Gregory Manriquez: NameDrive Founder and Domain Parking Innovator (2025)

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Who Is Gregory Manriquez?

Gregory J. Manriquez is an entrepreneur and domain industry innovator who helped shape the modern domain parking landscape. At a time when domain monetization was still in its infancy, Manriquez recognized the potential to transform how domainers generate revenue from their holdings.

The Manriquez Profile

Why He Matters

Manriquez represents a particular breed of domain entrepreneur: the technologist-innovator. While many domainers focused on acquiring valuable names, Manriquez concentrated on building tools and platforms that helped the entire industry monetize their holdings more effectively. His contributions include:

• First full IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) parking implementation
• First earnings-based domain sales platform (Park & Sell)
• Pioneering work on domain portfolio securitization
• Building one of the fastest-growing domain parking services

Early Career at Sedo

Learning the Domain Business

Before founding NameDrive, Gregory Manriquez worked as a domain broker at Sedo, one of the world's largest domain marketplaces. Founded in 2001 and based in Cologne, Germany, Sedo provided Manriquez with an intensive education in:

• Domain valuation methodologies
• Brokerage negotiations
• Market dynamics
• Customer needs in domain monetization
• The technical infrastructure behind domain services

From Employee to Entrepreneur

Manriquez's experience at Sedo gave him insight into what domainers needed but weren't getting. He observed:

• Monetization gaps: Existing parking solutions left revenue on the table
• Technical limitations: IDN support was virtually nonexistent
• Sales inefficiencies: No good way to sell domains based on their earning potential
• Market opacity: Domain owners lacked transparency in their parking performance

These observations would form the foundation of NameDrive's value proposition.

The Munich Connection

Germany's domain industry centered around Cologne (Sedo) and Munich, creating a concentrated hub of domain expertise in Central Europe. Manriquez chose Munich as NameDrive's headquarters, positioning the company within this ecosystem while establishing its own identity.

Founding NameDrive (2005)

The Launch

In August 2005, Gregory Manriquez founded NameDrive LLC as a domain parking provider. The timing was strategic: the domain parking industry was growing rapidly, with Google's AdSense for Domains program enabling publishers to monetize parked domains more effectively than ever before.

Early Growth

NameDrive's growth was exceptional. According to industry reports, Google identified NameDrive as the fastest-growing third-party reseller their AdSense for Domains program had ever seen. Within six months of launch, NameDrive had been voted "Top Parking Program" in Domain Name Wire's survey.

Business Model

NameDrive operated on several fronts:

Domain Parking: Core monetization through pay-per-click advertising on parked domains

Brokerage Services: Helping domain owners sell their names to end users

Optimization Tools: Technology to maximize revenue from domain traffic

Portfolio Management: Tools for managing large domain portfolios

Sales Platform: The NDX Market for domain transactions

Company Structure

NameDrive grew to operate internationally:

• Headquarters: Munich, Germany (later Luxembourg)
• Technical Center: Bucharest, Romania
• U.S. Office: Texas

This distributed structure allowed NameDrive to serve domainers across different time zones and markets.

Industry-First Innovations

Full IDN Support (2006)

In February 2006, NameDrive launched what they called the "first-ever full implementation for IDN parking." Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) contain non-ASCII characters, supporting languages like Japanese, Arabic, Russian, Korean, and many others.

NameDrive's IDN Firsts:

• First company to allow users to add domains in both Unicode and Punycode
• First company to display all IDNs correctly on parked pages
• First company to provide full IDN keyword and related search support
• First to offer portals in Japanese, Arabic, Russian, Korean, and other languages

This innovation opened domain parking to the non-English-speaking world, a massive market that competitors had largely ignored.

Park & Sell Program

NameDrive's "Park & Sell" program represented another industry first: the ability to buy domains based on their earnings performance.

How It Worked:

1. Domain owners would park their names with NameDrive
2. NameDrive would track traffic and revenue over a defined period
3. Domains could then be sold for a multiple of their monthly revenue
4. Buyers could see verified earning statistics before purchasing

This addressed a fundamental problem in domain sales: valuation uncertainty. By tying prices to actual performance, Park & Sell reduced risk for buyers and provided liquidity for sellers.

