We’re joined by three Domain Sherpas: Michael Krell, Sam Dennis and Shane Cultra.
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Watch the full video at:
https://domainsherpa.com/review-20160718/
On today’s DomainSherpa Review, the Sherpas tell us what they bought and sold, including TheBigIsland.com, PitchNCatch.com, and Mahagony.com, and we focus on brandable domain names going to auction soon.
Michael Cyger: Hey Sherpa Network. I’m Michael Cyger, Publisher of DomainSherpa.com, and this is the DomainSherpa 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. And finally, we will preview some domains going to auction soon at NameJet.com.
Joining us today on the DomainSherpa Review are three past Sherpas and industry thought leaders. In order from left to right, we have Michael Krell, Managing Director of the brandable domain name marketplace, BrandBucket.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.
Today’s show is sponsored by six awesome service providers in the domain name industry. I am going to tell you about them later in the show, but they are EstiBot, Escrow.com, David Weslow Legal Services, DomainIQ, Efty, and DNAcademy. But first, Sherpas, welcome to today’s show.
Unclear: Good seeing you.
Unclear: Hey guys.
Michael C: Shane, it is good to see you alive, buddy.
Shane Cultra: Yeah, I know.
Michael C: Two weeks ago, you climbed to the top of Mount Rainier, and even better, you let me get out of joining you on the climb to the top of Mount Rainier. How was it?
Shane: You should say it is a pleasure to be asked.
Michael C: It was an honor to be asked, yeah.
Shane: Yeah, it is one of those things you are better off not knowing the full extent of what it is before you go in, and that was definitely a lot harder than I thought going in. I thought all these guys my age think they are tough and run marathons, but it was a lot harder. There is a different air up at 14 to 15 thousand feet.
Michael C: Yeah, I totally thought yeah, that sounds cool. I am going to do that, and then I went and did a little bit of research online. I was like yeah, people die every single year doing that.
Shane: I skipped that part of it. I did not even know that half the people do not make it. I assumed that was a given. That you are going to go to the top, and then they would let us know the last 13 troops or groups up there did not make it. You pay all this money and all this time and you do not even make it to the top. Take an elevator or something.
Michael C: Yeah, so you sent me some pictures. Here are a couple of the pictures that you sent me. That is pretty cool. And then here is one crazy one.
Shane: That one looks like a painting. I think I am going to have somebody make a painting out of that. Doesn’t it look like it is fake?
Sam Dennis: That is a gorgeous one. How long of a trek is it?
Michael C: You had beautiful weather, didn’t you?
Shane: Yeah, they said it was the nicest day on the mountain in ten year. The nicest photos. And people that went two days before got the shittiest pictures ever. Clouds and you cannot see anything. It is raining. And here mine is like a photographer’s dream.
Michael C: Yeah, anybody that is just watching on the podcast, I am showing pictures of Shane’s climb here. Some pretty awesome weather that they had there. There is Shane. That is you, right?
Shane: Yeah, that is me.
Michael C: We got verification. You actually did it. You are all tied off together. Did anybody go down and try and take everybody else with them on the line?
Shane: Yeah, so a quick, funny story. So, we are all tied up and sometimes they will give you 15 feet. Sometimes they will give you three or four if it is a little tighter, and there is a crevasse. I call them crevices, but I guess if you go higher, they call them crevasses. And there was no way in hell I was going to get in that. I was going in, so I got a little running start and jumped and forgot that the guy is tied on to me behind. He was not expecting me to jump and I pulled him head first, sliding down the hill into this crevasse.
Michael C: But you made it over.
Shane: I made it over fine, but I was tied up pretty tight behind him and he pulled off his feet, sliding down, and the guide is yelling self-arrest, which is like you are supposed to put your axe in the ground and hold on, and I looked back and realized what I had done. And we are like putting our hands in the mountain, trying to keep him from falling in, and he is like doing a snowman because we are so inexperienced. We do not know what to do. I thought it was funny. He did not think it was funny at all.
Michael C: Yeah, I can imagine not thinking that is funny too. Did you talk to your guide and you were like hey man, I am a Sherpa too?
Shane: Exactly. I was trying to get all the sponsors and all the people to help me out in this business and I was trying to get pictures at the top and wear my Escrow hat and everything, and I was so tired I did not care about anybody else but myself. I would have pushed everybody off the mountain just to get another breath of air. It was just brutal. So, none of that happened.
Michael C: Yeah. Nice, man. So, you never feared for your life really.
Shane: I always tell my daughter. I say you have got to get uncomfortable to move further, and man, I was uncomfortable, so I must have moved real far ahead.
Michael C: Yeah.
Shane: But it was fun.
Michael C: Awesome. Well, welcome back. Sam, good to have you back as well. It has been a few weeks since we had you on the show here.
Sam: Good to be here.
Michael C: Hair is nice and spikey.
Sam: Yeah, just for you I moved it up. I was just in the lake actually. I just was having a swim.
Michael C: Now, I am north, but you are even farther north than I am today. It has got to be cold in the lake.
Sam: No, it is like – I do not know – 33 right now.
Michael C: Dude, I have got to get out my calculator to translate that. Everybody outside the US knows if that is warm or cold. I have no idea.
Shane: It is almost freezing.
Sam: It is warm.
Michael C: Yeah, that was Centigrade.
Sam: It is 80 something for you guys.
Michael C: Wow.
Sam: It is like 85.
Michael C: That is warm, dude. Nice.
Sam: The lake is not that hot during the day.
Michael C: So, you are on some vacation today. Thanks for joining us on the Sherpa panel today on vacation. We have got a little bit of a delay for Sam, so I will try to be aware of that and not talk over you. Good to have you.
Sam: Yeah, sorry about that. My satellite Internet here is not the best.
Michael C: No worries. Satellite never is. I do not think. Michael Krell on the show. Just had you I think just a few weeks ago on DNAcademy. We do private webinars for the DNAcademy students, where we get to pick people’s brains in detail. I appreciated you coming on there and sharing some information on buy and sell valuations for brandables. Good to have you back on DomainSherpa and as a Sherpa panel member I think for the first time.
Michael Krell: Yeah, this is my first time here. The DNAcademy course was a lot of fun. It was good to get emails from your students and everything for follow-up, so it was a good time and hopefully it seems like they learned. I was able to impart some wisdom.
Michael C: That is awesome. And now that the students have been in for a couple of months, we have got students that are starting to post their first buy and sale as a result of being in the academy, which is very cool to see. One of our students bought a domain and just a few weeks later bought it for 15 dollars and sold it for 28 hundred dollars. Loved it. I am still waiting for the first one to come through. That was on BrandBucket. That will be great.
Michael K: Yeah, for sure.
Michael C: So, we have got special months for DNAcademy that are similar to DomainSherpa, but if you are a DNAcademy student and you share back, you get a mug. So, by the way, you came on DNAcademy, so I have a special mug for you.
Michael K: Oh okay, nice.
Sam: I want a special mug.
Michael C: You want a special mug. You got your DomainSherpa mug. I know you did. But you want a DNAcademy mug.
Sam: I did not bring it. I brought my Sapporo mug.
Michael C: So, I think you could get that whole Sapporo in the DNAcademy mug. They are a little bit bigger than the DomainSherpa mugs. We will give it a shot.
Sam: They are significant.
Michael C: All right Sherpas, we are going to start off with the segment called What’s New, Sherpas, where the Sherpas share one purchase or sale that they have made over the past few weeks and we get to learn what they paid or received for the domain name, why they thought it was a good deal, and how the negotiation progressed or how the sale progressed. I will lead you through the questions, but the other Sherpas will get to comment during the process as well.
