DomainSherpa Review – May 2: AIX.com, FastFunds.com, LLL.xyz, Ecofund.com…

DomainSherpa Review with Michael Cyger, Andrew Rosener, Sam Dennis and Shane CultraThis is the show where we get into the minds of successful domain name investors – people we call Sherpas – and talk about the value of specific domain names. By listening to the Sherpas, we expand our thought process so we can become more successful investors ourselves.

In this DomainSherpa Review:

  • We learn what the Sherpas bought or sold recently: AIX.com, FastFunds.com, LLL.xyz
  • An investor’s portfolio is appraised: 1xl.com, PopcornKing.com, SafetyRecords.com…
  • Get your bids in soon for these NO RESERVE NameJet auctions: Ecofund.com, ReferralClub.com, TrainingOnline.com…
  • Plus, much more!

For each domain name portfolio, the Sherpas answer:

  • Which domains are valuable, and in what way?
  • What is the market value (both wholesale and retail) of the best domain names?
  • Which domains are worthless and should be dropped?
  • Which domain names may invite legal issues, such as a UDRP case or cybersquatting lawsuit?
  • Which domains do our Sherpas want to make an offer on?

We’re joined by three Domain Sherpas: Andrew Rosener, Sam Dennis and Shane Cultra.

Review (84:50): Watch | Listen/Download Audio | Domain Lists | Transcript

Your DomainSherpa Review

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

Thank the Sherpas via Twitter

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

Your DomainSherpa Interview, Audio Only

Download Domain Name Interview in MP3

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.

Investor Submitted Domain Names

1xl.com
bfaster.com
compraesto.com
dollarfinders.com
innocentflower.com
joinusa.com
kuzn.com
mohawkriver.com
nicekiti.com
odio.org
onevisa.com
pigli.com
popcornking.com
rothfunds.com
safetyrecords.com
shicken.com
steakshouse.com
technologystate.com
thecraziest.com
thecritical.com
thedoctoris.in
tripolandia.com
u46.com
viraltechnology.com
walkpal.com

NameJet.com Pre-Auction Listings

commodore.com
downers.com
ecofund.com
energydrink.net
promotable.com
referralclub.com
stayinschool.com
teethbleaching.net
trainingonline.com
trustednames.com
veganfamily.com
whitemonkey.com

This Show’s Sherpas

Andrew Rosener
Andrew Rosener
Andrew Rosener is the CEO of the industry-leading domain name broker Media Options.

Andrew is widely considered a thought leader and expert on domain name value & methodology as well as domain name sales & acquisitions. With 20 years experience with domain names, Andrew has leveraged his knowledge and expertise to make MediaOptions the go-to domain name firm for startup & company domain acquisitions as well as high value domain name sales.

More shows with Andrew Rosener »

Sam Dennis
Sam Dennis
Sam Dennis is the CEO of YTZ International, a monetization platform for advertising networks and publishers.

Dennis started in online marketing in 1999, founding Suite66 – one of the first banner networks. Since then, he has expanded his expertise into lead generation and performance-based marketing.

Dennis is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario.

More shows with Sam Dennis »

Shane Cultra
Shane Cultra
Shane Cultra is a domain name investor and owner of the popular domain name blog, DSAD.com.

Cultra is also a fifth generation owner of Country Arbors Nursery based in Urbana, Illinois, and has been a member of the PBS television show Mid American Gardener for more than 10 years, in addition to being a part of various gardening segments on CBS and ABC.

Shane also recently launched two new businesses, BeeHouse.com and Wormcastings.com, leveraging his online expertise with his love of nature and business acumen to create two exciting new ventures that are sure to be successful.

More shows with Shane Cultra »

DomainSherpa Advertisers

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

Efty.com
Watch Ad
Namejet.com

MediaOptions.com

Interview Raw (Non-Edited) Transcript

Download/Read the Domain Name Interview Transcript in PDF FormatInterview Transcript in PDF Format (Right-click to Save As…) [View in Google Docs]

Watch the full video at:
https://domainsherpa.com/review-20160502/

On today’s DomainSherpa Review, we talk about the value of two word .nets, the order of words in OnlineTraining.com or TrainingOnline.com, and this…people say you’re a Chinese guy, I was Chinese before Chinese came in…yeah, you have to watch this show to find out why.

I have three sponsor messages before we get into today’s show.

First, if you’re buying or selling a domain name or portfolio and you want an estimate of it’s value, Estibot.com is the place to go. Just like you’d visit Zillow.com to get an estimate of a house value, Estibot.com provides key information about the most important statistics so you can make an informed decision based on data.

Second, whether you are buying, selling, brokering or financing a domain name you need an escrow company that is properly licensed, bonded, insured and audited. That company is Escrow.com and they have been doing it since 1999. Escrow.com – it’s about trust.

Finally, are you tired of being up-sold and cross-sold when you buy or renew a domain? Then try the newest registrar being built from the ground-up with a beautiful interface, competitive pricing and 24/7 support. Uniregistry.com will surprise and delight you. The right domain name can change your life: Uniregistry.com.

Michael Cyger: Hey everyone. I’m Michael Cyger, Publisher of DomainSherpa.com, and this is the Domain Sherpa Review. This is the show where we get into the minds of successful domain name investors using real examples, so we can learn strategies and tactics.

We have three segments to the review. We will start off learning what the Sherpas recently bought and sold. Next, we will discuss and value an investor-submitted domain name portfolio. Finally, we will preview some domains going to auction soon at NameJet.com with no reserve or reserve met.

Joining us today on the Domain Sherpa Review are three past Sherpas and industry thought leaders. In order from left to right, we have Andrew Rosener, CEO of the domain name brokerage firm, MediaOptions.com; Sam Dennis, CEO of YTZ International, a monetization platform for advertising networks and publishers; and Shane Cultra, Publisher of the blog, DomainShane.com, and Owner of the Country Arbors Nursery in Illinois. Sherpas, welcome to today’s show.

Sam Dennis: Thanks, Michael.

Michael: Hey Sherpas, I have got this email from an audience member named Travis and Travis wrote, “Without a doubt, I am positive you have heard this a gazillion times in the past that your show is extremely informative, cutting edge, respected, and most of all entertaining.” Travis, I want to make this completely clear to you. We cannot hear that enough, so please keep it coming. Thank you for sending that email, Travis. Travis also said, “Shane, after watching several of your shows, there seems to be an ongoing joke regarding vegan, but as of today I have yet to locate a pair of vegan boots in size 11, although the sandals are working out quite well.”

Yes, and I should point that out because I interacted with another reader who was not quite sure if we were making a joke. Shane, are we making jokes about vegan domains?

Shane Cultra: Yes and no. We are absolutely making a joke. The joke started off with how do you know when a vegan is in the room. They are going to tell you. That is where it all started because you cannot enter a room without a vegan without them talking about vegan, but they sell.

Michael: I bring them up every time there is one on the list because I know you are going to make a joke about it and because it is funny because it is an ongoing joke, but do we actually recommend buying vegan domains? Would you recommend it or do you not?

Shane: Before we even joked about it, these things were selling. Vegans are passionate. It is a lifestyle. Absolutely. Vegan is a big billion-dollar industry around the world. Absolutely. So, yeah, we make fun of it, but only because the people that are vegan are fun.

Michael: All right, so you are recommending buying them. I would never buy a vegan domain because I am not vegan. I do not know. I do have vegan friends, but they are not into domains. I need to ask them if they would buy one.

Shane: Yeah, you are Pacific Northwest. They are everywhere.

Michael: Everybody is vegan. I cannot swing a cat. All right, also, I have been remiss. First of all, Drew, I miss you so much because you are in Germany. We do not get to interact. You are always like asleep before I wake up here in Seattle, but I was remiss. Last two shows, Media Options brokered those deals. I had Joe Pullizi on here talking about content marketing. It was Drew that put ContentMarketing.com on his list, and then I reached out to Joe, which I had not spoken to probably five or six years and I said Joe, get together with Drew, do a deal, and he did not realize the benefit of that domain.

Drew ended up selling it like he does every other domain, and then just last week’s show with Luke Webster. If you did not get a chance to watch that show, phenomenal entrepreneur. Growing Shaving Network. Growing into the Grooming Network. And Drew hooked him up with Beard.com because now they are growing the beard. And if you have not signed up for DN Seattle, get on the waiting list because we are probably going to open up a few tickets a week or two before the event. Luke Webster and his Grooming Network team will be in Seattle for the DN Seattle event. Phenomenal event. We are sold out. Five thousand dollars plus raised for cancer research already at Fred Hutchinson. It is going to be a fantastic event.

All right, we are going to jump in to this segment. First segment of the show, What’s New Sherpas, where the Sherpas tell us what they recently bought and sold over the past few weeks. We get to learn the details of it. What did they pay for it or what did they receive for it? Why they thought it was a good deal? How the negotiation progressed? Things like that. I am going to lead you through the questions, Sherpas. We will go Sam, then Shane, and then Drew.

Sam, what is one domain that you have personally bought or sold in the past couple of weeks? Tell us the domain and not the price yet.

Sam: All right. So, you guys want a three-letter or a keyword? I have got two.

