We’re joined by three Domain Sherpas: Andrew Rosener, Mike Carson and Shane Cultra.
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https://domainsherpa.com/review-20170821/
MICHAEL CYGER: 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 of the review. We’ll start off learning what the Sherpas recently bought and sold. Next, we’ll discuss in value an investor-submitted domain name portfolio, and finally we’ll preview some domains going to auction soon at NameJet.com, and 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 Andrew Rosener, CEO of the domain name brokerage firm MediaOptions.com and CEO of Ganjapreneur.com, the leading B2B magazine serving the cannabis industry, Mike Carson, developer, entrepreneur and founder of the Park.io ccTLD domain name marketplace, and Shane Cultra, publisher of the blog DSAD.com and owner of the Country Arbors Nursery in Illinois.
Sherpas, welcome to today’s show.
ANDREW ROSENER: Thanks.
MIKE CARSON: Hey, Mike.
SHANE CULTRA: Thanks, Mike.
MICHAEL: Hey, Drew. Good to have you back on the show after a couple of weeks off. You’re doing some traveling recently. Where in the world is Drew Rosener today?
ANDREW: So I’m still traveling. I’m in Germany at the moment. We’ve been in Austria, but mostly in Germany.
MICHAEL: Nice. Well, thanks for staying up late. I know it’s…you know, kids are in bed right now, you’re probably…
ANDREW: 9:00.
MICHAEL: Couple…my kids are in bed by then.
SHANE: That makes me feel better. I saw him drinking a beer and I was like, “Gosh, it’s like mid-afternoon. [Inaudible 00:01:35] different country.
MICHAEL: I feel like I should be sometimes by this time.
ANDREW: 5:00 somewhere.
SHANE: Day drinking, yeah.
MICHAEL: Hey, and Mike Carson, good to have you on the first “DomainSherpa Review” panel. If you’re watching this show and you’re not sure who Mike Carson is, go type his name or actually scroll down to his bio and click on “More Shows with Mike Carson.” He is the .io king, and he’s done a couple of shows on why startups are buying them, how to value and sell them. Click on his bio, they are great shows. So, good to have you, too, Mike.
MIKE: Yeah.
MICHAEL: And Shane and Mike, this is a reunion of sorts for you two, right?
SHANE: Yeah, we’ve been friends for…what? Ten years, since 2007.
MIKE: Yeah.
MICHAEL: Which is weird, because you guys have…you guys never met back then in person, did you?
MIKE: No.
SHANE: No, but we email back and forth a lot.
MICHAEL: So what were you two doing back then?
SHANE: Mike?
MIKE: Well we were…we had stock trading blog. It’s funny, I was thinking about this today. We were basically doing almost the exact same thing but in a different industry. It’s like, if you just took out domaining and put in stock trading, that’s where we were, like, 10, 15 years ago. It’s like, yeah, Shane had a blog and I had a website where I had, like, different tools for screening trades and stuff. But it’s…yes.
SHANE: Yeah, it’s essentially the same thing. I did pics and stories, and…yeah, I mean, essentially it’s pretty much the same style of writing except a little bit more younger, because I was…
MICHAEL: What’s new is old again, or what’s old is new again.
SHANE: Yeah.
MICHAEL: So what happened to those two sites? Shane, I thought you said you’d sold your site in the past, right?
SHANE: Yeah. I sold my site to Break.com and Lionsgate Films, and put the money in the…
MICHAEL: What did you do with yours, Mike?
SHANE: …a site called Wallstrip.com with Howard Lindzon and Fred Wilson, and then that got sold for, like, $5 million. And then I came back and started…I couldn’t write a blog for a year because my blog got made into a site called Made Man, and so I had a no-compete. And then once that was done, I started getting into domaining and said, “Well, don’t look like anybody’s writing stupid stuff here, I might as well do that.”
MICHAEL: What about you, Mike? What happened to your site?
MIKE: I kind of wound it down. I was day trading for a while, and then I just stopped doing that, and then I kind of just, like, wounded down after that.
SHANE: Like, you did a startup, too.
MIKE: Yeah, I started working on a startup.
MICHAEL: So do you think in 10 years, you guys are going to be, like, out of the domain industry and into the bitcoin or cryptocurrency industry?
MIKE: Yeah, definitely. That’s where I’m going. I don’t know about Shane.
SHANE: Mike’s following me wherever I go, basically. “Let’s see what happens. Yeah, I’ll just follow him into bitcoin.”
ANDREW: Mike’s headed for [inaudible 00:04:26].
MICHAEL: Yeah, seriously.
All right. Today’s show is sponsored by six awesome domain name industry providers I’m going to tell you about more during the show. They include EstiBot, Escrow.com, David Weslow Legal Services, domainIQ, Efty.com, and DNAcademy. But before I tell you about them, we’re going to start off with a segment called “What’s New, Sherpas?” where the Sherpas get to share one purchase or sale that they’ve made over the past few weeks. We get to learn what they paid or received for the domain, why they thought it was a good deal, and how the negotiation progressed.