The order for this round is going to be Shane, then Michael, and then Sam. Shane, what is one domain name that you have personally bought or sold or negotiated in the past couple of weeks? Tell us the domain name and not the price yet.
Shane: Okay, I just bought it. Just finished it up yesterday and it is TheBigIsland.com.
Michael C: TheBigIsland.com. Let’s go over to Sam right next to you. Sam, what do you think Shane paid for TheBigIsland.com?
Sam: Oh, there must be something behind it, the reason he bought it, but I cannot see it, so I do not know. I think he paid 15 hundred bucks because most people do not sell stuff for less than that.
Michael C: Yeah. Michael Krell, what do you think Shane paid for TheBigIsland.com?
Michael K: Yeah, geos are not in my wheelhouse. I do not know. I would go a little higher. I would say maybe 25 hundred to 3K.
Michael C: Yeah, and it is interesting that you say that. So, I mean to, in the intro, mention that both the NameJet and the investor-submitted portfolios have some brandable domain names on there, so I wanted to get your perspective on those. And so, because you are an expert on the brandables and you run BrandBucket, TheBigIsland.com is a geographic. Sam, I always find it interesting to throw out domain names because people often throw out domain names to me and they are like what do you think of this domain name. I know it happens to all three of you all the time. And you think to yourself I do not get it. It has no value to me.
Sam: You have to look it up.
Michael C: But do you know that the big Island is Hawaii?
Sam: I do not know. There has got to be something behind it, why he bought it, but I would have to Google it. There is some reason he specifically looked for it.
Michael C: Right, I believe it is the big Island of Hawaii.
Sam: Yeah, so the big Island of Hawaii. So, maybe he paid more, but people who know it know it. For sure it is probably super niche. It could have been a ton more. It is like I know where my dad lives in (Unclear 11:05.6), so if I just told someone (Unclear 11:08.8), they would be like I do not know. What is that?
Michael C: Right. Exactly.
Sam: I know it. I would probably pay 5K to 10K for it because I know the market there. I know what is going on. So, that could be worth way more. Obviously Hawaii. That is the large Island. So, he must have a reason why he wants it.
Michael: So, Shane, what is the reason that you bought TheBigIsland.com?
Shane: Well, because there are so many Islands. The State is Hawaii, but the biggest Island is actually called Hawaii, so nobody calls it Hawaii because it is too confusing, so they call it Big Island or the Big Island. And so, anybody who visits Hawaii, say you either go to Kauai, Lanai, the Big Island, so I would say it is the biggest. I would not say it is the most popular, but it is a huge Island. So, it is where I will probably retire. It is my favorite Island. Everywhere you go is Big Island this. The Big Island that. And so, if you travel to Hawaii, you would know exactly, but not everybody does.
Michael: So, that is your favorite Island. I have gone to Maui and Kauai, and I love Maui.
Shane: Well, I have not been to Maui. I am going to Kauai in two weeks. So, we go there quite a few, but it is better for hiking. I just like the diversity of the Big Island. I like to go see snow. It is the most diverse Island in the world. It has got more climate zones than any place in the entire world.
Sam: Wow.
Shane: Yeah, most people do not realize. You can go snow ski and you can go surf all in the same day.
Michael C: So, you did not buy it as an investment to flip. You bought it as a long-term investment because maybe you want to develop it. Maybe you want to live there. Or is it just you love the place and you bought it to flip it?
Shane: So, I guess I will go ahead and say it. So, I paid 15 hundred dollars for it.
Michael C: Whoa, nailed it, Sam.
Shane: The original owner has had it for 18 years, and it has been a bulletin board. It has been a travel site. He has just been a guy that is trying to figure out. He lives on the Island. He has been trying to develop it out and just never got any traction, and I just reached out to him and said hey, I would like to give it a try too. And he goes I would like to see somebody that has the same greens as me, but actually gets something done, and I said well, I cannot promise you I am going to get anything done either, so I will give you 15 hundred bucks for it and he accepted it immediately.
Michael C: That is it. No negotiation. No nothing.
Michael K: Nice.
Michael C: Did you feel like you overpaid as soon as he accepted?
Shane: No.
Michael C: Come on. Tell us the truth, Shane.
Michael K: I would want to close it faster.
Michael C: I know.
Shane: Yeah, I mean any time somebody accepts immediately, I say I could have gotten it for a thousand, but at those price points, a thousand to 15 hundred. He is happy. He can tell his family he has still got 15 hundred bucks that he did not have yesterday. I got an 18-year-old domain.
Michael C: Yeah, that is awesome.
Shane: It is exactly what I wanted.
Sam: It will have backlinks too. It will already have all the backlinks and stuff. He has worked on it.
Michael C: Yeah, totally.
Sam: That is good.
Shane: Yeah, he sent me pictures he had drawn and graphics he had drawn and told me the history. It is his baby. It was hard for him to let go. For me, those are the kinds of buys I like. To get older names owned by the original investors. Maybe I will flip it. I always say I am not going to flip it, but things come across. But in general, I really want to develop it out. I think I coud sell The Big Blue Blook. Have you ever bought those books, Michael? When you go to the Island, there is a travel guide. It is a Blue Book. They sell tens of thousands of these things. I think I could put one ad up for that book on Amazon and make all my money back.
Michael C: Yeah, probably.
Shane: So, anyway. TheBigIsland.com. A lot of people call it Big Island. It is taken by the telephone company and has been and will be forever, so that leads TheBigIsland even more open. So, I am happy with it. I am really excited. It went really quick.
Michael C: So, how did you even know? How did it cross your desk? Why did you think of it?
Shane: I typed it in, saw it was sitting there and had not done anything in a while, and made an offer. I do that all the time, and it worked.
Michael C: Looked up the WhoIS and made an offer.
Shane: No, I just did the contact sheet on the website.
Michael C: Oh, you did?
Shane: I did not even go to the WhoIS. I just contact and say hey, would you like to sell, and then they said well. They gave that typical answer. I do not know. I have been doing this. And I just said well, I will give you 15 hundred and I could make it quick. That kind of thing. And it was. It was great.
Michael C: How did you close the deal? Through escrow?
Shane: Yeah, I did it through escrow. I really helped him through. Let him know everything is safe and how it works, and I gave him my phone number. I gave him my telephone. I will talk to them on the phone if they need to talk on the phone. I wanted to let him know that I am not going to scam him. They do not know what a push is. They do not know transfer. They do not know any of that. That is my job to help make that easier, and so far, like I said, my best purchases have always been through that contact of an older website that hey, looks like your time is done. Maybe I can give you some money and let it be my time.
Michael C: So, if somebody contacts you today and offers you three thousand dollars, would you take it? One hundred percent return on your investment.
Shane: No.
Michael C: One hundred percent, Shane.
Shane: Yeah, I can get one hundred percent on other things right now too. I am not like Drew though. I would not take 1.5 million dollars because it is from 1986. I will take 1.5 million. For three thousand, that is the thing. When I feel like first world problems, where you say I will not settle for 15 hundred dollars, that is nothing. That is still a lot of money, but it is not enough to make me sell that name.
Michael C: 45 hundred.
Shane: No.
Michael C: What is the retail price in your mind that would cause you to sell it today?
Shane: Ten grand would just make me say okay, I will just pretend like it never happened. But other than that, I am going to go to the Island a lot, so I am thinking of ideas.
Michael C: Yeah, totally.