Michael: Is the keyword really good?

Sam: I think so.

Michael: Let’s do keyword.

Sam: So, FastFunds.

Michael: All right, FastFunds.com. Did you buy it or sell it, Sam?

Sam: I bought it.

Michael: Bought it, all right. Drew, what do you think Sam paid for FastFunds.com?

Andrew Rosener: I think he paid 75 hundred dollars for it.

Michael: Shane, what do you think? Did he buy it from you, Drew? You look pretty confident.

Shane: In my mind, I said eight thousand. It was so close to Drew’s, but we are always close to each other. Yeah, eight grand is exactly what popped in my mind. Eight grand.

Michael: All right. Sam, they think it is a high four-figure type of purchase. How much did you pay for it?

Sam: I got it for 41 hundred and I got it in auction. I was super happy.

Michael: Wow, nice.

Sam: I do not know. There has been a whole bunch of cash advance type of domains that have been dropping. This one actually is a real drop, so that is why I bought it. This was a real, actual, expired domain name, which I really like looking for. If you do a WhoIS on them, you can see it is actually dropping or if someone is selling it. Whatever the value is, the value is, but I like expired website. It has never been marketed. No one has ever had a chance.

Michael: Yeah, and which auction platform did you buy it on?

Sam: The one behind you.

Michael: I did not know that, NameJet. It was not a plug.

Sam: If they want a plug, I will give you a few.

Michael: So, 41 hundred dollars. Was there somebody that was bidding you up, trying to get it from you?

Sam: Yeah. I thought I had it for like 25 or 26. I was super happy, but one other bidder pushed me up, which that can actually be pretty risky. All the guys there have bid on names. When one person is bidding you up, it can be pretty risky. I like when there are three guys all in the same range. Then you know there are a few other guys who feel the same way. One person, but I felt confident. I was probably going to go to five grand on this name, or six grand. I liked it a lot.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah, it is a great brandable domain.

Sam: It could be either way. It is fast money. The fast funds sounded correct to me. It is definitely the right brand for a company.

Michael: Yeah. So, is it in your possession yet, Sam?

Sam: Yeah, because it is a real drop.

Michael: And what is the first thing you do once you get a domain name like this in your possession? What do you do with it?

Sam: Well, it depends. If I was worried about the domain, if there was some sort of trademark or something I might be worried about, I just put it to a blank page to fully check it out, but this one I was not worried about. It is too generic, so I parked it right away just to see what the traffic was because I was kind of interested.

Michael: So, you put it on a parking platform just so you can see what the traffic is first.

Sam: Yeah, and I had it kind of long enough to really know that the traffic on it is a little strange. I think it was a real site before because I am seeing a lot of requests, but not full visitor requests. I think it is like image requests on it, but either way, it is a good name, so I am happy.

Michael: Yeah. Which parking platform do you use?

Sam: For this one, I actually put it on parking through for the first two days and then I moved it to Domain Name Sales, only because it is like instantly approved at Parking (Unclear 8:53.8), where at Domain Name Sales I had to wait a few days. I was like I did not really want to wait, but I think I got it on a weekend, so I did not know if they were going to approve it. I was kind of anxious to do it.

Michael: Yeah, you were. Awesome. And what is going to be your retail ask on that domain if somebody were to contact you and say I want to buy FastFunds.com?

Sam: It will probably be high. I think it will be about 65.

Michael: 65, but you would take 30 for it.

Sam: That is good advice. So, if someone comes with a serious offer, you should look at it. So, if someone came to me with a 30-thousand-dollar offer, I would probably be pretty interested, but it is also you have just got the name and someone gave you a 30-thousand offer.

Michael: Yeah, but if I came to you and you did not know and I offered you like 7K right off the bat, you would think it is a serious offer.

Sam: I would think it was serious, but I would be countering. I mean someone who comes in with seven, it is even more exciting. But I am going to hold it for a little bit. I want to wait because I have only had it so little. I want to see if there actually are inquiries on the name.

Michael: Yeah, cool. Well, congrats on that purchase. Shane, let’s go to you. What have you bought or sold recently, bud?

Shane: I was going to say, just to touch on that before, that is one of the hardest things. When you buy a name and instantly someone comes, and let’s say you buy it for four and someone comes in at 30. There are two days to look at it. One, it is an asset and that is how you make your money. You do not want to leave anything on the table, but at the same time, if in 48 hours someone is dropping 26K on your lap and you can be in and out like it never happened, that is really hard to resist, and you can buy a lot with 30K right now.

Michael: Yeah.

Shane: So, yeah, those are good problems to have, but it does happen and you think it is worth more. Man, this is quick, easy money and I can just do my magic and pretend like I never owned the name, but there is 26 thousand sitting on my desk now.

Michael: Well, exactly. Then you look at some of the shows I have done with Berkens or Schwartz and they are like yeah, in order to get to that million-dollar sale, I had to turn down 100 thousand dollars and 300 thousand dollars and 500 thousand dollars. And I know this is not like a million-dollar domain name, maybe, but you have got to turn down the offers that you think are fully satisfactory in order to get to the big payday, sometimes.

Shane: Yeah, but you have also got to make a profit to pay somebody else.

Michael: You have got to pay the bills, yeah. All right, Shane, what did you buy or sell, bud?

Shane: Okay, I will play my role in here. I bought lots of plants names, but they are not exciting, so I will play my role and still stick with crazy ass names. So, I bought LLL.xyz.

Michael: LLL, so you are still playing this whole acronym, numeric market, man. The market is not closed for Shane.

Shane: Short is short. Short was short in 2009 when I started and short is short now. They are always liquid value. That is the thing. People say you are a Chinese guy. I was Chinese before Chinese came in, so I have always been buying the same thing.

Andrew: Can I quote you on that?

Michael: I know!

Andrew: I was Chinese before the Chinese.

Shane: That is right. 1800BC.

Michael: I think I just got the opening segment for that little teaser that plays before the intro. I was Chinese before the Chinese were Chinese. All right, Shane, so you bought LLL.xyz. All right. Sam, what do you think Shane paid for LLL.xyz?

Sam: Oh, I do not know the three-letter Ls. I think he probably paid, because it is repeating as well, 25 hundred.

Michael: Drew, what do you think, bud?

Andrew: Yeah, I was going to say two grand.

Michael: Shane, what did you pay?

Shane: I probably should have paid two grand. I ended up paying four grand for it. I would probably rather have FastFunds for 41 hundred, but it is a pretty funny story behind it. So, I am a busy guy and I cannot sit around for the auctions a lot of time, so I do what I am going to do and I put in my bids before. I mean it is actually probably a good financial strategy. Put in what you are willing to pay and go away. So, I put in. I cannot remember if it was four thousand or 41 hundred. Never in a million years expecting to get there, and of course when I came back from work, it is sitting in my account ready to roll.

So, Daniel Negari and I are buddies again as far as names. But here is how I looked at it, and this is seriously why I bid. So, when Daniel came around, he told me that these are going to be worth and we are going to do this. That is his job. And I bought a lot of three-number .XYZs, and I can get offers for four grand on three-number .XYZs all the time. I paid 35 dollars for five names, or maybe 40 dollars, and I have 543.xyz and 887. I have some good names, so I figured the least I can do is maybe sell one of those and put it into another. Just keep growing it.

So, .XYZ has treated me well, so why not keep going with it? I do believe in .XYZ. Four grand is probably a little more because the market right now, but I do not think I will have a problem. Daniel is good at putting these things in auctions. Hopefully Daniel will have another auction in China somewhere, like he has lately, and I will throw a couple of those in there and get my money back or double it even.

Michael: Yeah. So, where did you buy this one, Shane?

Shane: The place behind you.

Michael: Oh, gosh, NameJet. You are killing it.

Shane: That is where the action is right now. They keep them coming.

Michael: Yeah. And so, did you actually sell one of your numeric, your three-number .XYZs in order to buy this one, or you were like I am just going to double down?

Shane: No, but I think the value is still there. So, I am going to sell one here at auction. I really would like to team with Daniel and his team to take one of my good numerics and get the best price. Although I think if I go with NameJet right now, I would get three grand or four grand immediately for it. So, I think they are good names. I think three-number numeric any country code is worth money. That is just where we are at right now. So, the LLL. It just kind of represents letter, letter, letter of all the .XYZs, so I think that was a pretty good name from that standpoint as well.

So, yeah, I am just buying keywords. That is what I want to tell everybody. I do not just do this. This is kind of the more risky thing that I understand very well. Well, at least when you think you understand something well, you stick to it because that is how you make money, whether I do or not. People criticize me that it is going down, but we were talking about this, this time last year and buying four-letter .COMs for three hundred. Oh wow, now they are worth 12 hundred. No, I did not sell it at 25 hundred, but they are still worth 12 hundred dollars when we were paying three hundred a year ago. So, it all depends on how you look at it. This is a long-term buy.

Michael: Yeah, you have talked about the numerics and we have all talked about the numerics, and we have evaluated five numbers, six numbers, and seven numbers, but you are saying short domains always have value in the market.

