In 1995, Richard Lau registered several domain names that he simply thought were cool, but never considered would be worth thousands of dollars. His portfolio attracted the attention of Microsoft, who tentatively agreed to pay $9,500 for one of his domains. That gave him an inkling he was on to something big.

Later, after spending 80 hours per week building one of the first 30 domain name registrars in the world, he was faced with stage A colon cancer and a series of unfortunate business liabilities.

In this biography, Richard Lau discusses how he learned the industry, tells some fantastic stories, and provides guidance to others that are just starting out.

When you visit NameJet and see the following message (“Activity on this domain is temporarily locked while awaiting the auction to begin.”), what does it mean?

This tutorial takes you step-by-step through the Estibot.com domain name appraisal tool. You will walk away with an understanding of how the tool works and every aspect of the data it provides.

Also covered are five warnings about using Estibot.com that you need to know to avoid making a costly mistake.

You asked, we listened, we built.

DomainSherpa podcasts are now in iTunes!

If you search, we should show up for “DomainSherpa” within the next 24 to 48 hours, and if you use this URL you will find it immediately.

Procter & Gamble bought Gillette in 2005 for $57 billion, who sells replacement razor blades for more than $2 each but cost only 9 cents to produce.

Enter Luke Webster, who is disrupting this high profit margin industry by promoting the art of shaving with a straight razor. He is snatching up all the straight razor domain names and building operating websites with PPC marketing campaigns.

The new top level domains that will launch beginning in 2013 create a unique investment opportunity. Indeed, private equity and venture capital firms are evaluating investment in new top level domains and domain name registrars.

Today’s interview is with one of the consultants helping investors outside the domain name industry understand this opportunity. Watch this interview to learn from a different perspective.

In 2006, Jesse Stein purchased SportsMemorabilia.com for $12,500 when it wasn’t much more than a domain name.
 
Fast forward several years, and the company now leads the market in high-end autographed sports merchandise and memorabilia, making $19.5 million in revenue in 2012. We start at the beginning to learn about SportsMemorabilia.com’s journey and how they plan to be a $100+ million company.

Even though some people see domaining as a highly speculative business, I hope we can agree that if you play it the right way, it’s not speculative at all.
 
So how can we apply the investments principles of Warren Buffet (the greatest investor of all times) to domain names?

Carlos Aguilar asked a question recently on an interview with NameJet’s general manager, Matt Overman.

He asked: “[C]an you explain on a video on how you setup [email notifications of NameJet saved searches]?”

Here’s a screenshot walk-through of how to setup email notifications for NameJet saved searches, which should be faster than a video.

If you want to buy keyword-rich domain names with the objective of ranking the domain name at the top of the results for a search, you’ll first want to determine if there is enough search volume and interest to justify purchasing the domain name.
 
In this how-to video, you’ll learn exactly how to use the Google Adwords Keyword Tool to determine search volume and advertising interest before you make a domain name purchase.