I have never promoted IPO-Taiwan as "IPO" and yet people always refer to it as such. Why? Let's break this down logically...

• Was it because of my ultra-aggressive marketing strategy?

  No. There was no marketing involved. I sent out an email to my friends ONCE to introduce the organization, and Neil did the same to his. That was the extent of our marketing efforts. The rest was by word-of-mouth.

• Was it because of our premium products and services?

  We didn't have any. We never hosted a single seminar or workshop to speak of. There was no newsletter. Not even a "helpful links" page on the site. The only thing we offered were mixers once a month at hotel bars.

• Was it because of a darn good-looking, user-friendly,
  content-driven and sticky website?

  Somehow, I don't think so. The IPO-Taiwan website was all of 4 pages which I whipped up over night, and the more I look at it, the more I think it's downright UGLY. Click here to see for yourself. Wouldn't you agree?

• Could it have been because of... the name?

By definition, IPO is the acronym for "Initial Public Offering", but to many, it stands for much, much more. It represents money, power, risk, road shows, dotcom fever, job opportunities, the stock market frenzy, and our Yahoo finance portfolios. It provokes feelings of excitement, fear, anxiety, and pure joy all at once and is probably the one and only industry term that is now a household word.

The term "IPO" is a BRAND in its own right that is heavily 'marketed' and yet unintentionally so. It is probably spoken hundreds of thousands of times a day, every day, around the world, by all people and businesses, English-speaking or otherwise, that are in any way involved with Internet commerce and industry. Cap on the words "China", "Taiwan", or "Hong Kong", and you've got yourself one very powerful and self-made regional brand without a product or service to speak of.

IPO-China, IPO-Taiwan, and IPO-HongKong can be anything you want them to be. They can be regional industry publications such as the Industry Standard but with a focus on Greater China. They can be a VC/start-up resource network like the well-known VentureOne.com. They can be a series of finance portals, online brokerage firms, B2B commerce sites etcetera, in Chinese or English or both.

With these domain names, you will save your company millions of dollars that would otherwise be spent trying to brand a name that people cannot identify with, and thus, cannot remember. These domain names sell themselves, no matter what kind of business you make of them. Even you won't forget them after you leave this website. What's in a good name you ask?

SAVINGS.