Shane: It is. People want to type less. It is easier to remember. This balance of the Chinese. They like balance. It is very easy to remember. I mean ABAB.com is easier to remember than a lot of things, so it works on a lot of different fronts. There is a reason why it is called P90X. That is a crazy number, but we remember P90X because it is easy to remember and it is short. So, there are a lot of ways to look at it. It is not just words. We can remember other things, but I do not stick to just that. Words are important too.

Michael: Speaking of which, if anybody wants to buy my P90X CDs, let me know. Hit me up.

Shane: Yeah, if anybody still has a DVD player, let me know.

Michael: All right. Yeah, I made a joke to Aaron that we should just get rid of our DVD player and just go streaming. She was like what, we still use DVDs.

Shane: If you did not have an Xbox or a PlayStation, I do not know that I would have one. I mean that is the only thing. I do not even play video games. I just throw in the Blu-Ray or whatever in that thing, and that is only because I do not want to wait for a movie. We have got one video store left and I think the adult movies are the only thing that keep it open. I think.

Michael: You think. You are not saying. All right, thanks Shane, congrats on your purchase.

Shane: (Unclear 17:07.9).

Michael: Yeah, you are not confirming or denying.

Shane: No. The little doors. I thought it was a bathroom. I thought those doors were bathrooms.

Michael: That is where your wife found you. I cannot find the bathroom. LLL.xyz. Congrats on the purchase. Let’s go over to you, Drew. What have you bought or sold in the past couple weeks? Tell us the domain and not the price.

Andrew: All right, well, I throw you the same option. You want a keyword or you want a three-letter.

Michael: Is it a single-word keyword?

Andrew: No.

Michael: What do you guys want? Sam, what do you want? Sam, did you say three letters?

Sam: Yeah.

Michael: Okay, let’s go three letters, Drew.

Andrew: All right, AIX.com.

Michael: AIX.com. Did you buy or sell?

Andrew: Buy.

Michael: Sam, what do you think he bought it for?

Sam: I know he likes the X in the end, so do I though, so I think he probably paid 32.

Michael: 32. Seems a little low. What do you think, Shane?

Sam: Oh, that is pretty good. That is a pretty good price right now.

Shane: Yeah, things have changed a lot. Yeah, that is the thing. You have got to think about who it is on the other side with Drew.

Michael: Right, because the other person knows they are selling to Drew, and if they watch this show, then they know he likes the X’s.

Andrew: I do not buy this shit from people that watch this show.

Shane: Yeah, I am actually going to go lower than that.

Sam: Yeah, he probably got it from an end user.

Shane: I am going to go 27. I think that some people do not understand that X is a good placeholder.

Michael: Yeah. All right, Drew, we have got 27 and we have 32. What did you pay?

Andrew: 25.

Michael: 25. Nice, bud. Where did you buy it from?

Andrew: So, I have a guy that has a guy.

Michael: I have a guy that hooks me up.

Andrew: Yeah, one of the guys regularly finds inventory for me. Brought this deal to us.

Michael: Nice.

Andrew: Truth be told, it will probably actually be about 27 because I have got to pay him a little.

Michael: Commissions.

Shane: Yeah, I took that into account.

Michael: Yeah, you nailed it, Shane. You nailed it. And so, what was the opening offer to you, Drew, that got it down to 25-thousand purchase price?

Andrew: He brings me deals that are already ready to be wrapped.

Michael: They are priced and ready to go.

Andrew: Yeah, I think he had offered them ten. Then 15. Then it was 25 is the price and we just did it. There might have been some room. Who knows? Maybe he had it at 23. Maybe he had 20, but the problem is, is once you get a guy like this, this was an end user. And one thing that is very important to keep in mind, and I have actually seen twice very recently this happen to fellow domain investors. Sometimes it is just best not to bicker about small differences in the price. Whether it is 23 thousand or 25 thousand, I am not looking to sell this for 27 or 28, so if it is 23 or 25, not that I do not care. I much rather get it for 23 – two thousand dollars is two thousand dollars -, but what is most important to me is just getting the —- deal closed.

And so, when you get an end user and they have had this domain. This guy is the original owner. He has had the domain for 20 years. And you finally get this guy to say you know what. The day has come. I am ready to just let it go. He has got probably – you just have to assume – a database of 100 or 500 people that have previously contacted him. And if he says you know what. 25 is my number and I am like I will give you 23, you might insult him. You might be like come on, buddy, I think I am giving you a great price. Here you are. You are lowballing me. You are nickel and diming me. I am going to reach out to those other five hundred people that contacted me and maybe one of them will pay me 25.

And I guarantee you one of them will. So, it is something to keep in mind. Do not bicker and moan and nickel and dime. If you are close enough to the range where you are ready to pull the trigger, negotiate in good faith. Pull the trigger. Get the deal done. You are going to make more money that way long-term.

Michael: Yeah, because whether you bought it for 25 or 27, you are planning on selling it. What is your asking price?

Andrew: Oh, 250.

Michael: Yeah, so you are going to sell it in the six figures is what you are expecting.

Andrew: Yeah, I mean this is artificial intelligence with an X on the end. It is like a tech orgasm.

Michael: And I typed it into EstiBot, just so I could look at the exact match searches. It is a massive acronym. 40 thousand exact match searches per month.

Shane: And why do you guys both say you like X? Explain to the viewers why you like X.

Michael: Dude, what are you doing my job now, Shane?

Shane: Sorry.

Michael: You are the man, buddy. I appreciate it.

Andrew: X on the end particularly. X on the beginning is also sometimes. There is XFarm, is a big tech company. There are some times on the beginning it is okay, but on the end, X is really a big variable. It is like an ace if you are playing Poker or Blackjack. It could represent so many different things. So, an X can be exchange. It can kind of like generically mean technology. It can be deliver. It can be transfer. It can mean any number. Literally there is like an endless number of possible frames in which you could use X.

And I kind of look at three-letter .COMs that end with X almost as a two-letter .COM. I mean obviously the liquid value is not the same as a two-letter .COM, but there is still only 670 sticks three-letter .COMs, which end with X, and that is the same number of two-letter .COMs that exist in case you did not catch that. And again, most of them are in end user hands. If you look at it, it is kind of like ending with RE for real estate. It is just that most of them are in end user hands. Most of them are in use. It is very rare that one ending in X comes up for sale. And when it does, they generally sell for a little bit of a premium above other three-letter .COMs, and I personally have found that they have a much higher turnover rate. So, they sell faster and for better numbers.

Michael: And this can apply to four letters as well, right? We are not just saying three letters, but it can apply to two letters and four letters.

Andrew: It applies to two letters. Two of my best two-letter .COM sales ever were PX.com and DX.com.

Michael: Who did you sell PX.com to?

Andrew: Who to? I cannot tell you who I sold it to.

Michael: I know we talked about that before. And so, you like X at the end. You like RE at the end. You like I at the end because it could be incorporated or International.

Andrew: I like a little bit more rare. I like things that add value. I like things that expand the scope of the potential buyer pool. I like things that make something more scarce. Scarcity is your friend. If there is a limited number, if there is a relatively limited number of something, generally speaking, that will play in your favor over whatever the period of time is. So, obviously from one day to the next it might make any difference, but over a relatively meaningful period of time, scarcity is, generally speaking, going to be your friend.

Shane: Notice how we tied the P90X thing altogether here with the X. It serves a purpose. It is the best holding spot you can use if you need to fill a blank, and X is memorable. As long as it is on either end, it is one of the most memorable characters that can fill a gap. I call it the best placeholder you can find, is use an X. That is why I bought 50X.com and 70X.com. It is memorable and short.

Michael: Yeah. All right, Sherpas, congratulations on all your buys. You guys are in a buying spree this week.

Andrew: We actually have been on quite a sales spree. We have been selling a lot of stuff.

Michael: I know, but most of it you cannot tell me about.

Andrew: Nope.

Michael: Yeah, well, congrats. All right, we are going to move on to the next section. In the Domain Portfolio Review, we take a user-submitted domain name portfolio and provide honest and constructive feedback to the owners, so they can either cut their losses, continue to hold them, or figure out a sales strategy going forward.

Today’s portfolio was submitted by Eric Patawa. As part of Eric’s submission, he made a generous donation to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to help us all find a cure for cancer. Eric’s list of 25 domain names starts with 1XL.com and ends with WalkPal.com. This segment, we are going to go Shane, then Drew, and then Same.

Shane, let’s start with you. When you look at Eric’s list of domains, what is your overall impression with his portfolio?

Shane: Well, it is better than last week, so at least we have something to talk about, so you can be more positive. Two, I think he will be able to make money on it when you do an overall portfolio analysis versus what he paid. I do not know what he paid, but I am assuming he did not pay a lot for these, so I think overall he will make his money back.

Michael: Okay, so generally you are positive on most of the domains in the portfolio. Let’s talk about some that you like.

Shane: Yeah, well, I will start with just the quick. We are talking about the ones that are liquid. 1XL. They have come down in price a little over the last two months, but 1XL he probably can get 25 hundred dollars if he put it up for auction right now. And that is anywhere. NameJet. Sedo. They do really well. So, that is a very liquid name. It has got a number. It has got an X. An extra-large.