I’m going to lead the Sherpas through the questions, and the other Sherpas that get to comment during the process, as well. This segment, we’ll go Drew, then Mike, then Shane.
Drew, what’s one domain name that you’ve personally bought or sold in the past couple of weeks, or your company bought in the past couple of weeks? Tell us the domain name and not the price yet.
ANDREW: Okay. Let’s go with entitle.com.
MICHAEL: Can you spell that for me?
ANDREW: E-N-T-I-T-L-E.
MICHAEL: All right, entitle.com. Hey, Shane, people often say that you are entitled.
ANDREW: Like, this ticket will entitle you to a free dinner and a cocktail like Foxwoods Casino.
MICHAEL: Entitle.com, Shane. What do you think…? And you bought it, right, Drew? Or you sold it?
ANDREW: Correct.
MICHAEL: You bought it, okay. What do you think Drew bought entitle.com for?
SHANE: Well, honestly, if you put the D on it, that’d be a fun name as far as entitled, like, you know, rich kids are entitled…
MICHAEL: Yeah.
SHANE: Entitle…it’s a buy, though. So…okay, we’re going back to Drew. I know Drew. I will say $12,000, is my number.
MICHAEL: $12K. Drew’s buy price is $12K. That’s what you’re saying?
SHANE: Oh, yeah. And it’s $75 grand or $80 grand. But, you know, honestly, for me…and Drew will explain why it’s so awesome here in a second. For me, it’s nice. I’m not sure…like, I know that people are going to get some, but it doesn’t…when I see it, it doesn’t scream at me like some of the other ones. That’s being honest.
MICHAEL: Okay, all right, hold that. Mike, let’s go to you. What do you think Drew paid for entitle.com?
MIKE: I don’t really…I don’t know the .com market as well, but I guess my guess would be, like, $10,000. It seems like a good…I can see it as, like, a good brand or something like that, but, yeah, I guess $10k.
MICHAEL: Cool, all right. Drew, let’s go to you. What did you pay for entitle.com?
ANDREW: Yes, you guys are pretty much spot-on. I paid $11 grand.
MICHAEL: Wow! You guys nailed it, split it right down the middle.
ANDREW: Yep.
MICHAEL: So what…yeah.
ANDREW: So it was offered to me, and I originally…
MICHAEL: Who offered it to you?
ANDREW: Sorry?
MICHAEL: Who offered it to you?
ANDREW: Guy named Andrew Rice. And he was essentially, I guess, acting as a broker, I suppose…not your broker…not sure what’s the correct term there, but he was making a market. And I originally passed, I said, you know, “Entitle.com.” I was like, “Yeah, if it was like $5 grand, I would just said, ‘Sure, I’ll take it.'” But then, I don’t know why, you know, I slept on it and it sort of kind of kept coming back into me. And so then, the next morning I dug in a little bit and I started researching “entitle” and I was like, “Oh, shit! This is a killer name.”
So first of all, there’s a ton of startups, and existing companies, and product services called “entitle,” but secondly, what I found most intriguing was I started reading some stuff about how “entitle” was tied to blockchain technology, and, you know, the basis of blockchain, or one of the basis for blockchain is the idea of title transfer and ledger, you know, like keeping a ledger of title of ownership, of whatever that might be, or whether it’s a cryptocurrency, or a car, or a house, or, you know, whatever it is.
And so I thought, “Wow! This is really cool. Entitle, you’re talking about, you know, one of the three fastest growing markets in the world, and “entitle” seems like a pretty good brand for that market, for various types of projects.” So that’s why I bought it. So I went back and I said, “Yep, sure, take it. Done. No negotiation.”
MICHAEL: Eleven K dollars. And what…you know, given that you are considering it to be a brand for blockchain, cryptocurrency, going forward, that market…you know, we were talking about this before the show, I should have taped it. Like, it’s…
ANDREW: I don’t care who it goes to, you know, three, two guys.
MICHAEL: Yeah, but what’s your retail asking price on it?
ANDREW: If it goes to an entitled rich kid, then, you know, all the better. But I saw the opportunity. So I’m betting on the fact that you’ve got a growing market, and this seems to be a strong brand, you know, that would tuck into that market, and so…
MICHAEL: So what’s your asking price today?
ANDREW: Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
MICHAEL: Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
SHANE: So two bitcoins, basically.
MICHAEL: Don’t take it all in bitcoin.
ANDREW: Absolutely.
MICHAEL: Hey, Mike, now that you heard that, what do you think about entitle.com?
MIKE: Yeah, I like…that does make a lot of sense, and I like that it likes a verb, you know, and especially using with blockchain, I could see that being used. That seems like a good one.
MICHAEL: Shane, what do you think now? Seventy five thousand dollars, eighty thousand dollars?
