2 Profitable Flips: From $8k to $69k in Under a Year – with Jason Sheppard

Meet Jason Sheppard, the successful domain name investor who only just began seriously working in the domain space in 2017. Jason’s savvy from years as a marketing consultant and his remarkable work ethic have quickly made Jason stand out on Twitter and at NamesCon. It’s time for the Sherpa Network to meet him!

Jason manages two domain portfolios: his personal one, and one that he co-owns with a silent investor. He shares:

  • Profitable Flip: Solvent.com – bought at the 2019 NamesCon Live Auction
  • Profitable Flip: FunnelSecrets.com – hand reg
  • Thoughts on platforms DAN, Afternic & live auction
  • Why he bought FreshFood.com for $20,000
  • Insights on domain pricing strategy, charm pricing for impulse buys… and much more!

Any domain investor, domain broker, or corporate domain portfolio manager will benefit from today’s show!

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This Show’s Sherpas

Jason Sheppard
Jason Sheppard
Jason Sheppard is a successful domain investor, marketing consultant and long-time popular nightclub DJ. He began seriously buying and selling domains in 2017 and has quickly risen in in the ranks with his respected savvy, quickly acquired domain expertise, and also popularity among other domain investors!

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Have you seen all those tweets from Mike Cyger and Shane Cultra re-tweeting Jason Sheppard’s fantastic health goals on Twitter? Well, Jason is a lot more than just his health goals. He is a really successful domain investor who only started in 2017. We did a great interview together, not only discussing two profitable flips, but also discussing how his partnership works- might be a good idea if you want one too- and he discusses his pricing strategies, how he has researched that and what he has found to work best. Enjoy the show!

Efty was built by domain investors to increase your inquiries, sales and profit, forget spreadsheets and archived emails. Manage your entire investment portfolio in one place using a secure and completely confidential platform. Learn more at efty.com. That’s E F T Y .com.

Hey Sherpa network. Thanks for joining me. I’m Tess Diaz, executive producer of domain sherpa.com and today we’re having a profitable flip with renowned Twitter superstar Jason Sheppard. What’s going on, Jason?

Hey Tess. Hey everybody out there in Sherpa land, doing great here.

Oh, we are so excited. It’s been amazing watching you below up Twitter since NamesCon with your personal goals. Um, and a lot of people don’t already know who you are, business level and how incredibly resourceful and successful you are. Tell us everything.

Oh wow. Sounds good. Well, um, so I’m just, uh, just a normal guy. I live in North Carolina, born and raised here. Um, you know, I spent a little bit of time in Florida and a little bit of time in Kentucky, but for the most part I’ve lived in the central North Carolina my whole life. Mmm. I went to UNC chapel Hill. Um, and uh, just, uh, definitely a native North Carolinian. Um,

yeah, that’s the real reason I have you on here just so I can listen to your accent all day.

I don’t even hear it. And it’s not really that strong compared to the people around me, but I’m glad you like it. Uh, so, um, I have a background in it. I was a, I was an it architect with IBM for a while. Um, all kinds of jobs. In my past I was retail manager. I was a [inaudible] district manager for blockbuster video in the hay day of when everybody would go to blockbuster every Friday and Saturday night. Yeah, exactly. Um, and then, uh, and so, you know, just kinda done a lot of different things. Um, my current avocation, I’m a nightclub DJ, um, and I’ve been doing that since 2006. Um, had a love of DJ and my whole life. Uh, I remember as a 11 or 12 year old sitting in my room with my friends dropping a needle between records and talking in between, like we were on the radio, DJ, you know, all the best parties in high school and then DJ my way through college.

Um, after college I gave it up. But uh, anybody that’s ever been a DJ knows once it’s in your blood, it’s there to stay. And I wound up buying equipment back again a few years later and the, I haven’t really left it sets, um, you know, done it here and there and then found an opportunity in the mid two thousands to do it practically full time. Um, I had a, yeah, I had a day job for a period of time during that and eventually it was just, um, I had to choose one or the other and DJ and wasn’t, do you know what I was passionate about? So that’s what I, the way I went.

Wow. So what I’m really hearing is that you are an out of the box thinker and has been your, your curious person who likes to create. And I think that Mmm. Makes sense for why you got into domains. So how’d you get into domains in the first place?

Okay, well, um, strangely enough at the stent in Kentucky had me get into horses. I owned horses. Okay. Believe it or not, they make you buy one when you move to Kentucky. Believe that’s what I joke. But seriously, within six months of moving to Kentucky, I owned a horse. And let me tell you the, if I can give anybody any advice, it’s don’t impulse buy any animal that weighs more than you do. I mean, you shouldn’t be impulse buying animals anyway, but especially not ones,

just a little candle.

