not going to sell enough tickets. Oh we’ve got really cool direct mail piece that’s coming out this week. It should be hitting everyone this week, actually. If you watch to Marketing Quickies Show, I showed this really cool mail piece that I got from some car dealership. It’s like a forwarded email that the guy printed out and sent to me, it had a sticky note on it. It’s a really cool marketing concept.

So, we kind of modeled that. Basically it’s a letter we’re going to email to Ben; we have two Ben’s on our team that are doing outbound phone sales for the event right now. So I forwarded this email to Ben. “Hey make sure people get in, extend the discount through February 5.” So then we printed that out and put a sticky note of Ben saying “Hey, if you haven’t got your tickets yet, give me a call.” Then we fold that up, put in a letter and handwrite the address on it.

Anyway, it’s a really cool mailing piece and I’m so excited. I was trying to send it to all Clickfunnels members, but we didn’t have addresses for everyone. We ended up having addresses for 4,000. So 4,000 Clickfunnels members will be getting that letter this week, maybe you’ll get one. I’m really proud of that direct mail piece, I’m sure the event will show the stats of how it all worked. It’s pretty cool. I love marketing, it’s so much fun. That’s it guys. Appreciate you all. Have an amazing day and I’ll talk to you all soon.