Category Killer ccTLD Acquisition to 7 Figure Business in 2 1/2 Years – with Adrian McKeown

DomainSherpaOctober 15, 2018 15

Kiwi entrepreneur Adrian McKeown learned about .COM investing many years ago, but struggled with its execution. He successfully switched to niche investing in his native New Zealand’s country code TLD (ccTLD) of .co.nz. Then, when he started a new online makeup business, his knowledge of domain values lead him to acquire category killer ccTLD Makeup.co.nz. In just 2 1/2 years, he and his business partner have grown the business to annual sales of 7 figures. Adrian discusses:

How the credibility of having the EMD category killer lead to key business opportunities
Understanding his niche in order to build his domain strategy and branding strategy
Why he’s not switching from the exact match domain to a more brandable domain name
How he’s now using his .co.nz drop list knowledge to move into the .com investment market

Investors and entrepreneurs who incorporate domains into brand strategy will benefit from today’s show.

Review (68:10): Watch | Listen/Download Audio | Transcript Coming Soon

Your DomainSherpa Review

Playback Speed:

This interview is promoted through a media partnership with DAN.com.

(Don’t have Twitter? Post a comment of thanks or share on Facebook.)

Your DomainSherpa Interview, Audio Only

Note: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. Or, listen on iTunes or in your favorite podcast app (here are the feeds).

Or, grab a feed for your podcast app, listen via Stitcher or listen on iTunes.

This Show’s Sherpas

Adrian McKeown

Adrian McKeown is an entrepreneur, and a director of several businesses including New Zealand-based online retailer Makeup.co.nz.

After many years of successfully investing in NZ domain names, he recently switched to .com. He runs NZDomainer.com, a blog that shares his journey starting from scratch as a new .com domain investor.

More shows with Adrian McKeown »

DomainSherpa Advertisers

Please visit the advertisers that support DomainSherpa and make our shows possible.

Watch Ad

Interview Raw (Non-Edited) Transcript

Interview Transcript in PDF Format Coming Soon (Right-click to Save As…) [View in Google Docs]

Watch the full video at:
https://domainsherpa.com/category-killer-cctld

FULL TRANSCRIPT COMING SOON

Watch the full video at:
https://domainsherpa.com/category-killer-cctld

More About…

Keywords: brand strategy • ccTLDs • EMD

Comments must be respectful and constructive. Read our comment policy.

15 Responses to “Category Killer ccTLD Acquisition to 7 Figure Business in 2 1/2 Years – with Adrian McKeown”

lysted.com says:

November 17, 2018 at 2:48 AM

Thanks for sharing such great information with us.

Reply
Matt Holmes says:

October 23, 2018 at 6:35 PM

Great insights you two! I’m in Philippines for three months and it makes me want to buy all of the .ph domain names, but then I worry because there is also .com, and most scarily, .com.ph out here. What do you think Adrian? I would have to buy both .ph and .com.ph domains if I wanted to be the Adrian of the Philippines, right? I better buy PHDomainer.com now ;)

Reply
1. Adrian - NZDomainer says:
  
  October 24, 2018 at 12:17 AM
  
  Hey Matt!
  
  There are a lot of things that go into assessing whether ccTLDs are good investments.
  
  Firstly you’d need to look at what the dominant domain extension used in the Phillipines is, and just go with that. If businesses mostly use .com then, go with that.
  
  Some potential things you would need to investigate for PH would be internet penetration (is internet access broad enough among the population), willingness for Businesses to pay a high enough price to cover renewals for a few years, and your markup. Also things like language: Would the domain names be in Phillipine or English.
  
  CCTLDs are hard, but the bigger the market the better. As with anything, there are little niches you can find if you have the patience.
  
  But I like PHDomainer.com – it would be a good one!
  
  Reply
  1. Matt Holmes says:
    
    October 24, 2018 at 4:47 AM
    
    How do you measure internet penetration, I worry it’s not as high here. After all, there are still a lot of travel agencies in business, which to me indicates (at least a little bit) to me that some people are getting information from individuals and not the internet.
    
    Is there a way to measure that?
    
    Reply
    1. Adrian - NZDomainer says:
      
      October 25, 2018 at 6:00 AM
      
      Hmm, in many countries the Ministry of Business or the country code registry sometimes do studies and release info on internet penetration and how sophisticated businesses are with online marketing.
      
      But I just googled ‘ph internet penetration’ and Google had a box which said 29% (2011). So that is quite low. Malaysia looks to have 61%. However at 29% that is 50 million internet users! So perhaps Internet Penetration is not the best metric.
      
      I would say it would be better to look at how saavy businesses are in the country with online marketing. There may be a study asking businesses whether they had a website, facebook page, etc.
      
      But hey with 50m internet users, there could be something to .ph domains if that is a well used and common extension. It’s all about whether a businesses are going to pay up enough to cover your portfolio holding costs. Of course if you outbound sell, you can turn names faster and make a profit.
      
      Could be worth doing a bit of research into.
      
      Reply
      1. Matt Holmes says:
        
        October 25, 2018 at 7:07 PM
        
        That’s very interesting to learn how your mind works. I’ve never even considered this statistic before but I can see it having tremendous value! I just might have to research that a little bit more later. Thanks Adrian!
        
        Reply
        
        DomainSherpa says:
        
        October 26, 2018 at 11:21 AM
        
        Matt & Adrian, this is quite the interesting conversation… I hope you two meet up at NamesCon! I’m wondering if you have any recommendations for reading more on this topic and more importantly, any experts in this field who you would like me to interview?!!
        
        Reply
    2. Green Jobs says:
      
      February 2, 2019 at 3:04 PM
      
      OnlineJobs.ph is a major site for workers there to get online jobs. People from around the world use it Matt.
      
      Reply
Saro says:

October 17, 2018 at 1:12 PM

Very interesting & inspiring interview. Thanks.

Reply
1. Adrian - NZDomainer says:
  
  October 24, 2018 at 12:07 AM
  
  Thanks Saro!
  
  Reply
Jivan Bansi says:

October 15, 2018 at 1:46 PM

The UK went from .co.uk, to just .uk, Go to just .nz if you can, and get the .co.nz to resolve to it.

Reply
Jivan Bansi says:

October 15, 2018 at 1:37 PM

I’m in Canada,I just do .com, and.ca. I looked up makeup.ca, it resolves to makeup.com. Makeup has 7,480,000 monthly searches! [ google ad words keyword tool ] You compared it to “supplements” but that’s only 450,000 searches, so you did great. Thanks for the show, It’s my Monday ritual.

Reply
1. Adrian - NZDomainer says:
  
  October 17, 2018 at 4:09 AM
  
  Thanks for the comment. Yeah I was happy with the price we paid for Makeup.co.nz. I was surprised no large company bought it. But even these days, many large companies don’t understand the value of owning good supplementary domain names. Makeup.com sold to L’Oreal for $2 million, so I’m happy…
  
  Reply
Suresh Raghavan says:

October 15, 2018 at 1:20 PM

Great to hear an Exact Match cctld story. There are so many untold stories , wish you guys would focus more on REAL WORLD cctld applications.

This should be ton of such great stories from all the major cctld markets – DE, UK, CA, IN, CN etc

Those stories don’t get hyped, but those are real

Reply
1. GreenJobs says:
  
  October 18, 2018 at 5:37 AM
  
  How is this not a “real story”?
  
  Reply