Michael: Before we move on, Shane, you said it is a very liquid name if you could put it up for auction right now. Where would you suggest putting it up for auction? NameJet, Sedo, GoDaddy, or some place else?

Shane: Sedo or NameJet. Sedo does very well with these three-character names. I am not sure exactly why. Maybe some more International market over there, but that is where I purchased mine and that is where a lot of people sold. So, Sedo. That is kind of their niche as far as doing well with those, but NameJet always does well with short characters.

Michael: Now, quick question while you are getting that phone, Shane. When you list a domain for sale on Sedo and you put it up for a fixed auction, they charge you 59 dollars to start. Is that correct?

Shane: Correct.

Michael: And then they run it for a seven-day auction.

Shane: Seven-day auction.

Michael: But you are saying that the International market and the sale of the three letters would go well over at Sedo.

Shane: Yeah, they do very well there. Every marketplace has things that do better than others and that happens to be one of them. In that case, I would go Sedo, NameJet, GoDaddy, but either way you are going to sell that name and it is going to move. And U46 is in that same ball game, but you have got a vowel and you have got the number four, so that is not quite as much value, but I have not really a letter, number, number or number, letter go for under a thousand dollars in quite a while. But they have come down quite a bit, but not anywhere near the other market right now. They have held pretty steady.

I put that in my list that I am buyer. I have always been a buyer of those because I think they are memorable, short brands, and I would love to see them go down a little more because I sold most of mine, so I would like to pick up some more, but they have not gone down as much as I thought they would. So, those are two that I think that he will sell and can make money, and he can get cash flowing immediately.

The other two that I saw. I thought PopcornKing. Again, you are not going to be rich on that, but it is a name that is memorable and there probably is a guy that wants to be the popcorn king somewhere.

Michael: It seems like popcorn vendors pop up at every single fair around the world, in every single city. Somebody is going to want that at some point, look it up, and if you have a landing page that it is for sale, they will contact you.

Shane: Yeah, I am sure I have seen that somewhere. So, yeah, it is a name that you are going to get an offer. You are going to sell it for 25 hundred someday fairly simply. And the InnocentFlower one is porn site in the making, so it is going to go.

Quick break from three sponsors of today’s show:

First, if you’re buying a domain name from a private party and want to know what else they own, DomainIQ.com is the tool you should be using. View their entire portfolio, filter by Estibot value and be a better investor. $49.95 for 250 queries per month. Visit DomainIQ.com/portfolio to learn more.

Second, 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, Efty.com.

Finally, If you’re struggling with how to buy, sell, and value domain names, you need to check-out DNAcademy.com. Published by me, Michael Cyger of DomainSherpa, and trusted by Uniregistry to train their new employees, you too can learn using the DNAcademy accelerated learning system for domain name investing. Learn more at DNAcademy.com.

Shane: And the InnocentFlower one is porn site in the making, so it is going to go. I feel dirty just mentioning that really. I think I saw that title at that video store when I picking up.

Michael: All right, so hold on to that one long-term you would say.

Shane: Yeah, it is going. And MohawkRiver sounds like a place I would visit or a shirt I would buy at Wal-Mart.

Michael: So, I try not to talk about porn domains in general on the show, but you mentioned it. It is on the list. I did not even think about it. If you owned it, what would you ask for InnocentFlower.com?

Shane: Well, I have put a lot of thought into it.

Michael: I am talking about the domain, Shane. I am talking about the domain.

Shane: I know. I did a couple hours of homework before the show.

Michael: That is what I love about you guys. You go the extra effort. You do your research before the show. You are looking for value in these domains, so you can recommend it to the people on the show.

Shane: Yeah.

Sam: So, Shane found a lot of value.

Shane: Yeah, so it was hard to find anything about it because there were not many innocent flowers there, but I think there is a couple thousand dollars. I do think it is probably a pretty good brand for a bunch of perverts out there. So, a couple thousand dollars I really do think it could sell for. It is memorable. Innocent. They might screw up the number of C’s in it, but in general it is easy to spell. Yeah, it is a couple-thousand-dollar name. I would probably keep it in my portfolio.

Michael: Yeah.

Shane: I do not do a lot of adult names on purpose. I am sure I have some that were purchased as adult names. And then the names I hate, like SteaksHouse. Names like that drive me crazy. The S on it in the wrong place. I do not know.

Michael: If it was Steakhouse.com, you would love it.

Shane: Yeah, it is a six-figure name probably. Steakhouses are huge. How many steakhouses in the world are there?

Michael: Right. And if it were Steakhouses.com, it would make sense.

Shane: Then it becomes a directory type. I do not like those kinds of names either.

Michael: But this one is just drop. It does not have any value.

Shane: It has zero value to me. Zero value to me. And then there was one more that I saw that drove me crazy.

Sam: Do not use them all.

Michael: I know. He is like sucking up all the show.

Shane: That is okay. I get to do that. Oh yeah, I am sure it means something in another language. Compresto. I do not know. I thought I spoke Spanish, but that does not look like anything to me, so it does not make any sense.

Michael: I do not know. Let me go look it up.

Shane: Yeah, so those are the ones I do not like, but again, there is enough liquid in there. There are a couple names. There are other names they can talk about, but there are some names in there. He is going to make his money back I think and then some.

Michael: Yeah, awesome. All right, thanks, Shane. Drew, let’s go over to you. What do you think about the list and which are your favorites?

Andrew: Yeah, I mean look, it is not a very strong list, but it definitely is better than last week. There are a few names in here that he will probably. It all comes down to what he paid, but I think he could. With a long enough timeline and the right buyer comes knocking, he could probably make some money. I kind of like MohawkRiver. It sounds like a casino.

Michael: It does.

Andrew: And I think that that could be a good brand for a casino, or you could just launch your own online casino. Just call it Mohawk River.

Michaael: What would you ask for MohawkRiver?

Andrew: It is one of these things. Certain names have different spreads. So, this is one that I would not pay more than maybe a couple hundred dollars, like 250 dollars. If this were on NameJet, I probably would not pay more than 250 dollars to buy it. But that being said, if a buyer comes knocking on my door, wanting it, it is probably going to be a hotel or a casino or a large real estate development, and so I am probably going to be asking quite a bit, like 35 to 50 grand and I would probably take 25 or more, which is interesting.

I mean because that is a hell of a multiple if you can get it. The problem is that they may never come, which is why I am only willing to pay 250. OneVisa.com. I kind of like that name too. The world is getting flatter and smaller, and there probably will be some type of like EU type experiment with one visa. You are an accredited traveler. You get one visa and you can travel every or most countries. So, that could be something. That could be an interesting, little name.

Michael: So, you would definitely hold on to it long-term.

Andrew: Oh, for sure. Hold on to it long-term. Hopefully you do not pay a lot for it. I do not think you want to be into that for more than 100 to 150 bucks. I think SafetyRecords.com is probably going to have the shortest timeline to sale in terms of probabilities because that is a big business. Safety records. OSHA tracks your safety records of companies and projects. So, I do not know. There is a home for it. SafetyRecords has a home, and if you spend some time, you can sell that.

Michael: What would you ask on it?

Andrew: Not a lot. That is a five grand name. That is a five to 75 hundred.

Michael: Somewhere in that order of magnitude.

Andrew: Yeah, you really got lucky. Ten grand maybe. And then I think, for whatever reason, I kind of like TheCritical. I do not know why. I just feel like that could be a good media brand. TheCritical.com would be a good editorial page. I like it. TheCritical.com. Again, would not pay a lot for it. Maybe 100 or 200 dollars, 250, but it is a nice, little brand.

Michael: And what would you ask for that brand, for a brandable like that for which you could replace it with a lot of different options probably?

Andrew: Yeah, probably because of that very reason, because it is easily replaceable, you are not going to get a lot for it, but I think ten grand to 15 grand is a very fair and reasonable price that a serious buyer would probably be willing to pay unless they were like really on the fence between a couple names.

Michael: Yeah. All right, and what is a couple that you would definitely drop, Drew? Like looking at this list, I would not keep that.

Andrew: TripleLandia. Sorry, the worst one on here is TheDoctor. Oh, I see it. The hack. TheDoctorIs.In. Awful. You can let that one go.

Shane: I just caught that too.

Michael: I totally did not get that one when I looked at it originally.

Andrew: Yeah, you can definitely drop that. Even with the hack, awful. I mean TheDoctorIsIn.com. Even there, it is like maybe Berkens can sell it for 25.

Michael: I know! Berkens.

Andrew: The rest of us. We may be selling that for 25 hundred dollars, and so when you make it into a hack with India, forget about it. Yeah, and Shicken.com.

Michael: Schicken. What is a shicken?

Andrew: It is a shitty chicken.

Shane: Yeah, I was thinking half sheet, half chicken.

Michael: Urban Dictionary says —-.

Andrew: That should be dangerous to read Urban Dictionary live.

Michael: I know, right? I thought about it just when you said that because some things.

Shane: Does that say —-?

Michael: I should probably remove that part of the show.

Shane: That is too funny.

Michael: All right, at 8:39. Cut that part.

Shane: I think if you leave that in now it is funny.

Sam: Yeah.