So, um, so I bought some names associated with the horse business that I intended to develop. Mmm [inaudible] never really got around to, and then somebody approached me, we were looking them up, Dawn, who is emailing me and wanting to buy one of them. And I said, well, you know, I’ve got these others too. So they wound up buying the whole lot from me and I made actually made money on it. Um,

[inaudible]

[inaudible] I think I sold about five or six names for around 3000, and I’d probably, I don’t remember specifics and it was on an email account that has long since the funk with a, uh, with a, with a, with a local ISP. But, um, I want to say that the renewables were a lot more back. Yeah. Maybe. Um, and so

accidentally made three grams. What is, tell me about more mistakes you’ve made.

Well, and here’s the thing. I made more money on the horse domains than I ever did on horses. I love, because the joke in the horse business is how do you make a small fortune and horses? You start with a large fortune.

Oh, you got a lot of these.

Um, but uh, so anyhow, now the story would be great if that said that it ignited my love for domains and I’d started buying them then unfortunately [inaudible] it didn’t really, didn’t really click, I didn’t think, Hey, there’s more of an opportunity to hear then I realize and I just went about doing my thing. Mmm. And then as you know, I picked up some side gigs cause as a DJ, you know, you work nights but you got a lot of time during the day. And so I started doing marketing work for a real estate friend. I picked up a couple of domains that I felt he might like, I’m stumbled across the GoDaddy auction aftermarket and Messiah. Oh wait a minute. This is kind of cool. Huh? Awesome. Yeah. Do you think that was 2017?

Oh, this is, you know, everybody’s like, I can’t make Oh full time living off domains unless it’s was, you know, I bought things in 2000

look at you. Wow. So, so I w I went back and double checked doing my, doing my homework for uh, talking to you today. And I bought the, about a domain in August of 2017. And so my first modern day sale, it was in, um, November of that year and I sold stick shift.net four. I probably bought it at close out for like 11 bucks plus the renewal. So I probably had $20 in it. I sold it for a hundred and I just thought I was the greatest thing ever. I was like, this is awesome. So you know, at that point, as everybody that’s watching probably knows I had the book. And so, you know, I would, I have my little spreadsheets on names I liked from that were on GoDaddy close outs and I would watch the prices and you know, and I would try and figure out, all right, how much do I want to pay for this?

And you know, I wasn’t spending, you know, maybe one or two of them in three figures. It was mostly two figure names. But then, you know, you sell a couple more and then, you know, you stumble across domain Sherpa and realize, you know, at that time it was, I think it was Michael Cyger and you know, start watching those and you realize, Hey, this is a whole thing. And, uh, just kind of get hooked and he made all the normal mistakes in the early days by N. dot. Bind domains, we’re pretty much worthless. But every once in a while I’d find one that was a yeah. Yep. Connected and, uh, would make a sale and then I’d be re-energized again. Mmm. And so, I mean, that’s really how I got into, into it as I am now.

That’s wild. And so you do something interesting too when you’re in how you have your business structured, sorry. Mmm. You buy domains for yourself and then you also have a partnership that you buy domains for. How do you split that up and know which you want to buy and which umbrella?

Well, um, the partnership domains are generally the higher end ones. Mmm. And yeah, pretty much my partner has write a first refusal on anything that I see that I like if he passes on something and I like it enough that I may bid on it. Mmm. In general. And you know, on the better names and on the lower and some of the lower names, you know, I’m not running off a hundred names pass my partner, you know, every day or even every week necessarily. Um, you know, I just, I know what he likes. Um, and I kind of know what direction that particular portfolio needs to go. We’re, we’re pretty well stocked, but I think that one has about 1700 names. Mmm. But it’s well stocked up on the lower end ones that, you know, we’ll move on a regular basis and, and pay for renewals and then the higher end names that take a little longer to sell. We’ve got a pretty good number of those. I mean, when I looked down, when I looked at through the portfolio, there is [inaudible] the top names [inaudible] are ones that I’m, yeah. Pretty proud we picked up. So

good for you. And who is your partner, Jason?

Um, it is a longtime business associate of mine that would prefer to remain behind the scenes at this point. But, uh, um, you know, we have, we have a very good relationship. Um, I do some other types of work for him, um, including some of the DJ work that I do. He’s just, he’s a local business owner here. I’ve known going on 20 years now.

Wow. And did he already know about domains or he got sucked into your vortex?

Um, it was more of the vortex because I would, uh, I’m not going to say it was a master plan to lure him in, but as I would see things that I thought, you know, we’re a little bit beyond my reach, I would, you know, just kind of mentioned them when we were having conversations about other stuff or tell him about my, you know, my success is I’ve like, Hey God, I bought this and I paid 10 bucks or 20 bucks for it and I sold it for this much. He’s like, really? That’s a thing. You can do that. And eventually, um, you know, he was like, well, let me, let me dabble in this, find a couple of names for us to buy. And you know, we bought a couple and they sat for a while and then at one point, you know, I was actually considering maybe going back into it and he said, Hey, he said, cause I guess he likes keeping me around.