Shane: And I am tired of plant build-outs. Not that I am not going to keep doing them, but I would like to do something different than plants right now.
Michael C: Yeah. Awesome buy, Shane. Congratulations on that. Michael, let’s go over to you. What is one domain name that you have bought or sold in the past few weeks? Tell us the domain and not the price yet.
Michael K: Sure. So, I will go with a buy. Most of my purchases are not too flashy. I am pretty cheap person.
Michael C: Come on. Do not set the stage for these guys.
Sam: You are helping us.
Michael K: One name that I bought in the last few weeks is PitchNCatch.com.
Michael C: PitchNCatch.com. All right, Sam, let’s go over to you. PitchNCatch.com.
Shane: Are you a pitcher, Sam, or are you a catcher?
Sam: Catcher. I am going to pitch.
Shane: Okay. We will have to find a catcher.
Michael C: Sam, what do you think Michael paid for PitchNCatch.com?
Sam: He gave away a lot in the beginning, but I will say he spent two thousand bucks because he went over his happy spot. I will say two grand.
Michael C: All right, two grand. Shane, what do you think Michael paid for PitchNCatch.com?
Shane: I will say 650.
Michael: 650 dollars.
Shane: I did not go all over the board. I get the baseball reference and I get the other reference.
Michael K: The sports reference is what I am going for.
Michael C: All right, Michael, what did you pay for PitchNCatch.com?
Michael K: I paid 69 dollars.
Michael C: 69 dollars. What is going on, Sam Dennis and Shane Cultra? Don’t you know it is a 69-dollar domain?
Sam: Yeah, it did feel like it now.
Michael K: I have had pretty good luck with sports related. I sold GiveNGo a couple years ago for 5K or 6K.
Michael C: Wow.
Michael K: And then like GreatGrab.com I sold a year or two ago for like 3K or so. So, yeah, those sort of sports related domains.
Michael C: Even though you just came on DNAcademy and told us. You did not mention sports at all were selling. You just personally had good luck with sports domains.
Sam: Cannot give away everything.
Michael C: I know.
Michael K: There is so few kind of generic ones I would say, but if there is a football or any sort of sports one, I am looking at it.
Michael C: Nice.
Shane: I have got SportsmanConduct for you.
Michael C: What do you have, Michael?
Michael K: FragrantFoul. Those two can go together.
Michael C: So, Michael, 69 bucks makes me think you bought it on NameJet or SnapNames.
Michael K: Yeah, I was the only bidder.
Michael C: Only bidder. So, why bid for 69 dollars on NameJet when you can go to Phoenix and put in a 21-dollar or 18-dollar? I cannot remember how much.
Michael K: It was a pre-release I think.
Michael C: Pre-release.
Michael K: Yeah, so it was only available through NameJet. It was not expired.
Michael C: Oh, okay. It was not, but if you do not put in a bid and then it goes through the expiration process, then NameJet loses their option to grab it before it enter expiration, and then you can use a cheaper option to grab it. Right, but you do not care.
Michael K: Yeah, but it is just not worth it.
Michael C: But you roll the dice also.
Michael K: It is not worth it, yeah.
Michael C: What did you say, Sam?
Sam: You could lose it.
Michael C: Yeah, you could lose it, and then you have to be a catcher.
Sam: You have got to be a pitcher. You want to be a pitcher. You have got to remember this.
Shane: Just be happy you caught the name.
Michael C: Yeah, so Michael, PitchNCatch.com does not strike me as a BrandBucket.com domain. Would you list it on there for sale or would you list it on your own marketplace?
Michael K: No, there is definitely baseball and football references, but if you look up PitchNCatch, there was like SharkTank-esque, like startup thing that was named that, so it definitely have brandable appeal to it.
Michael C: Yeah. What are you going to set your retail price on it?
Michael K: After Sam and Shane suggestions, it will probably be more, but I was thinking like 5K. I am happy with that.
Michael C: Congratulations on that catch. All right, we are going to go over to Sam. Sam, what is one domain name that you have bought or sold in the past few weeks? Tell us the domain name and not the price yet.
Sam: I will do a buy again just to go with everyone else. I am going to do Mahogany.com.
Michael C: Mahogany. I am not even sure I could spell that. I am taking some notes right here. Is it spelled Mahogany?
Sam: It is spelled the correct way. That is all you need to know. It is spelled the correct way.
Michael C: Mahogany.com. All right, let’s go over to Shane. Shane, what do you think Sam paid for Mahogony.com?
Shane: Well, I think it is worth more than he probably paid for it. Let’s put that, so I am not saying that it is worth this price. Obviously a wood, but the brand is unrelated to the wood, so it is a fantastic name, and it is not as hard to spell as it seems if you sound it out. I am just going to go round. I will say ten thousand because I really do think it is a beautiful brand.
Michael C: All right, Michael, let’s go over to you. What do you think Sam paid for Mahogany.com?
Michael K: Sure, I agree with that. I would go higher just because it is like a luxury term, so I would go with 25K.
Michael C: Wow. You think he paid 25K, right?
Michael K: Yeah, I think it is a strong six-figure retail price name.
Michael C: All right, Sam, what did you pay for Mahogany.com?
Sam: Keep going. For the one-word names, you are going to pay a lot more, so I paid 40.
Michael C: 40K.
Sam: But I did it in a roundabout way. So, when I go after it, I am trying not to be me, but I put my phone number in. I put my name, but I do not use my regular email address. And he wanted like one hundred, which is pretty standard for a one-word .COM. And Mahogany. Does not matter how it is spelled. It is one of the most premium woods in the world, so it is the perfect connotation for something premium. If you say you have a mahogany boat, you have 200-thousand dollar boat. If you have anything made of mahogany, it has got the right luxury side of it.
Michael C: Definitely.
Sam: So, he wanted like one hundred and I kind of gave him two options. I said I think I can give you 25 thousand now or I can give you 40 thousand over time. I did not need the time, but i just give it as an option, so I will give you 20 thousand down and the net 20 thousand over like a year. And he took the 40. So, for me, it did not really make a difference, but sometimes the guys will bite on the lower option. They just want all the cash upfront. And I forget the exact math I gave. I made it so it was better to take the first offer, the lower price, but he did not bite. He took the full price.
Michael C: Yeah.
Sam: And I did it through escrow because it is basically being seller-financed, which was nice. So, there is no interest to me. I have time. I can sell the name while I do not really own it because it is held in escrow. They keep it secure. It is in their clutches. You do not pay that much extra. It is like an extra two hundred bucks. So, sometimes this is kind of more of an advanced strategy, but if you are going after a bigger name, you can get the sellers. You can kind of give them the price you are looking for, but over time, so I have done this multiple times with big names and it has worked out well, where they might have wanted a huge price and I have kind of whittled it down, but I have also given them a decent price, but paid out over five years even. I have paid for names over five years.
Michael C: Yeah. Massive search volume on this. EstiBot shows 90 thousand searches per month. Exact match searches per month. So, yeah.
Sam: Mahogany is monstrous. So, I looked up every single tree there was and all the best ones and kind of looked around, and this one was not just a tree because I love trees or plants and stuff like that.
Michael C: And EstiBot does not know that you made this buy or what the price was, but bam, there is the EstiBot value. Can you see it? 343 thousand dollars.
Sam: One-word names are so hard to get right now. So hard.
Michael C: Yeah, nice grab, buddy. Mahogany.com.
Sam: I paid for it.
Michael C: Yeah, but owner-financed and that sounds like a great deal. So, what are you going to do with it now that you own it?
