Ray King King, 48, got his start in technology as a New York teenager offering computing classes in Grand Central Station.
After moving to Portland, he started a well-known Internet domain name registrar called SnapNames, which had annual revenue of $49 million before it was sold to a California company called Oversee.net in 2007. In 2009, the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network gave King its annual award for individual achievement.
AboutUs launched in 2006, conceived as an editable encyclopedia of websites the world over. It raised $5.1 million in outside investment from Voyager Capital and other backers.
But while AboutUs has a hugely popular website, King said it's been harder for the company to find a suitable business model.
"We were never able to get the formula right," he said. "I was not able to get it to break out in the way that I had hoped."
AboutUs changed its approach multiple times, ultimately settling on a service to helps businesses evaluate their online marketing strategy. After several years running the business, King said he wanted other people to be out front.
"I was gradually getting into a more conservative mindset," he said, "and maybe not the right guy to bring it forward."
So while King remains on the board, AboutUs is now led by chief financial officer Jack Williamson and chief technology officer Blake Biesecker.
Meanwhile, King has begun a new venture, Top Level Design, that seeks to capitalize on new "top-level" domains awaiting approval. King's company, TLD, has applied for names including .blog, .gay, .photography and .wiki.
TLD hopes to become a registry for some new top-level domains, facilitating the sale of new domain names.
If the new domains catch on, website names would rapidly move beyond the narrow conventions of .com, .org, .gov and the like. King said his new company would like to help shape that new era, with the new top-level domains giving people a better sense of what to expect from each site.
"It's going to change the complexion of the Internet," he said, "at least the naming complexion of the Internet, quite a bit."
-- Mike Rogoway; twitter: @rogoway; phone: 503-294-7699