He said, why don’t you, uh, why don’t you take this domain thing and run with it, let’s partner up. And so that was in late 2018. Mmm. And I went to, my first name’s Khan in January of 2019. Yeah. And it’s just been a, uh, been a roller coaster ride since, um, we bought, we bought the six names at the auction there. And uh, so you barely got into domains for like a little over a year. You started your partnership in November, 2018 and in 2019 you bought six domains at auction. The name’s Konya. Good for a year. Um, have you been, I like to ask this question, have you ever been to an auction before? Like, I’ve never been to any option except domain auctions and I love so, Oh yeah, I bought horses at auction and you [inaudible] you if you think, if you, and I don’t remember the Alexander’s name and I’ve put that up.

Okay. If you think Wayne is fast, you should see the guys at the livestock auctions. They will blow your mind. I mean wow. Um, because they’re, cause they’re dealing with a room of people that are, that regularly go to auctions, whereas, you know, we’re used to domainers are used to bidding online and there’s a little bit more of a time to process things. Um, livestock auctions are really, uh, a lot of excitement. Wow. That sounds wild. Wow. Um, so I remember you mentioned solvent.com you bought in 2019. Yes. That was, that was one of the, one of the names we bought at auction. Would that be good for this profitable Flint? It absolutely would. In fact. So you bought saw then for the partnership? Yup. And then afterwards we’ll do a personal one. Sounds good. Double up on her profitable slips. Tell us the story.

Why did you buy solvent? How did that decision making process go? Well, it uh, saw that went late in the auction and if you’ve, you know, I’ve been to two now and you can kind of see as the, the room will start to empty out a little bit for the later names. [inaudible] and I was like, solvent is a great word. I mean it’s got multiple applications. It’s a, it’s a [inaudible], it’s got chemical applications, it’s got financial implications and it’s a single well known dictionary word, which, you know, traditional wisdom is those are good to own. So I saw it going, um, and I was like, wow, this name is just going way too low. Um, and during the auction, you know, I mentioned we bought the six names. I’m on my laptop. Um, cause I, I use the messaging function on the laptop rather than the phone because I hate typing on phones. And so I’m sitting there just tearing up the keyboard with my, with my partner about everything we buy, making sure I’m, you know, where we’re going. And I actually, the, the bidding at the end for Solomon went so fast. I just, I couldn’t even keep up with him. I just seven, this is, this is well worth what we’re, where the bidding is now. I’m just [inaudible] I’m going to [inaudible] his money.

Oh. Um, so w so we got it. And as soon as the hammer fell, um, a couple people came up to me and like, man, it’s like, do you want to sell that? I’m like, I must have done good cause I’m not going to sell it unless they’re going to offer me more than I just paid because I thought it was a great, I thought it was a great name. Um, it was 7,000, 600 $7,600. 7,000, $600. That’s a great price for a one word.com. We had several applications like just that. Very nice. Okay. So what was the process afterwards when you sold it? When did you sell it? Well, we had it listed. Um, and I list all of our names. I list them on after Nick. Um, and I’ll list them on day in and day. We didn’t do Dan at first. It was only a, you know, a couple months after NHANES con that we, uh, um, kind of discovered Dan and, and started putting some names on there, uh, and started having success with them.

Um, so, you know, we sold a number of names over the year. Um, none of the ones that we bought at names con. Mmm. And then in early, Mmm, early November, I got a, uh, got an inquiry. It was actually the minimum offer on day and it was 50,000 for solvent.com and you know, it was just a, just a minimum offer, no text, no context, no writing. Um, and I’m like, okay, well I’d always thought it was a, it was easily a six figure name, but [inaudible] at the same time, we’d had it only a year. We hadn’t sold any of the others. So I countered at 95. I’m like, all right, let’s keep it under six figures, not, it’s not scare them off, um, with the, with over overpriced in it. Um, and you know, maybe we can come to S come to something in the middle there. Um, his response was that they were just, it just offered the 50,000 to start the conversation.

They weren’t even really willing to pay that, which turns out this was a guy, I looked up his name and [inaudible] anybody that has used, and there’s sometimes the names are real. Sometimes you can figure out who it is, sometimes you can’t. But I tracked it down and this guy, it was a pretty unique name. Um, and yeah, he was in the VC world, so he was a venture capitalist. And I’m like, okay, this guy didn’t, you know, go through all the warnings that you’re committing to by a name and not be willing to pay that much for it. So when he said, you know, he came back and said they couldn’t even pay that asset. I told him, I said, well, you know, this is a partner name for me. Mmm. Let me discuss it with my partner and I’ll get back to you and see what we’d be willing to take.