Sam: The reason I bough it is I was looking for a premium one-word for a potential new brand that we were going to do, and I was just hitting up all the regular guys I knew. All the domain owners first to see if anyone wanted to sell something. I think I talked to you about some of your names. The numbers that came out of your mouth were upsetting to me.
Michael C: Yeah. Well, you are not an end user. I do not want to deal with you.
Sam: So, none of that and I just had to keep going to look. So, I just have a lot of three-letter names already, so that is my other favorite, but I do not have that many one-word. I sold my last one for mid-six figures, so a good number.
Michael C: Yeah.
Sam: So, I was trying to replace it and I realized how terribly hard it was to replace.
Michael C: It does seem like that way to me too. Two years ago, there was much more on the market, single-word, generic .COMs, and today I just do not see as many.
Sam: Yeah, I mean the last auction, the HA one had a few really big sales in it. The Heritage Auction.
Michael C: Yeah, but they are selling for retail. You want to buy it wholesale. You want to buy at 40 thousand.
Sam: Well, that is what I am saying. That was investors buying it. I do not think they were end users paying that price. Those were investors paying.
Michael C: Wow.
Sam: Because I looked at who. They were sold I think to China, but they were paying 300 and something grand for those names.
Michael C: That is crazy, yeah.
Sam: Anyway, so there you go. That was my punishment.
Michael C: Congratulations, bud. All right, I want to tell you about three of our sponsors for today’s show.
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Michael C: Hey Sam, you just mentioned Escrow.com. They are one of the sponsors of this show. You used Escrow.com’s domain holding service when you bought Mahogany.com that you were just telling us about, right?
Sam: Yeah, that is what I said. Escrow.com has a whole bunch of different features. I mean not a whole bunch, but realistic. This is one a lot of people do not know about, but the domain holding one is great for buying, but even better for selling. You are trying to get six figures for a name. You just say ten percent upfront and the rest over time.
Michael C: Yeah, and I have done it like that when I was selling and it was great because Escrow.com does all the reminders and everything. They handle everything, so I do not have to worry about people.
Shane: Yeah.
Sam: Yeah, there is no legal issue either. That is the best part, because sometimes they do not pay and they are going to handle the whole problem and you will get the name back and you have probably got a couple payments along the way.
Michael C: Yeah, and we talked about EstiBot.com. I showed the 343-thousand-dollar valuation. I often say it is an estimate. It is called EstiBot. It is not called ExactBot. It is called EstiBot. So, that gives you an idea that it is six-figure domain name retail, and that is probably what you are going to price it at.
Sam: Yeah, one hundred percent. So, I looked at every single one. I actually put them all through EstiBot. I am going to give you a pitch for every service you have.
Michael C: I know. I am sticking with you, but I do not think you have used David Weslow’s legal services, have you?
Sam: I have not. I have another lawyer. I could have two lawyers though.
Michael C: I know. You are up there in Canada. David is in Virginia. So, when you need to take somebody to court in the U.S., then David is the guy to do it. He is right in D.C., and then he just goes. You can file in the state where .COM registry is, the VeriSign registry, and so if a domain gets stolen, for example, you take them to court.
Sam: The new, big lawsuit that is going on. He would be useful because I am in it. Super annoying.
Michael C: Which one is that?
Sam: You have not seen it. It is the big lawsuit on the Internet right now for Jeff (Unclear 31:45.6). I cannot believe you guys do not know this.
Michael K: No.
Sam: I will send you a link after. 50 to 60, maybe more three-letter .COMs he is trying to get back from (Unclear 32:00.1).
Michael C: Yes, I did see that. Right, and the lawsuit is everybody that owns the domain names that were part of that.
Sam: Yeah, mine got already taken.
Michael C: Taken back.
Sam: Gone, yeah, because we did not get noticed. We did not get notified, so they just took it out of our account.
Michael C: Wow.
Sam: Fun. Fun.
Michael C: So, what are you going to do? Walk away from the money you spent.
Sam: No, we are paying. We have counsel.
Michael C: Sorry to hear that. David Weslow can help you. DavidWeslow.com.
Shane: If anybody does not have counsel.
Michael C: Yeah. Man, all right. Good luck with that, bud. All right, we are going to move on to the Domain Portfolio Review. In this segment of the show, we take user-submitted domain name portfolios and provide honest and constructive feedback to the owners, so they can either cut their losses, continue to hold them long-term, or figure out a sales strategy going forward.
Today’s portfolio was submitted by Xavier (Unclear 22:06.1). As part of Xavier’s submission, he made a generous donation to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to help us all find a cure for cancer. Xavier’s list of 25 domain names starts with a six-digit numeric, 212217.com, and the list ends with ZZTTT.com.
This segment, the order is going to be Michael, then Sam, and then Shane. Michael, let’s start with you. When you look at Xavier’s list of domains here, and they are not all numerics and acronyms, they actually have some other word domains in here, which ones stand out to you as great brandable domain names for maybe listing on BrandBucket or some place else?
Michael K: Sure. So, Xavier is actually a seller.
Michael C: Oh, he is.
Michael K: Yes.
Michael C: Nice.
Michael K: And yeah, two that are definitely in my personal investment strategy, like buy cheap and sell for a couple thousand, would be SoundChimp and Sneakify. SoundChimp. Two-word domain. Only two syllables, which is great for a two-word domain. Easy to say. Easy to understand. Then Sneakify. You have your comparable companies that are named similar. Spotify. Shopify. Sneak can be fashion. Shoes. It can be something with security. Something with spying or snooping.
Michael C: Oh yeah, I did not even think about that. I was thinking sneakers because sneakers are becoming the new baseball cards. They are collectables.
Michael K: Yeah, sneakers are insane.
Michael C: Yeah, it is crazy.
Michael K: What a pair of LeBron’s go for these days. Yeah, so I mean it is really all about the buy. I would want to buy those for 20 bucks. I think they can be bought for 20 bucks and you put it into your portfolio and sell for two thousand. You are looking to list it for two thousand to 25 hundred.
Michael C: Right.
Michael K: Another one just to kind of talk about .LY. Proxy.ly. We have had some decent in the last few months. Some decent .LY sales on BrandBucket that are in mid-four figures. And it is not huge or anything, but when you have a good keyword, that helps. The only thing weird is like proxy is when you say like proxyly if you say the whole thing, so that is a little strange, but that is still a two thousand or 25-hundred-dollar I would say retail on a name like that.
Michael C: Cool. All right. I have done some analysis on BrandBucket and I do not think you have any four-word domain names on BrandBucket. Is that correct?
Michael K: There might be a couple maybe. It is like a really common saying and short.
Michael C: Okay. So, it is an exception rather than the rule. So, what about three-word ones that are brandable?
Michael K: Yeah, there are some three-word ones. I am just thinking of stuff that I own, like PointofContact. Those types of names, like BreakTheCode. So, there is some more, and call to actions. There are more of those.
Michael C: Okay. And what brandables on the list stand out to you that would not be good for BrandBucket? Startup companies are not buying these types of domain names.
Michael K: Sure. I mean definitely if you go over three words, then that is going to be more of a long shot. Other ones like PopcornFreak. If people really love popcorn. I mean there is probably people that do really love their popcorn, but that is such a niche that it is just, in my opinion, not worth investing in.
Michael C: What about PicLocker.com? As in pictures I assume.
Michael K: Yeah, I mean to me that maybe has more like adult connotations to it than your conventional one, so I would probably pass on that one. But I mean like ShareMySite. That is decent. That is something we would accept on BrandBucket. VirtualKarding. I do not really get it, and then it has a K as well instead of a C.
