History Repeats Itself

Since quite a few members, friends and even family members have asked, “are you back?!!” I thought the answer should be my first blog.  For all our Draw Names newcomers, I’ll give a brief history first, and then move on to the blog title…

 In 2002, DrawNames.com hit the internet and ran successfully (but not particularly profitably) for 6 holiday seasons.  This web site was my passion.  But in 2008 I made the excruciatingly painful decision to close the site.  It needed significant upgrades and, well, it was questionable if the cost would be covered by affiliate income.

Just curious, anyone been in the same boat?  I called it rough seas.

 History repeats itself…

 In 1609 Henry Hudson arrived in yet-to-be New York City (stay with me here…) and along with all the nice Dutch folk came their nice traditions including Sinterklaas—which Americans fashioned into Santa Claus and eventually the tradition of drawing names for Secret Santa.

 400 years later, in 2009, I received an email from a Dutch development group wanting to bring an English version of their web site, www.Lootjestrekken.nl, to Americans.  Lootjestrekken translates into “draw names” and they understandably were interested in my domain name.

 Truthfully, I wasn’t ready to think about DrawNames.com at all, and I turned them down on the first two emails.  I had actually received quite a few requests for the domain name and I was beginning to think I would make more money off the sale of the domain name than I did from running the site for 6 years.  It’s a good thing I’m a perky person because that could be a very sad thought after all my hard work.

For some reason when Arjan contacted me for what he wrote would be the last time, I started a conversation.  It turns out that Lootjestrekken.nl is wildly popular in the Netherlands, and Arjan and Rob were pleasantly persistent in their intentions to make an English version of their web site.  So I just decided to go for it.

 Boy, am I glad I did!  We worked all summer and celebrated with a Skype launch party on September 29^th.  We popped corks on both sides of the Atlantic.  It was also the first time that we used web cams, so I finally met Arjan, Rob, and their incredible team of developers face to face.

 As a last note, it’s interesting to me that if it weren’t for my new launch of DrawNames.com, I never would have known that the entire Hudson Valley Region of the United States is having boat loads of activities to celebrate the 400^th Anniversary of Henry Hudson’s arrival.  Who knew?  Hopefully, a lot more of us now.

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