DomainSherpa Review – June 12: Rosemary.com, GreenEating.com, Spitfire.com…

DomainSherpa Review with Michael Cyger, Ali Zandi, Andrew Rosener 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: Rosemary.com, GNBC.com, VRGF.com
  • An investor’s portfolio is appraised: GreenEating.com, GreenForever.com, HelicopterParent.com…
  • Get your bids in soon for these NameJet auctions: Spitfire.com, Xera.com, EnergyEfficient.com…
  • And the Sherpas found a few deals: TravelClub.com, BrandDoctor.com, TrueBrew.com
  • Plus, much more!

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

Review (89:27): Watch | Listen/Download Audio | Domain Lists

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Investor Submitted Domain Names

BalletRecital.com
BlockTexts.com
ButterscotchPudding.com
CallingCircle.com
ChessLesson.com
ChristeningBlankets.com
Crostics.com
DarlingDaughter.com
DesktopShipping.com
DiaperCarrier.com
ExclusiveTVOffer.com
FSBOCalifornia.com
GreenEating.com
GreenForever.com
HelicopterParent.com
JuniorProm.com
Klutzes.com
Paperhanger.com
PoliticsJokes.com
ReadYourEmail.com
RunningJersey.com
Rustproofers.com
TraceCalls.com
WifeAndWife.com
WrestlingMeet.com

NameJet.com Pre-Auction Listings

ebin.com
ecoshopper.com
energyefficient.com
fastercash.com
iplugin.com
marjiuana.reviews
namezilla.com
solarteam.com
spitfire.com
town.guide
videoconversion.com
xera.com

This Show’s Sherpas

Ali Zandi
Ali Zandi
Ali Zandi is the founder and senior broker at Starfire Holdings, a domain name brokerage and consulting firm.

Prior to Starfire Holdings, Ali was the director of sales and acquisitions at Perception.com, a private domain name investment fund.

Based in Hawaii, Zandi boasts a wealth of knowledge and sales experience and has facilitated millions of dollars of successful transactions in the domain industry.

More shows with Ali Zandi »

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 »

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 »

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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-20170612/

Drew [excerpt]: So it’s a question of, you know, what’s your horizon and are you looking to hang onto it for the next 5 to 10 years? Or are you looking to quick flip? If you’re trying to quick flip this, you’re gonna have a hard time.

Michael: Hey Sherpa Network. Thank you so much for joining me today. 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 to become better investors. We have three segments to the review. We’ll start off learning what the Sherpas recently bought and sold. Next, we’ll discuss and value an investor submitted domain name portfolio. And finally, we’ll preview some domains going to auction soon at NameJet.com, whether the Sherpas think they’re good investment opportunities for you.

Joining us today on the DomainSherpa Review are three past Sherpas and industry thought leaders. In order from left to right, we have Ali Zandi, founder of StarFire Holdings, a domain name brokerage and consulting service. Andrew Rosener, CEO of the domain name brokerage firm MediaOptions.com and CEO and founder of Ganjapreneur.com, the leading B2B magazine serving the cannabis industry. And Shane Cultra, publisher of the blog DSAD.com, and owner of the Country Arbors Nursery in Illinois. Sherpas, welcome to today’s show.

Ali: Good to be here, man.

Drew: Good to be here as always.

Michael: Hey, so first off, Drew Rosener, thank you buddy. I thank you. On the show, if anybody watched last week’s it was a replay of DNC Seattle, my annual event that I hold in Seattle, fundraiser for cancer research. Drew made the trip up from Southern California where he’s been temporarily relocated. And we had a fantastic talk, a talk that, you know, a lot of people might have been a little shocked that Drew dropped the kind of information that he did. But if you’re wondering what it was, go watch that. It’s in the last show that’s on the DomainSherpa homepage. Thanks for making that show, Drew. Did you have a good time up in Seattle?

Drew: I had a great time in Seattle. It was my first time in Seattle. I had a great time. I love the city.

Michael: I’m sorry the weather sucked.

Drew: No, the weather was amazing, man. Yeah, the weather was so good. It was like, you know, you almost fooled me. I almost thought that would be a great place to live.

Michael: It’s never like that. Don’t come up here.

Drew: And then everybody told me, no, that happens three times a year.

Michael: It’s not three times a year, it’s like three weeks of the year.

Drew: Bad enough.

Michael: We suck it up when it does happen because we love it.

Drew: Although the weather sucks here today. It’s pouring rain, it’s grey dark.

Michael: That was a good time. Shane, your boy from DSAD, came up from Colorado yet again and we had a great time.

Shane: I was trolling him. So you had a live camera, a picture, and then I zoomed it in and sent him a text. I go, there you are. He goes that’s not me. And then I got a fake nametag from the internet that said Aaron on it, and sent him that. Like I zoomed in on his nametag. It’s like man, can you really see that close? No, I just took it…

Michael: That’s awesome. So yeah, we had Stanton Hammock, DJ Staten from Right Side spinning tunes, and Mark Goeth did the live stream. Last year he did livestreaming, but this year, he really did live streaming. Like you could watch what was going on beforehand, afterhand, you can watch the entire video. I didn’t even have to set up my cheap little camera to tape the whole thing because he had like professional audio, multiple shots coming in of Drew, you know, laying down some knowledge. It was pretty awesome. So thanks again to those guys for doing that.

Drew: They did a great job with the videography and the sound, and the whole bit. It was really well executed.

Michael: Yeah, and Amazon did a phenomenal job. I’m gonna thank them in my thanks later on. And I also wanna give a shout out to my in-laws, Frank and Joanne, they got me some Sherpa cereal at the grocery store the other day. Himalayan style barley cereal, apple, cinnamon, pecans. So I’m looking forward to snacking this down. I would’ve eaten it before the show because I just got a workout in. I’m running back up here to tape it. Whose phone is that, Drew Rosener? Anyway, thanks to Frank and Joanne.

Let’s see here. So sorry. Sorry [inaudible 00:04:13] I’m gonna have to add a marker in right there because I totally just had a brain fart.

Drew: Wait hold on. Before you start again, let me…

Michael: All right, all right. Hey, you’re cloudy again, Drew. I don’t get it. All right, today’s show is sponsored by six awesome domain name industry providers that I’m gonna tell you about more during the show. They include Estibot, Escrow.com, David Weslow Legal Services, DomainIQ, Efty, and DNAcademy. Before I tell you about them, we’re gonna start off with a segment called What’s New Sherpas, where the Sherpas share one purchase or sale that they’ve made over the past few weeks, and get to learn what they paid or received for the domain, why they thought it was a good deal, and how the negotiations progressed. I’ll lead you through the questions, but the other Sherpas will get to comment as well during the process. This segment will go Drew, then Shane, then Ali. Didn’t I say to Drew that you were last?

Drew: Yeah, it was the exact opposite of what you told me.

Michael: You’re first, buddy. Drew, what’s one domain name that you personally bought or sold in the past couple of weeks? Tell us the domain and not the price yet.

Drew: Okay, rosemary.com.

Michael: Ooh, rosemary.com. Did you buy it or sell it?

Drew: Bought it.

Michael: Okay. Shane what do you think Drew paid for rosemary.com? That’s an awesome herb.

Shane: That’s a fantastic…that’s right in my alley too. Oh, love it. Herb, a name, a brand.

Michael: It’s probably like a strain of cannabis as well. I don’t know.

Shane: Everything’s a strain of cannabis.

Michael: Everything is, yeah.

Shane: You can make anything up.

Michael: Dirt mixed with saliva, that’s a strain isn’t it?

Shane: Yeah.

Drew: There’s a Colter [SP] strain now.

Michael: Is there?

Shane: It’s called a Coltravar [SP]. Yeah.

Drew: I like that, I like that.

Shane: I have Coltravar.com, yeah…

Drew: I see what you’re doing.

Shane: Yep. It’s a Coltravar weed. I’m already ahead of the game, baby.

Michael: All right, what do you think he paid?

Shane: Man, rosemary. God, I love that name. What you paid and what I’d pay? Well, I won’t say…

Michael: Because you know he’ll pay more than you.

Shane: Oh yeah, he can afford more than me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love it more.

Michael: And it doesn’t mean that he didn’t pay less than…

Shane: No, this is different. It’s what he paid, not what…So I will say…I know Drew. I’m gonna say 28K.

Michael: Twenty-eight K. Ali, let’s go to you. What do you think Drew paid for rosemary.com?

Ali: Man, I was gonna go with 38K.

Michael: All right. You’re gonna stick with that, 38K? So Drew, what did you pay for rosemary.com?

Drew: I paid exactly 30 grand. So everybody’s pretty close.

Michael: Nice job, boys. So first of all, great price for a domain that probably, I’m gonna go over to Trademark 24/7 right now, type in rosemary. I’m gonna see how many companies are using that. One, two, three. Three exact match. A bunch of broad match rosemary. So that means that there’s even more companies that are using rosemary. Clearly it’s an herb. Is it a strain as well, Drew? I’m just guessing. No.

Drew: I honestly don’t know. It probably is. It should be, I mean, it’s a great name for a strain.

Michael: So phenomenal domain. How did this cross your desk? I think a lot of people would be like yeah, I’d pay 30K for rosemary. How did it even cross your desk?

Drew: So I bought, I don’t know, three, four, five years ago, bought oregano.com. And that was right after Mint had branded as Mint.com.

Michael: From mymint.

Drew: And I went after all the herb names. I tried to contact all of them. Braiden Pollack beat me to parsley.com.

Michael: Yeah.

Drew: And then yeah, and so oregano…sorry, rosemary.com. Oregano’s the only one I actually was able to acquire. And then, you know, there’s others that were available, but they were all just priced way too high. And yeah, the guy came back to me years later. I mean, I blew him off because rosemary, he wanted like 100 grand. And then, you know, he came back two weeks ago, three weeks ago, and said, hey, you know, if your offer’s still valid, I’ll take it.