Michael C: All right, cool. Thanks, Michael. Sam, let’s go to you. What are your favorites on Xavier’s list and why?
Sam: I mean I like the three-letter, but it is one of the worst three letters you could buy.
Michael C: So, that three-letter has a retail EstiBot price of 49 thousand dollars.
Sam: Yeah, he is not going to get that.
Michael C: And hold on a sec. And VIJ.
Michael K: Kind of pronounceable.
Sam: I believe you might be better pretending it is not what it is and just have it as a cool brand name, because an acronym for a company.
Michael C: It could be. It is also an Indian name.
Sam: Which is not helpful right now. Maybe in 20 years, but it just not going to get the price that you want, because I bet you he paid big. I do not think he got this cheap. He actually put some money into this, and I feel like a lot of newer investors kind of make this mistake. They buy the cheapest premium three-letter or four-letter, which makes it really not easy to sell, because he probably paid 20 grand, maybe even more because it is consonant-vowel-consonant. I just see a lot of guys who buy these names and then try to sell them to me normally, and it just like no.
Michael C: Yeah, so what do you think the retail value on VIJ.com is?
Sam: Truthfully less than he probably paid. I bet he would get 19 thousand net. Maybe 21.
Michael C: I did not do the research. Maybe he bought it a long time ago and he bought it for low.
Sam: He might have, but based on what else he has been buying here, I feel like he is buying right now because a lot of these are he typed them in. Definitely. The reason I am guessing that is based on the number-number. He bought the six-number. That is a premium six-number, but it was a premium six-number four months ago or five months ago. Right now it is 69 dollars. It does not really matter that it is a great combination. The market is just not there right now. It might come back. It might not.
Michael C: He can still liquidate it. There will still be a buyer, but he is just not going to get the premium that he would.
Sam: It is not going to be what he wants.
Michael C: Yeah.
Sam: It is going to be literally a fraction. For me, I actually like ShareMySite. I though that could be an actual, like a business might buy that or use that. There are a lot of services like that for SEO services. I forget the name of one, but it is very similar to that. I was worried about SoundChimp. I like it, but I think you are going to have a trademark problem because the big company with the mail in front I think will know what you are up to.
Michael C: I do not know. There is a lot of chimps and monkeys.
Sam: I mean you can always try to sell it for five grand. All these names I would just put five thousand dollars on and see what happens. Not the VIJ. I would go higher.
Michael C: All right, so all in all, this is not a portfolio that you would look at to invest. You like VIJ. You like ShareMySite.
Sam: I just think he is trying out a lot of different things. Once again, it is just like he has got probably five to seven different ideas going on here, which is fine, but I feel maybe if he gets success with one, focus on that and try to stay that way.
Michael C: All right, Sam. Do me a favor and while we go to Shane, just mouse over your window and click on the mute just in case your dog attacks somebody else while Shane is talking.
Sam: I will make sure the dog stops barking.
Michael C: All right, thanks, buddy. Shane, let’s go over to you. What do you think about Xavier’s list? What stands out to you?
Shane: Well, I have to admit I looked through it and all of a sudden I saw the VIJ and I thought how did that sneak in there because there is this, this, this, and then bam. I did some homework on some of these names on what they are going and what they are paying. So, I think the one that people miss that stands out is L60. That is kind of the hottest. The number-letter-letter is one of the few Chinese short that has actually appreciated over the last couple months. And N60 went for 24 hundred dollars recently, so he has probably got a 25-hundred-dollar. I put two thousand to 25-hundred-dollar liquid name, so I think he puts it up at NameJet or any of those right now and he gets two grand.
And he probably did not pay that much maybe, but the three characters were not that much higher than they are now. A lot of them are less, so I think that is an area that he is actually going to make money. I agree the 2217. I looked. It is going to go for 100 to 150. It is probably a little more than 69 because there is no zero and no four, but he is going to lose money if he paid anywhere. Trust me. I lost a lot of money on that. I was all over it and now I am all under it. Underwater that is.
I was surprised. I thought PicLocker was a BrandBucket. The only thing about BrandBucket that I always fine a little confusing is everybody has got an idea of what is a brandable and names that I say I do not get make it through, and then other names I think are totally incredible for brands do not.
Michael C: I know. I have the exact same problem, which is why I stay out of the brandable space.
Shane: Yeah.
Michael K: I mean yeah, there is obviously humans involved and people making decisions. We like to have five or six people look at each name.
Shane: I think that is how it has to be because TheBigIsland, like we said, I have never been to the big Island. I have no idea what that is worth. It is good to have a bunch of heads on it, but I do find that funny. I will send names into a list to sell and they will write back no, thank you, and I had like an eight-thousand-dollar offer two weeks before. I was trying to get a little more off them and see if I can get it on a list, and they are thinking it is worth 12 dollars. So, that is the beauty of this industry, is everybody has got an opinion and there is no exact value. We all have a different idea, especially when you get into brandables.
But I thought PicLocker was maybe one of my favorites because it is not going to be Pick. That does not come to mind. I thought that was a good one. I agree. The SoundChimp and the Sneakify were the good ones. SheBrokeMyHeart. I feel bad for him. That sounds like a really droopy, little site, where somebody is going to cry the whole time. ZZTTT seems like a name that would be worth nothing, but PPTTT just sold for 149 dollars and that is not that far off, so he might have a one-hundred-dollar name there. Those are not completely worthless, but I agree with Sam. It is kind of all over the place and it seems like he is shooting fish in a barrel, hoping something pays off.
Michael C: Well, and we do not know exactly how he selected this list to submit. Maybe he just wanted to see. Here is a general breakdown over his whole portfolio, but he has been focusing on acronyms or what have you.
Shane: But we all know that people who submit it, try and submit their best names. They do not tuck anything under their jacket, thinking I do not want them to see the best stuff. I just want them to see the five characters.
Michael C: That is true. So, for the only .IO name on here, it is Orgasm.io. I like .IOs and I could not put my finger on a good pricing strategy for him, but I just did a show that aired last week by the time this one comes out with Mike Carson that does a fantastic job showing people exactly which .IO domain names people are buying. And here is Github, and you can see that there are 39 repositories for the word orgasm. That means that startups are not using the word orgasm in their codebases, which could potentially become software products in the future. So, I do not like that domain name.
They keywords that you would buy in .COM that would be worth six figures, maybe seven figures are not the ones that are going to be selling in .IO. I think a lot of investors miss that point, so please go back and watch that Mike Carson video.
Sam: It is tech type of names you want. It is not that type of one word. I mean it looks cool, but it is not. I mean that is an adult name and they do not want a .IO.
Michael C: Yeah, and maybe he was trying to come up with a .IO because it is input, output and sort of like PitchNCatch. You could have some connotation.
Sam: I think that is a strategy.
Michael C: I do not know. Give him the benefit of the doubt.
Shane: Yeah, he is probably just going keyword, and I get that all the time.
Michael C: Right. So, if you are thinking like something else and you see some opportunity, good for you. If you are thinking just keyword, it is not the right strategy.
Shane: Well, I ask people. Are you going to name your company that?
Michael C: Right. And what were you saying, Michael?
Michael K: I would say too tech is great for .IO, but if it is general enough, it still works. We sold Timber.io.
Sam: That sounds like a tech company.
Michael K: Yeah, I am just saying it does not have to be a tech keyword obviously.
Michael C: Right. That is true.
Michael K: Maybe something more general.