Mmm. You know, so I did, I talked it over with my partner and we came back and we, Mmm. We went with 60,000. Mmm. And it was just kind of a matter of let’s just see what we can get, take some profits. Um, and that would almost cover the names that we, and we bought at auction. Mmm. That that year, that, that was one of the, yeah. That batch. Um, and so the response from the, uh, from the buyer was that he had to go to his partners and discuss it. Now, whether they’re really our partners or whether that was a negotiating tactic, I can’t be sure. Um, I did have an, a, an inclination at the end and I’ll, you’ll, you’ll see why when the, when the story unfolds. Um, and so he said that would take about a week. So I was like, okay, cool. Take your time. Um, and our conversation, I’d explained to him that if this, if this name was the right shit, um, for his project, it would be money well spent because it’s not like it was going to go down in value. Mmm. Single, single word.com. You know, we’re, we’re holding the value add. If they spent 60 on it and went a different way, you know, he’s either going to get that out of it or pretty close to it and be able to move on. Um, so yeah. Mmm.

At this point, have you talked to him on the phone at any of these times or is it all email?

No. All right. So this is all in the Dan interface. So on Dan, you know, they, I looked at it, but it, they make an offer, they can make an offer, um, and then they can, um, you know, it can be just an offer or give me an offer and then they can communicate via text. And once you’ve started the process of negotiations, you can message each, each other, kind of like a text. Mmm. And so the communications we’ve had have been via that via Dan. We haven’t actually spoken on the phone or anything. Um, so he says that he needs to, you know, take it over with his partners. It should take about a week. [inaudible] week passes, not a peep. And what? Oh yeah. One thing I told him, I said, you know, there’s an offer outstanding. You may get some automated notices from Dan, the Dan system, just, you know, you can just ignore those, take your time.

You know, we’ll, we’ll pick this up whenever. And uh, you know, when you get back to me, so a week went by and nothing another week, nothing. And at that point, two weeks in, I’m very tempted two touch base. Okay. But I’m thinking to myself, okay, this is a venture capitalist. This guy’s probably pretty savvy when it comes to negotiating. If I contact him, I think I’m going to be showing weakness. And so I just waited and waited. And December 1st I get a note message in Dan from him that says, I talked it over with the partners, they’re going to go a different direction. And I’m like, okay. And so me personally, you know, I thought 60, I didn’t mind taking that profit, but I think the name is probably worth more. I’m on a long hold. So I just wished him well in his venture, thanked him for his interest and uh, closed out the negotiations on as far as I was concerned, considered the deal dead. Went through December

the weight. So he started in early November then it sounds like, and so pretty much a month went by,

a month went by and he just said they were going to go a different direction. I thank him for his interest, wished him well and we had no more communication. Holidays came and went, um, January 7th, um, either Monday, Tuesday, I don’t remember. It’s for day of the week, but it was January. Salmon. I get a, uh, get a note in the same Dan communication. Um, get the email notification that there’s a message regarding it. And, uh, I go and look and it says, Hey, happy new year. Um, the partners have come around. If you’re still willing to sell for 60 K, um, we’ll take it. And I was like, yeah, we’ll honor that price. We’re good to go. So, yeah, so you know, I feel like the waiting game on my part and maybe, and who knows, maybe the turning of the year had something to do fiscally, but um, I just feel like I’ve had a chased it out of what I do, wound up letting it go for 50 or less.

And so I just decided to wait. Now you would think the story would end here, but it doesn’t quite, um, because Mmm. You know, it took a, it took a few days, I think almost 20 days or about 14 days to get everything the wrap up and during that time, um, know a message came through from his attorney and it was asking for some kind of, some documentation and stuff and he gave a phone number and I called the attorney [inaudible] my impression was that they were looking to circumvent the dance system and I told him no. I said, look, these guys are good to me. We started the deal here. We’re going to finish the deal here. It turns out he was, and it was just, he was not familiar with the, with the sales process, but pretty much, you know, and this was probably four days after.

Mmm. You know, the weed kind of struck the deal. But yeah, they had not actually accepted an offer at that point had just been, we just talked about the fact that they were going to in the text messaging system. So I told them how it would go. I said, there’s an offer of standing, you know, standing offer for, you know, the 60 K that we agreed upon. You’ll either if you’re in control of the Dan account or are the original buyer, whoever’s [inaudible] [inaudible] control of it, we’ll need to accept that offer. And then the documentation will, will follow from the dance system because you’re technically buying it from them, um, or through them from us. And he seemed fine with that. And then the name on the account changed again because the actual name in the Dan account, it changed to the [inaudible] to the lawyer’s name at that point.

Then it changed again. So I’m like, Oh gosh, what did, what kind of run around is this? What’s going on? I looked up, this guy, turns out he’s the CFO of the VC company of the original guy. And I’m like, okay, I’m feeling pretty, pretty solid about this now. It still took a few days and if anybody’s familiar with Dan, you know, you get notifications that the buyer has been reminded, you know, and I texted with the guys, I said, Hey look, I’m, you know, I’ve been in touch with the lawyer and this guy is a CFO. I know this is going to come, just hang on. And they said they had actually been in touch with some of those guys as well.

So at that point, your partner or no, the guys from Dan.