Michael: So that’s the thing. Like sometimes we reach out to people, they either throw out a really high number or they never respond. But either you follow up or they get in touch with you when they’re ready to sell, and you’re top of mind because you’ve already got that email into them making an offer and inquiring.

Drew: Yep.

Michael: Yeah. I had the same sort of thing on a domain name that I wanted for one of my publishing companies. I made an offer. They’re like we get offers like this all the time. I think it was a year or two later they decided to like close up shop. They had some health conditions, a bunch of people had made offers. They said, make your final and best offer. One offer. And everybody put in an offer, and I was the high offer, and I won it. And so that’s the way these domains sort of work. You need cash in the bank ready to pull the trigger when the opportunity arises.

Shane: Like anything. It’s important to have, you know, we talk about building our own brand, and it’s important to build your own brand as an individual. So when one of us makes an offer, and they see a bunch of offers, they usually come to us because they know that we’re being serious and that we have the money. And if they call back, it’s gonna happen.

Michael: Yeah.

Shane: So it’s all about…that’s an important part of it. And that’s why I say when people go to forums and use fake names and all…you’re losing out. You’re not building your own personal brand.

Michael: I agree 100%. Drew, when he or she reached back out to you to say it’s available, did they just offer at 30 or was there some negotiation in there?

Drew: No negotiation. I had offered 30 previously. I think I started at 15. I think I topped out and I said, you know, my absolute best and final offer is 30. You know, he came back and said if your offer’s still valid, I’ll take it. You know, I could’ve easily gone back. Maybe he would’ve taken 20, 25. But my assumption is always, okay, if he’s reaching out to me, he’s reaching out to everybody else that’s ever inquired. And I’m not gonna play games because I’ll lose the domain. And so I said yes, my offer’s still valid and I’m gonna take it. Thank you very much. I had the guy…the guy had the money in hand, you know, immediately.

Michael: Yeah, great…

Drew: Put it in escrow, funded instantly, and that’s it.

Michael: Fantastic domain. Congratulations.

Drew: Yep, thank you.

Michael: Shane, let’s go over to you. What’s one domain name that you bought or sold in the past couple of weeks? Tell us the domain and not the price.

Shane: Mine always suck after following Drew.

Michael: I don’t know why you say that, dude. I can go back and look at your names and you thought they stunk, but then the other Sherpa liked them.

Shane: No, but the problem is when I get busy at the nursery, I get kind of boring. But I’m always building a portfolio. That’s what we do. So it’s okay to buy and just let it go. So I bought a pretty boring one, but again, it’s a four L. But I put the rest of my sales on my site, so half the people have seen it. So I bought gnbc.com.

Michael: gnbc.

Shane: Yeah, four letters.

Michael: gnbc, Ali, what do you think that Shane paid for gnbc?

Ali: Man…

Michael: NBC.

Ali: He loves those four L that end in C. I think I would pay like 2,500 for it.

Michael: Twenty-five hundred. Drew, what do you think that Shane paid for gnbc?

Drew: I think that’s probably pretty spot on. I’m gonna go 2,700.

Michael: Twenty-seven hundred. Shane? What’d you pay, buddy?

Shane: I paid 2,100. Yeah so, and I’ll just explain. The reason I gave the name is explained like this. So I run a lot of businesses and I’m busy. But I wanna keep in the game. And some of the easiest way my four letters, I’ll sell one to buy five. And I think I explained it on my website. I just upgrade. So every time I sell one, I sold one for seven grand a couple weeks ago, I take the seven grand, I look for the best four Ls, and buy them, and I put them in a portfolio. And now I’m up to 30 or 40 of those letters. And I don’t have to do anything. I know it well enough. I can put it in there. I can always come back to them and sell them. So when I’m super busy and I don’t get all the, you know, Drew’s hustling. I don’t have the time to hustle like that. I’m at least moving my portfolio forward. So people can still have time to do stuff and make some money.

Michael: Hey Shane, if you sell a domain for $7,000 like you did recently, a four L, how long are you gonna hold that money before you put it into another domain name? You know, are you waiting for just…

Shane: You want it in seconds or minutes?

Michael: Well I’m trying to get at, you know, I think a lot of people feel like they have money burning a hole in their pocket, that if they don’t invest it within a month that, you know, the money is wasted or they’re not investing, or they’re not doing the right thing. Like you look at a lot of domains every single day. A lot of them are four letter. You’re not putting that money every single day into domains, are you?

Shane: But the four letter, there’s so much liquidity in it that there’s always opportunity for the right price. I mean, I have standing offers of a lot of four Ls privately. Auctions are always, or NameJet’s just brimming with them. And I look for good buys. But no, you know I always, and again, I’m a different level than these guys here, but I always have $30,000 sitting in the bank account waiting for that name, that Drew name. If that came across, I would have not $30,000 sitting in the bank account.

Michael: Yeah.

Shane: So you know, I’m always looking for that right name. So you can’t let it burn a hole in your pocket. Money management is, in all investing, money management is a huge part of what we do. At the same time, you gotta get some names, and you could pass on everything forever because there’s so many opportunities. You can keep passing. It’s kind of like, I tell people planting a tree, for three years you could figure out what tree you’re gonna buy. Just plant the damn tree and then three years, you’ll have a nice big tree. And on good domains, I think they go up in value from here, especially the brands. If you find one, you gotta buy it.

Michael: Yeah. So I was recently on a WhatsApp group. I’m on a couple of them just to see what’s going on in China and, you know, other groups. And one of them had a WordPress domain in there. And Guy said, well, it’s a trademark. And then another guy said, oh I know a guy that sells them all the time, and he doesn’t have a problem with WordPress. I have had heard of WordPress filing, you know, UDRPs against domain names that have the word WordPress in them because they don’t want other people benefitting from, you know, the intellectual property, the value that they’ve created inside that brand. As that translates to gnbc, are you worried at all about trademarks because it does have NBC, one of the major networks in the United States?

Shane: Yeah, so that does against…and this is how I explain it to people. If the first thing you come…when somebody says something, the first thing they come to is one brand, you gotta be careful. You know, if trademarks, if there’s 50, there’s lot of people using it. If there’s one…if you say Uber, come on. Uber is a lot of things, but right now we all think of the exact same thing as Uber.

Drew: Although there’s actually like three or four big startups, like serious, big startups that are using the Uber brand.

Michael: There’s a few different Ubers. I would say that as well.

Shane: And I agree with you. But it’s a tough brand now.

Drew: I agree. I think it’s an insane brand. It’s like why would you brand your company around the Uber name?

Shane: Absolutely. Yes, they can probably get around it in the court of law, but they’ll never get around the minds of the people. So it’s silly. It’s marketing 101 gone wrong. So as far as NBC, I totally agree with you, but you know, there’s a lot of acronyms that can come from those. And the G to me helps out a lot. So I’m right there with you. I think that being said, NBC’s an issue, but there’s a lot of acronyms in those letters. Those are some good strong acronyms.

Michael: Well and one of the big reasons, if somebody’s tuning into the show for the first time and hasn’t heard the prior 200 shows, it’s that the C stands for company. So there are lot of companies names GNB, and then they want the C because they have a really long name, or maybe it’s a last name of somebody for a law firm and they just wanna go GNBC to shorten it.

Shane: And I can tell immediately how much somebody likes it because the emails come in. There’s just certain ones that come in…you know, a lot of them are Chinese, but a lot of them are just random checks. And gnbc, the second it went into my account started coming along, so I know it’s a pretty decent name.

Michael: Awesome. All right, congrats on that buy, Shane. Ali, let’s go to you. What’s one domain name that you’ve bought or sold in the past couple of weeks? Tell us the domain name and not the price.

Ali: Man, I’ve been on kind of a buying spree here.

Michael: Yeah, you have. You got a fat commission check in the bank.

Ali: I bought a lot of really good names, man.

Michael: And if anybody didn’t watch Ali’s show from a couple weeks ago, we just brokered the sale of freedom.com for $2 million. So what was your commission on that, Ali?

Ali: A lot.

Shane: There’s some big boys in these seats. I’m just here to the side.

Michael: All right, so just one domain name, just one, even though you’ve been buying a bunch, what’s one?

Ali: I bought the acronym, I got the .com, the .net, the .org, the tv, and io of that acronym for virtual reality girlfriend, so vrgf.

Michael: Vrgf. And you went all the way across the board on that one.

Ali: Yeah, I went and plucked them all. Most of them, the other TLDs were on like AfterNic and CVO, and I just found where they were listed cheaper and added them. But vrgf.com is the main one.

Michael: All right, let’s start with the vrgf.com before I even ask the other Sherpas whether you wasted your money on all the other acronyms. Shane, what do you think that Ali paid for vrgf.com?

Shane: Well, I know he’s got some cash, so he didn’t negotiate as strong as he would have.

Michael: We’ll find out.

Shane: Just the com, right? We’re just talking about com?

Michael: Just the com, yeah.

Shane: In vr, I will say 8K, $8,000

Michael: Eight K. Drew, what do you think, vrgf.com?

Drew: I’m gonna say $4,000.

Michael: Four K. Ali, what’d you pay for vrgf.com?

Ali: A lot more than that, yeah. Yeah, a lot more than that. The asking price was 25 grand, and I got it for a little bit less than that. I told them I wouldn’t say the exact price, but I negotiated it down.

Michael: So somewhere north of 20 and south of 25.

Ali: A little south of 20, yeah.

Michael: All right, let’s just call it 20K for round numbers. Why did you feel like vrgf is worth 20K?

Ali: Man, I mean VR alone, that’s gonna be a hundred billion dollar industry in no time, literally no time. And the whole adult experience, it’s gonna go through the roof, and the term girlfriend is just so popular in that industry. And combining virtual reality with a girlfriend, the entire experience alone, it’s probably gonna be one of the biggest experiences in VR as far as immersive…

Michael: But do you think that people over time are gonna change where people get married and it’s okay to have a virtual girlfriend if you’re married? Do you think like…

Ali: It depends who you marry.

Michael: It’s not gonna change for me, let me tell you that much.