Michael: I just read Urban Dictionary. That is all I did. All right, but yes, noted, Drew. I will not read Urban Dictionary again on the air, because there have been some other ones that I am like oh my. Like you have offered me some domains and then I look it up. I am like do you know what it says on Urban Dictionary about that acronym, Drew. There is no way I am buying that.

Andrew: Very, very early on, we had one on the show. One of the first episodes we ever did.

Shane: Was it a cream pie?

Andrew: No, it was something with a mud pie. It was MudShark or something. Go look up mud shark at Urban Dictionary.

Michael: All right, so you would drop Shicken. Is that the point you are trying to make because nobody is buying that?

Andrew: Drop Schicken. Drop TheDoctorIs.In. There are not a ton of names that I would be like all right, just get rid of that.

Michael: Yeah, but this is a decent list. I could tell you the next list, Drew. I know that sometimes you complain about this, but then we rise to a higher level and we are like here is how we can help these investors pick the better names. The next show. We are only doing one show in May because of various travel schedules. The next show has some phenomenal investor-submitted domains. Phenomenal. I do not even know why the guy. The guy wants to get the Sherpa’s take on how he should price them. You are going to love it.

Sam: Make him talk to me first.

Andrew: The other one to get rid of here is NiceKiti because it is Kiti. So, even with two T’s it is a typo, but at least it would be like intelligent typo. With one T and an I on the end, it is just a bad domain.

Michael: All right, good one to drop. All right, Sam, let’s go to you. Anything left on the list that these Sherpas did not talk about.

Sam: I do not know. I think (Unclear 40:42.2) problem. We all have very similar eyes for what we see.

Michael: And I think that just speaks to experience.

Sam: But I wrote down almost exact same things, but he had a couple S’s in the wrong places. So, DollarFinders was another one. Steaks. That one is the worst because it is totally the wrong spot. But I mean the ones I like were SafetyRecords. I like OneVisa. I like PopcornKing. MohawkRiver. I actually like where Drew is going with that, but I actually checked that site out because it is his oldest name on his list. I checked the age on all of them just out of curiosity. But he put up an actual directory. It is an actual location.

So, going Drew’s way, I would take that down. Maybe you could get a casino. My advice would be actually to price everything at like 499, so 4,999 buy it now. So, I did check. He has all these listed for sale at lots of marketplaces, so he is trying to sell these, but they are all make offer. I actually think he might be better on Sedo with all at a straight buy it now price because I think you are going to get some impulse purchases here from people. I actually think overall this list – yeah, there are some shitty names in here, but overall it is not terrible. They are not the worst names I have ever seen.

Michael: And Sam, why would you recommend putting a buy it now? You can only put a buy it now on one location because you will get screwed and it will sell on two locations, and then you will owe a commission on two places. So, you can put a buy it now on Sedo. You can put a buy it now on GoDaddy. Why pick Sedo? Why did you say that?

Sam: I have had a lot of luck with Sedo with buy it now. You could also do Domain Name Sales. Put it there at buy it now. I have never had a problem with two people buying the same name at the same time, so I would not worry about putting it buy it now in two different places, as long as you keep the price consistent. That is a big problem because I check names and sometimes I find a buy it now cheaper somewhere they have not updated it. Then I will just buy it there.

Michael: Yeah.

Sam: That happens, but I think Sedo does a pretty good job for buy it now. It is a quick, easy process. Seems they do a good job. Domain Name Sales basically is just sending you to escrow, but charges you 15 percent.

Michael: Right. Well, what about Afternic? Afternic competes with Sedo MLS.

Sam: Yeah, but I think this guy has it listed everywhere for sale. So, put it everywhere, but I think he actually might do well with a buy it now. Basically five grand. Just below the five grand mark for every single name here, other than MohawkRiver because I did not think of that idea of maybe a casino. I would take down the directory site that he put up and just put (Unclear 43:22.7) before. The business has changed or something.

Shane: Yeah, it is going out of business.

Sam: But get rid of the directory site. Just say there has been a change of development and contact us if you are interested, because doing the directory way you are never going to get that casino paying big bucks. They are not going to see it. I do not know. (Unclear 43:44.7) yeah, the could be a casino because it has got the Native American play in there. For dropping, yeah, I mean I actually did not see InnocentFlower. I do not know how I missed it. That was on my drop list, but now I moved it way up the list. I have TheDoctorIs.In. I actually knew what he was trying to go with there, but I did not like it. There are some other weird ones I looked up. BeFaster. Terrible.

And then this other one is a good example. RothFunds. So, I did not know what the —- that was.

Michael: Beep.

Andrew: Because you are Canadian.

Sam: But it is something. It is like a 401K. Very niche thing. I do not think anyone would ever buy it.

Andrew: The website RothIRA would be huge. I mean that is literally like there is major, major competition for people trying to get your roth IRA and manage your roth IRA and taking the fees, but this is not RothIRA. It is RothFunds, which is not really a thing.

Sam: He is mixing two things together. So, that is sometimes dangerous obviously. It is like with the S. The S is like you look in your email box and you see a thousand emails from people saying this domain is available for a small fee and it has an S added on to it. It is an automated email system. That is really not the same when you put the S in the wrong spot. You should be able to see it, where SafetyRecords actually works, but like DollarFinders does not really work. It is not as bad as the other one, SteaksHouses.

Michael: Yeah.

Sam: I actually thought he had a pretty interesting portfolio. I did not think it was terrible. I am hoping he did not pay a lot for all these, but my only main advice I think is you actually get some immediate sales with buy it now. I know he is trying to sell it because I noticed the names were on every platform.

Michael: Yeah, awesome. All right, Eric, thank you for submitting your portfolio and making a donation for cancer research. We hope this review has been helpful to you and your domain investing activities going forward.

We are going to move on to the Marketplace List. This segment is sponsored by NameJet. We will be reviewing 12 domain names with no reserve or reserve met going to auction soon. For transparency, I always ask the Sherpas if they own any of the domains on the list. I do not believe that they do. No, all right, none of the domains are owned by the Sherpas.

If you are watching this show and you like one of the domains listed below, click through soon because once they go to auction, you lose your chance to put in a minimum bid and watch the auction and be a part of the auction. The links below go directly to the pages on NameJet. They are not commissionable links. We just track them for NameJet. The list starts with Commadore.com and it ends with WhiteMonkey.com. It sounds like a Beastie Boys song, doesn’t it? Oh no, that was brass monkey.

All right, this section we are going to go Drew, then Sam, and then Shane in order. Drew, let’s start with you. What do you like on the NameJet list and why?

Andrew: Okay, so my favorite name on here is Commodore.com. I just think that that is a phenomenal brand. I know that it is like the super old computer. The original desktop, but I just think Commodore.com is a great name. You are probably going to put it in your portfolio for the next decade, but I do not know.

Michael: Yeah, I learned to program on a Commodore 64. So, I did not even look to see what the current bid was at. Is this going to be even one that a newer investor could likely get into, Drew?

Andrew: Probably not, no. This is probably going to go.

Sam: I have a really big bid coming on this one.

Andrew: Oh yeah?

Sam: Oh yeah.

Shane: I think I am out already.

Michael: Pretty big bid. Over 20 thousand? Over ten thousand? What is your pretty big bid?

Sam: I do not want to say it because I want to get it for cheaper.

Andrew: So, yeah, it is a great name. It is probably going to go pretty high. I mean it is a phenomenal name. I think when I looked it is really old.

Sam: It is. It is Commodore. I looked it up.

Andrew: Is it the original Commodore name?

Sam: I am pretty —- sure it is.

Michael: Wow.

Andrew: Yeah.

Sam: I was checking the WhoIS records. I think it is them.

Andrew: Okay. I mean it is legit. It is a solid, solid, solid name. I have to check what is going on with trademarks at this point, but great name. I like EcoFund because these sort of impact funds are becoming extremely popular in mainstream, so EcoFund is a great example of a brand for that industry. And then TrainingOnline. Training seminars. This is huge business. This is one of the fastest growing segments of Internet commerce services, is training. All sorts and all forms of training, and training online is pretty straightforward.

Michael: TrainingOnline is massive. You look at Udeme. You look at all these online courses that are out there, but this is a two-word keyword, Drew. What do you say to people who say you have got to use a brandable for an online company that does training, is a marketplace or whatever versus the keyword domains like this?

Andrew: Well, look, I think that your friend that passed on.

Michael: Joe Pullizi. ContentMarketing.com.

Andrew: Yeah, Joe Pullizi probably regrets not buying ContentMarketing.com, and it does not matter what his brand name is. You do not want your competition to own ContentMarketing.com if you are in the content marketing business. And if you are in that business, you can either use that as your primary website or you can launch an authoritative website and publish a shitload of content that gets you some nice SEO juice and rankings in Google and use that to your advantage for your primary website. And there are many ways to go about doing that.

And one of the hottest parts of our business right now on the acquisition side is we have been getting a ton of sort of SMEs coming to us, saying they want to buy websites like that. Not necessarily the domain names, but websites. So, that means there is a good market to build these websites. So, somebody is launching a business in the electric vehicle market and they say well, we want to buy some of the blogs and the forums that are authoritative in Google, that people are going to before they make purchasing decisions in order to inform themselves because we want to have control of that information, of that traffic. And that is becoming really, really popular.

