This Month We Interview Robert Crull from Catalog.com

Robert, thank you for talking with us. Since Catalog.com has been in business for 10 years, what would you say has contributed to your success?

I tribute our success to forward thinking. We started this company with the idea of building a business for the long term. An example of that is our web hosting presence. We were Hosting before Hosting was cool!

As the CEO of a large web hosting company, what keeps you up at night?

It can be any of the myriad of things associated with running a business like legal issues, employee issues, capital requirements, etc. I’ve also been known to burn the midnight oil checking on operations to make sure there aren't serious problems.

And as a follow up, what is the one thing that makes you jump out of bed in the morning?

What usually makes me jump out of bed in the morning is my 13-month-old son. He is an early riser. No, seriously, I am excited about being a pioneer. We were a pioneer in web hosting, free hosting with domain registration and now, we are pioneering search for small web sites. I get fired up about talking with customers and trying to come up with the “next thing.”

What areas of the web hosting business (i.e. shared hosting, dedicated servers, reseller plans, etc.) do you see having the largest growth potential in the next 3 years, and how does Catalog.com plan on taking advantage of it?

I see the shared hosting market continuing its growth. I think what we offer with shared hosting is far superior to running your own dedicated server.

On the same note, where do you see the largest growth areas geographically?

I see the hosting industry spreading more geographically. I see the larger hosting companies growing more intensely across Asia and Europe and throughout North America. I think as prices drop and service improves, the major players will become more active in global markets.

Tell us about your Extreme Hosting. That’s quite an offer.

If you’re looking for the best deal for your money, the Extreme Hosting on Windows or UNIX is the way to go. It’s affordable at $9.95 a month, and it has enough features to keep you from worrying about having to upgrade very soon. The less a business has to worry about web hosting, the more it can concentrate on strategic issues that will impact the bottom line.

How do you distinguish yourself in this very competitive industry?

We do all of our technical support in-house. We don’t outsource, and we never will. We operate our own data centers, so we can respond quickly to any issues. We have very efficient and mature systems, so we can serve a lot of customers at a great price.

What unique skills do you bring to Catalog.com as CEO?

I think my best skills stem from my technical intuition or anticipation. I can usually keep us going in the right direction ahead of the competition. Prior to Catalog.com, I had twelve years of experience with EDS, Perot Systems and Oracle in engineering, operations and sales. That experience gave me good business sense and a good feel for the kinds of systems necessary to support a large operation.

What do you find most rewarding about being the CEO of Catalog.com?

Two things come to mind right away. The first is seeing employees I have had the chance to mentor move on to successful positions here at Catalog.com and at other opportunities. The second is seeing customers build a successful web business or website that they are proud of.