Tom Embrescia, founder of Second Generation, Ltd. and .JOBS.
Meet Tom Embrescia, founder of Second Generation, Ltd., a family-owned investment firm focused on investing in well-managed companies and uncovering unique business opportunities. One of the businesses Second Generation owns is .JOBS, one of 22 currently existing Top Level Domains (TLD) in the world. Others include .com, .net, or .org. The company has tens of thousands of .JOBS addresses on the Internet. Second Generation currently employs 12 in Cleveland.
How did you come to be an entrepreneur?
My family are tradesmen. My dad was a carpenter and my uncles are all electricians. My brother and I were the first in our family to go to college. I followed my brother into the broadcast industry in the early 70s, which was a thriving, double digit growth industry for over 30 years. As it matured so did we. The success we were able to achieve in this industry provided us the capital to expand and diversify into other industries.
How did you go from television and radio to .Jobs?
I started in radio selling and learning the business. I was able to take that knowledge and savings and buy my first radio station. As my radio ownership expanded I built enough capital in the mid-80s to expand into independent TV ownership. The Fox network was created in 1987 and all my TV stations became affiliates.
In the mid and late 90s government changes in multiple ownership of terrestrial broadcast licensing was expanded. Public companies came in and consolidated the industry. Our divestiture of many properties gave us additional capital to invest in new technologies.
.JOBS is a TLD that functions much like a terrestrial broadcast license. It is a license to deliver information worldwide. The information we deliver is HR and job-content related on sites such as
www.att.jobs,
www.atlanta.jobs and
www.nursing.jobs.
Why did you start .Jobs?
TLDs like .JOBS are, in my mind, broadcast in the 21st century. We picked the string (jobs) much like you would pick a format or a show to attract an audience to your frequency. For instance, when we owned
WTAM 1100 we picked news, talk and sports. When we owned
WDOK 102.1 we picked a soft AC format. Likewise, as we moved to the Internet we picked .JOBS as our exclusive format on the Internet.
How did you grow .JOBS to attract 150 million job seekers this year?
Our executive team has partnered with Direct Employers and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, a consortium of 700 Fortune 1000 companies and state government associations, to build out our
.JOBS Universe. Companies like IBM, Intercontinental Hotel Group and Lockheed Martin have banded together, along with our .JOBS platform to drive traffic to these sites.
Currently there are over 1.2 million vetted jobs posted on these sites from over 190,000 companies. Their mission is to connect the job seeker directly with the job offer. Those efforts, along with company job websites, bring us to that number and we expect it to double next year.
What advice would you give to someone starting a company in Cleveland?
Get in an industry where there are bigger profit margins. Take advantage of the local talent. Rent is inexpensive. Legal and accounting offices in Cleveland are most often very willing to work with young entrepreneurs on costs and getting started.
Can you share a memorable entrepreneurial experience?
When we were selling our Cleveland Radio Group in 1999 we had banded together with two other groups to package our stations to the consolidators. We had agreed that if we got $250 million we would sell no questions asked. If we got as low as $200 million we would still do the deal but would meet to confirm. We had two offers in the $250 million range. A third person asked what we wanted and I told them $300 million. They offered $275 million and we did the deal -- more than we ever thought we would receive!
Interview by Karin Connelly