Ali: You’re either getting your thing cut off or it’s gonna be all right, yeah.

Michael: All right, Drew and Shane, 20K roughly for vrgf. Crazy, crazy good long term hold, what do you think?

Drew: So I recognize the name, so I went back into my email and I had an email from David K on January 30th. He contacted me about selling four VR names, one of them being vrgf. He was looking for $4,800 for each one except for vrgf, which he wanted $15,000. Said he had a $50,000 offer on Sado and a broker who I won’t mention told them to counter at 65. The buyer backed out and he said he would take 15. Gave me a million reasons why he thinks that was cheap. I passed. I offered him $3,500.

Shane: You missed out on 17…

Drew: I missed out on selling 17 to Ali. You know, I think it’s a high price. You know, I’m not gonna lie. But you know, what Ali’s saying is right. I mean you know. The problem I have with the VR craze, and we own vr.net, which we sold for a very good price. But all of the other VR names that we’ve had, which we have some of the best. I mean, we own vrr.com, we own what is it? I don’t know, we’ve got like three or four very good three letter .com VR names. And honestly, they don’t get a lot of offers, you know, they don’t…here and there, but mostly domain investors. What I see happening is across the board, not just in VR, is that people want brands. And so the fact that they’re a company in the virtual reality space doesn’t mean they want a VR domain name. They want, you know, they wanna be called bunny.com or whatever, right?

And so you know, I would be personally hesitant putting that kind of coin on a single VR name. I think there will be a lot of low hanging fruit, but I think it’s a numbers game. I think you gotta have, you know, 10, 20, 50 of these names to get the one that’s gonna pop off for, you know, good money. To put 20 grand in that name, unless it’s a name you plan to build out, unless it’s a name you plan to develop a brand around, you know, you need somebody to come in and buy that name for, you know, 75, 100 to make it worthwhile because of the risk to reward ratio. So I don’t know that that happens. I don’t know that there’s somebody out there who’s gonna pay 75 or 100 grand or more for vrgf. But there’s no denying it is a great name. There’s no denying that the reason being paid that is a very sound logic. I mean, listen, adult has driven the internet innovation from day one. Every single innovation that’s happened from payments to live, to cam, to every…forums, chat board, everything.

Michael: Yeah, and it’s gonna drive virtual reality, augmented reality as well.

Drew: It will be the number one driver of virtual reality. And so you’re on the right track, believe it or not…

Michael: And it reminds me of Alf Timmy [SP]. He bought we.com W-E.com.

Drew: [inaudible 00:23:24]

Michael: You remember that one? He paid like one and half million dollars or something for it.

Drew: I know Alf very well. He’s one of the smartest men that’s ever invested in domain names.

Michael: I can’t remember how much he paid, it was something like a million and a half. Everybody’s like you’re crazy, Alf. And then he turns around and sells it for like $8 million like a few years later.

Drew: I think he paid more than that. I think he paid two and a half. I think he paid two and a half million dollars. He bought that from Alan…It was a three, it was like a little three way partnership that owned it. I don’t remember the story. It’s not my story to tell, so…

Shane: We don’t know, but remember we went out drinking, and he told the whole story.

Michael: Yeah.

Drew: Well I know both sides. You know, he bought it from a group of three guys that we all know. And yeah…

Michael: All right here’s the follow on question. Ali, why did you buy all the other extension as well when everybody knows the .com is the killer one. And oftentimes people who buy the .com don’t even care about the other extensions. Why did you make that decision?

Ali: Well I mean, the whole logic behind buying these domains and paying the prices that I did for them, on top of vrgf and a bunch of other four L VR domains that I have is I’m looking at it in like a 10 year kind of plan where 10 years ago, you could buy three letter .coms for a few grand, right? And now they’re up to what, 50, 60 grand, and users in the six figures. So if at the very worst, I hold this thing for 10 grand, I’m still profiting 10 years from now, four letter .coms of this magnitude. Who knows what they’re gonna be worth, right? So I almost never buy the other TLDs. I’ve only done it for vrvg.com, which is like virtual reality video games, and vrgf, just because if a major company, especially in the adult industry, buys the .com, they don’t want any competitors, right? You know, you have whatever, like a Pornhub or something, people are buying the typos, they’re buying the .nets, you know, they’re trying to milk from the traffic. So if I can offer the entire bundle and be like hey, traffic’s not gonna get milked. You’re not gonna have any competitors operating under that same acronym, that’s just an extra incentive. You know, it’s something I like to try with just a few specific names, but I think as a bundle, they’re intent to buy…

Shane: I’m looking through all the Pornhub stuff, trying to see if they have…it’ll be a couple…

Ali: I bet you are.

Michael: What is that? I’ve never even heard of that site before. Drew, what were you gonna say?

Drew: There’s two camps around, you know, lock up the other TLD thing. And I’m sort of torn between them. I don’t even know, you know, right now I tend to lean towards not getting the other TLDs. And my reasoning behind that is if you open up the name space, and what I mean by that is you allow the .nets, the .orgs, and all the other lower extensions to be available in the market, or available for registration, obviously on four letters they’re not available for registration, especially with VR, but if they’re available at reasonable prices in the market, and a small startup comes along, and they can’t afford your price, they’re gonna go get the .net or the .co, or the .whatever, the .io, and they’re gonna start building their company. And they’re gonna build that brand, and they’re gonna keep adding value to your .com. And then eventually when they hit a tipping point, they’re gonna come knocking, and they wanna buy the .com, and they’ve already established themselves under that brand. And so you’ve got way more leverage. You’re in a position where now they need the .com. It’s not just a nice to have or deciding between a couple brands. It’s gonna cost them a $100,000, $200,000 to rebrand. And once they get to a C round, maybe even a B round, their investors are gonna say, no, no, no. You want us to put money in this, you need to go get the —— .com. You need to lock up the name space.

So I like…so the flip side of that is that if you’ve got the.com, the .net, the .org, the .io, etc., etc., you’ve got that all tied up, it’s a 50/50. It’s they’re either gonna buy into what you’re selling and they’re gonna say, okay, that’s an added bonus to be able to lock up the whole name space, so yes we’re willing to pay this crazy price. Or they’re gonna say, we just can’t afford it because most of these companies are startups by definition. So since the whole space is new, these are all startups. So they say okay well we can’t afford vrgf.com right now, and all of the other assets that come with it. So we just have to go with a different name. We gotta go, we gotta pick a different brand. And so my feeling is that more often than not, if you’re in a space where you know your target market is a startup, they’re looking at you and saying well, it’s all or nothing. With you, if you’ve got all the extensions, it’s all or nothing. So if we’re gonna go with vrgf as our brand, you’re the only shop in town. And that can be a great thing or it can mean that they can’t afford what you’ve got, and so they just go to a different name and move on. And then you know, you need a new buyer. And as we all know, you know, those buyers don’t come around knocking every day.

So I generally am leaning more now these days towards letting that name space remain available and let them…my biggest sales have been to the people that own .io, or .co, or some prefix, you know, so it’s upgrades. It’s always upgrades. Always. Very rarely, except for the cases of, of course, essential.com, which I wish I knew where that was going when I sold it. You know, very rarely is it, you know, somebody…I forgot where I was going with that, so I’m gonna leave it there.

Michael: So I’ve done both things as well. I’ve gone both ways. But I’m leaning towards you as well, Drew. Now when I see on park.io, the .io of a brand that I own is for sale, I’m like I hope it goes to a domain name investor that puts it at a reasonable price and sells it to somebody that wants to build on it so that they come for the .com later, or whatever you know? That’s generally my feeling as well. Great…

Ali: One more thing on that, to kind of talk about what Drew was saying, if somebody does go out and wants to buy the .io of vrgf, why wouldn’t I wanna be the one that sells it? You know, if I believe in this brand so strongly and they come to me, I’m like yeah, I own this and this and this and this, and they’re like well we can’t afford the package, would you be open to selling just the .io? I’m like sure.

Michael: And you’d piecemeal it out, yep.

Drew: That’s actually probably the best of, you know, I said there was two camps. And you’re right.

Shane: He owns the kitchen in both camps.

Drew: Yeah if you say, you know, look, I was looking at it from the perspective of look, this is a package and it’s a package deal. But if you’re willing to say well look, here’s the deal. I’ll give you the starter package. You start up on the .io and I’ll give you that for, you know, three grand, five grand. And then you know, a year from now you’re gonna know whether or not you’ve got traction. And if you do, let’s get into a lease to own or, you know, just step up and buy…

Michael: And the beautiful thing Ali’s gonna set reasonable pricing in all those minor TLDs, you know? And so yeah, it’s the best of both worlds.

Ali: Yeah I mean, if I sell one of the minors, I can make back the money I spent on the entire package and free roll it, you know?

Michael: Yeah.

Drew: And you’ve got, you know…you probably won’t get that much out of one of the lesser extensions. But more importantly, you’ve now established that relationship.

Ali: Yeah, exactly.

Drew: So it’s very easy for them to come back to you and say okay, we’re ready for the upgrade.

Ali: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah, awesome. Congrats, Ali. Thanks, Sherpas. I’m gonna tell you about three of our sponsors for today’s show that support us in our mission to educate people for free.

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Michael: We’re gonna move onto the next segment of the show. In the Domain Portfolio Review, 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 long term, or figure out a sales strategy going forward.

Today’s portfolio was submitted by David Gertler. As part of David’s submission, he made a generous donation to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to help us all find a cure for cancer. David’s list of 25 names starts with balletrecital.com, and it ends with wrestlingmeat.com. All of his domains are .com domains. If you’re watching this show, this is the point where you should press the pause button, review the domains yourself, price the domains, maybe pick your top three and your bottom three, and then come back and listen to the Sherpas share their insights, and then try and align it. You know, this is the way we improve, by actually putting ourselves out there on a sheet of paper and writing down what we think is good and not good, and then listening to other people.

This segment we’re gonna go Shane, then Ali, then Drew. Shane, let’s start with you. First, what’s your general impression about the domains listed in David’s portfolio?