Parking API

NameDrive offered a Parking API that enabled:

• Automated domain addition and management
• Statistics downloading
• Account management at scale
• Integration with third-party tools

This technical infrastructure made NameDrive particularly attractive to large portfolio owners who needed programmatic access to their parking data.

The NDX Market Platform

Launch (May 2007)

NameDrive launched its NDX sales platform in May 2007, creating what they described as "a global yet independent point where domain owners gather to auction and sell their domain names."

Immediate Success

Within less than a week of launching, NDX had over 100,000 domain name listings. The distribution reflected the international nature of domain investing:

Platform Features

NDX Market differentiated itself through several innovative features:

Transparent Statistics: Sellers could link their NameDrive parking stats to show traffic and revenue data for each domain. This was revolutionary transparency for domain sales.

Flexible Sale Types: Domain owners could list names as:

• Best offer auctions
• Fixed BuyNow prices
• Combination listings

Quick Search Filters: Unlike other marketplaces that required extensive manual searching, NDX offered one-click filters like:

• "BuyNow price under $50"
• ".de domains with traffic stats"
• Domains matching specific criteria

Commission Structure

NDX initially offered commission-free sales through May 2009, then implemented a tiered structure:

• Standard commission: 7%
• For domains parked at NameDrive: As low as 3%

Premium Partnerships

NDX partnered with major portfolio owners to ensure quality listings:

• BuyDomains: Major .com portfolio holder
• Dotcom Agency: Premium .com specialist
• NameRich: Pioneer in .cn (Chinese) domains

These partnerships helped establish NDX as a quality marketplace rather than just another listing platform.

Domain Securitization Patent

The Innovation

In November 2008, Gregory Manriquez and intellectual property attorney Stevan Lieberman filed a patent application for domain name securitization. The patent, titled "Method for Domain Trading," proposed a revolutionary approach to domain portfolio financing.

How It Would Work

The patent described a system where domain portfolio owners could:

1. Risk Stratification Divide a domain portfolio into tranches based on risk levels (high, medium, low). Risk factors included:

• Domain TLD (.com vs. newer extensions)
• Industry vertical
• Pay-per-click performance over time
• Portfolio size
• Origin of domain traffic (organic vs. paid)

2. Valuation Each tranche would be valued primarily on:

• Monthly revenue generation
• Revenue growth trajectory
• Consistency of performance

3. Securitization The portfolio owner could then receive a loan or bond based on the portfolio value, with this debt instrument tradable on an open market.

Why It Mattered

If implemented as described, this method could have brought significant liquidity to the domain market. As Domain Name Wire noted at the time: "This method could bring liquidity to a market that is very inefficient."

The domain industry has historically suffered from illiquidity. Unlike stocks or real estate, there's no standardized marketplace for domain portfolios. Most sales are private negotiations. The Manriquez-Lieberman patent proposed infrastructure that could enable:

• Faster access to capital for domain investors
• More efficient price discovery
• Institutional investment in domains
• Portfolio-level trading rather than individual domain sales

The Patent Co-Filer: Stevan Lieberman

Stevan H. Lieberman, Manriquez's co-filer, is a prominent intellectual property attorney based in Washington, D.C. He's a partner at Greenberg & Lieberman, a firm established in 1996 that specializes in domain name law and intellectual property.

Lieberman's Domain Credentials:

• Recognized as one of the top three domain law experts globally
• Pioneer in reverse domain hijacking litigation
• Involved in UDRP cases for major corporations including Nike, Microsoft, and HSBC
• Listed among 16 influential entities in domain names (2010)

Lieberman's involvement gave the patent legal credibility and reflected the serious commercial intentions behind the invention.

Patent Status

While the patent was filed and published, the domain securitization concept has not been widely implemented in the market. The 2008 financial crisis, which involved problems with traditional securitization, may have dampened appetite for this approach. However, the patent remains significant as an early example of sophisticated financial thinking applied to domain assets.

