Go Daddy CEO: Hot for Small Business Owners

Go Daddy is attempting to capture more of the business owner's attention, bu the company has attracted the wrong kind of attention in the past, becoming embroiled in several controversies that resonate in the small business community. Go Daddy was criticized last year for its initial support of the controversial online piracy legislation in both the House and Senate. The company was also accused by competitor Namecheap for making the process to switch domain names incredibly difficult. Some users have also complained that Go Daddy's customer service is lacking and unhelpful.

Nevertheless, Adelman stays on message in discussing small business. "We're obviously doing many things right," the Go Daddy CEO says in referencing the growth of the customer base to 10.4 million.

"We want to be recognized as a small business company's enabler," Adelman continues. "We have a pretty broad array of services today and what you will see us do is spend more time thinking about how our customers interact with their customers -- how they generate traffic, how they develop leads, how they communicate with their customers...I think you will see an increased focus on marketing tools."

The initiative means Go Daddy will likely encroach on the turf of companies such as Intuit(INTU) that already provides small businesses a host of services like payment processing, financial account management, web services and other resources. The founders of Outright were Intuit executives. Intuit declined to comment.

Taran Hercules, president of Mom's Originals, an online gourmet pretzel store based in St. Louis, Mo., says given her positive experience with Go Daddy so far, she would be interested in using additional tools and resources.

Mom's Originals, launched in 2008, started with Go Daddy's web hosting and quick shopping cart features. Hercules says she's added services like email since then. She currently uses Intuit's Quickbooks for her financial software.

Outright "is certainly something I would look into," she says.

"Just knowing that it's a Go Daddy product, I'm confident in the stability of the program and the fact that I can trust that it will be there when I need it. They're always focused on the needs of small businesses and filling in the gaps where they see a gap," she says.