Shane: Well a couple things. I think the positive is that they all are .coms, so I think he’s got a much better chance of selling them just from that standpoint alone. The other thing I look at them and I just don’t see a lot of potential brands out of it. You know, brands don’t have to be made up words. They just have to be something. I looked through the whole list and I just didn’t see anything that jumped out at me that I would call my company this. And that’s an important part. That’s who’s spending the money, medium and large brands who wanna call their company this. And there weren’t a lot of that. I mean, they’re products. I think this would have done great in typing traffic. And 10 years ago, this portfolio would have been great. You would have sold these for a decent amount of money. But that’s changed, and I don’t think these are nearly as valuable as they used to be. We know what they are, but…

Michael: Right, they’re not like made up stuff. Like on some of these forums, or you go on the discussion forums and they’re like…people are just putting crazy words together. They’re not keywords, they’re not brandables, they’re nothing. These at least they are things, right? It’s a ballet recital. It’s a chess lesson.

Shane: I mean everybody knows what a helicopter parent is. But where do you take that term? How do you make money with that? And we could sit down, and drink, and come up with a game plan, but that’s two people in the nation that are gonna do that. So I struggle with these types of names. And again, I know what they are. That’s half the battle. I know what a traced call is, or traced calls. I know what that means and what they’re gonna do with it. But I think more people are going towards brands that do these things. They’re doing something that sells junior prom dresses. And they’re doing something that represents a forum for helicopter parents, and how to be a good…you know, I think that that’s there.

So that being said, the two things that I think could be brands is I think greeneating is definitely something that people wanna do. Our families all in this area tend to eat green, and eat well, and eat. So I think that that has a brand potential. Greenforever, again, I live in a very liberal town. I see a bumper sticker like that constantly, between Coexist and Green Forever, I see like constantly. So those are two terms I think could be made into a brand on a t-shirt, selling a certain type of lifestyle. The other ones I struggle with.

Michael: Yeah, so let me pause you on those two. Would you hold them long-term if you owned those? Would you hold them for 10 years?

Shane: Yeah, I mean, I wouldn’t sell those for under five grand. I think some brand will come through. You know, I was talking to somebody about how I price them. If there’s names that I don’t think, you know, that aren’t my botany and my monkey wrench kind of names, I’m like a 2,800, 6,800, 12 grand, and I price them. I just put buy it nows on them. Above that, I start negotiating and I’ll certainly negotiate on the other ones. But you know, those…

Michael: So let me clarify then. When you say five K, would you ask five K or would you like look to actually sell them at a price around five K?

Shane: Yeah, I mean, I’d look to sell a little more, but I think at five K, you know, that name…you’re gonna have that name for $100. So if you’re getting 50 times your money, I can live on that.

Michael: Yeah.

Shane: So you know as far as, you know, you got another portfolio, you gotta pay for it. That’s what we talk about here all the time. This isn’t about oh wow, I make six times my money. You got other names to pay for that aren’t sometimes getting your money. But that being said, I think every name should pay for itself. I’m not a huge, you know, Josh is the opposite. Josh is a numbers guy and I’m learning from that. There’s a definite business model in selling 2 to pay for 98 of them. But I do a little bit less of that. And I know Drew does too. And Ali, you’re not just stacking names. You’re trying to treat each name as a name that you’re gonna sell for…but it doesn’t work like that. It’s not that simple.

But okay, so getting back to the names. I’m not a huge fan. I don’t think he’s been terrible about it. I think he got them pretty cheap. I just think it’s gonna be a tough sell in today’s market for names like this. And putting them up on NameJet, you’re really only catering to the people that don’t understand the market as well, and you’re gonna sell them because there’s somebody else that’s gonna say I love butterscotchpudding, absolutely one of my favorite things. Cool brand, hip. But then I’m starting to type out butterscotchpudding down in the computer and it’s no longer a good brand when you think about it that way.

So again, I think it’s better than the people that we’ve done before, but I think he has less chance of making great money on most of these names.

Michael: Yeah, totally get it. Thanks, Shane. Ali, let’s go to you. What’s your feeling about David’s portfolio, and which names stand out to you as good ones?

Ali: Pretty much on the same boat as Shane. They’re not great brands. A few of them might likely be like a blog, maybe a name for a blog, like helicopterparent. But then again, you know, how is that person going to profit on it and how much are they gonna pay for it.

Michael: Right, so let’s say that you realized, maybe David realizes that helicopterparent is the name of a blog. How much would you price it at? You’d want to set a buy it now price, maybe get that impulse buy.

Ali: Two hundred bucks?

Michael: Two hundred bucks, yeah…

Ali: Or $99, because you know, helicopterparent, someone wants to start a blog, stay at home parent wants to do something and, you know, talk about their experience as a helicopter parent or one that had a helicopter parent…

Michael: Or maybe they think it’s a funny term for just being, you know, a good parent. And so that’s the key point is like…

Ali: …helicopter parent was until the other day. I’m sitting here like what the —- is a helicopter parent?

Michael: Yeah, that’s you dude.

Ali: Nice, yeah. And then I found out what it was…

Michael: And so the lesson learned is that people, you don’t buy names that people are gonna use for blogs because they’re not gonna spend more than a couple hundred bucks on it.

Ali: Barely, yeah.

Michael: Yeah, if that.

Ali: Maybe $100 they’ll spend on it because it’s just a hobby for them. Anything else, I mean, the greeneating, I think that’s a great domain from this list. It’s probably the best one. But I don’t even see five grand in it. Maybe like…

Michael: What would you price it at?

Ali: $1,499, throw it on AfterNick and hope somebody makes an offer like $600, $500, and just take it. As far as the rest of them, you know, I buy a lot of domains. Like I bought almost 5,000 names for a buck a pop. And almost none of them are generic like this. They’re brands. And you know, when you’re buying names, they should be more catered to being these empty vessel type of brands, versus so niche and specific, especially at this level. The bigger ones, different story. But you know, like balletrecital. What startup is going to be sitting around being like, I wanna pay five grand and name my company balletrecital. They’re not gonna do it. You know, they’re gonna buy something like, you know, axiswire, you know, like this silly brand, and it can be just about anything. You know again, stuff like darlingdaughter, who’s gonna pay for that besides a mom that’s at home and has a credit card she wants to put $50 on, $100 on to write about her daughter’s journey through life or whatever it is, right?

You know, another thing is like diapercarrier. If you’re gonna buy a product domain, make sure it’s a plural. That way at least someone has a monetization option on it…

Michael: But aren’t you getting a little bit too niche when you get into diaper carriers or running jerseys, like…

Ali: Much volume on this thing is low too. It’s what like 89 searches a month.

Michael: It might as well be zero.

Ali: It might as well be zero. You might get one customer every six months that pays you $19 and you get 5% of that from an Amazon affiliate, it’s not worth it. It doesn’t even cover your renewal. So with most of these, I would probably drop them. I would keep the green ones and then just put everything else on AfterNick for like $199 with a make offer of $50 and try to get your money back. But yeah, I don’t see anything great in it.

Michael: All right, thanks Ali. Drew, you know, a lot of these domain names are real words, just like Ali and Shane said. They almost seem like they’re keyword domains. But they don’t actually have any search volume against them. So they’re not keyword domains, they’re not brandable domains. Are these the kind of domain names that investors should just not be buying, that you just need to realize that you need to stay away from these?

Drew: You know, at the risk of being crude, these are almost like the worst kind of domains you can possibly own. And that’s because…

Michael: Yes, go ahead. I’m sorry.

Drew: Well, it’s because they are real things and so they can very easily fool you into think that they have value. And it’s very hard to say I’m gonna let butterscotchpudding.com expire. You know, like I don’t even think I would let butterscotchpudding.com expire, even though I know deep down inside that this domain name is never ever, ever going to sell to anybody for any price.

Shane: But it is delicious.

Drew: But it is delicious. I mean you know, maybe that one’s got a chance. You know, that one’s got a chance at $500 or $1,000, you know? Maybe. But the other ones, you know, really you just, they’re good enough that you’re gonna just keep hanging on to them and paying your renewal fees. And so it’s like, you know, they become a liability and almost…the value isn’t going anywhere and, you know, your cost of…just keeps going up every year. And they’re not gonna move. And so they’re almost the worst you could have. You’re almost better off having something that’s really obviously just crap because it’s easier to just say okay, I’m gonna cut this loose.

Some of these are crap, but you know, runningjersey.com. It’s like well it is a thing. I mean you know, I don’t know. Am I gonna just…christeningblankets.com, like there’s somebody out there knitting Christening blankets that probably would love to have that name for their blog, but they’re not gonna pay you more than $25 for it. So why are you paying $9 a year to keep it? I think you’re better off letting these go back to the market and, you know, the couple hundred bucks you’re gonna spend in renewal fees, buy one or two good names.

Michael: And you know, the one that stuck out at me, exclusivetvoffer. That sounds like a phrase that I hear a lot, but then when I went and searched it, it has like 10 searches per month. It’s nothing. So…

Drew: No, it’s as seen on TV is the only thing that’s wise.

Michael: Yeah, so you can’t be tricked into like, just because it sounds like something you’ve heard, go type it in and see if it’s actually used. So it sounds like two domains, greeneating and greenforever.com, those are the two that two of you guys liked for holding on to.

Drew: I actually know a Rastafarian reggae tone, a local reggae tone star that would probably buy greenforever. I think his like…he goes by everything green, the number 4, forever.

Michael: Yeah, dude. Does he have money?

Drew: No, no, no. It’s everything green, the number four, ever.

Michael: Yeah, but does he have money?

Drew: No, he doesn’t have any money.

Michael: I was gonna say, you could broker it with like an email to that guy or text message, like get the guy sold. David’s like positive on the whole portfolio, he moves on.

Drew: Nah, no, no, no.

Michael: All right.

Drew: He might shoot a reggae tone video with some Columbians for you. Not that that doesn’t have value, because it does.