We have had a lot of clients wanting to do just that in their respective fields recently. So, if you launch TrainingOnline and you turn that into a forum or turn that into a blog or just even if it is a news repository, there are a lot of ways for a company to use it. I am not saying a domain investor should do that, but I am saying that there is a lot of ways for companies to use that to their benefit. And so, even if you are called Blue.com and you are an online training business, TrainingOnline could be a very effective sales and marketing tool.

Michael: I hear you. So, if you bought it, let’s start with retail first. What would you ask for it if you owned TrainingOnline.com?

Andrew: I do not know. I might ask 50. Probably more like 25. I would probably expect to get 15 to 25 thousand for that name. To be honest, I have not actually looked at the stats, so if it has got big stats on top of being just a good two-word, then I might adjust that accordingly, but my gut instinct is that it is a 15 to 25-thousand-dollar name. It is realistically where it is going to sell, and I would probably just ask 30 to 50 percent more than that.

Michael: TrainingOnline has three thousand monthly searches. 18-dollar cost-per-click. EstiBot value: 12 thousand. So, you are on that order of magnitude. Now, my follow-up question for you, Drew, is two follow up questions and then we are going to move on to the other Sherpas. What would you pay for it if you were looking to get 15 to 25 out of it?

Andrew: So, when you tell me that it has only got three thousand searches, I am probably going to adjust what I pay down, although I do think it is probably still in that ten to 15. 25 is probably high, but ten to 15 is probably what it sells for. Yeah, I would probably pay a grand to 15 hundred for it.

Michael: Okay. And then which is better: TrainingOnline.com or OnlineTraining.com?

Andrew: I think OnlineTraining rolls off the tongue better. Again, I would probably go to two things. I would look at what Google is pushing.

Michael: From their quick menu. Type in training online. Does is show online training?

Andrew: Exactly. And then I would also look at the stats and just see which one has more search volume.

Michael: Yeah, and that one you would price more. And I do not know which one it is, but let’s say that TrainingOnline.com was worth more. Would you pick up Training.Online with the same logic that somebody would want to potentially build a blog, use it as a contributing domain to their website someday?

Andrew: I am on the fence. I would probably let it go. If I could hand register it, then yes, by all means. If I bought TrainingOnline and then I could hand register Training.Online, by all means I would hand register it, but that is not going to be the case. You are not going to be ble to hand register it, so you are probably going to end up having to pay what you paid for the TrainingOnline.com and then it is not worth it. Let somebody go buy Training.Online, realize they are losing the traffic and then come buy the one from you. I think that is probably the better strategy there.

Michael: Yeah. All right, OnlineTraining.com has 12 thousand monthly searches. A little bit lower cost-per-click. Rolls off the tongue and has more searches. The EstiBot value. Funny enough, the monthly searches only increased by a factor of four from three thousand to 12 thousand, but the price, the EstiBot value went to 281 thousand.

Sam: Wow.

Michael: So, I am not sure why EstiBot thinks that OnlineTraining is worth so much more even though the stats are not magnitudes higher. It is one magnitude higher.

Andrew: Yeah, I mean you could. I think if you went to Google, you would probably find much higher number of advertisers for that OnlineTraining.

Michael: Yeah.

Andrew: And they probably do have some degree of AI involved in their algorithm that sort of understands human speech, and so OnlineTraining is definitely the more intuitive version.

Michael: Yeah. All right, cool. Thanks, Drew. Let’s go over to Sam. Sam, what do you like on the NameJet list and why?

Sam: Oh, I like this list. A lot of stuff I like. So, I will not talk about Commodore because I like it, but I will talk about some of the interesting ones I saw in here. So, I really liked ReferralClub, I really liked EcoFunds, and I really like WhiteMonkey as well. I chose WhiteMonkey because I think I liked WhiteMonkey. I knew Drew would want it number one. That does some terrible things to monkeys. Anyway, no, I will go through them.

So, TrainingOnline. I knew the other way is better. I have had some success with the online in the front and I think that is where (Unclear 56:12.3) coming from. If you do some searches, pretty sure it is supposed to be the other way. Definitely you should get it if you can get the thing cheap. I do not think you will though. That is the problem with a lot of these names.

The ones that I think you might be able to sneak in. WhiteMonkey for a newer investor to get. I think it is a good brand. I think it is kind of interesting. It is unique. I do not know. For me, it sounded interesting. I really liked it.

Michael: Yeah.

Sam: ReferralClub I liked a lot as well. I thought it could be really good for some. It could accommodate a lot of businesses. Really big companies have referral programs of some sort. I checked. There is actually businesses you can search just for the words referral club and it goes to car dealership. It is a good one.

Andrew: That is a nice one. That is good.

Michael: It is a good brandable, yeah. Hey Sam, before we go on, ReferralClub. If you owned it, what would you ask for ReferralClub? The brandable domain, because I agree. It is a great, little niche. I looked at buying a referral type of business in the past, but it went too high auction on Flippa. What would you sell the domain name for?

Sam: I mean I always have a certain price point that I find effective. So, between 33 and 60K you are getting a real business that will pay for it. If you go above that, then you can do that. You can go for 100K for any name. You just have to have enough of them and just not care.

Michael: You think you can get 30 to 60K for ReferralClub.com?

Sam: Yeah, it is the exact name. ReferralClub. I mean yes, old as shit. I like that. This has never been marketed before. This is dropping. Yeah, I think a business would pay. If you think about it for a multi-level marketing.

Andrew: Yeah, that is a great name. It was not even on my hit list, but the more you talk about it.

Michael: But Drew, 30 to 60K.

Andrew: To sell it. To resell it.

Michael: Yeah, retail.

Andrew: I think that is probably a little steep, but yeah, not out of range. I would have said 25.

Michael: All right, same order of magnitude. All right, and then what would you pay for it, Sam?

Sam: It is going to go high. That is the problem too. People are going to notice this one. So, I would go up to 5 to 6K on this one. I watch as well. I do watch the bidding a little bit to see how many other people are feeling the same thing I feel. Sometimes can give you false confidence. It is a good new and I just think you are going to well with that one.

The ones I did not like. So, I did not like TheDowners. That one. I really do not like negative words, and with the S on the end, it is like a double. Maybe downer would have been something.

Michael: I do not know. Downer sounds negative to me, but downers could be like pills that just bring you down off of a high. Some people just want to mellow out.

Sam: Yeah, but I do not know. You cannot really market that stuff too effectively online. Kind of on the gray to black area for marketing. The other ones I did not like. I mean I did not really like the .NETs. I like them if they are so cheap, like EnergyDrink and TeethBleaching, but they are still just selling a little too high. If I can get these for 69 dollars, sure, but I do not think they are going to go to that level. I think a lot of the big, big guys who have a lot more funds. It is just a volume game for them, so they will probably bid this up to two hundred to five hundred dollars on each name.

I am not going to talk about the vegan. I am going to give him something to play with. And EcoFund was another one. I said I loved that name. Loved it.

Michael: Yeah, awesome. All right, thanks, Sam. Shane, let’s go over to you.

Shane: Yeah, we are all in agreement on that. Commodore. I do not have a shot in the world, so I am just going to let it pass it. I grew up on a Bit Commodore II, so when I look at that, all I think is my computer and Vanderbilt. Those are the two things that come right to mind. That is a fantastic name. EcoFund. Same thing. Everything is eco right now, as it should be. I am in the eco business.

The ReferralClub. Again, he hit it right on the head. There is a lot of money in CommissionJunction and all those referrals. Everybody wants you to sell. Drew’s guy who brought him the name. He is a referral club. He refers names. Everything is about referral and bringing money to the table. So, there is big money in that. I was thinking 15 to 20K on it, but now that we have talked about it, the price is going to go, like Sam said. It is going to be five or six, and getting 15 for something you paid five or six gets kind of tough. I mean ten thousand is a lot of money. I get it. You will get emails saying ten thousand, but when Drew said you pay 250 and you are selling for 25 thousand, you are probably picking up one hundred names or two hundred names waiting for that 25-thousand-dollar sale.

So, it is not a great a profit as it seems. Yes, that one name, but this is a numbers game. So, I like that one. TeethBleaching. I always notice there is a high click on teeth bleaching. People and their teeth and their whitening. I did not look it up. Maybe Sam did, but the CPC probably is three, four, or five dollars on teeth bleaching. I do not know why people buy online bleach kits, but they do. They are always for sale and they always hit numbers, even .NET.

I did not like TrainingOnline. Those are the kinds of names to me that I think people, and again, Drew knows his names better than anybody, but they overvalue because it is so broad. I think somebody else would rather own CPRTraining than they would TrainingOnline, or whatever training they are doing is much more important to them than that broad term. So, I think if you add whatever type of training to training, it becomes much more valuable than TrainingOnline. OnlineTraining is great, but again, same thing. Super, super broad, but if I were a company, I would rather have something just a tiny bit more specific if I was a company.