Um, yeah. So, um, who, I had the pleasure of meeting at names’ con this year. A couple of them. But uh, at that time I just knew their names, but their names were familiar enough to me from them, number of domains we’d sold and they probably recognize mine from various interactions we’ve had. And so I just told him, I said, look, I know that I know you, you know, we’re going a couple of weeks in and most times that’s where you start to think about the deal might be falling through. But these guys [inaudible] pretty comfortable. And they agreed because they, I guess they had spoken to either the lawyer or the or the CFO. So eventually I think it was a, I think it was 13, 14 days later, um, Dan got payment. Um, you know, and then at that point we initiated the transfer of the domain a few days later when he’s getting wired where our account. And, um, so basically in less than a year we turned the [inaudible] purchase. We had at names gone, I’m into a sale.

Good for you. Wow. And what commission to Dan charge you?

Um, that one was a 9%.

Okay. That’s fabulous. That’s, and you know, I think this is really key for the Sherpa network to hear because not everyone [inaudible] is in a financial position to hold out for the ultimate highest price. And that’s not a great strategy all the time for anyone. But particularly when, I mean you just got in in 2017, you found a very well priced domain and you sold it at a reasonable price. Um, you’re right. You know, maybe you could have gotten $100,000 in 10 years, but maybe you wouldn’t still be in domaining cause you couldn’t afford it or, and, and also there’s the opportunity cost of, I mean, what else did you buy with the money that you make back? Mmm. So, and let’s get right to it. So what else did you buy at names con this year? You bought something?

Well, yeah, so basically I, uh, and this was a personal purchase I used. Uh, I used my proceeds from that sale to purchase fresh food at this, uh, at this year sale

fresh food.com. I love it. What did you pay for it?

1,000. And that was a, uh, that was a lot for me personally. Um, and I’ve bought partnership domains in that range in some higher. Um, but for me personally, that’s definitely the, uh, the most I’ve plucked down for anything at auction. Um, I, I drive old cars and I was joking with, uh, with some of the sitting around me, I was like, you know, this is worth about

10 times what my car is worth.

And so, and so anybody that seen the Twitter photos of my cars in the background, it’s a 1995 Lincoln town car

and it’s running, it’s running. So that’s my, uh, cars in general aren’t appreciating assets anyway.

Right. I’d rather, I’d rather drive a cheap car and own a inexpensive domains then the other way around.

So that sounds like a good bumper sticker actually. You know, I think too, like with all the talk about you working on improving your health, um, I think this is it. Like you can only work on so much of your life, your, um, goals at one time and it’s okay. You, you know, crush it on one thing and then go crush it on the next thing. Um, and it sounds like that is exactly what you’re doing. Um, so we’ll see. You know, actually I just, um, uh, like a week or two ago I had lunch with Ammar Kubba and he was telling the story about in 2007 he rented, like he tried, I forget. It was like all these, he tried basically the, his company colors were bright orange and he tried to rent a bright yellow Lamborghini Ferrari. I don’t know, it went back and forth until he finally got something, but it wasn’t the one that he wanted, but he had that parked outside the conference in 2007 outside the domain conference. So Jason, I’m waiting on you like 2025 you, you can pull off in that. There we go.

Probably probably be me pulling up on a Harley though because that’s spent my Harley money on fresh food. I had, I was already looking, trying to decide what bike I wanted and then I was like, Oh my [inaudible]

fresh foods going for 20 grand. I can’t, I can’t let, that’s fine. Harley’s got away. Well, I’m sure it’s in the pipeline. So do you still own fresh food.com? Yes, yes. It’s a, you know, barely a month since, since then. Yes. Checking. You never know.

Yeah, I’ve got, I’ve got it listed now. Um,

I would, uh, I would definitely probably flip it pretty quick, uh, for, you know, two or three X. So if you’ve got a buyer, all right. But somebody out there is good. Yeah. Holler at your boy. So you told me you had a second one that you wanted a second profitable flip that you wanted to share. Um, and so solvent was one for your partnership. One personally you wanted to share as well?

Yeah, I had one that, um, it, there’s not as much to the story, but I, it was my first big sale. Um, and you know, I kinda, it was one of my, one of my earlier bigger purchases. Um, and it is funnel secrets.com Oh,

funnels are big talk right now. I’m in, you know, the, the marketing drip and all that. So funnel F, U N N E L

secrets.com.

Okay. And I can hear already people saying that people aren’t going to know how to spell that or whatever. But people trying to figure out these drip systems and funneling different leads. That’s a good idea. So where did you see that? What made it stand out to you? Would you pay for it?

Okay, so one of the biggest um, people in the funnel world and the internet marketing world that is, I’m a proponent of funnels is Russell Brunson. And he had two books. One was.com secrets and not should’ve looked it up. The both of the, both of the books ended in the word secrets and they were both related to internet marketing, but he didn’t have a book called all secrets and he didn’t have the words funnel secrets trademark. And so I’m doing my daily drop watch and CNN. So I, I know I put a back order in for that and multiple people had it drop catch caught. It went to auction and I was like, you know what? This domain is just going to be worth money. It’s just going to be a good, somebody in that industry is going to understand the value of this domain, even if he doesn’t have the book. Um, I would have thought that he would have been the ideal buyer for it. You know, I don’t, I really do much in the way outbound. Um, but so on the, on the sale, you know, it kept going up and I was bending back and forth on it. It went up to like $550. And for

[inaudible] was it expired at GoDaddy?