Michael: All right, hey Drew, David wrote a question with his portfolio. He wrote as a former high volume, low price domain flipper, I’ve tried to move upmarket. I like to acquire short sensible .com domain names, products, services, or common phrases. Would many of these domain names justify outreach to potential end users or are they more likely auctioned, more like to be sold via auction? What are your thoughts?

Drew: I think that you should reach out to Bill Cosby on butterscotchpudding.com. Other than that, I think you know, you could try to auction them. I don’t think they’re gonna move. You might find the next greatest fool, and somebody pays you the $69 or something for it, but I wouldn’t, you know…

Michael: These domains are not worthy of doing outreach. They don’t have enough people. It’s not worth your time.

Drew: If he can get anything out of them, great. And if you can’t just let them go and put the renewal fees into something else.

Michael: It always pains me when I say, you know, people email me. They’re like what should I do with these domains? I’m like put them on NameJet, put them on NamePros, take whatever somebody will give for you because it’s just moving it somebody else that doesn’t realize. But then I’m like well, maybe they have a best friend that is, you know, has a Rastafarian band that’s name Green number 4 ever and they wanna buy it for like $500 and like give it to their friend. Who am I to say? So like put it up…you’re saying put them up there, sell them to somebody who wants them…

Drew: David, email me about the greenforever.com. He legitimately might buy that.

Michael: All right, there you go, David. Andrew@mediaoptions.com, maybe he can hook you up.

Drew: It’s not gonna be much, it’s not gonna be much, but he might cover the cost of…

Michael: Of the rest of the portfolio, yeah. David, thank you for submitting your portfolio and making a donation to cancer research. We hope this review has been helpful to you and your domain investing activities going forward. Before we jump into the domains going to auction soon, I wanna tell you about three of our other sponsors that support us in our educational mission.

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Michael: We’re gonna move onto the Marketplace List. This segment is sponsored by NameJet. We’ll be reviewing 10 no reserve domain names heading to auction soon. If you like one of the domain names, 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’re not commissionable links. They’re just trackable so NameJet can see what kind of traffic we’re sending them. The list starts with ebin.com, a four letter, and it ends with another four letter, xera, or xera, one of the two. This segment we’re gonna go Ali, then Drew, then Shane. Ali, I know you texted me earlier today. You’re like darn it, Mike, why did you put that domain name on the list? I know, buddy, it pains me. It pains me because I really wanted one, what was that domain that was on the last show that…

Ali: Unsunghero, I think.

Shane: Gunslinger.

Michael: Gunslinger is the one I really wanted to buy. And I went up, I feel badly, I know the guy that bought it. And then he got a great deal, and that’s a good domain name. But I did drive the price up on that. I didn’t think he was gonna go that high. And then today, so what are your favorites on the list, buddy?

Ali: My favorites are ebin.com, spitfire.com, energyefficient.com, xera.com, and marijuanareviews. Yeah, ebin. I love this name. A lot of these E plus three letter words have been selling, you know, for five figures. I saw some up to seven. You know, like ejet sold for 40 grand versus like ebet, that sold for $1.3 million. This one I see doing probably like, I don’t know, 30 grand, maybe 40 grand in the future. You know, eBay’s done a really great job of building brand notoriety around these E plus three letter word names. So ebin, I think it’s a great ecommerce kind of wish list, maybe a Pinterest type where you put the products that you love in your bin, kind of development waiting to happen. Spitfire, this is the one I messaged you about. I was kind of pissed you put it on the list.

Michael: You got cash in the bank, buddy. You can throw down.

Ali: I’m bidding on it, and I will bid you up.

Michael: I’m gonna bid on it too. I like it.

Drew: So am I. Guns blazing, baby.

Ali: Guns blazing. It’s a great domain name.

Michael: Maybe we go three ways on this one. Come on. We’re all friends here.

Drew: I like it.

Ali: Yeah, we’ll talk about that after the show.

Michael: All right, spitfire, why do you like spitfire?

Ali: It just sounds fast. It sounds aggressive. It sounds like the know it all of whatever it is this company, future company that’s gonna use the name. It’s very authoritative. You know, definition, I think it was like someone with a bad temper, but it’s also someone that’s fierce. Yeah, I just love the brand.

Michael: What do you think spitfire’s gonna sell for?

Ali: Oh man, who knows? If we go on the three way bidding war, it could go for more than it’s worth at wholesale.

Michael: Let me back up for a second, ebin, four letters, they’ll go for, you know, a few hundred bucks, under a thousand, good four letters with a C at the end. Clearly Shane is driving the price up to $2,100 apiece. What you think of like an ebin’s going to go for?

Ali: I don’t know. It all depends. I mean, it could go for two, three grand. It could go for five or six grand depending on who’s interested in it, and how much they think they can get for it.

Michael: Yeah.

Ali: You know, with something, spitfire, I don’t know. It could go up to 5, 15 grand, 20, if it goes crazy. Yeah, I mean, end user value probably around 80 to 150 grand maybe. It depends on who it is and how badly they want the name. The other one I like is energyefficient.

Michael: Very keyword focused, man.

Ali: Very keyword focused, but also it’s such an important thing for our species to become way more energy efficient, man. We’re bleeding the planet dry with energy resources amongst other resources. You know, some big movement could really benefit from the term, or just some big company that’s developing the next wave of energy efficient products.

Michael: So it sounds like keyword domain names are not dead, and you would…

Ali: It’s not that keyword domains are dead. It’s just the wrong keyword domains are dead, you know? If it’s ballerinarecital, there is no movement behind the ballerina recitals. At least I don’t think there is, and it’d be weird if there was. But there is a movement behind energy. There’s a movement behind efficiency. There’s a movement behind both of those combined. So you have to pick the right keyword combinations in a much larger scope of things.

Michael: Yeah, and it’s important to also think about what the right words are. Is it energy efficient? Is it energy efficiency? Is it…how would you go determine what the best two word keyword phrase is?

Ali: If it’s a product, obviously the plural is the better because it can become a commercial thing. With something like this, I like to stick to the root words more often than not. So if efficient is the root word of a efficiency, then I would stick to the root word. Or you do some keyword research, you know, do some trends, Google trends, keyword finder, keyword planner, and go in and see what phrase is searched for the most from the different variations, and you know, if you can kind of pick up both variations, even better. But I do like energyefficient versus energyefficiency.

Michael: Cool, all right, you mentioned xera, I’m gonna save that for the other guys. Let me ask you about marijuana.reviews. I thought these new Gs were dead, Ali. What’s going on picking that one?

Ali: You know, so I don’t think they’re all dead. I think it’s a —- show what’s going on with the thousands of options. I think that they should be whittled down to a few, most likely to be used by end users over the course of the next 10, 20 years. I like reviews. Reviews are big business. A lot of search engine marketing wizards are making tons of money by providing reviews. And the marijuana industry is massive. I mean, I was gonna leave this one to Drew to talk about, but I love it because, you know, I see an entire review YouTube channel, website, you know, complete stoner just trying every type of bud that he can and giving a valuable reviews into it. The different types of highs, and this, and this, and that. So it might not sell for a lot, but I think it’s a viable domain name. Obviously marijuanareviews.com or weedreviews.com, potreviews.com, these would be better options, but it’s still a decent domain name.

Michael: Yeah cool. With that, I’m gonna jump over to Drew. Drew, let’s start with marijuana.reviews because I wanna ask you, do you agree with Ali’s assessment of it? Is it a good domain name for that type of individual blogger that wants to, you know, start up a blog, reviews?

Drew: Yeah, I mean you know, the path is very clear. You know, review site. You know, without spending too much time on it, cannabis media is very tricky. It’s very difficult so the way that…I agree 100%. The biggest domain sale I’ve ever made was reviews.com. That was the biggest domain I’ve ever sold, most expensive. And that is an extremely good business. But the way they make money is through like, you know, affiliated relationships and lead generation. And you can’t do that with cannabis. So…

Michael: Right, not today.

Drew: It’s also hyper local. Not today and probably not for quite a while. So I think it’s hard to monetize. I think it’s very difficult to monetize. I think it’s a long term play. But it is, you know, even Leafly who is probably the number one right now in terms of those strain reviews and such, you know, they’re losing money. I mean, it’s hard. It’s very hard. So I think, you know, it’s marijuana.reviews. You know, it says what it is. It means what it says.

Michael: Is marijuana the right keyword, the right second level domain? The best?

Drew: I’m actually not a big fan of the keyword marijuana. I think that the industry is trying to really, you know, consciously move away from the word marijuana. Now that’ll take time before that filters down to the consumer. The number one search term is weed. The industry very much does not want to brand itself with the weed term. They wanna be more mainstream and vanilla. So you know, the leaders are cannabis, MJ, Mary Jane, you know, basically that’s where it is. That’s where the industry is trying to move towards. But you’re still talking about massive search volume on the keyword marijuana.

Michael: Okay, cool. Cool. What do you think it’s worth? Are you gonna bid on it?

Drew: Probably not. You know again, coming back to TLDs man, I mean, it’s very difficult to say what is thing worth? There’s no market for it today. So what is it worth today? Probably a few hundred dollars. Maybe a grand, you know? But will that change in the future? Absolutely. I mean, someday it probably will be worth 5, 10, 20 grand, you know, who knows? So it’s a question of, you know, what’s your horizon and are you looking to hang onto it for the next 5 to 10 years? Or are you looking to quick flip? If you’re trying to quick flip this, you’re gonna have a hard time.

Michael: Yeah, not quick flip, long term hold, and then maybe it’ll have some value later. So what do you like on the list, Drew, besides…what do you like on your list? What are the favorites?

Drew: So spitfire is by far my favorite. I mean, I just love the name. It’s just mean. It’s like everything that Ali said. It’s a great brand.

Michael: Do you also think it’s an $80,000 order of magnitude retail sale?

Drew: To an end user?

Michael: Yeah.

Drew: Oh, I’d never sell it for that. I’d be asking 350 to 500. I think it’s just, you know, I spit fire man. That’s what I do. I just spit fire.