Recognition and Industry Standing

Top 60 Domain Millionaires

Gregory Manriquez was listed at position #22 on the widely-circulated "Top 60 Domain Name Millionaires" list. This list, compiled and referenced across domain industry publications, recognized the individuals who had achieved significant wealth through domain investing.

Notable names appearing above Manriquez on the list include:

• Frank Schilling (Name Administration)
• Fred Hsu (Oversee.net)
• Bob Parsons (GoDaddy)
• Eliot Noss (Tucows)

Being listed alongside these industry titans reflected NameDrive's commercial success and Manriquez's personal achievements in the space.

Youngest Top Domainer

Industry sources consistently noted that Manriquez was "one of the youngest of the 'domainers'" to achieve significant success. While exact age details aren't publicly documented, entering the domain industry's elite while still young demonstrated both vision and execution ability.

Industry Respect

Despite his success, Manriquez maintained a relatively low public profile compared to some domain industry figures. His reputation was built primarily on:

• Technical innovation rather than flashy sales
• Building tools that helped others succeed
• Steady growth rather than speculative bets
• Professionalism in business dealings

NameDrive Acquisition Journey

KeyDrive Merger (2011)

In June 2011, NameDrive merged with Key-Systems, a German domain registrar, to form KeyDrive S.A. The new holding company was based in Luxembourg.

KeyDrive Structure:

• Chairman: Alexander Siffrin (Key-Systems CEO and founder)
• Core Areas: Domain registration, monetization, aftermarket services

This merger combined Key-Systems' registration infrastructure with NameDrive's parking and monetization technology.

KeyDrive's Growth

Following the merger, KeyDrive continued expanding. In 2012, KeyDrive S.A. purchased Moniker and SnapNames from Oversee.net, providers of services across the domain lifecycle:

• Registration
• Management
• Appraisal
• Sales
• Escrow
• Acquisition

This acquisition made KeyDrive the sixth largest registrar network in the world for gTLDs at that time.

ParkingCrew Acquisition (2015)

In July 2015, ParkingCrew acquired the NameDrive domain name parking business from KeyDrive. The acquisition included NameDrive's Overdrive service.

The Announcement (from NameDrive's 10th anniversary message):

"At the occasion of its tenth anniversary, NameDrive, one of the oldest brands in domain parking and ParkingCrew, one of the most innovative newcomers join their forces for the benefit of you, our customers. As of 17 July 2015 NameDrive parking will be powered by ParkingCrew."

Industry Consolidation Context

The NameDrive acquisition was part of broader domain parking consolidation:

• Rook Media acquired DomainSponsor (around the same period)
• Team Internet (now parent of ParkingCrew) was consolidating parking services
• KeyDrive divested SnapNames
• The industry was maturing toward fewer, larger players

In 2018, KeyDrive itself was acquired by CentralNic Group (which rebranded to Team Internet Group in 2023), bringing NameDrive's technology under a publicly traded company.

Life After NameDrive

Videotape: The Austin Startup

After selling NameDrive, Gregory Manriquez relocated from Europe to Austin, Texas, and began building a new technology company called Videotape.

Videotape Overview:

• Launch: September 2015 development, December 2015 app launch
• Location: Austin, Texas
• Funding: Backed by Riquez Capital
• Technology: "Jumpcut" interactive video technology

The Videotape Product

Videotape was an iOS app that let users create interactive video mashups. The concept was described as "like Vine on steroids":

• Users could watch short videos posted by others
• Add their own video or audio (up to 40 seconds)
• Create mashups and remixes
• Share interactive video responses

Technical Innovation

The core technology, called "Jumpcut," enabled:

• Seamless splicing of user-generated content
• Audio overlay capabilities
• Social sharing of video mashups
• Real-time video interaction

Different Industry, Same Approach

Manriquez's move from domains to video technology reflected his entrepreneurial pattern:

• Identify an emerging market with technical challenges
• Build tools that enable new forms of content and commerce
• Focus on platform building rather than content ownership
• Leverage technology for competitive advantage

Contribution to Domain Investing

Technical Infrastructure

Manriquez's primary contribution was building technical infrastructure that made domain investing more efficient:

