He would have more credibility than he does now. I've been doing my background on this guy, one of the people behind WashingtonVC.
Here's a quote from a Business Week article about his "charitable" organization, Grassroots.org:
Talk about your involvement in charity work. I've always been on a path to complete charity projects. When I was younger, I volunteered in Southeast D.C. I took kids to Rock Creek Park. Eventually, I owned an Internet company focused on charities. The idea was to meld charity work with Internet work. I started acquiring a lot of charity domain names. These names are all part of Grassroots.org, which has 1,000 members. I want to ramp it up to 10,000 members. I also set up a charitable fund, Make Change Trust, with 5 to 6 million dollars in it. It gives away money to small charities.
Like I guess last night, this guy has bought a bunch of "charity" related domain names, around his Grassroots.org website. Domain branding is just about all he knows. So, what does he have to do with Washington?
The firm is called WashingtonVC, but it is really more of a private equity firm. Why the name WashingtonVC? We compete with VCs [venture capitalists]. There's not much of a difference, frankly. We're more operators. They're more investors. It's a private equity firm in Washington, D.C. It sounded cute to name it WashingtonVC.
He's a private equity investor based in Washington. He buys obvious sounding domain names and makes businesses "work" through the natural traffic they get.
Like I said, this is so 1998. I'll give him credit: he has more money than I do. On the other hand, he made it buying and selling domains during the first bubble. Talk about fighting the last war. Maybe that's something else he has in common with Washington.
I'll be magnanimous here and extend an open invitation to Mr. Mann or any of his associates to contact me. Heck, your offices are probably a short bike ride or walk from my home office. I've sent one or two of you email, and my contact information is readily available.
I'll also be at Politics Online this week, and SXSW the next. Want to set the record straight? Let's talk.
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