Michael: I know you do, but you’re not gonna pay 350 for it. What kind of company’s gonna come pay 350 for it?

Drew: The guy that wants it more than I do.

Michael: All right.

Shane: And pause.

Drew: And pause, that’s all I gotta say about that.

Shane: Drop the mic.

Michael: Over to trademark247.com, type in spitfire, and I’m gonna see how many trademarks, and there are bunch of trademarks. There’s over 20, there’s over 40, I think there’s over 60. So there are a hell of a lot of companies that are using spitfire as a brand so…

Drew: If I were starting MediaOptions today, we would be called spitfire.com. That would be our brand. We would be spitfire.com.

Shane: It’s gonna be tough one to outbid him.

Michael: Waterblasting, baseballs, entertainment services, all-purpose cleaner, safety equipment, motorcycle tires, archery products. There’s a heck of a lot of companies using spitfire as a brand, so…

Drew: Is there a trademark for verbal abuse?

Michael: Probably.

Drew: Because that’s what I’m gonna use it for.

Michael: Yeah, I don’t think there is one.

Drew: I’m gonna verbally abuse people.

Michael: All right, you like spitfire. I thought that’s why you bought that other domain name. What was it?

Shane: Oh, gofyourself?

Michael: Gofyouself.

Drew: But I use that, you know, digitally. I use that for email.

Michael: Right, right, right.

Drew: That’s for email.

Michael: All right, what else do you like on the list, Drew?

Drew: I like xera. You know, I don’t… a little tough to pronounce. If I tell you it’s a little difficult to, you know, you gotta explain how to spell that.

Michael: You gotta say xera with an X.

Drew: But look, at the end of the day, Xerox got over it. So good brand. I think it’s a decent little brand.

Michael: What do you think that’s worth? Like if you owned it in your portfolio today, didn’t know how much you paid for it, what would you price it at retail?

Drew: Probably at 35, hoping to get 25.

Michael: Twenty-five thousand?

Drew: Yeah, I might ask 50, hoping to get 25, 35. But I think it sells at 25, 35.

Michael: Yeah, okay.

Drew: You know, energyefficient, definitely good name. Good for lead gen. I mean, the search volume’s not huge, so a little tricky to justify spending the money…spending the time and money to develop it out for lead gen. But you know, probably one of the big appliance manufacturers, or solar installers, or consulting companies in that space could probably…you know, they’d probably pay you decent money, 10, 15, 20. So I like that name. That’s about it. I actually don’t like ebin. That name has been floating around for years. It’s been up for auction 28 times. And you know, I don’t know. It doesn’t do anything for me. What am I gonna do? Bin is buy it now. Ebin, I don’t know. And I think the I and the E names are on their way out. All of Apple’s products are no longer using the I prefix. You know, eBay, you’re right, but that was launched in the 90s. Like there’s not a lot of brands launching with an e or an I name anymore. I’m seeing a very clear trend away from those names. I mean, we had a newsletter last week with I think 10 really, really good e names. Like I don’t remember them offhand, but they’re like a few of them were like very, very good. And they were priced at like $750 to $1,500. Not a single offer. So I don’t see any demand there.

Michael: Yeah, okay.

Drew: I don’t like that one.

Michael: All right, thanks Drew. Shane, let’s go to you. Anything on the list that these guys didn’t mention that you do like?

Shane: No, I think fastercash will sell just because the industry, there’s a lot of money in it. And the CPC is good in it, and it’s a big business. So I think…

Michael: Fast cash is like a great brand, right? Faster cash, is that a brand that company would pick, do you think?

Shane: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, you see the title loans and the instant overnight cash. It’s a great name. I think it sells a lot more than you think even on NameJet. I think it sells for over two grand.

Drew: I would have said exactly the same thing. Two to three grand.

Shane: Yeah, so there’s money in the quick cash market. You can flip those all day as far as in that range. Not huge money. I think we all know spitfire. I was gonna say I love the X, the ones that start in X because it’s established what the sound is because of Xerox. Drew hit it on the head. And you get them cheap. People just don’t like them as much, and yet they’re still used quite a bit. And so you get them, like a CBC like that will go for less than a different type with letters that are better known and easier to say. But I think the price to value an end user on the X names are really good. I’m not scared of them at all. So I do like that one a lot. I’m right there with Drew. I’m just not a big fan…to me, an I for E name…I think Rich Schwartz still loves them, but I think they date them. I think it says 1999 right on the name. And ebin, the first thing I saw is God, that name’s been around a lot.

So I don’t like to pretend that I’m smarter than anybody else. You know, I know a lot of this game has to do with being at the right place and the right time. So you can get a name that someone, 10 people tried to sell, and all of a sudden the one guy comes in and buys it. I’m not gonna roll the dice and try to be that one guy. So I don’t disagree with either one of them in that case. But this all comes down to where can I spend my money, and there’s tons of opportunity out there. And there’s really only one name that I’m gonna do it, and that’s spitfire on this list. They’re not bad names. I probably could make some money. But of this list, that’s where I’m gonna spend my money. I’m gonna move onto other opportunities.

Michael: Solarteam.com, you don’t like it?

Shane: I love solar name, but I don’t see, that’s not the kind of name. I’m looking for islandsolar, calisolar. Like my company, no, I wouldn’t name my company that. So I think there’s better solar names available for the same price.

Michael: Okay.

Shane: Ali likes islandsolar. I know he likes that one. I saw it for the first time when I was on the island. I go okay, that’s a name…

Ali: Yeah, it’s a good name.

Michael: All right, I also asked today’s Sherpas to pull out a single name that they like, maybe they wanna share it, talk about it. I wanted to get their perspective. They’re looking at the names different than I am. There’s something that we can learn from the way they look at the names, from the name they pick, from the why they think it’s a good deal. So Ali, let’s start with you. What’s one domain that you picked that you think might be a good investment opportunity for newer investors?

Ali: I picked travelclub.com. I really like this domain name. It’s a massive industry to start, and it’s got a ton of development potential from, you know, affiliate links to trip planning, hotels, booking, being a part of a traveling club, and so on and so forth. I think it has a ton of potential. I’m bidding on it just to put it in my portfolio as well. I don’t know what it could sell for potentially, but you know, if the right company comes along, mid to high five figures, maybe…it’s all relative.

Michael: Well jeez, I just typed it into KWfinder.com, 201,000 searches per month for travel club.

Ali: Whoa.

Michael: Yeah. So where is it offered for auction right now?

Ali: It’s on NameJet. It’s got 34 bids and it’s only at $82 right now. Yeah, it’s surprisingly low for this name. So I’m gonna try to get this and spitfire.

Michael: Yeah, so now I went to Estibot to type it in, travelclub.com, because I just wanted to verify it. Sometimes the data’s off for the exact match searches, but Estibot has 302,000 per month. So not a lot of CBC, but clearly people are looking for it, and there’s probably a lot of companies that are using that phrase. You’ve probably done some research on it?

Ali: Yeah, just looking at KWfinder. I mean, you have 3,600 search a month for travelclubpuntos, or puntostravelclub, travelclubviejas. Yeah, there’s a ton [inaudible 01:07:38]

Shane: …travel.club.

Michael: Yeah.

Ali: I love travel.club. I’m a big .club fan. I’ve bought quite a few of those already. But yeah, like it’s just a huge business, man, and there’s a ton of search volume…

Michael: Yeah, that’s a nice domain. I’m gonna have to put in a bid just to watch what happens on that one.

Shane: And the cheapest went away.

Michael: But you’re a giver, Ali. That’s the thing, buddy. So if you bought that one, let’s say…so you think it could be…what did you say the retail price you would ask on that one?

Ali: You know, 65 to 85 grand. I mean, this is like best case scenario.

Michael: Yeah, highest and best use case.

Ali: Yeah, maybe more.

Michael: Maybe more, cool. That’s a good one. Shane, you got a domain?

Shane: Yeah, actually I found two. And again, these are a little different. There’s two that I saw that stuck out to me in two different places. One was branddoctor.com, and I think that our whole industry’s based on brand, and bad branding, and good branding, and upgrading, and I think there’s a lot of industry marketing, even domain to branddoctor.com would be a very good name for them. And it’s, you know, I don’t even know if it has any bids yet. So it’s a name that I think would go for cheap and make a good business. Now will it sell for $25,000? No, but I think that you can sell that name, and I think whoever gets it’s gonna have a great name to build a company on. And that’s the most important.

And the other one I found was truebrew, T-R-U-E-B-R-E-W, truebrew, 1996 domain. Again, artesian brewing and craft brewing and all this is real big right now. And I think it is a company already. I did look that up. But I think that’s a decent name in itself too with not a lot of bidders as well.

Michael: Well and then you got the alliteration as well. Those seem to…

Shane: Rhyming words, yeah.

Michael: Rhyming, I’m sorry, not alliteration. Yeah, the rhyming, yeah.

Shane: People like brands that rhyme. So and again, those are just two names that I thought were pretty cheap, that normally would slide through, but again…

Michael: Yeah, how’d you discover those two domains, Shane? What’s your process?

Shane: The same exact process I go…I looked at names…where we had to be about seven days out, or a couple…I looked at the list and put about 20,000 names out there, and I started with the oldest and scanned to one that caught my eye.

Michael: What tool do you use?

Shane: Pardon me?

Michael: What tool did you use?

Shane: Expireddomains.net.

Michael: Expireddomains.net. You go into the filter, you change it from, you know, a certain to a certain day because I asked the Sherpas to pick stuff that doesn’t expire before the show airs on Monday. And then sort it by date. And you just started from there.

Shane: Yeah, and Josh taught me a couple filters to help me go…you know, because it’s hard to go from 1995 to 2017 every day for every place. But if there’s a couple of filters that take out some stuff that are really helpful, that I can get all the way through to 2017 and catch some names that I weren’t catching between 2013 and 17 because I was too damned tired at the end of the day.

