• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

CEO of $20 billion AI firm Perplexity says the secret to success is ‘sleeping with that fear’ that your competitor will steal your idea

2

Current price of oil as of June 15, 2026

3

Boomers actually do hold most of the wealth and power. So why do they call it 'whiny' to point that out?

1

CEO of $20 billion AI firm Perplexity says the secret to success is ‘sleeping with that fear’ that your competitor will steal your idea

2

Current price of oil as of June 15, 2026

3

Boomers actually do hold most of the wealth and power. So why do they call it 'whiny' to point that out?
TechGoDaddy

GoDaddy’s CEO talks IPO, Nascar and mobile

By
Kia Kokalitcheva
Kia Kokalitcheva
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Kia Kokalitcheva
Kia Kokalitcheva
Down Arrow Button Icon
May 13, 2015, 6:00 AM ET
Irving wears a hat during Web hosting company GoDaddy's initial public offering at the New York Stock Exchange
Blake Irving, Chief Executive Officer and Board Director of the GoDaddy group of companies, wears a hat during Web hosting company GoDaddy's initial public offering at the New York Stock Exchange April 1, 2015. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY - RTR4VR4BPhotograph by Brendan McDermid — Reuters
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Fresh off his first quarterly earnings call as the head of a newly public company, GoDaddy CEO Blake Irving sounds relieved as he musters up an enthusiastic tone. GoDaddy didn’t quite meet expectations, but wasn’t a disaster either.

In its first quarter in 2015, GoDaddy posted $376.3 million in revenue, and a loss of 34 cents per share. Analysts expected revenue of $374.5 million and a loss of 34 cents per share.

The company made it debut on the New York Stock Exchange on April 1, after a multi-year wait. It initially filed to go public in 2006, but withdrew the paperwork because founder and then-CEO Bob Parsons wasn’t a fan of the SEC’s “quiet period” rule for companies going public.

GoDaddy’s pesky loss of $43.3 million during the first quarter is indeed a fat blemish on its first earnings results, although Irving isn’t too bothered by it. “Eventually that’ll disappear,” he told Fortune during a brief interview following the earnings call. Moreover, GoDaddy’s free cash flow is how he believes the company’s investors are evaluating it, and GoDaddy’s doing well on that front with $85.1 million in free cash flow at the moment.

But of course, that loss won’t disappear on its own, and GoDaddy’s taking steps to adjust its spending. Last month, it announced it would end its NASCAR sponsorship after the 2015 season, leaving race car driver Danica Patrick searching for a new sponsor.

Instead of spending a significant amount of cash (Irving declined to share how much the company poured into the deal) on NASCAR, GoDaddy will be “redeploying marketing costs in ways that we think are more effective for us as a business,” Irving said.

International growth is one of the major areas GoDaddy will continue to invest in instead, he added. This quarter, $95.9 million in revenue came from overseas, making up more than a quarter of the company’s total revenue. It’s a share that Irving believes will likely grow given the number of small businesses — GoDaddy’s target customer — around the world. GoDaddy made its name from selling Internet website domains, but has since added web hosting services and bevy of other small business-centric tools like hosting and managing WordPress-based sites and email marketing.

And unlike most other companies chasing large enterprises’ dollars, GoDaddy isn’t very interested, as Irving emphasized.

“We do not do a lot of business with the enterprise,” he said. “The uniqueness of this very small customer is where we do our best work,” he said.

Irving also talked about the Internet on mobile devices, an idea that wasn’t even reality when GoDaddy was founded in 1997. But since then, it has become so important that search engine Google recently tweaked its algorithms to favor websites that are designed to be easily read on the small screens people carry in their pockets. GoDaddy is of course helping its customers not fall behind, advocating that they follow mobile-friendly practices, and steering them away from building native mobile apps that Irving says are too much of a headache and costly for small businesses. His customers don’t have a lot of cash to spend their websites, as shown by GoDaddy’s average revenue per user of $115.

(Correction: Because of an error by a data source, an earlier version of this story misstated the analyst estimates for GoDaddy’s quarterly profit. The estimate was for a 34 cent loss, which GoDaddy met.)

For more about GoDaddy, watch this Fortune video:

About the Author
By Kia Kokalitcheva
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

Agentic AI systems are doing more and more work. Now humans need to figure out how to verify it all
AIBrainstorm Tech
Agentic AI systems are doing more and more work. Now humans need to figure out how to verify it all
By Alexei OreskovicJune 15, 2026
6 hours ago
Gina Rinehart
InvestingSpaceX
Australia’s richest person just bought a SpaceX stake worth more than $1 billion. ‘Elon has done what very few people in history have done’
By Jacqueline MunisJune 15, 2026
9 hours ago
Top analyst: 71% of SpaceX’s $2 trillion value rests on AI. Grok’s numbers are ‘almost comical’ by comparison
Startups & VentureSpaceX
Top analyst: 71% of SpaceX’s $2 trillion value rests on AI. Grok’s numbers are ‘almost comical’ by comparison
By Mia OsmonbekovJune 15, 2026
10 hours ago
New Mexico is in a historic drought. Oracle and OpenAI designed their newest data center with that in mind
Environmentclimate change
New Mexico is in a historic drought. Oracle and OpenAI designed their newest data center with that in mind
By Catherina GioinoJune 15, 2026
11 hours ago
Katie Moussouris, the founder and CEO of Luta Security.
AIAnthropic
‘Fix this code’—the three little words behind the U.S. government decision that shut down Anthropic’s Fable and Mythos AI models
By Jeremy KahnJune 15, 2026
11 hours ago
Shotwell stands and smiles widely
InvestingSpace X
Here’s how SpaceX’s debut stacks up against other major IPOs
By Jacqueline MunisJune 15, 2026
12 hours ago

Most Popular

CEO of $20 billion AI firm Perplexity says the secret to success is ‘sleeping with that fear’ that your competitor will steal your idea
Success
CEO of $20 billion AI firm Perplexity says the secret to success is ‘sleeping with that fear’ that your competitor will steal your idea
By Preston ForeJune 13, 2026
3 days ago
Current price of oil as of June 15, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of oil as of June 15, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJune 15, 2026
17 hours ago
Boomers actually do hold most of the wealth and power. So why do they call it 'whiny' to point that out?
Economy
Boomers actually do hold most of the wealth and power. So why do they call it 'whiny' to point that out?
By Nick LichtenbergJune 14, 2026
2 days ago
Meet Gwynne Shotwell, the engineer-turned-COO who runs SpaceX in platform heels and is now worth over $2 billion
Startups & Venture
Meet Gwynne Shotwell, the engineer-turned-COO who runs SpaceX in platform heels and is now worth over $2 billion
By Eva RoytburgJune 15, 2026
24 hours ago
Current price of silver as of Monday, June 15, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of silver as of Monday, June 15, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJune 15, 2026
17 hours ago
Social Security's 2032 deadline puts a 22% cut on the table — but Washington has way less room to negotiate than 1983
Personal Finance
Social Security's 2032 deadline puts a 22% cut on the table — but Washington has way less room to negotiate than 1983
By John W. Diamond and The ConversationJune 12, 2026
3 days ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.