Parking Optimization: NameDrive's technology helped domainers extract more revenue from their traffic

IDN Support: Opened domain parking to non-English markets globally

Transparent Sales: NDX Market's verified statistics reduced transaction friction

API Access: Enabled programmatic portfolio management at scale

Innovation Philosophy

Manriquez embodied an innovation-first approach to domains:

• Don't just acquire names; build tools that multiply their value
• Look for underserved markets (like IDN parking)
• Create transparency where opacity exists
• Think systematically about portfolio economics

Influence on Industry Development

NameDrive's innovations influenced how the domain parking industry evolved:

Competitive Pressure: Other parking companies had to match IDN support and transparency features

Sale Transparency: Earnings-based sales became more common across platforms

API Expectations: Portfolio management APIs became industry standard

Consolidation Model: NameDrive's acquisition path became a template for parking company exits

Frequently Asked Questions

Is NameDrive still operating?

Yes, but under ParkingCrew ownership. After ParkingCrew acquired NameDrive in 2015, the parking service was integrated into ParkingCrew's platform. The NameDrive brand continues as part of Team Internet Group's domain monetization services.

Was the domain securitization patent ever implemented?

The patent described a theoretical framework for domain portfolio securitization. While the concepts were innovative, there's no public evidence of large-scale implementation. The 2008 financial crisis, which highlighted problems with securitization in other asset classes, may have dampened interest in this approach.

What happened to the NDX Market?

NDX Market was part of the NameDrive business acquired by ParkingCrew. The platform's features were absorbed into ParkingCrew's offerings as part of the consolidation.

Where is Gregory Manriquez now?

Following the NameDrive sale, Manriquez moved to Austin, Texas, where he founded Videotape, a video technology startup. His current activities beyond this venture are not publicly documented.

How did NameDrive compare to other parking companies?

At its peak, NameDrive was considered among the top domain parking services, particularly for:

• International/IDN domain support
• Transparent statistics
• Earnings-based sales
• Technical API capabilities

The company competed with providers like Sedo, DomainSponsor, and Fabulous.com.

What was Gregory Manriquez's age when he founded NameDrive?

While exact age details aren't publicly documented, industry sources consistently described Manriquez as "one of the youngest" successful domainers to enter the industry's elite. He founded NameDrive in 2005.

Key Takeaways

• Sedo origins: Manriquez started as a domain broker at Sedo before founding NameDrive in 2005
• Rapid growth: NameDrive became Google's fastest-growing AdSense for Domains reseller
• IDN pioneer: First company to offer full internationalized domain name parking support
• Earnings-based sales: Park & Sell program introduced transparent, revenue-based domain pricing
• Securitization vision: 2008 patent with Stevan Lieberman proposed innovative domain portfolio financing
• Top 60 recognition: Listed at #22 among domain millionaires
• Successful exit: Sold to KeyDrive (2011), then ParkingCrew (2015), now under Team Internet Group
• Serial entrepreneur: Continued innovating with Videotape app after domain industry exit

Next Steps

• Explore domain parking: Learn about current domain parking options
• Study other pioneers: Read profiles of Michael Cyger and the Castello Brothers
• Understand valuations: Learn domain valuation methods
• Compare platforms: Review aftermarket platforms
• Develop your strategy: Create your own investment thesis

Research Sources

• ICANNWiki - Gregory Manriquez
• ICANNWiki - NameDrive
• Domain Name Wire - Patent Filed for Domain Name Securitization
• Domain Name Wire - NameDrive Continues to Push Domain Parking Limits
• Domain Name Wire - ParkingCrew Acquires NameDrive
• Domain Name Wire - NameDrive Founder Launching New Startup in Austin
• Domain Name Wire - NDX Marketplace Tops 100,000 Domain Names
• Blogtrepreneur - 60 of the Top Domain Name Millionaires
• Wikipedia - Stevan Lieberman
• Wikipedia - Greenberg & Lieberman
• KeyDrive - ICANNWiki
• Silicon Hills News - Videotape Launches New App