SHANE: Yeah. But, you know, I understand. I mean, it’s like, you know, what I’ve been telling everybody is, even if I’m not in bitcoin, I’m sure as hell selling things to people that have bitcoin cash. If anybody’s going to make money, I want to sell them something. That’s exactly…like, “Make that money, baby, because I’ve got stuff for you to buy.”
ANDREW: Yeah, no doubt, no doubt.
MICHAEL: All right, congrats on that buy, Drew. I’m looking forward to tracking that one over time and seeing where it lands.
Mike…
ANDREW: I actually got an even better deal, but…
MICHAEL: You only get one domain in this segment, buddy.
ANDREW: All right.
MICHAEL: We’re going to have to chat about that one after the show. I’m going to write that one down.
Hey, Mike, let’s go over to you. What’s one domain name that you bought or sold in the past few weeks? Tell us the domain name, and not the price yet.
MIKE: Okay, I just bought tx.io.
MICHAEL: Oh, nice. Now we’re going to try these guys out at their io pricing skills. All right, a two-letter, tx.io.
Drew, what do you think Mike paid for tx.io?
ANDREW: Well, see the trickiest thing is, like, he’s the biggest drop-catcher of .ios, so it’s like he might have paid nothing for it. Can we ask him, did he buy in the aftermarket or did he get, like…?
MIKE: I bought it from somebody who owned it for, like, five years.
MICHAEL: All right. So you bought it from [inaudible 00:11:37]?
ANDREW: I’m going to say $3,500.
MICHAEL: Shane, let’s go over to you. What do you think Mike paid for tx.io?
SHANE: I know he’s flush with cash, so…but I also know he’s cheap, real cheap.
ANDREW: Look how many books he bought. How [inaudible 00:11:59]?
MICHAEL: No, look at all…but they’re all paperbacks, first edition.
MIKE: That’s true.
SHANE: I’m not saying he’s not the smartest guy I know. You can be cheap and smart.
MICHAEL: Was that a love story right there on that stack, Mike? I think it is. It says “Love” right there.
ANDREW: Most of the smartest people you know are the cheapest people you know.
SHANE: That is very true. Yeah, I mean. “A Lot To Remember,” oh, that’s a [inaudible 00:12:18].
MIKE: Yeah, let me actually turn this a little.
SHANE: Great. How many Nicholas Sparks books can you put in one stack?
Okay, no, I do think two-letter .ios…yeah, I think they’re increasing every day, and it’s Texas. He wouldn’t have bought it Texas, and then we’ll throw something in bitcoin in there because that’s…
ANDREW: No, man. Yeah, it is. It’s transferred. Like, everything is “TX.” “TX” is…
SHANE: There we go. So I am going to say he paid $8,500 for it.
MICHAEL: Eighty-five hundred dollars. Mike, let’s go to you. What did you pay for tx.io?
MIKE: I paid 3,000 Singapore dollars, which comes out to be, like, $2,200.
MICHAEL: Wow! Two thousand, two hundred U.S. dollars, nice.
SHANE: Singapore dollars.
MICHAEL: And so if you were to put it up on Park.io marketplace today, what do you think the wholesale…since Park.io is traditionally like a wholesaler-type market…what would you think it would sell for today?
MIKE: I think it would probably…I don’t know. It would go, you know, for, like, $5000 probably, you know, and that would be a really good deal. But…yeah, I mean, the reason I got it is, like, what Drew said. Well, first of all, I love short .io. Like, I think, you know, they’re really rare and the registry holds a bunch of them so you can…they’re hard to get, and they’re just cool, too. But, “tx” is…well, you know, it’s abbreviation for “transmission,” but it’s the bitcoin abbreviation for “transaction.” So, yeah, that’s the main reason I got it. It’s, like, short for “bitcoin transaction.”
MICHAEL: That’s pretty awesome. Yeah, and so…
ANDREW: [Inaudible 00:14:06] five grand dollars.
MICHAEL: Yeah, if I sent you an anonymous email today saying, “How much do you want for it?”
MIKE: Then this is what…
ANDREW: You’d take $20,000 or $25,000?
MIKE: I’d say I’ll donate…I’ll gladly donate it to you, if in exchange for, like, $300,000 worth of your ICO, you know, like your ICO tokens. That’s what I’d want to do.
MICHAEL: If we were a cold hard bitcoin today, how many U.S. dollars’ worth of bitcoin would you take?
MIKE: How much would I take is a load…I mean, I would ask 100…I would ask six figures for this. That’s what I would ask.
ANDREW: What? Come on.
MIKE: I would, man.
SHANE: You’ll ask $350,000 for “entitle.” He can ask…
MICHAEL: I know, I know, kettle [inaudible 00:14:51].
ANDREW: We’re talking about a .io and [inaudible 00:14:53] discount. I mean, the entire bitcoin market is using .ios for the most part.