Michael: Can you give us like one of the filters? Can you…

Shane: Well, it’s just looking at…so obviously there’s alternate TLDs. And some of them that are in use in certain countries show worldwide use. So it’s taking in another country, then you know that it’s a pretty decent name. And it’s a good way to filter it out. So there’s certain country codes that we use…I would never buy that country code, but it’s a good indication of a name, and that way I can go deeper into the list at the final round to find some more names that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. So he’s, again, I love…the two guys sitting on this panel, I love surrounding myself with brilliance. And there’s all different kinds of brilliance in this industry. And Josh is a brilliant name finder. The dude finds…man you give him a pile of dirt, and he’ll come home with a ring or something out of it…

Michael: He comes in with the worms, yeah.

Shane: Yeah, he’s really good about it. So anyway, so that’s what I use. There’s no way around just manual searching. If anybody has that, I think they’re lying.

Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Awesome, thanks for those pics. Drew, you ran out of time before the show, right?

Drew: Yeah, I mean, I tried. I looked, but it’s hard for me. You know, I honestly, truly do not think that the best investment strategy is trying to find those hundred, $200 domains. I think that you’re gonna go wrong more than you’re gonna go right. And I think, you know, there’s something beautiful about an auction. And if you pay $5,100 in an auction for a domain name, and there’s another guy behind you that’s willing to pay 5, and another guy behind that that’s willing to pay $4,900. Another guy behind that willing to pay $4,800. If you’ve got three, four, maybe not if it’s just one other bidder, but if you’ve got three, four, five other bidders that are right there at plus or minus, you know, 10, 20% of where you’re at, and something in your gut tells you that this is a great name, but you’re nervous. It might be more than you’ve spent before. Just buy it. Just buy it. Trust your gut. Buy that name for $5,100, put in the work, try and go sell that domain to an end user. And if you succeed, boom, rinse, repeat. And if you fail, put it back in an auction. You’re not gonna lose more than 20%. So you probably won’t lose 20%. Remember there was two, three guys behind you willing to pay $100 less than you are. You might make money. Some of those guys might regret not putting in the extra $100 and beating you.

And so if you put that back in an auction, you might make money. But if you don’t, you’ve taken a relatively low risk. Your worst case scenario is gonna probably be 10 to 20% on the downside. Your upside is a multiple of what you paid. That is smart investing as far as I’m concerned. That is a less risky investment than going out and trying to buy 10 or 20, or even 1. Buying one domain name for $200 is a magnitude of order more risky than buying a really good domain name in a well-participated auction with multiple bidders at the top 20% price range, and going a little bit outside your comfort zone is way less risky than buying the one name for $200 and hoping that somebody’s gonna show up and buy it from you. Because they’re not. They’re not. Unless you’ve got 1,000 of those, that person is not going to show up except in that one in a million occasion.

And so you know, look, I’m gonna say there’s a lot of people out there that have gone out, found a $200 name, and then flipped it, and then boom, they’ve got a great story. But there’s also 999,000 people that bought the $200 domain name that never got the good story. You know, they let it expire or they forgot about it, or they’re still paying renewals…

Michael: But let me temper this You presented two opportunities. One is to go to an auction and play market value, one is to like look through the list and pick up domains for, you know, for a couple hundred bucks. There are other opportunities. And one you just talked about earlier which is doing the work and emailing the people, and waiting for those inquiries to mature. And another one is like reaching out on the discussion forums and buying domain names wholesale rather than trying to like pay, you know, wholesale retail, like a little bit higher than wholesale on a market like NameJet where it can get heated. And so there are opportunities in the middle there.

Drew: Let me stop you because, you know, the whole point of this exercise as I understood it is for a brand new investor who’s got a few hundred bucks. They want to invest and buy a domain name. And I would say that the worst thing that they can do is go on NamePros, get into a forum, and try to identify a domain name that they can buy. Because that brand new investor has not learned the proper lessons yet to figure out what makes a good domain name. And if they’re showing up and they might get lucky, but you can’t build a business on luck. So that’s the worst thing that they can do is go on NamePros and try and pick off some other domainer who probably has more experience than they do, and try and pick up some perceived bargain. You are better off getting into the auction where there are four or five other people who also see value in this name.

That’s the whole premise behind the Chinese bubble. These people didn’t even know what the hell makes a good domain name. Somebody on a Chinese forum said if the domain has no vowels, it’s two, three, or four letters, and it doesn’t have a V in it, it’s liquid. You’re gonna get out for plus or minus 20%. And everybody said oh okay, that’s where I’m gonna put my money. And you saw what happened. And a lot of those people made a lot of money. And the entire premise of it was okay, I’m an auction. It meets the description of what I know to be more or less what will make a good domain name, and there’s five other people behind me willing to pay $100 less than I am, I feel comfortable with my investment because there’s other people that are right there with me. And so if you’re a new investor, you want other people to give you a proof of concept. They want to verify your belief in the value of a name rather than I’m gonna secretly pick off this domain because I think it’s a bargain. Well you know what? There’s a better chance that it’s not a bargain, that you’re the next greatest fool, that you’re picking up the hot potato from somebody else, and now you’re gonna sit on it for the next couple years, and then eventually put it back on NamePros.

So I actually think you’re better off to get out of your comfort zone, pay more, get into a name that has real intrinsic end user value, commercial application, and you know, look for others to be validating that this domain has value. And then just step up, throw your money down, and then put in the work. Contact people, sell the name, you know, rinse and repeat. And if you fail, which is fine, if you fail you’ve hopefully learned a lesson. And you can go out and you can get rid of the name in the same auction you bought it in, and you’re not gonna come out worse than 10 or 20% as long as there’s three, four, five other bidders right below you.

Michael: Right, right. All right. That’s the last word. We’re at the end of today’s show. I’d like to give the Sherpas an opportunity to share anything they want about domain names they’re selling, brokering, opportunities they’re looking for, anyone they wanna give a shout out to. Let’s go in order. Ali, what’s new?

Ali: Man, so many things are new. We’re brokering a lot of high quality one word .coms right now.

Michael: Like what?

Ali: We have sneakers.com, program.com, soft.com, the list goes on. So you know, if you’re looking into buy or sell one word .coms…

Michael: And I heard you can get $2 million for all of those.

Ali: What’s that?

Michael: I heard you can get $2 million for all of those.

Ali: For each?

Michael: Each of them.

Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael: …million dollar man.

Ali: We’re getting close to closing some other big deals here, man. So those will definitely come up. We’re also auctioning off virtualreality.info on Flippa that you can head to virtualreality.info and it’ll take you to the auction. It’s one of the best .infos you can buy on the market right now. And then so I recently purchased a lot of .club domains, like vr.club, xxx.club, California.club, and I have a coupon code. You can use starfire to get 10% off on all your .clubs. I make a little bit, you save a little bit. Yeah, that’s all I’ve got.

Michael: Cool, all right. Thanks Ali. Drew, what’s new?

Drew: Yeah, also got a lot new. So I want to announce that I am, I’ve joined as a founding member of NameSummit, which will be having their maiden event in New York City in early August. I will have more details and a coupon code for those of you that wish to attend, the next time I’m on this show. But check it out, NameSummit.com. The reason why I wanted to be a part of this show is that I think they’re taking a different look at the domain name conference. They’re looking at why are domains valuable, very much in line with some of the rants and raves I’ve done in this show. You know, it’s not about speculation. It’s not about, you know, passing off a domain to the next greater fool. You know, if you’re buying domain names because they’re good wholesale domain names, you’re looking at this all wrong. You need to be, you know, focusing on where’s the commercial application, where is the value in this name? Who is the buyer of this name, and what are they gonna do with it? What’s the size of the market cap of that industry? Why are they willing and able to pay whatever price you think this domain is worth? And I see that as the number one handicap to this entire industry is that the majority of new investors are coming in with all the wrong perceptions.

They’re looking at it wrong, they’re buying the wrong names, and I think that NameSummit is looking to change that. NameSummit is looking to bring end user voices to the domain industry to demonstrate why do they make a choice to buy that type of name? What has it done for them? Where is the value? How did it add value to their business? And so I’m excited to see them pull that off, and I’m excited to be a part of the NameSummit adventure as it goes forward.

Michael: What does it mean to be a founding member?

Drew: I’m a partner in the business.

Michael: Oh, you’re a partner, gotcha.

Drew: Yep, we own a piece of NameSummit.

Michael: And that’s happening this summer, I believe, right?

Drew: Yep, in August.

Michael: August, yeah, I’m bummed about that. I think I’ve got travel during the summer and so I’m not able to make it to that event. I did look to see how to get out to New York during the summer.

Drew: There is some really exciting stuff that’s going to be announced soon, you know, that is gonna make this a really interesting event, I think. And they’ve partnered with George Verdugo [SP] I think to get some great rates on the hotel, which I’m not gonna speak out of turn here. But when they told me the price for the hotel, I was like wow, I didn’t even know you could stay in a hostel for that price in Manhattan. And so you know, I think it’s gonna come off well. And you know, I think it’s long overdue. I think that Manhattan is, you know, basically between LA and Manhattan, and maybe San Francisco, you know, we’re talking about the hub of enterprise. And all of the branding agencies, all of the advertising agencies, a lot of digital media in terms of publishing is based in New York. And so I think it’s a great forum for an event. I think there’s gonna bring a fresh perspective. I think they’re gonna have some really interesting people participating. And yeah.

Michael: Cool, NameSummit.com. All right, thanks Drew. Shane, anything you wanna mention, what’s new?

Shane: No, I mean, I think I made it through the spring in the nursery business. And you know, I’m probably more proud this year. I’ve become a pretty damned good businessman. I mean, we got 34 employees, I mean, it’s just amazing what I’ve learned as a person, as a businessperson. You know, I sit and talk domains, but when it all comes down to it, it’s business. And it’s how to manage a business and how to buy and how to sell. And you know, I feel fully qualified no matter what now that I can run a business. And business, it doesn’t matter if you’re selling plants or you’re selling…well domains are a little different. But when you’re selling products, so I came out of this…you’ve heard me tell a lot of stories. I’ve been sharing a lot of business stories, and life stories, and how to…I do more of that because it’s been an amazing journey. So you know, I’ll have more time to deal with domains here, but we had our first close to million dollar month at the nursery, and I remember in 95 we did $70,000 the first year. We did more in one day this spring than we did the entire year when I started.