Michael C: It could be a general brand that does not necessarily match up with a software product, but then it is more of the exception than the rule. It is companies that are saying we do this product or service, but we want to call ourselves this sort of over-arching brand umbrella, and then they want to stick with the .IO because they are a tech company and their customers know .IO.
Michael K: Sure.
Michael C: You could not go buy Timber.me and expect to have the same results from that one.
Michael K: Yeah.
Michael C: And that was my boy, Mark, that sold Timber, right?
Michael K: Oh, yes, that is right.
Michael C: All right. Any final thoughts for Xavier on this list, guys?
Sam: I think wherever he gets his first sale, then focus on that. I just say try to focus on one vertical. I do not know how much money he is really spending. We are missing part of the puzzle, but yeah, just try to focus on something maybe that he knows. That is even better because if you know brandable, focus on brandable.
Michael C: Yeah, sounds good. Shane, any parting thoughts?
Shane: No. The thing I was going to say earlier is you have to ask yourself: would you name your company that? You just go through the whole list and would you name your company EverydayGeek. I asked myself that and I am not any smarter than the average person, but I do own a company and I know how important the name is. And I know that sounds simple, but if you own a company, are you going to call it AIO.mobi? You are just probably not, but you might called it PicMonkey. If you sell popcorn, yes, you might call it PopcornFreak.
So, that is how I think of these things. The funny thing. I still laugh about VIJ. It is like it came out of nowhere, like he said okay, I have got 15 or 20 grand and I know I will not lose a ton of money if I buy a three-letter .COM. So, it is an odd portfolio I guess I would say.
Michael C: Yeah. Well, I bet Xavier has sold a bunch of domains. I do not know, but Xavier, post in the comments below and let us know. And if you are interested in telling us what you paid for VIJ, I would love to know too. If you bought it low, that is more street cred for you.
Michael K: I would say something else just really quick. I mean just a really basic thing. Avoid four-word any .COM or anything else, and the shorter, the better. That is just a pretty simple suggestion.
Michael C: Yeah, definitely. All right. And now that I look at his list, he has got VOIPTool. He has got Proxy.ly. He has got MakeMePrivate.com. Clearly he understands the whole privacy, proxy service.
Sam: Yeah, he definitely was going there.
Michael C: Yeah.
Sam: He has got three names there. Maybe he had a sale there. I thought all those names were in the same.
Michael C: Same genre. Same area, yeah. And I had a VOIP name that I sold on NameJet, and I was amazed. It was one that I was going to let drop and I put it on NameJet to blow them out, and it ended up selling for like 25 hundred dollars and it was that type of proxy service related. I cannot remember the name of it, but I will post it in the comments if you remind.
Anyways. Xavier, thank you for submitting your portfolio and making a donation to cancer research. We hope that the insights provided by these Sherpas is useful to you in your investing activities going forward. Before we jump into the domains going to auction soon it NameJet, I want to tell you about three more sponsors that we have.
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Michael C: We are going to move on to the Marketplace List. This segment is sponsored by NameJet. We will be reviewing 15 no reserve or reserve met domains going to auction soon. If you like one of the names below, click through soon because once they go to auction, you lose your chance to put in a minimum bid and be part of the auction or even just watch the results. The links below go directly to NameJet. They are not commissionable links. They are just trackable, so NameJet can see what kind of traffic we are sending them.
The list starts with CrowdCurve.com, and it ends with WebStorage.com. I always ask the Sherpas for transparency. Are any of the domains listed below owned and for sale by you guys? No, okay, sounds good. This segment, we are going to go Sam, then Shane, and then Michael. Sam, let’s start with you this round. Any of these domains investment worthy from your perspective?
Sam: Yeah, this is a good list of names here for sure. I will give you one to be careful of. The .NETs are definitely risky. So, like Pill.net. If you put this through EstiBot, this whole list, which you did already and you sent to us, which was helpful, so Pill.net is like the highest value.
Michael C: 16-thousand-dollar EstiBot value.
Sam: And that is a great name, but be very careful bidding on that name. You should bid on it for 69 dollars.
Michael C: Why do they need to be careful?
Sam: .NETs have just been really under water. There is only a few .NETs. I actually was going to use one that I bought on NameJet that actually works, but very few .NETs currently are selling. And Drew always mentions this. We both love .NET, but they are just not doing that well. And this name I do not see selling. Pill is not a brand. As Shane said, would you name your company Pill.net? Because it is Pill Network, probably not. Big money I would not spend on it. There is better value hidden in this list.
Michael C: Like what?
Sam: I like GetThis. I think that is a pretty cool name. I like HappyUsers. I think it is a positive word. It could be really good for a web service company. It could be anything. It could be for a live chat. It could be just something that adds value for people. I think that is a good one to try to pick up. I like positive words. I think they are good. I think WebStorage is risky only because it is too generic. I think we have talked about this before. It is a great name. There is no question. It values. It says it is 15 thousand dollars on EstiBot. It is a great name, but there is already a lot of web storage companies and they have used brandable names, so really you get stuck on names like this. The high EstiBot value here will cause problems for you.
What is another one that stood out to me that I liked? SellYourApp. I actually think that is a strong name. The app market is monstrous. So, out of all the names, if you are going to look for a bargain, I think that would be the one I would choose. I am going to leave the brandable ones to other guys. There are some brandable ones here I like as well, but I will let them.
Michael C: So, SellYourApp. You like that one the best.
Sam: I like it a lot. It is a call to action. You know exactly what is going on, and there are huge marketplaces. There is Flippa and so on, but for selling your app, that is big, big money and the app market is just incredibly just exploding.
Michael C: And continues to grow, yeah, financially. So, what would you price that one at if you owned it? What do you think the retail price of SellYourApp.com is?
Sam: For stuff like that, the problem is it is a three-word. It is good name to make ten grand on. If you overprice it, you are not going to sell it because it is not a 50-thousand-dollar name. But I could’ve just found their sweet spots, where people just say yes to a name. On the low end, it is between 15 hundred to three grand. And then you kind of price just shitty names at this price, but this name is like a five to 15. People will spend five to ten thousand on their credit card kind of by mistake or in the moment.
Michael C: I need to find some of those people.
Sam: Well, I get a lot of those purchases, where it is just like I am not so sure why they were thinking that, but they said yes. This name is worth five to ten grand to those people. It would be good on a BrandBucket. It would be good anywhere. It tells you exactly what it is. There is no mistaking it.
Michael C: Cool. All right, and then what about GetThis? Even though GetThis has the T’s that fit right together and repeatable letters.
Sam: So, BrandBucket is good for making not valuable things valuable.
Michael C: We will get your input on that, Michael.
Sam: Well, but it is perfect because you can show them what you are thinking, so you can make the double T a positive instead of a negative. Design it into the logo. You do a happy face below it. Then it is memorable, and so you can make a negative into a positive with that type of name. Not every name, but that type of name. And I am speaking highly of BrandBucket in this instance, where a logo can take a name to the thought you wanted the buyer to think, and that names works really well for a logo. Even for four letters, I like the repeating letters in a four-letter for BrandBucket because visually they work well if you can put it in there. Some sort of repeating thing makes them more memorable.
I mean if I was a company buying this, I would want to get the one with the one T as well, but that is another point.
Michael C: Yeah, definitely. All right, thanks, Sam. Shane, let’s go over to you. What do you like on the NameJet list and why?
Shane: Well, I think we are all thinking the same thing. WebStorage is one of those words that it is a big word and we all know what it is, but it is not a brand and it is not awesome enough to be on its own. So, I think it is going to go for a good amount, but I would not be a buyer on it just for that same exact reason.
