This latest installment in the “Meet the Resellers” series features Aleksander Potokar from Domenca, one of Slovenia’s largest domain registrars, hosting companies and web application developers.

Aleksander Potokar, Domenca

James McNally (JM): How long has Domenca been doing business and what are all the services you offer to your customers?

Aleksander Potokar (AP): We are entering our tenth year of business. It all began at the end of 1999, when we registered our first domain gorenjska.net – at Network Solutions, because at the time Tucows was not yet recognized so widely. Stepping into a new millennium (on February 2, 2000) we came to an agreement with Tucows – a wholesale domain reseller, which ran a reseller system named OpenSRS. Basically Tucows is our first and most important partner, one with which we enjoy the longest tradition. The first registered domain over this system was our own domain Domenca.com, where we offer domain registration and SSL certificates to our customers. The same domain also offers hosting services (shared hosting, virtual private servers and dedicated servers). Domenca is also one of the most highly recognized web application development companies in Slovenia – one of our first projects was an e-commerce platform that we spun-off to our sister company mimovrste=) which today runs the largest Slovenian web store. We are also the driving force behind the Slovenian IPv6 initiative and an active Ripe NCC member. Domenca is also the largest registrar of Slovenian country code domains (.si).

JM: Any interesting stories from your company’s history?

AP: We are based in Jesenice, which is a traditional industrial part of Slovenia, with a very strong steel industry. We started as a very young and enthusiastic team. At one time, it got very crowded, as we had 15 people in a small office. Today this same office is home to five coworkers. It’s really hard to decide what interesting tidbits to share with you. One of the most recent developments is our microblogging platform Koornk, which started as a pet project of one of our developers and was also featured on TechCrunch as a “blatant Twitter rip-off”.

JM: How did you personally get into the Internet business?

AP: I was the neighbour and schoolmate of the founder of Domenca :) Personally, I was toying with the decision to continue studying or throw myself into this internet story. We started in a small room at his place and then, accordingly with his vision, built up a team, which is now in its tenth year.

JM: Where are you located and what makes it such a great place to do business?

AP: Our location is in the northwestern corner of Slovenia, near the borders with Austria and Italy. We are currently only operating within Slovenia, so the strategic advantages of this location have yet not come into full effect. But the location played a critical role in our motivation to show the central part of Slovenia that we are not merely outsiders. Slovenia, as a country, with a relatively small population of 2 million, is ideal because you can create a very successful business with knowledge, courage, passion and relatively low expenses. (Editor’s Note: Jesenice is only about 15km from Bled, one of the most beautiful places on Earth, in my opinion. Photo below for evidence!)

Bled, Slovenia (photo by James McNally)

JM: How long have you been an OpenSRS Reseller and how has your partnership with OpenSRS helped your company succeed?

AP: As I have mentioned, we are entering our tenth year of involvement with OpenSRS. We have gained great experience and learned a lot about the importance of good support, quality of services, and responsibility towards partners. Lately we had the chance to meet with great people from Tucows – Marco Zuliani, Errol Vanderhorst, Liam Philley, David Woroch, Solomon Amoako, and of course Elliot Noss. Even after ten years these guys remain our role models, and a team we love to work with. We also share the same core values.

JM: What can we do to make the relationship stronger?

AP: Stay as you are. We can tell you more when we come to say hello in Toronto :)

If you’re a reseller interested in sharing your story with our readers, get in touch with me (jamesmATopensrsDOTcom). We’d love to hear from you!