MIKE: I know. Yeah, I’ve sold some to some of these people that have ICOs. So these ICOs, it’s like they create money out of nothing, and suddenly they have millions of dollars, like hundreds of millions of…
MICHAEL: Over $100 million, crazy, in a few hours.
MIKE: Yeah, just like out of nowhere, basically.
ANDREW: Yes. However, let’s take a step back. I don’t think any of the people that actually raised hundreds of millions of dollars were on a .io. You have [inaudible 00:15:22].
MIKE: Actually the biggest one ever, filecoin.io.
ANDREW: Okay, and that is not the biggest one ever, by the way.
MIKE: It is the biggest one ever. Look it up.
ANDREW: We’ve got “tazzles”. How big were they? They were $220,000?
MIKE: “Tazzles” was, but “filecoin” just beat them a week ago. In the first hour, they raised, like, $160 million, and now they’ve raised, like, over…I think they’re the biggest one now at [inaudible 00:15:47].
MICHAEL: I’m going…right after the show tapes, I’m going to buy a bunch of whatever coin.ios. I’m going to snatch the whole market.
ANDREW: Yeah, no doubt.
MICHAEL: And I don’t have a lot of insight into what Mike does, but because I like .ios, I trade emails every once in a while with him, and like, he’s getting some big sales that aren’t public. Like the .ios sell.
ANDREW: I tried to buy one off you the other day. I used some anonymous email because I was like, “I’m not going to let them know…”
MICHAEL: You did not.
ANDREW: You wanted like $20 grand. What’s your email? What would you have responded with?
MIKE: What? What would I…?
ANDREW: What would you have responded…I don’t remember what the domain was. What would you have responded to me with?
MIKE: If…well, what domain name are you…?
ANDREW: I don’t remember. I’m trying to look up your…
MIKE: Mike@humbly.com?
ANDREW: Oh, yeah, that’s what it was. It was the “humbly,” yeah.
MICHAEL: Yeah, what was the domain? Now, I’ve got to watch all the emails that are coming to me, that you’re not just screwing around with me, Drew.
SHANE: He’s looking it up. He’s trying to figure out what the domain is.
MICHAEL: I want to know what the domain was.
ANDREW: Yeah, I don’t remember what the domain was.
SHANE: He’s asking you, if you put $20,000 ask, what would you come down to, regardless of the domain? Is that your question?
ANDREW: Well, actually I didn’t have the question, but, yes, you’re right, that’s exactly what was going through my mind.
MIKE: I know. I feel like I’m all over the place, though. I don’t know. I don’t know how you guys work, but like, it depends on my mood. I mean, usually I just copy…
ANDREW: It wasn’t that email, it was a different email.
SHANE: If anybody says any different than that, they’re lying.
MICHAEL: Hey, Mike, was it mike@humb.ly?
MIKE: It might be, yeah.
ANDREW: Yeah, that’s what I searched.
MIKE: Do humbly.com, mike@humbly.com.
ANDREW: Yeah, it was matrix.io.
MICHAEL: That’s a nice one.
MIKE: Yeah, that one…there’s kind of a good story…yeah, so everybody’s like, “Oh, .io, why not just get the .com?” Well, actually I was in the shower once, and in the bottle right there [inaudible 00:17:48].
ANDREW: Let’s [inaudible 00:17:48] there, please.
MICHAEL: He was only in the shower once.
ANDREW: Yeah, I can tell from his hair.
MIKE: There’s a bottle of shampoo, and it’s right there, matrix.com.
ANDREW: This story is getting worse and worse.
MIKE: Matrix.com and like, well nobody…so you have no alternative…you can’t get the .com. You’re not going to get it. It’s on shampoo bottles all over the place. So if you want a really strong matrix name, like if you’re doing tech, you got tot…so $20,000 is low, I think, actually. I mean, when I saw that shampoo bottle, I was like, “Going to ask more than that.”
MICHAEL: Matrix.io, yeah, I think it’s a $30,000, $40,000 name.
SHANE: [Inaudible 00:18:34] shampoo bottle…
MICHAEL: You should have snatched it up, Drew.
ANDREW: I don’t know, man. I don’t know.
MICHAEL: How many fake emails have you sent me from anonymous accounts, Drew?
ANDREW: [Inaudible 00:18:43] fake email. I use, like, a personal email that you may not recognize me.
MICHAEL: Gotcha.
ANDREW: Actually, I didn’t use a fake name.
MIKE: You should have just let me know because I’d give you a better deal, you know.
MICHAEL: Hey, Mike, let me quickly ask you before we go over to Shane. .io changed their database. It’s not a thick Whois, it’s not a thin Whois, it’s a non-existent Whois nowadays. I can’t even look up who owns the domain name, right?
MIKE: Yeah.
ANDREW: Mike likes it that way.
MICHAEL: Well, Mike loves it that way.
ANDREW: His in the middle of all these deals.
MICHAEL: Exactly. He probably paid. No.
MIKE: Yeah, I don’t know why they did…they did one…
MICHAEL: How did you even find out who owned tx.io if you can’t look it up nowadays?