And I look at everything as a company. I think that is what helps me in this industry, is what name would help my company. And domain investors have a different idea a lot of times, saying this would help your company. This would help your company. Well, I buy ads. I buy Google ads. I buy online. I buy TV. I buy radio. I know what I pay and what I need, what kind of domain I need to increase my sales, and it is sometimes a product. Mulch.com is great for selling mulch, so I know about that and TrainingOnline. Yeah, it is going to be a good marketing name, but I am sure as hell not naming my company that. It is going to be something that is pure marketing budget, and we know marketing budgets are in the millions of dollars for a lot of companies.

I am not touching VeganFamily. I know where you are headed with that. I guarantee it sells for four hundred dollars or more though.

Michael: All right, I will track that one. VeganFamily sells for four hundred, but you are not touching it. I am not buying it.

Shane: And again, I am being serious. WhiteMonkey, to me, seemed racist. That is what I saw. I really did.

Michael: Oh, I did not see that at all.

Sam: I did not even see that. Now you ruined it for me.

Michael: I know. Now he is not going to buy it. I thought because there are white monkeys. I just watched the Jungle Book.

Shane: That does not mean anybody is being something. I am just saying I know what this world is like, and I think that some people will have bad connotations.

Andrew: Yeah, I had White.com. I ended up selling it. We sold it for a good price. Made a profit, but I sold it for a lot cheaper than what I originally anticipated I was going to sell it for simply because seven out of ten people, unfortunately in the world we live in, said oh, White.com. I had Negro.com, and I ended up selling it to Ammar super cheap, which I regret actually. But I ended up selling that to Ammar super cheap because in Spanish that is just black. It means black. If I had Black.com, I would sell it for like ten million dollars. But Negro.com has a bad connotation and people got all uppity about it and I was like all right and I just sold it to Ammar.

Michael: So, yeah, it is a good point. You have just got to be aware of it as an investor.

Shane: Yeah, I mean that is the business class. You have got to know how other people perceive your name. Was it Nova when they sold their car in Mexico? It does not go or no go.

Andrew: No go.

Shane: Chevy Nova. That was his thing. Yeah, they bought Chevy Nova in Mexico and nobody bought it because they thought it did not move because it is no go in Spanish or do not move. Yeah, those are the kinds of names, but I do get the color. We talk about this all the time. Color animal is a fantastic brand. We have hit that point. So, I saw where you were going with that, but those are the kinds I stay away from.

I thought StayInSchool was good. StayInSchool is probably better as a .ORG, but when we grew up, that was kind of the.

Andrew: It was the campaign. It was all over the television and radios.

Sam: I just do not know who is going to pay for it though.

Michael: Right. Who is going to pay for it and how much are they going to pay?

Sam: Probably does not pay anything.

Shane: Nothing. Nothing at all.

Michael: All right, so newer investors do not buy StayInSchool. It sounds good. We grew up with it and nobody is going to pay for it.

Shane: And you cannot value domains without build out, but to me, the first thing I would do is make a college choice site. Stay in school. Go to college. Here are your choices to go. That is how I would look at it, but the reason it hit me is because that was the thing. Stay in school. Do not skip school. Do all that. But I think an educational name as far education, it is pretty good. And if you get it cheap enough, yeah, but build outs we know. Everybody has got build outs in their mind and zero people do it or do it well.

Those are the kinds of names I like. I did not like Downers.

Michael: All right. What about Promotable? Do any of you guys like Promotable?

Andrew: No.

Michael: Because why?

Shane: What does that mean?

Michael: I do not know. I picked it because I thought it sounded good, but I do not even know what would be on Promotable. Is it like a Glassdoor?

Sam: Move up a company.

Shane: That is what I mean. That is probably where it is at. I am so good I can move higher in the company, but I would not even use it as an email.

Michael: So, no clear commercial use for it.

Sam: It would be like Sellable or something, but Promotable does not really work.

Shane: Able names are tough.

Sam: You kind of feel it. You are like does that work. You are like no.

Michael: All right, I threw two .NET domains on this list because they were both relatively high CPC and they were two words. Shane, you said you liked TeethBleaching.net because people actually buy teeth bleaching kits online.

Shane: Yeah, they sell.

Michael: And energy drinks sell. They would not be on the counter of every single grocery store unless they sold.

Shane: Here is the difference. Energy drinks is like vodka. It is all about the brand. Yes, it is an energy drink, but it is all about Black Water. It is all about the brand. Making it generic takes away everything they are trying to build in my opinion. So, in that case, TeethBleaching.

Michael: It is all generic.

Shane: It is all generic, yeah.

Michael: But is any teeth bleaching kit company going to actually buy a .NET?

Sam: No, these are names I have sold and I might even own this name. I have a lot of names like this because I did a lot of promotion in this field, but I thought the same thing. It is good for marketing, so this is a good name to use on Google. It looks good, but it is one of those comparison websites, but a brand cannot use this. The real brands are big. And even the ones that are big are not going to use this, but it is good for like a comparison site. But the problem is I just do not think anyone will buy it. It is good for a marketer, but that means you could almost use anything for a marketer. You can put bathroom there if you are going to use it for Google AdWords because really no one is typing it in. You are paying for the clicks. Looks correct still.

Michael: Yeah.

Sam: If you can get it cheap, yeah, but it has to be really cheap.

Michael: So, if a teeth bleaching manufacturer or brand is going to buy it, they are going to have a bigger budget, but if an affiliate marketer is going to buy it, they are going to have a smaller budget because they are going to use it for advertising or whatever.

Sam: Yeah, affiliate marketers will buy this, so if you get it cheap. I mean that is the problem with these lists. Everything is good depending on the price. But if you get this for one hundred or two hundred bucks, then you can probably put it on Sedo and do a buy it now for two grand. I do think maybe that an affiliate marketer will buy it. They will not buy EnergyDrink (Unclear 1:09:39.5). That does not make sense.

Michael: All right. Drew, final comments on two-word .NETs.

Andrew: Very, very tough sell. Even the biggest ones. We have got LifeInsurance.net for sale and we have got CarInsurance.net for sale. We have got some monster names that three or four years ago I would have been selling in the high six figures or seven figures that we are just not getting a lot of traction these days. It is unfortunate. What is interesting is I think there is actually a lot of value there. I think it is very easy to get caught up in the hype of like oh, new gTLDs and thinking that something and then something to the right of the dot is new and so it is great. Well, there is the redheaded stepchild .NET that is sitting there on the sidelines that these are aged domains. These domains are 20 years old and they are being overlooked.

And so, I actually do think that there is some tremendous value there to be had. I think that some of these names are really undervalued. Substantially undervalued. I am seeing some of these one-word and two-word .NETs and .ORGs selling on NameJet and particularly on Flippa for just such low prices that it seems silly. But the fact of the matter is that is the market. I mean I am not going to lie. There is no liquidity beyond that and to get more than that you have just got to have the wherewithal and the patience to stand in there and maybe the market turns. Maybe it does not, but I still think that a real strong two-word .NET that is aged and has a lot of commercial intent still outweighs most new TLDs, where you have got the one word and then the other word on the other side of the dot every day of the week.

20 years versus eight months wins every time.

Shane: Yeah, as an end user, I love it. I bought Sam’s Blueberries.net.

Sam: I was going to mention that.

Shane: For me, selling blueberry plants and you are driving down the highway, Blueberries.net at 70 mph works. And I bought Dirt.net. We sell dirt. We sell topsoil. I have got piles of it. People are flying by the nursery. Dirt.net is perfect. And I am getting it for next to nothing comparatively, yet those people will remember .NET. I do not care what anybody tells you. They remember .NET. It is old enough. It has been around long enough, and so Blueberries.net works for me. I doubt they will type in Blueberries.com. Maybe they will, but as an end user, that is about as good a deal as you are getting right now on those one words. You cannot afford .COM and the rest of them are too confusing, so the .NET as a final end user is a steal.

Sam: You should have bid on my Cranberries.

Michael: Dude, keep your cranberries to yourself.

Shane: Yeah, my bogs are not quite deep enough or whatever it is to go for Cranberries.

Michael: Your bogs. All right, sounds personal. All right, we are at the end of the show, today’s Sherpas. I want to give each of the Sherpas an opportunity to share anything that they want about brokering names they have, selling names they have, deals they are offering, opportunities they are looking at, any place they are going, traveling to, anybody they want to give a shout-out to. Let’s start with you, Drew.

Andrew: So, we still have auctions running at NameJet. You could see our banner on the homepage at NameJet or go to MediaOptionsAuctions.com. Lots of great names coming up, including Pug.com. We have some amazing domains under brokerage right now, including Vaporizer.com, Raggae.com, Single.com, POV.com, and JL.com. We have got just an amazing list of domains being brokered. We just are in the process of completing the sale of another two-letter .COM to an end user. I am sure there will be news about that coming out soon for a very good price.

And what else is going on? We just sold a three-letter .COM for one million dollars.

Michael: Was that an actual word?

Andrew: It was not a word. It was sort of a made-up word.

Michael: Wow.

Andrew: Yeah.

Michael: For one million bucks just an acronym.

Andrew: Yeah, 980 thousand dollars.

Michael: Oh, so it was not one million.

Shane: You only got two commas in there.

Andrew: So, it is a pronounceable three-letter .COM. That is what it is. It is a pronounceable three-letter .COM for one million bucks.