Michael C: Yeah, that is exactly the kind of domain name that would sell really well four years ago. The keyword. Maybe it has got high search volume I would suspect because it has got a 15-thousand-dollar EstiBot retail price on it. But today they are not necessarily selling for what they did five years ago.
Shane: That is where people say it is too generic. People thought we were crazy and they are figuring out exactly what that means. It has got to be a really good-selling product to be generic. Like mattress. You are not going to name your company mattress, but if you sell mattresses, you sure want the word mattress. So, that is one of those names that people understand. I love selling them though. I love selling them because there is always that guy that thinks it is really valuable.
So, the Pill.net. If it had an S to it, it would do well. I mean they are selling the hell out of pills on the Internet, so you could still use it. If I am a company, I have no problem using a killer keyword .NET as my brand because they are so cheap. So, if I am a company, I have no problem getting that great word for a .NET. If I am a flipper or an investor, Sam is right. Selling the .NET is really difficult. Unless you get a super, super cheap thing, and it is only coming cheap at auctions. People that own them think they are still valuable. It is only at auction do they realize that they are just not.
I bought Surfboard for under a thousand. Surfboard.net. Great name. It could be a million things. It barely broke a thousand when I sold it. So, it is a tough market, but if I am a company, it works. People understand .NET. They remember .NET. My younger kids know .NET. But I still do not like it because it is singular. You are not selling a pill and you are not going to name your company Pill.
Michael C: Yeah. Hey Sam, do me a favor and mute your microphone, will you please? Thanks, bud.
Shane: I want to be there though.
Michael C: I know. I totally want to hang out with Sam at his cabin there.
Shane: There is all kind of people walking around. Dogs.
Michael C: You saw. Is that your wife, Sam, walking by in the background in her bikini? You are still muted. Now I need you to unmute, so you can tell us.
Sam: Yeah, that was my partner there.
Michael C: Yeah. So, next time we may invite her to come join us on the panel. All right, now I need you to mute it again. And those of you that are on the podcast, see what you miss out when you do not have video.
Shane: Today’s show had visuals. And then the other names. When I saw DailyPayouts, all I thought was me walking through a casino that had the sign that said DailyPayouts.com. It is probably a good marketing name for a lottery, and those names do sell. If anybody has ever seen what a commercial costs, you realize that a domain name is an inconsequential part of the strategy. I mean just a 30-second commercial on the worst primetime TV show costs you 120 thousand dollars.
Michael C: Well, yeah, but you cannot use that logic to say that you should buy any domain name because it is a fraction.
Shane: No, but I am saying if you look at a marketing campaign, if you think about a name that is a slogan, those are the kinds of names they are buying, and Michael Berkens will tell you all day that is what he sold. The slogans and the mantras because they did very well for companies.
Michael C: Yeah, and so you like DailyPayouts.com because you see it in every single casino that you go into, and casinos and gambling is a massive industry.
Shane: And somebody is going to say I just saw DailyPayouts for two grand. I just spent 120 thousand dollars on billboards all through Chicago. Why don’t we pay two grand and put that, because they are not going to remember FlyingEagleCasino.com. They are going to remember DailyPayouts.com.
Michael C: Which one is better: DailyPayout or DailyPayouts?
Shane: Yeah, that is where you get it. You probably need to own both of those. That is always the case. Where do you end? No, I agree. DailyPayout is just as good, but I would want to own the S as well because you are making daily payouts. But moving on, I would say SellYourApp is probably my favorite because you know exactly what is going to happen there and that works just as well as Appasellya – some made-up name that people are going to not remember quite as well.
And the rest. DBBO. I like it. I would love to have it in my portfolio, but it is a 600-dollar, 800-dollar, or thousand-dollar name, and you are just not going to make that much money on returns until you wait for that end user. The flipping market in four-letter .COMs is not a tremendous amount of money making it at this point, so you are waiting just like any other name for an end user to come about. And O is a little tougher because the .ORG works for some of those O’s because that sounds for organization. So, now if they are an organization, do they want the .COM? Maybe, but if DBBO.org is available for 180 dollars, you are going to lose out to that for that company. So, the ending is important.
That is why Drew and I and Sam love the C at the end. C at the end is a beautiful, beautiful letter to end, and it does not matter what is in front of it, but that is cash money. There is something about having some names that are liquid, and the L60 on the old one and the DBBO is worth having because if momma wants another car and you need to get some cash quickly, then DBBO is going to help you out quicker than (Unclear 1:05:06.2).com.
Michael C: Yes, I hope that none of the DomainSherpa network needs money fast that they need to liquidate their domain names because they are never going to get what they want when they have to liquidate quickly.
Shane: No, but that is life. There are times. I mean we hear it all the time. There are times in life, and it is nice to have some names that you are not going to lose that much money in the resale market. And not everything goes up, but over time short names tend to creep up a little bit. So, if you have held it for a couple years, you probably will not lose money. You might not make money and you may lose a little, but you are not going to be sitting around.
Michael C: All right, so you do not like WebStorage. You like Pills.net, not Pill.net. You like SellYourApp.com. And what is another one that you like?
Shane: GetThis is hard not to like. It is memorable. You are not going to mess it up. I do not care about the two T’s. There is a big difference between GetHis and GetThis, although I screw that up on my list all the time. I will miss a letter and I will be reading too quickly at night with old man eyes and not see a letter here and there, but yeah, I think it is a great short one. I am sure BrandBucket would love to have this on there.
Michael C: Well, we are going to find out next. Thanks, Shane. Michael, let’s go over to you. I picked this list knowing that you were going to come on here.
Michael K: I appreciate it.
Michael C: I am hoping that there is going to be something on here that is like you nailed it, Michael. That one would get on. That one would get on. And I will say also I picked a couple that I do not think would get on, and I am hoping that you are going to say those as well, so we can learn from the experience. So, what do you think, Michael?
Michael K: Okay. So, yeah, I agree with Sam with HappyUsers. I think that is my favorite on the list. It is just a great name for an analytics firm, doing UI and UX, and improving, optimizing your website.
Michael C: User testing. Surveys. Yeah.
Michael K: Yeah. And again, just like happy is a great keyword to have in any, so that one is definitely my favrotie. GetThis. Yeah, the two T’s. If it is not an A, it is like an A- or a B+ with the two T’s, but yeah, I totally get what you are saying, Sam, with BrandBucket and people can see the logo. You do not even think about it. I think the only time you really think about it is if it is all lowercase like that and they are not visually separated. If they are visually separated, then the first time you see it, it is like a positive reaction to it. You do not see that there would be confusion. So, yeah, I mean the only thing is if – I do not know – get this or get that, but I do not know if people would get confused about which one it was.
SocialKloud I do like. I do like SocialKloud with the K there. I mean the only thing is if there is a company called SocialCloud, then you probably would not want to get that one because no one is going to start their company if there is already a company with the correct pronunciation. And that is not worth a ton, but the cloud and social are the two of the best keywords you can have. SellYourApp. I guess I am not as sold on that one just because there is SellMyApp, but also since it is not consumer-facing, maybe they would take a flyer on like a .IO or something else because it is more kind of business-to-business and the tech thing.
So, I do not know. I mean that would be my only reservation with that one. And yeah, I agree with both Shane and Sam on WebStorage. It is just going to go for too much. You are not going to be able to make much return. I think CloudStorage is actually better than WebStorage.
Michael C: All right. True or false: BrandBucket would accept Twickle.com.