MIKE: Actually, well, that person came to me and they’re like, “I want to park…” Because on Park.io you can park your domain and, like, have a “Buy It Now” page. He wanted to park it there, and I was like, That’s a nice name.” And then he actually listed it on Flippa, and it didn’t sell. So then I just asked them to buy it from there.
SHANE: He’s like, “Hey, Mike, I want you to wash my car.” “Why don’t I just buy your car rather than wash it?” That’s essentially how it worked.
ANDREW: [Inaudible 00:20:03] status.
SHANE: Yeah.
MICHAEL: Oh, my gosh. I’m going to DomainTools to see if the Whois history will actually show me who owned the domain name. Yeah, you got it from Ethan, huh?
MIKE: Yeah.
MICHAEL: Yeah, so Whois history at DomainTools and domainIQ, I think, will still show who owns those valuable .ios.
SHANE: Unless it’s changed. If they change it, then the next person’s not going to have it.
MICHAEL: Right, they’re going to be hard to figure out.
SHANE: They’re going to go, “You offered me $10,000. I sold it for $300,000.”
MICHAEL: All right. Thanks, Mike. Congratulations on that buy, great buy.
MIKE: Thanks.
MICHAEL: Shane, 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 yet.
SHANE: All right, I had a good week. One hasn’t closed, but if I closed that, I can’t tell, anyway, but it’s good. It’s my first five-figure in a while. But I can’t tell… The one I can, though, is a simple one, indianabrick.com.
MICHAEL: Wow! Indianabrick.com.
ANDREW: Actually I’ve had quite a bit of luck with some brick domains.
MICHAEL: Seriously?
ANDREW: Dead serious.
MICHAEL: All right, hold on. I’m going to come back to you. You’ll be the first one I ask. So did you buy it? You sold it, right?
SHANE: I sold it, yeah.
MICHAEL: Okay. Drew, let’s start with you, then, because I have no idea what a brick domain would be except if it was like somebody that was in the mortar and bricks and, you know, like masonry.
ANDREW: Yeah, which is a big —-ing business.
MICHAEL: I don’t need to believe that.
All right. So “indianabrick,” singular, right, Shane?
SHANE: Yeah, singular.
MICHAEL: How much do you think he sold it for?
ANDREW: I’m going to say $8 grand?
MICHAEL: Eight thousand dollars? I gotta go buy up washingtonbrick.com right after this.
SHANE: It’s probably taken.
MICHAEL: Yeah, maybe.
Mike, is this just crazy? You know, the way people look at your .ios and they say it’s crazy, do you look at indianabrick.com and then Drew’s assessment of what he sold it for, and say, “That’s crazy?”
MIKE: Yeah, indianabrick.io, like, that’s not…like, I can’t imagine indianabrick.com could be worth…I don’t know.
ANDREW: You get the feeling that every time Mike fills up my screen, I want to take LSD. I don’t know why that pops into my mind. I’m not kidding, just what comes into my mind, because I see his hair, and this picture, and…I don’t know, and he just…
MICHAEL: That is a sweet picture of his family. Mike…
ANDREW: …comes to the screen, and he spins a little bit, and I go, “Man, I just want some LSD.”
MIKE: Want to see this family painting?
MICHAEL: That is a sweet family photo. I love that.
ANDREW: Is that a photo or a painting?
MIKE: It’s a…actually we took the picture and then I went to Instapainting.com and they, like, actually paint it, like, somebody paints it. But my wife said that…
ANDREW: See, look, they’re not using a .io.
MIKE: Yeah, that’s true. It’s true.
MICHAEL: Nobody’s using bitcoin, either. It’ll get there.
All right. So what do you think Shane sold indianabrick.com for, Mike?
MIKE: I’ll say $5000.
MICHAEL: Five thousand dollars.
All right, Shane, let’s go to you, buddy.
SHANE: Yeah, I didn’t sell it for very much. I sold it for $1800.
ANDREW: Ah, you undersold it.
SHANE: Well, here’s the story behind it. So we had Illinois Brick in our town, and it’s all through Chicago, and they do $40 million, $50 million at least in sales. And I saw Indian Brick come through with, like, $69 and I took it. And over the last three years, the people that didn’t renew it, rather than made me an offer, they just yell at me. They just constantly came on there to berate me, and never put in an offer, and telling me…and I’ve always put a reasonable price on it. And then someone…and I’m pretty sure it’s not the original people that have been yelling at me, came in and offered me $1800. And, like Mike said, it was just a [inaudible 00:23:59] $1800. It’s going to pay for my trip to Alabama, and, you know, pay for everything, done. Put the money in the account.