Michael: Congrats. Was that brokered or one of Media Options? Brokered.

Andrew: Brokered. Yeah, I am seeing a lot of strength in the end user market.

Michael: That is awesome.

Andrew: We just saw that FF.com. We had nothing to do with the transaction, but FF.com just sold through Fairday Future, which legitimately probably was in the seven to ten-million-dollar range.

Michael: Wow.

Andrew: So, that is a big sale.

Michael: Well, congrats, Drew. Sam, let’s go over to you. Anything you want to promote.

Sam: I will give a shout-out to NameJet to Laurie and Jonathon (Unclear 1:15:18.7) for helping me out a lot with some of my listings there. I will not promote mine. You will find them one way or another, but yeah, I just wanted to give my shout-out to them. I will give a shout-out to you as well for helping me out with my new site, so (Unclear 1:15:32.3) launched that. Got your opinion on it.

Michael: Yeah, do you want to throw out the domain, so people can go visit it?

Sam: It will be ready by the time you launch this, so it SRD. Six Red Dice. We made up a name. It is my name actually, but you know that.

Michael: Awesome. SRD.com. Go check it out. Do you want people to give you feedback in the comments here, Sam?

Sam: Sure. Maybe on the site (Unclear 1:15:58.8) called out right in public.

Michael: All right, go to the contact form on the site. Send Sam some feedback please. All right, well, congrats on that, Sam. Shane, anything you want to promote or mention. Give a shout-out to.

Shane: I apologize to everybody that I am not getting back to my emails quite as quick. It has been 78 to 80 degrees here in Illinois, and we have had record sales at the nursery. The economy. I do not care what anybody is saying. The economy is booming. Farmers and businesspeople are spending money. So, yeah, it has been crazy. It has probably been the hardest month of my life. I have not taken a day off. Not bragging to say I work a lot. It is just where we are at, at this point in time. Everything is going well.

So, I think I have opened every email with my apologies lately just because I am really good usually about responding instantly. With the phones you can get right back to it. I have been a little slow lately. I thank people like Sam. I help promote people that have names at auction and his names are fantastic. It makes it easy. I get a lot of people that have just awful names and they are doing whatever they can to try and get people to see them and look at them. They are just not strong names. There are a lot of people struggling right now because they have gotten into the Chinese names that are second tier. Not even the ones I recommend, but add another couple letters and you are getting in eight numbers and seven numbers. A lot of people are taking a hit, and so there are a lot of names that are worth nothing now.

So, it is nice to see. Sam has got a great portfolio and he has not ridden himself of bad names. He is selling good names and keeping moving. So, I like to see stuff like that. It is good for everybody. I was able to pick up Blueberries.net. It is perfect for me. But yeah, just the blog. Josh and Travis are doing a great job, and of course Aaron. Aaron is the other part of the site. He is as busy too. He is in commercial real estate, so he is going crazy. So, it is good to see a bunch of guys that enjoy domains and the rest of the world is going just well. Do not think that we are just doing domains. It is great.

Drew and Sam. That is what they do for a living, but the rest of us kind of have other obligations, but we are still trying to hit both of them.

Michael: Well, even Sam runs the Publishing Advertising Network. Drew is doing it full-time. So, just to be completely clear, there are a lot of investors and successful investors that do it part-time while they do some other work full-time.

Shane: We could talk forever. There is a lot of reasons. Financially it is smart to keep a dayjob and do it because you can put in three or four hours per day and do a good job with domain investing and do your homework, but it takes a lot of extra time. You are not going to do this on four hours per week and do well. You have got to treat it like a full-time business. You just have to do it on a second time. But yeah, the blog is what we are doing. I do help people later in the season. Again, I think everybody, because of this show, asks a lot of questions on what do I do with my domains. How do I make the auctions better? What do I list?

There are a lot of questions. People have a lot of questions, and I think this show really helps them out. But after the show, they keep coming and again, I apologize not being able to answer every single person I want to. Do not think that I am rude by not giving you advice. Keep watching the show. I will plug you DN Academy. Even I go back to look up some things that I forget because it is all in one place as far as a couple tools here and there. So, anyway. I appreciate everybody stopping by the site.

Michael: Awesome. Well, thanks for that, and I am excited to see Aaron at DN Seattle. I am like what are you going to do, ride your bike out here like you did to Shane, and he is like no, I am coming out. I have got a buddy down in Oregon, so that is cool.

I also want to give a shout-out to Michael Sumner over at NameBio.com. He shot me an email, probably you guys as well, that they have just come out with the domain game app for iPhone and iPad, where you can basically take a quiz on what domains sold where and on what date, and you are trying to guess the order of magnitude. You know how I talk about order of magnitude all the time. We look up NameJet. Drew says a domain is worth 25 thousand to 30 thousand or 40 thousand. I look it up on NameJet. It says 12 thousand and I am like same order of magnitude. Close enough. This is not an exact science.

So, what they are trying to do here with the domain game is the exact same thing. Look at some sales like ApolloGardens.com sold September 22, 2015 at Buy Domains. Was that a three-figure, four-figure, five-figure, or six-figure? Oh, I missed it. I am going to say four-figure, and it was four figures. 17 hundred dollars. So, I just lost. Out of time. I think I lost some points for that. This game is killing me because I wanted to get into the top ten to show I rock at valuation and I am still like number 13, but I will break this game. I will get to the top of the list.

I am recommending it to all my DN Academy students coming up. I think it is great. If you are sitting in the doctor’s office, you are waiting for a bus, or whatever, fire it up because then you get to think how does Buy Domains price their domains. How does a private sale? If it is a private sale, if it is a single word .COM, if it is whatever, you start to think. You can start to put together the patterns, just like the Sherpas do, and figure out how to price domain names. So, I do recommend it. I am recommending it to DN Academy students, just like I recommend that they go look at DN Journal listing over the years and see how domain names have increased in value over time. And if you are interested in signing up for DN Academy, 50 dollars for using SHERPAFAN. And that is it.

If you received benefit from today’s show, please post a comment. Post a Twitter thank you to these guys. Sam, are you on Twitter? When they click thank the Sherpas, you are not on Twitter.

Sam: Yeah, I am not on any of that.

Michael: All right. Well, they are going to say thanks Media Options, Domain Shane, and Sam Dennis. And do that please. Just take a moment. Even if you are working out right now, listening to this show on your iPod, just get off. Take your iPad or your iPhone, go to the show and say awesome show. Thanks for the show. Whatever you want to say, like I love Shane. Sam is my favorite. Whatever.

Thanks to Eric Patawa for submitting his portfolio and making a generous donation to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Thanks to NameJet for submitting their portfolio and sponsoring that portion of the Domain Sherpa Review. And thanks again to our Domain Sherpas, Andrew Rosener, Sam Dennis, and Shane Cultra for sharing their experience and insights. We will see you all next time.

Watch the full video at:
https://domainsherpa.com/review-20160502/

More About…

Keywords:
Companies:
People:

Leave a Reply

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

 

12 Responses to “DomainSherpa Review – May 2: AIX.com, FastFunds.com, LLL.xyz, Ecofund.com…”

  1. Fred says:

    Thanks guys for the show. I always end up buying a couple domains while watching the show because they spark ideas.

  2. John Kenney says:

    Great show. Thanks for taking time to share your knowledge.

  3. Kelly says:

    Wow Namejet promoting and selling such 2 words .com ? even 2 words .net ?

    I love itttttttttttttt

  4. Marek Hajnce says:

    Hi Guys,

    I really appreciate your time and effort you all put into this show, no doubt number 1 show. What I love the most is you guys have knowledge, experience and great sense of humour and you putting it all together, Great job. Thank you

  5. Noor says:

    Mike, Sam, Shane and Drew…..Great show, thank you for sharing so much info, much appreciated.

    Your show is number 1 on my watch list every week, beating Game of thrones.

    Noor

  6. Candace says:

    Thank you so much for the time you guys put into making the show awesome. You guys are hilarious and I learned a lot.

    I wish I could play the Domain Game was on my android. :-(

  7. Niz says:

    Thanks for another great show Michael..

    Thanks very much sherpas.. appreciate the time you guys are putting in.

  8. Michael Calabretta says:

    Great show as usual! Thanks Drew, Sam, Shane, & Michael! I learn something every time I watch.

  9. Daniel says:

    Haha
    I’ve been listening to you & the sherpa’s for the last 2 years and I just realised that…. I never signed up on your website.
    Until now. I hope to hear more great shows over the next 2 years now that I’ll be getting them straight to my email.

  10. Another top-notch show! As Andrew said X at the end was something that I always paid attention. BrowserX was one of my first Internet projects, a tabbed browser long before Firefox and Chrome had it… Also, one of my favorite 4L is mlmX
    :-)

  11. Zac Zarev says:

    Great show Michael and Sherpas!

  12. Nice show as usual sherpas. Learned a lot, laughed a lot.

Domaining magazine site recommended by Domaining.com
Copyright © 2010-2024 DomainSherpa. All rights reserved. Reproduction without explicit permission is prohibited.
About  |  Advertising  |  Affiliate Links  |  Disclaimer  |  Disclosures  |  Privacy  |  Terms  |  Contact Us