Michael K: Twickle. Sure. I mean I do not know. It is kind of funny. You kind of laugh when you say it. Twickle. I mean I do not know. Sure. Yeah. I mean you are not going to retire or anything, but no, you pick it up. I think 69 is even kind of pushing it for something.
Michael C: Let’s say you paid one hundred. You put it on BrandBucket. It would probably priced around 2K. 15 hundred. 25 hundred. Somewhere in there.
Michael K: Sure.
Michael C: Maybe it sells. Maybe it never does.
Michael K: Yeah, i mean Twickle. Yeah, sure.
Michael C: I did like Twickle. All right. TapSend. Is that something that would make it on to BrandBucket?
Michael K: I would say no. I think I own SendTap actually.
Michael C: Oh, really. Would you buy TapSend.com to try and have that pair locked up?
Michael K: I would not, no.
Michael C: Yeah.
Michael K: I do not think it is strong enough.
Michael C: I was looking at LuckyChoice.com and I was thinking that sounds right, but it was only until we started this show that I am like no, it is lucky guess. It is not lucky choice.
Shane: It sounds like a dog food.
Michael K: It does. That is good. Yeah, there you go.
Michael C: And I do that all the time. I am like that one is so close, but it just does not sound right.
Michael K: That is what I do all the time when I am picking names and my wife is like what is that. I am like oh, this is the saying, right? And she is like no, this is not the saying at all. What are you doing?
Michael C: See, and that is the problem. I would buy LuckyChoice.com and then Michael Berkens buys LuckyGuess.com, and then he flips that one for 60 thousand and I am still holding LuckyChoice.com for ten years.
Shane: LuckyChoice is a perfect dog food name. It will sell.
Sam: VeganDog.
Michael C: I purposefully left off all vegan domains. They are taunting me. There are so many vegan domains on NameJet nowadays.
Shane: I get articles sent to me about the vegan kid that is starving to death. Like there you are. Aren’t you happy?
Michael C: Yeah.
Shane: No.
Michael C: Yeah. And nobody commented on DaddyGram. Who is your daddy? It is a whole service right there. I just gave you the tagline. All right.
Michael K: I was going to say our household is vegetarian, Shane. So, we are not vegan.
Shane: I asked to jump over from vegetarian to vegan.
Michael K: Yeah, cheese.
Michael C: And the difference between vegetarians and vegans is that you do not tell everybody that you know that you are vegetarian.
Shane: Exactly.
Michael K: We do not, no.
Shane: Did you see? What show is that after Game of Thrones? The tech show, where he goes I am a pesca-pescatarian. I only eat fish that eat other fish.
Michael C: Yeah, exactly.
Michael K: That is funny.
Shane: Too funny.
Michael C: All right Sherpas, we are at the end of today’s show. I would like to give our Sherpas an opportunity to talk about any domain names that they have going to auction soon, any domains that they are looking to buy, portfolios, or deals they have going on. Let’s start with you, Michael. Anything. You can talk about BrandBucket. You can talk about you personally. Anything you want. What is the latest?
Michael K: Sure. I would say we are at the beginning of a pretty large marketing campaign with BrandBucket. We are going to be sponsoring four or maybe five startup podcasts over the next two or three months, and some pretty big ones like Rocketship.fm, ThePitch.fm, and StartupGrind. And that is in addition to our normal marketing efforts.
Michael C: Are you still doing MixerG?
Michael K: I do not know if we have MixerG setup for the next coming. They have quite a wait.
Michael C: They do. Andrew Warner is killing it. If you are in the startup space and you like DomainSherpa really long shows, I model DomainSherpa after Andrew Warner’s MixerG, and you probably see a lot of similarities. And I listen to a lot of podcasts and there are some really short ones and they get people on, like hey Sam, let me ask you how you styled you hair in the morning, and that is whole show. That does not do it for me. I want to get into the details like Andrew does, and so I love his, but yeah, they always seem to have a long waitlist, which is great.
Michael K: Yeah. What he does really well is he integrates the sponsors really well into the discussion, and since every startup founder has a story about how they got their name, it is a pretty good relationship to have.
Michael C: Yeah, I pinged him a couple times. I was like make sure you ask how they got their domain name.
Michael K: Sure. Yeah, the last time we sponsored, it was like the guy from 99Designs. I forget what it was, but they talked for like five minutes about the name after they mentioned that BrandBucket was their sponsor. So, yeah, now is the time to submit the names and we are going to see a lot more eyeballs on the site through the summer.
Michael C: Awesome. Good. BrandBucket.com. Sam, anything you want to mention or promote?
Sam: No, I am good. The summer can be kind of slow for sales for people, so I would say do not get discouraged. It is a good time to regroup. Take some time just to really see what is going on because I have a lot of brokers and domain guys who are coming my way, just kind of complaining about where the market is right now, and it is just like well, it is the summer.
Michael C: Yeah.
Sam: Just take some time to yourself and regroup and do not get frustrated by it. It really ramps up September, October, and November. Things start changing again and just focus on what you know and be careful about big flyers. But for me, I am all good. I am going to enjoy the rest of the summer, as you can tell.
Michael C: Awesome, Sam. Thanks for being here. Shane, anything you want to mention or promote?
Shane: Yeah, it is the same thing. We have got all four of us on DomainShane.com and kind of just relaxing for the summer as well. Everybody is taking vacations. Doing some things. Undoubtedly on all the auction houses the names are slower. There is not as much. We have had discussions that maybe this is a time to put up a couple names. There is nothing else to get in the way of them seeing your good name. So, you have to think well, are there enough buyers? What is the strategy? So, I have tried a couple. I have got a couple auctions ending today. I have got Z95 and those kinds of things. I am trying to see if that is true or not. I put a little higher reserve, but I was testing it just to see if it is lack of buyers or lack of inventory or both, and it is probably both.
Michael C: Yeah.
Shane: Yeah, I mean we are continuing to write. Finally the nursery is slowing up a little bit. I can do some things, but I am kind of like Sam. I would like to get away a little bit and do some things with the family and try and regroup a little bit before fall because we all know all of domain names gets pretty good and pretty crazy, especially end of the year when people are trying to buy and sell and get their finances and portfolio in order. So, yeah, we are trying to new things.
I am going to say having a technology guy on DomainShane has been great. Travis is. We track everybody who clicks on the names. I mean as far as what they are clicking on and what they are buying. There is some great data. I am sure NameBio’ s Adam has a made a living trying and figuring out what people are buying and using that information, and it has been pretty helpful to find out what people are buying and selling even on the lower end, because most of the auction houses are not real friendly with the data behind it. We know names sell and what they sell for, but we really do not know how many names are getting attention and what kind of attention they are and all that kind of stuff. So, I am kind of fascinated right now at that data to see and Travis has been real helpful for that.
But come to DomainShane. You will see we are laughing more than we are giving out information, but it is still okay to be entertained.
Michael C: Yeah. And if you do not know Travis, go watch the DomainSherpa Review where we bring on the whole crew of DomainShane, DSAD. That was a fun episode.
If you watched this show and you received benefit, please post a comment below and thank today Sherpas. I want to be the first to thank Xavier (Unclear 1:17:35.7) for submitting his portfolio and making a generous donation to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. I want to thank NameJet for sponsoring that portion of the DomainSherpa Review. And thanks again to our DomainSherpa panel – Michael Krell, Sam Dennis, and Shane Cultra – for sharing their experience and insights on the show.
We will see you all next time.
Watch the full video at:
https://domainsherpa.com/review-20160718/