They bought and they paid me, and still haven’t taken the name. So much like many of my…it’s crazy. It is amazing how many auctions I’ve done, take in the escrow, push the name, it bounced back, I email them, and they don’t do it. And we’re not talking $1000. We’re talking $3000 and $4000 domains I’ve had for years with no response. It’s the craziest thing. So I still have in my account…I’ve got the money. I expect any day…
MICHAEL: I’m glad you clarified that just for the haters that are going to watch this show and look it up, and say, “Shane didn’t sell this.”
SHANE: Yeah. No, it’s the craziest thing. I still have…you can put this on your…I have smoke.io that I sold at Flippa, and have tried to contact the guy three or four times. It’s still sitting on my account. I got, like, $3 grand for two years ago, a year and a half.
MICHAEL: So you’re paying the ledge fees on it?
SHANE: Yeah, I’m paying them, but it’s still in my account. I don’t know…
MICHAEL: So what are you supposed to do in that case?
SHANE: I need a lawyer. Is there a statute of limitations? Is it mine now?
MICHAEL: That’s weird.
SHANE: I don’t know, and that’s, like, the third or fourth name that happens, and I don’t… only in our industry does something like that happen. But, you know, changing parking is one thing where people change parking and, you know, they don’t do it, but to spend that much at auction and still not even know that you don’t have the domain, and not follow up to emails, and things like that, it’s…
ANDREW: So I’m guilty. We gifted [SP] like, a little portfolio audit and test-found, like, eight domain names that I bought on GoDaddy, that were not expired. They were like, you know…that never got transferred to me, paid for, whatever, never got transferred, and so we had to go chase them down. Some of them were literally, like, two, three years old.
SHANE: Wow! It’s somebody that don’t have a name?
ANDREW: Yeah, one guy who doesn’t have the name.
SHANE: And well…nice.
ANDREW: And it’s actually somebody I know. It’s actually somebody I know, that doesn’t have the domain, sold it.
SHANE: Yeah, it’s a crazy industry. Well, good, I should have sold you more names, then.
MICHAEL: I know. You should have let Drew broker it for you. He would have gotten you $8K for it.
SHANE: Yeah, that’s true, but I’m going to buy the rest of the [inaudible 00:26:22].
ANDREW: Yeah, we sold a bunch, man. We sold a bunch of names like “brickpavers” and…I don’t know. I don’t remember what they were. But it was like a whole segment around it.
SHANE: I didn’t know that was an asset [SP].
ANDREW: A guy I know….bricks.com, he wants, like, crazy money.
MICHAEL: Yeah, I bet.
So, Shane, how many years did you hold that one? It sounded like three, four?
SHANE: Yeah, two, three years.
MICHAEL: And so, while you were holding that, were you thinking like, “This is just dead money in my account?”
SHANE: No, I mean, I really think…I’m not really a huge numbers game guy. I kind of feel that each name should be able to hold its own, and I had no doubt in my mind that I would get $69 plus $8 dollars per year and make my money back easy, no doubt in my mind, just, it’s a simple name, “indianabrick.” It’s pretty easy to spell. Every house has brick on it. There’s some company in Indiana that wants to be known as…that, to me, was an easy one. I know Mike doesn’t get that, but it’s a lot of businesses. When you go by and you see “1766642…” not going to remember that, but you’ll remember “indianabrick.”
ANDREW: Yap.
SHANE: That’s what it comes down to.
MICHAEL: All right. Congrats on the sale, the only sale this week, Shane…just joking.
SHANE: Yap.
MICHAEL: All right, when we come back, we’ll review an investor’s portfolio and what you should know about investing in .io domains. But first, a quick message from three of our sponsors that helped make this video, show, and podcast possible.
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MICHAEL: We’re going to move on to the next segment of the show. In the domain portfolio review, we take a user-submitted domain name portfolio and provide honest and constructive feedback so the owners can either cut their losses, continue to hold long-term or figure out a sales strategy, going forward. Today’s portfolio was submitted by Scott Mele. How would you guys pronounce M-E-L-E?
MIKE: Mele.
ANDREW: Mele.
MICHAEL: Mele. I’m going to with that, because it sounds, you know, fancy.
Today’s portfolio was submitted by Scott Mele. As part of Scott’s submission, he made a generous donation to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to help us all find a cure for cancer. And I just met with Fred Hutch representative last week, they’re doing some phenomenal work in most different areas. I’m going to get updates from the research doctors at Fred Hutch here in Seattle and talk more about what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, and how the donations that are coming in through Fred Hutch, through DNSeattle, through this show, are going to make a difference there, so more on that coming in future weeks.
Scott’s listed 25 domain names, starts with the domain hack 3dtou.ch, and ends in the four-letter xmas.io, as in Christmas. If you’re watching this show, this is the point where you should press the pause button, review the domain names that are listed on DomainSherpa.com on the “Show” page, review them, price the domains, pick your top three, your bottom three, and then come back and listen as the Sherpas share their insights. That’s the way we improve our skills, when you test yourself before actually hearing what the Sherpas think.