And so it’s hard not to sit back and reflect on that. I don’t like to pat myself on the back because there’s lot of people that do a lot of great things. But you know, there’s a sense of pride when you’ve done it yourself, you’ve done it with your own money and reinvesting it. And when I try and tell people is this —- takes time. I mean, life takes time. Domains take time. You just have to kind of go at it and wait. Patience is something you’re gonna have to develop in all our industries. So you’re seeing me tell more of those stories. People say I wanna sell my domains now. I’m sure you do. I’m sure you do. Everybody wants to sell right now. But you’re gonna have to be patient and some things are gonna take time. And there’s gonna be some domains you wish you didn’t sell because you were impatient. You gotta hang on to them. So anyway, you’re gonna see some more of those stories, DSAD.com. I’m with a great group of guys. Even Travis came over and rebuilt my website at the nursery and kind of translated what we’re doing at the site to my nursery site, an amazing SEO…

Michael: What’s your nursery site? I’m gonna go check it out.

Shane: Yeah, I mean 4,000 new things we ranked for in Google that we didn’t rank for before. So…

Michael: Wow, what’s the domain?

Shane: Countryarbors.com. Yeah, you’ll see my crazy face. You know, 1865, man, that’s a long time.

Michael: Five generations of cultures, baby.

Shane: Of cultures, that’s a sad thought but every generation’s different too. I mean, every single way of marketing is different. Everybody does something different, and just like everybody else, I think I can do it better than my dad, who thought he could do it better than his dad, who thought he could do it better than his dad. Everybody think they can do it better, so I’m getting my chance to find out if I can.

Michael: Nice, all right. I personally wanna thank everyone that came up to or down to D in Seattle from all over, you know, Vancouver, Portland, Idaho, Minneapolis, Arizona, Texas, California, all over. Especially thank our own Sherpa, Drew Rosener, who was our keynote for the night. It was a great event. Our corporate sponsors were Amazon, GoDaddy, Donuts, Right Side, VeriSign, [inaudible 01:26:51] Escrow and above.com. Thanks also to our festivity sponsor who gave away free products, Estibot.com, DomainIQ, and DNAcademy. We raised $6,100 to help find a cure for cancer through the Fred Hutch Cancer Research Center. We had a great time from 6:00 to 9:00. We went out to Brave Horse Tavern from 9:00 to midnight. Then we went to yet another place and oh my gosh, we had a good time there, right Drew?

Drew: It was a great evening. It was a great evening. It was the stuff that stories are made of.

Michael: Yeah, it was a good night. All right, if you received benefit from today’s show, please just take 10 seconds, post a comment below. Tell us what you thought was the most interesting, educational, entertaining portion of today’s show. And thanks to today’s Sherpas. I wanna thank David Gertler for submitting his portfolio and making a generous donation to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center as part of that segment of the show. Thanks also to NameJet for submitting their portfolio and sponsoring that segment of the review. And thanks again to our Domain Sherpas, Ali Zandi, Andrew Rosener, and Shane Cultra for sharing their experience and insights. We’ll see you all next time.

Watch the full video at:
https://domainsherpa.com/review-20170612/

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33 Responses to “DomainSherpa Review – June 12: Rosemary.com, GreenEating.com, Spitfire.com…”

  1. VOIGHT THORNTON says:

    Great show as always guys!! continued
    most interesting was the sites you guys
    shares to research domains. Thank you

    Voight Thornton
    cactuscroc.com
    Scottsdale, Arizona

  2. Eric Jenkins says:

    Great show Sherpas……Thanks!!!

  3. Matt says:

    Thanks for another awesome show guys!

  4. Niz says:

    Thanks Mike and Sherpas..

    Another Fantastic show. Appreciate the time you guys put in.

  5. satyadeep singh says:

    I would like to tell you that which type of name they are interested to buy.

  6. Archer says:

    Great stuff.

  7. Howie says:

    Heck of a broadcast.

    From the UK, Spitfire is famous for the fighter aircraft flown by the Royal Air Force during WW11.

    1. Deborah says:

      True, Howie. I was surprised none of the guys brought that up. I’ve been in one in fact.

      Although there are several companies that popped up on Google with the name. So that may have diverted their attention.

      1. maybe it was taken as a given that the aircraft is the most iconic image related to the name. Maybe I think that because I’m a Brit too!

        Howie, old bean! Did it make you think of the ale too….?

  8. Judie T. says:

    Such a great show with so many lessons to learn. Thank you sherpas for all you do for us newbies in the industry. I echo John’s analysis!

    And Michael, rest assured you are a prince in the industry. The fake kings will be revealed to have no clothes. They’re already showing how criminally insane they are by wanting you to put the Adam Dicker videos back up. Completely crazy. No excuse. They need to leave the industry too.

    Stay strong. We love you all!

  9. tldboss says:

    Thank you for a great show guys.

    As always, full of valuable information, it is interesting to hear about names that used to work a few years ago and not anymore, I thought of parking – it doesn’t pay anymore as much as it used to. Sadly I missed the boat :(. I would have bought some of the names that David submitted, but after the review I see where he went wrong (I was going to go wrong too given the chance to buy them).

    1. David Gertler says:

      Are you sure you don’t want any of them? Make an offer for your favorite one, and maybe something good will happen. ;-)

  10. Mike, Drew, Ali and Shane,

    Thanks for another highly informative review. Your wealth of experience and willingness to share it through Mike’s forum is a great asset to the industry. You all bring a different perspective to the show. Drew is the seasoned veteran with great insight and deep understanding of the ins and outs of the domain marketplace. Ali is the rising star with the quick and aggressive uptake leading him to his place at the top of the industry. Shane is the tried and true methodical domainer working within niches he’s established great knowledge in over the years. Like anyone successful in a certain field they all share many of the same qualities, they all bring something different to the table. Lastly a big thanks to Mike for all his time and effort at bringing us these reviews and DNacademy.

    It’s always great to hear of your successes within the industry…It’s encouraging to the us newcomers.

    Many Thanks,

    John Magavern
    http://www.juanadomain.com

    1. Thank you for the kinds words!

    2. Ali Zandi says:

      Far too kind! Thank you!

    3. Shane Cultra says:

      John,

      Much appreciated. Glad to know some people are getting things out of the show. I truly enjoy being a part and I hope it comes across.

    4. Albert says:

      Said it best.

    5. Sorry Mike,

      I forgot to mention efty.com along with everything else you bring to the table.

      Looking forward to the next review,

      John

  11. Josh Schoen says:

    Great show guys, thanks!

  12. Deborah says:

    Excellent show, guys. Always a pleasure to watch these.

    I totally agree that the end user is where it’s at for valuation. But, to my despair, the early bird registration is over for namesummit.com. Wow! Wish I had know about it earlier.

    I see spitfire.com is already pricey. Great name. Kudos to whomever buys it.

    1. Hi Deborah,

      Thanks for watching and taking a moment to post a comment.

      DomainSherpa has secured a 50%-off coupon, so if you’re still interested in going to NameSummit please use: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/namesummit-2017-tickets-32567772083?discount=DomainSherpaNSNYC2017

      Have a great weekend!

      Best,
      Michael

  13. David Gertler says:

    Hi Sherpas – Thanks a lot for evaluating my portfolio! I appreciate your realistic views. (Looks like I need to focus less on what “sounds” good and more on metrics.)

    And thanks to Mike for providing this great forum!

    P.S. Andrew, I’ve emailed you about GreenForever.com.

    1. Solid response David. Many can ask but acting on the advice makes the difference. It sounds like you’re a doer! Good luck in the future :)

  14. Mark Tune says:

    Thanks for the show today. I really appreciate hearing what you guys think where and how you would invest today. Ali and Drew gave great feedback on their approach to investing with fewer risks, which is something that I think all of are trying to do or should do.

    I’m a daily reader of Shane’s blog, DSAD.com, to get Shane’s insight and picks. Thanks Shane!

    Mike, as always, thanks for hosting and contributing to a great show!

    1. Shane Cultra says:

      Thanks for reading Mark. Always nice to hear people enjoy the work

      1. Mark Tune says:

        Yes, Shane, please keep giving your opinion/experiences on fitness. The other morning I didn’t feel like getting up at 4:30AM to go running, and I said that Shane’s wife and daughter tell him to get up (based on one of your stories). So needless to say, I got up! I think about them encouraging you when I’m lacing up my shoes in the morning. So your comments do make a difference. Thanks!

        1. Shane Cultra says:

          Mark,

          That’s fantastic. I feel more proud of inspiring someone to stay fit than I do making someone some money. You can make more money but you only get one body :) Keep moving. And that story is absolutely true. My wife chastises me until I get up and run.

  15. Tom says:

    Great show. You guys go into enough detail that I can understand what you’re saying. Michael, your questioning and getting into the details is second to none.

    Thank you to all the Sherpas for a fantastic show. I just listened on my way to work and now I want to take a break to go look through the auctioning domains! :o

  16. Great show again guys. The panel is always nicely split and divided but also civil…which is nice. Great perspectives from three (four, Mike!) different investors.

    Drew is so right. The stories of actual usage are fairly minimal. The beep.com.au to carloans.com.au was a great story that showed actual growth through use of the domain name.

    Any conference that addresses these issues and shares the business results of owning premium domain names will do well. Good luck with that venture Drew.

  17. Ran says:

    Great show…Again!

    just want to mention…

    wordpress has very specific recommendations on domains
    basically they say very simple thing
    use wp instead of wordpress

    you can read it here

    https://wordpress.org/about/domains/

    1. Thanks for sharing the link so people can get educated about domain names with the trademark “wordpress” contained in them.

      And thanks for watching and commenting! :)

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