Web hosting company GoDaddy just finished its first day of trading as a public company, with the stock both opening and closing at $26.15 (31 percent over its IPO price).
GoDaddy was founded all the way back in 1997, but in the past few years, we’ve seen some new names leading the company — Scott Wagner joined from investor KKR and became interim CEO in 2012, then he shifted to the COO and CFO roles after Blake Irving took over as chief executive.
GoDaddy has also been making a number of startup acquisitions. Asked whether those acquisitions will continue, Wagner said, “We’ll keep doing it.”
“You’ll see us continue to add services, whether they be helping our customers be online, market to their customers, or run their back office,” he added. “We’ll either do things organically, partner, or buy some things if they make sense.”
Wagner also suggested that the IPO could help introduce GoDaddy to the broader public. Sure, you’ve probably seen the Super Bowl ads, and sure, NASCAR driver Danica Patrick was on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange for the start of trading. However, Wagner described GoDaddy as a company that “everybody’s heard about, but unless you’re a customer, you may not be familiar with it.”
GoDaddy also has a reputation for edgy advertising — it actually had to pull a controversial Super Bowl ad this year. Now that the company has gone public, will its ads get a little blander and safer?
“I think if you look at the ads that we’ve run over the last 18 months, you see the spirit of our customers and their journey,” Wagner said — though he said the ads will still be funny, too.
You can see my interviews with Wagner and NYSE President Tom Farley in the video above.