No, it was a, it was actually a, a, it was a drought. It was a backwater auction at drop catch.

Oh, okay.

Um, and you know, I, you know, I was just bidding on it, you know, obviously I’d hope to get it for not much more than the, than the drop catch, you know, the full price back order. But somebody else obviously saw some value in it too, and we went back and forth. Um, and so it took $550 to buy. And at that point, that was probably the most I’d spend on a domain myself. Um, and this was actually October of 2018 so this was even before the partnership had started in earnest. You know, we, we had dabbled in it, but before I, you know, the, we really kind of kicked off the partnership. Mmm. The uh, you know, so this was a, you know, it’s a little bit of a big deal for me. I was at that point I was buying $20 closeouts and flipping them for a couple of hundred dollars and, and getting my feet wet, but I saw the value in it. Um, and it’s not okay.

Your research. Um, and, and it sounds to me more than anything like what this sale confirmed for it.

Like once it was in the profitable slip, then do you really had a good instinct and knew what you were doing? So I actually, I own Russell Princeton’s book expert secrets. And while we were talking, I looked it up in my Amazon account and I ordered it in October, 2018. Oh wow. Yeah. Got like, I don’t know how many books dating back since 2011 is the oldest one. I see dotcom secrets, traffic seat work secrets, network marketing secrets, expert secrets. Yeah. So really smart idea. $550 the most you ever spent your, but at least in the other end, you had the confirmation that somebody else thought it was worth one bid below 550. Right. Right. And that was a, that was a lesson that was well-earned on watching many domain, sharper reviews. And here in many of the people say that was, you know, if you’re bidding against the name, you know, as value because there’s somebody that’s willing to pay one bid under what you paid.

And, and that was, and so, you know, that lesson was ringing in my mind as I was bidding on that, uh, along with my own instincts and the, and the fact that I just knew funnels were huge and that the, the, the wording of this matched the way that, that his books, you know, we’re titled so, so I get that, you know, I listed, I was listening around 10 K I can’t remember specifically. Um, and at that time it would have only been on afternoon, um, that I had it listed. We weren’t, I wasn’t really even tuned into Dan or Landers. Um, I, you know, at that point, um, and I might’ve had it on, um, uh, on, uh, [inaudible] on ft. Mmm. But, uh, I don’t even remember for sure. Um, I did have a couple of names on there, um, at the time. So fast forward, you know, as, as the year passes, you know, as the year rolls over to 2019 and I’m really kind of getting into this a lot more.

Um, I go to get all the names listed on, um, [inaudible] on Dan and as I’m pricing this, I’m, I’m really, uh, kind of a student of pricing strategy. I’m like, charm pricing is when you price something that that ends in 99, you try and get the most, but not break that next number. Um, and then certain things or certain theories, schools of thought that say that for big purchases, round numbers work well almost probably better than charm pricing. It’s still haven’t landed on anything, um, as far as that. But I do, I do toy around with it at times. So, okay. You know, at some point in the first quarter of 2019, I had set the buy it now price on this name at $9,500. Okay. And I, I remembered doing that specifically based on the research of the round numbers and big. Mmm. And I was actually, um, I was actually in Raleigh, North Carolina where my family’s from.

I live in, I don’t know, Greensboro and stay in with a relative and I woke up one morning and there was a email saying we have gotten, um, payment has been received for funnel secrets.com $9,500. And I’ll tell ya, if I could have done a back flip physically, I would have done one right then I was, I mean, so I’m gonna say, here I am, I’m, I’m visiting my mom, I’m like running them. I’m like, you’re not going to believe what just happened cause she’s always, you know, she’s really kind of doesn’t understand my forays into some of the alternative, um, you know, investment stuff. Um, you know, and I, I dabble in crypto as well and she’s always been like, [inaudible] that’s, and I was really early in crypto, um, and she was like, I just don’t know about all this. And then a few years later she’s like, you know, that Bitcoin stuff that you used to talk about, it’s gotten kind of big. So, you know, it was kind of a, it was a neat moment where I, you know, I was like, let’s just actually pay it off.

Yeah. But you were paying for breakfast that morning.

So yeah, not a, not a lot to the, you know, not as a interesting, I’m a negotiation story with it being a buy it now, but um, it definitely kinda goes to the purchasing. Um, and your thought process going into, you know, the names that you buy.

I agree. But also I think it is a very interesting, you didn’t just randomly throw a number up there. Um, you said you really like to research about pricing strategy. What, do you have any recommendations for our audience? I want to ask two things. Like podcasts, they should listen to places, they should read up, blogs they should watch, whatever. But then also just actual numbers like you were saying. Um, so first, where would you recommend someone start learning about that? Watching trends?