This segment, we’re going to start with Mike and then go Shane and Drew. Mike, let’s start with you, and I’m most interested in your take on the .io domains on Scott’s list. He owns bailout.io, buygold.io, oceanfront.io, qpay.io [SP], watchtv.io, and xmas.io. What do you think of these domain names?
MIKE: Well, one thing I’ll say is, the TLDs that he has, you know, I think he’s focusing on the right TLDs, like .com, .io, that’s what’s selling. But for these .ios, I think a mistake people make a lot of times when going from .com, or reading a lot about .com and then going to .ios, is they find these names that would be good in .com maybe, but in .io, they’re not good. And it just has to do with a lot, like, in .com, so much is taken that, you know, you can’t find good one-word domains like “buygold,” or “watchtv” would be really good for .com probably, but for .io, it’s just not that good.
And, you know, in one of the shows that I did with you, I talked about the GitHub appraisal system. I think that…you know, if he used that, he probably wouldn’t have gotten a lot of these, because they don’t have high GitHub appraisals. And basically what a GitHub appraisal is, you just search on GitHub for the domain, and how many repositories comes up, that’s kind of what you appraise the domain at. So, yeah, a lot of these…like “buygold” doesn’t even have any. It has zero repositories named “buygold.” I mean, the highest one was “xmas” which had actually, like, a thousand.
So, yeah, I don’t think they’re that good. I mean, I would try to, like…I mean, I think it’s good that, you know, he’s looking at .ios, but like, maybe watch that show about the GitHub appraisals, and then I know I’m being self-promoting here. I apologize for that, but like, Park.io, there are some really good domains there that are for very low…like recently stun.io sold for only $130 in auction. And so, you know, instead of buying these six .ios for more than $130, you could have got stun.io and something else.
MICHAEL: Hey, Mike, let me ask you a couple of questions about this, because I got an email just last week from DomainSherpa reader saying either he suggested a .io that he had and he wanted an appraisal, or he was asking .io questions and I said, “Go watch Mike’s two interviews that he’s done.” Let me ask you these quick questions. Who are the end users of .io domains? Who buys .io domains, besides investors?
MIKE: Yeah, it’s the tech crowd. And, yeah, it’s like programmers, hackers, they started it. So from…
MICHAEL: So it’s the people that are building online products and services that are offering them to other primarily tech-related people, too, right?
MIKE: Yeah, I mean, it started that way. It was just like tech startups offering things to tech companies, but now it’s kind of blossomed out of that, like games, there’s a lot of really popular .io games, because some tech people made some cool games, and then the whole cryptocurrency stuff, it’s the same thing, you know.
MICHAEL: Okay. So if you’re going to try and buy domain names as an investor, with the goal of selling them to programmers, techies, developers, hackers, you want to buy what types of domain names?
MIKE: You want to buy domains that are basically names…you want to buy domains that have GitHub repository names, like terms that are tech terms, or it doesn’t even necessarily have to be tech terms. It could be something like give.io, you had that on your show.
MICHAEL: Yap.
MIKE: Just something that is a nice…could be used as a nice tech brand, like matrix.io, too.
MICHAEL: Exactly. So you want to buy the brands…you want to buy the words that could be used as a brand for a tech-enabled company?
MIKE: Yeah.
MIKE: And so oceanfront.io, “oceanfront” is a great word if it were in .com, as you said, but as a .io, nobody’s selling real estate using a .io domain name. It’s not a tech brand, and so that’s not a good fit.
Buygold.io, could that be a tech-type brand, or is that just two-keywords specific, and it’ll never go into the tech space?
MIKE: Yeah, I just don’t…two words are hard…I mean, unless they’re really good words. I mean, this is good. Buygold.io, it’s just…I don’t see a lot of people coming to the person asking to buy that. Like gold.io, buy.io, those would be good, but buygold.io, I don’t see.
MICHAEL: Yeah. And so you’re saying, go to GitHub, type in the word, and generally they’re single-words, brands, and see how many repositories there are, because if people are naming their code bases, their repositories of code bases with that word, then likely one of those 1000, 10,000, 100,000, you know, the more, the better, are going to be a winner, and they’re going to want to come to you and spend $5,000, $10,000, $20,000, $40,000 for your brand? That’s the idea?
MIKE: Yeah, exactly.
MICHAEL: That’s it in a nutshell, guys.
All right, xmas.io, you said had 1000 repositories. Is that a keeper? Should Scott keep that one?
MIKE: If he has it a year and he hasn’t had an offer, I don’t know…I mean, I guess…okay, you could keep it two years, and if you still don’t have an offer, then get rid of it. I would get rid of it.
MICHAEL: All right, sounds good. And for the rest of them, bailout.io, buygold.io, oceanfront.io, qpay.io, watchtv.io, can you list them on the Park.io marketplace and try and sell them, and then put that money back into domains that are better brand for startups?
MIKE: Well, actually there’s no Park.io marketplace right now, but I do want to add that, but I’ve just been trying to think of the best way to do it.
