15 Year-Old Entrepreneur Launches RadioNe.ws

A few days ago, I was browsing my Twitter feed when an interesting logo caught my eye: 🎧radione.ws.

This specific tweet primarily caught my eye due to the logo using an emoji, specifically the headphone emoji (🎧), in front of a .ws domain.

Then I read the description to see that the person tweeting then used a 🚀 in front of radione.ws.

So, I was confused at this point. Was this an emoji domain promoting a service after all, or not?

Well, as it turns out, 🎧radione.ws was simply radione.ws.

And being totally transparent, I contemplated the reason someone would name their business “radione”, not realizing radione.ws was a domain hack for “RadioNews”.

Pretty clever move using the .ws domain extension to create a domain hack.

Nevertheless, I visited radione.ws, and contacted a 15 year-old budding entrepreneur to learn more about the service and person behind it.

Without further ado, let me introduce everyone to Riley Walz, and share a recent chat Riley and I had about 🎧radione.ws.

KC: So, 15 years old and a serial entrepreneur in the making, tell me a bit about who you are Riley, where you live, and how you got started?

RW: I’d call myself an entrepreneur, as I have many different side hustles as I split time between Germany and upstate New York.

These various ventures include being a voiceover artist on Fiverr with 400+ past clients, monetizing my YouTube account with 100,000+ views, and most recently creating radione.ws, a simple website for listening to radio news summaries.

KC: What is your passion, and why and how did it lead to launching radione.ws?

RW: I like listening to podcasts, and wanted a simple way to load up the news in a browser.

Starting my first computer science last year, I conceived the idea to build radione.ws just to see if I could.

KC: What target market does radione.ws most effectively and beneficially serve, and why?

RW: I feel radione.ws is great for people that like podcasts and listening to the news as opposed to reading the news.

People using radione.ws are be able to get informed quicker than reading. Each outlet’s bulletin lasts anywhere from one to five minutes at most.

Personally, I find this method to be the best way to consume news, it’s fast and you can multitask while listening.

Simply put, radione.ws works great for when you are working on your computer: open a new tab with the site, hit play, and listen to the news while you work.

KC: How does radione.ws simplify the complexities of receiving information in comparison to the competition?

RW: There’s almost no competition, but some people could argue a podcasting app does the samething.

Sure, it does, but radione.ws is fast, simple, requires no login and has no ads (even in the audio itself).

KC: As for your domain hack, how did you learn about radione.ws being available for purchase, and why choose it?

RW: I used the domain search engine Domainr. It’s the best domain hacking tool in my opinion.

Just put in the phrase you want, and it instantly throws back many possible combinations.

I then registered it with iwantmyname.com about two weeks ago.

KC: Do you have further plans to develop radione.ws?

RW: Right now, I’m looking into making a simple Chrome extension that would make the site even easier to access.

Other suggestions I have received include keyboard shortcuts and more outlets, such as ABC Australia.

KC: What’s the coolest thing about owning a domain hack?

RW: The coolest thing would have to be how simple, memorable and sleek radione.ws looks as well as being very simple to type. After all, the name of the website is the domain name.

KC: What are your thoughts as it pertains to .ws’ annual renewal cost?

RW: The renewal cost from the domain administrator, SamoaNIC, is $35.

I’m not sure how I’ll monetize the site yet, so next year I’ll see how many active users there are and decide whether to renew it or not.

I tried putting Google Ads on radione.ws, but that didn’t work because they said I needed more content.

KC: Seeing Radione.ws logo initially confused me, have you considered registering a emoji domains? If so, why or why not?

RW: Although emoji domains are pretty awesome, the website is aimed more for desktop users, and emojis are difficult to type on a computer.

[ Editor’s note: Kickstart Commerce did register 🎧radione.ws and it forwards to radione.ws. ]

KC: Have you purchased “radionews” in other extensions, or considered purchasing the matching .com?

RW: No, and I probably won’t anytime soon. Just having one, recognizable domain name is what I want to have.

KC: Do you have other domain hacks that are developed, redirected, parked or simply held as a short/long term investment?

RW: My personal website, riley.cf, has a cool domain, but it’s not an investment.

In fact, I got it for free at Freenom, where there are 5 or so TLDs that you can get for free.

KC: Would you recommend domain hacks to personal and business brands to represent their primary website? If so or if not, then why?

RW: Businesses should not use domain hacks as their primary website, because the online world is quite familiar with the .com.

But should there be a need a URL shortener for social media posts, then I believe domain hacks would work well for businesses.

On the other hand, personal sites look cool with domain hacks. So, I would say go for it if you need a blog or portfolio.

As for Radione.ws, it is more of a side project, so it didn’t matter to me.

Stay tuned into radione.ws…

I love cheering on the next generation of entrepreneurs. I encourage you to visit radione.ws and try it for yourself!

I’m looking forward to the future update interview to see how radione.ws turns out.

Special thanks to Riley for allowing Kickstart Commerce the opportunity to learn about radione.ws and the gent behind it.

That’s all for now!