Well, the, the term, um, is charm pricing. Just Google that. Um, there’s, there’s a number of good, um, resources and good articles and um, psychological, you know, uh, research on it. So, and that will lead, that will lead you to several different pricing strategies. Um, but in general, I priced the names that I expect to be an impulse buy. I charmed priced them at like a 99 or a 98, sometimes at an 88. Um, in my retail background, we had pricing a lot of times and ended in 88. And [inaudible] I believe that there is research that says that works better than 99, because the 99 is overused.

But, um, in any case, any of those where your pricing on the upper end, but below the next round a number is considered charm pricing. Um, so in general on my lower price names, you know, anything under 3000. Mmm aye. I almost invariably price on that use charm pricing and it’s just kind of, yeah, just a lot of times it’s just a whim. You know, what did I do at 98 or nine? So you first hears the charm pricing ending, preferably in 88 up to 3000. Then it goes from 3000 to what is your next? Mmm. And you know, if somebody were to track down my portfolio, I’m not going to say that if I’m 100% following this, but generally 3,500 up. Mmm. I like, I like round numbers, especially on a name that is going to be something that is going to be well thought out. Mmm. Okay. No [inaudible] hundred up to six figures. Yeah. Yeah. I mean like the buy like the buy it now, right now for uh, for fresh food I guarantee is a nice round number because nobody, nobody’s going to be like, Oh, you know, that’s, you know, 249,000. If it was 250, I’m not going to buy it, but I’ll buy it because it’s 249,000 though. They’re reaching for 250,000. Oops. I’ll let that slip.

Yeah. Mmm. But, uh, you know, on the lower price names where it could be an impulse buy, because I know, you know, obviously the way I got into domaining was I was buying names that I thought I would use for a business. I was hand registering those. But if, if I had, you know, if at that time I’d come across a name in the registration bath that was not, I hand his name, but was that a price? You know, and if it was like six 99, you know, $699, I might’ve bought it. Whereas if it said seven 50, I’d have been like, Oh, that’s too much. So I just think that the impulse, but I think impulse buys are better serve with charm pricing, um, intentional, you know, corporate well thought out. Research spies. I like [inaudible] round numbers four. Mmm. And my research is, it was kind of born out the a school of thought that agrees with that.

So good for you. Okay. All right, good to know. So what else should we know about you? What’s going on in your world? Um, what to look for in the coming year. If there are opportunities or people you want to connect with, um, what you have taken so much time to share with the domain community, both. And the thing about your health is so exciting to watch, not only because it’s about your health, but because all of us have our struggles and seeing you putting yourself out there and really applying yourself makes all of us want to do the same. Um, so thank you for taking the time to come on Sherpa and tell us what you’re doing in business. Shout out time, what you got maybe. Well, first, first thing is just everybody that has ever liked or commented one of my health based, um, tweets.

I mean, I, that means the world to me. Um, obviously if you’ve seen me at conference or you could tell in the picture here, I, you know, I’ve, I’ve obviously struggled with my weight. Um, and that’s been a, that’s been a lifelong challenge since probably college. Um, and I’ve reached a point where I absolutely have to do something about it for health reasons. Um, and you know, I’ve known that and I’ve known, you know, it’s not like you never, you’re never this size not knowing you need to, you need to lose weight, but it just, um, you know, it got to a point where I had to, and you know, as has been mentioned in, in certain tweet threads, and I think, uh, I think Shane mentioned it on a blog post. I did. I was, I was at con and I ran into Michael Cyger and Shane Cultura coming in from there, from a morning run that Saturday.

Um, I was headed over to bangers for the fun day. Um, they were coming in and, you know, I was just like, you know, that’s pretty cool. Um, you know, that they, you know, this is [inaudible] they do, but it didn’t really strike me then, but then I’m like, okay, just a few days after we, after I got back, I’m from names, Khan, Shane posted something about, or Ronnie did. And I was like, man, there’s no better time to get this going than now. And so I just did, I just grabbed my stuff and I went out and I walked a mile. And I guarantee at that point I probably hadn’t, you know, walked a mile intentionally at a decent pace. And in months, I mean, I made stabs at it before, but um, you know, you fail until you don’t, and that’s, that’s what, what has been the, now, you know, I would, there was a time where I walked 66 days straight.

Mmm. And, and then didn’t stick with it after that. Um, and you know, I, I had, I had some reasons, but you know, I was having some knee problem, but, uh, you know, there’s going to be some way for me to keep this up. So I responded to change tweet. He came back with a would just amazing response saying that he was even happy even more. I mean, it’d be hard for me not even get choked up over this maybe. Um, but he was just saying that it meant, you know, the fact that he got me to walk meant more to him than his actual run. And I was like, Oh, that’s so cool. And then I was like, you know what, I got to keep it up. So I did it the next day and then I, and so that was a response to his tweet.

And so the next day I tweeted and then, you know, and um, tweeting a screenshot of my, of my, of my app and a, and a selfie and okay, guarantee you, I’ve taken more selfies since I started this than I’ve done in the last 10 years. Because one of the things about being big, you don’t like the way you look on camera. And I just don’t, I don’t know. I’m not a selfie guy. If you ever fall on my Instagram or my, even my Twitter feed, occasionally you’ll see me posting pictures of, or videos of the nightclubs I’m working at of the crowds. Rarely the UTC me in them. Mmm. So, so then I did it and you know, one day, the next day and everybody’s like, liking it and then other people are jumping in. And then, you know, Michael, uh, Michael Seiger made some comments about it. It was really encouraging.

And you know, day three, I did it again and I’m like, you know what, I’m going to start boring these people. I don’t want to, I don’t want to overwhelm her. Overwhelmed. Yeah. Outwear my welcome. Um, and then couple of people said they looked forward to the tweets every day on that very day that I was considering, you know, just kind of backing off doing, I was going to keep doing the, you know, doing the exercise, but I was just not going to be putting it out there. But then they said, then they said how much they liked it and then it just kinda snowballed from there. Um, and so I just did it and then, and kept doing it every day and everybody was so great. I was getting likes and comments and attaboys and Twitter fi high fives is Shane calls him. Um, and it was just, uh, it was really helpful because on the days that I had, and you know, that maybe before without the encouragement I would have [inaudible] quit or wouldn’t, it would have skipped a day.

Um, I’m like, nah, man, I got people out there, you know. Well, you know, pushing me forward. I gotta I gotta I gotta keep doing this. Um, and I know, I know the way that I am, like it is literally no days off. If I take a day off, one day it’ll turn into two, two will turn into three. So I’m going to, you know, I may, there may be days, like last night I went out and 11 o’clock. Mmm. Because it had just been a crazy day involving Dennis and, and hair salons and voting and stuff, going all sorts of ways and other business that I had fires I had to put out what I was like, man, I got to get it in and I gotta get it in for midnight, so I went out and did it. Um, so, uh, you know, I just, it’s just a big thing for me to make sure that I do it every day.

Um, and, and the support has been amazing. Um, especially, you know, I’ve gotten massive support on Twitter from Michael Cyger and Shane Cultra really, really, you know, just the, the stuff on Sherpa last week was amazing. I couldn’t believe that, um, you know, from [inaudible], from drew and Shane both. I mean, you know, I mean, I’ve talked to Shane, Shane and I, you know, I’ve communicated with Shane a lot. Um, I sat beside Michael in, uh, at, at the, um, DN Academy luncheon and, uh, in, um, Austin, I’ve probably spoken to drew like two minutes in my life in any way, shape or form. Um, so just to have him even, you know, his formula just amazing. Yeah. I came in your business too and you were already on their radar

and that really says something to anyone who wants to get into domains that in 2017, you can start and here you are today. I mean, that’s incredible. Jason. I’m, I’m super excited. Like I feel like domainers are such a tiny little club and like a little family and when somebody new comes and you didn’t just bring yourself, you brought in your, your secret partner to, um, uh, that’s, that’s really exciting. Well, welcome Sherpa. I have a mug to send you. Oh, I should have it right here to show you. But um, but that’s awesome. And uh, yeah, I can’t wait to have you want to get and keep in touch on Twitter too.

Oh, that’s awesome. And it, thanks so much for having me.

Thanks for taking the time. All right, G Oh, I want to ask, what app do you use? What fitness app are you using?

I use run Walker and um, um, uh, hang on, let me make sure. No Runkeeper. Runkeeper. Sorry. I misspoke. Um, yeah, because, you know, I’m working my way up to full runs. So far. It’s been mostly intermittent all there. Last night I did make the furthest consistent straight run that I’d made yet, um, at 1130 at night, amazingly. Um, so, uh, the weather was real nice and so that helped. Uh, and uh, but uh, yeah, so Runkeeper’s what I use, um, it’s been great. I’ve used it through my, you know, past attempts to get here. Um, and it’s, uh, it’s just works really well for me.

That’s so fabulous. All right, well we will see you next time, uh, on your Runkeeper stats on Twitter. Ah. Alright. Bye Jason. Thanks Tess. Take care. You too.

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3 Responses to “2 Profitable Flips: From $8k to $69k in Under a Year – with Jason Sheppard”

  1. Rob Stretch says:

    Good job with the workouts Jason – keep it up man. Not easy to do and not easy to talk about publicly.

  2. albert says:

    Without a doubt one of the most informative Sherpa Shows in a long while n how to buy and sell domain names (Not to take away from the other shows). But Jason is relatively new to the industry and speaks in plain rather than industry language. More importantly, he shows that there is plenty of opportunity out there whether you are new to the game or not. Thank You both for your time and keep up the good work.

  3. Bobby says:

    Great pick up on solvent.com
    Smart buy and nice sale but could have brought in more considering the financial use possibilities.

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