MICHAEL: What is the best way to go sell a .io today, Mike?
MIKE: It’s hard. I mean, Flippa, but I don’t know…I mean, I guess my suggestion would…if you really wanted…I mean, holding it and waiting for them to come is the best, but, you know, if you really want to sell it, I would go to Flippa and just do no-reserve. And I think in that show that I did with you, I give some tips on listing .ios on Flippa.
MICHAEL: Yeah, you did. That was good. And then when I went to go tell my .io, I spent too much on it, so I couldn’t sell it no-reserve, I just didn’t have the guts.
MIKE: Yeah, I know. I think that’s key, though, because this guy with tx.io, he put it there at the reserve and it didn’t sell. But if he would have done no-reserve, I could see that going for a lot more.
MICHAEL: Yeah, definitely, awesome. Thanks, Mike, for that insight.
Shane, let’s go over to you. What domains on the list stuck out to you as being worthwhile?
SHANE: Well, I mean, ironically I used the “Grubhub” method, so anything that makes me hungry…
MICHAEL: If it makes a good food brand or beer brand, you like it.
SHANE: Exactly. Yeah, it’s a very similar method, but I don’t see anything that makes me hungry. So maybe the marijuana medical card would do it. But, yeah, I mean, I’m the same way. There were some brands that I like, but then the more I thought about it, like, I thought Song Blender wasn’t a bad brand, but blenders of music magazine, and do you want to go that route? And “uberx” sounds cool, but “uberx” is…I mean, you’re going to get sued for that pretty quickly if you try and brand something on that.
So I went down the list. I don’t like .cc. People think because I talk about them all the time…I don’t like keyword.cc except for the very best or something that, you know…as a build-out, I think it has value to build it out, and buy the name cheap and build out, and still be able to brand it. But as far as investment, .cc is not very good, except for weed.cc which is up for sale at auction, which I think is…
MICHAEL: By you know who.
SHANE: It is an amazing brand. But, yeah, again, I hate to be negative, but I don’t see anything that stands out, at all. I don’t see…even, you know, we always suggest, put these up and put them on Afternic and wait for a “Buy it Now” to sell, and I think this is maybe one of them that you’re only going to have five or six names, like [inaudible 00:38:42] and “trivolo,” and, you know, something might come around and you can get $300 to $3,000, but the rest of them, you know “blockbusterreviews” and all that…I just don’t think they have much value, and I think you’d be better off starting from scratch on this one, as well.
And I hate to keep saying that, but that’s been the case the last three weeks on our portfolio, and I think the positive out of this is we keep showing people what not to do, and there is value on that.
ANDREW: I think we need to change it up, through, and start showing them what to do, actually show them some quality stuff.
MICHAEL: Well, and to that point, we did over the past two weeks. I think we did provide some constructive feedback based on the domains they had, but Shane let me just summarize, from your point of view, you would hold on to [inaudible 00:39:31] and “trivolo” because those are brands that, if you held them for a few years and they got an inquiry in them, they might sell for $300 to $3000, I think you said, right?
SHANE: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s…on those, it’d be worth putting up a “Buy It Now” paying a…let’s say two years, $16 in waiting. I’d give it a year or two, and if it doesn’t happen, it’s gone. I don’t put any more money into it. Hopefully he doesn’t have too much money.
MICHAEL: Perfect. And Mike gave some really constructive feedback on the .io, so we don’t need to go there, at all. But, you know, let’s look a something like fantacyvillas.com, we all know that the villa market, the luxury market is probably pretty good, but you can put a million different, you know, adjectives before “villas.” Why isn’t fantasyvillas.com a good domain name to invest in?
SHANE: Because you want your adjective to explain the product well. And of the hundred things, if you were to go on…whatever the show is where they…hold on… “Family Feud,” and say, “villas” fill-in-the-blank, and they had a hundred things listed in front, that wouldn’t be on the list. It would be “premier” or “oceanfront.” You know, we could go all the way through, and that’s not one of them. So, that’s why, plain and simple.
MICHAEL: Awesome. And then let me ask you one more, the top of the EstiBot valuation for this list was pinnocchio.com.
SHANE: I didn’t even look it up, but I’m assuming there’s not two Ns in Pinocchio.
MICHAEL: Yeah, you know, as soon as I said that, I’m like, “I wonder if it’s misspelled.”
MIKE: I think it is, yeah.
SHANE: It is misspelled. And I’m sure every eight-year-old who types it into Google misspells it, so that’s why it gets an EstiBot value. So it doesn’t…I’m not… The typo’s market real dead. And even when it was super-hot, I’m not sure “pinnocchio” gave a good CPC on a typo click.
MICHAEL: Yeah, all right.
SHANE: It’s just, there’s too many good names to be buying a double-N “pinnocchio.”
MICHAEL: Yeah.
SHANE: There’s too many good names out there.
MICHAEL: I’m in full agreement. All right, Shane, thanks. Let’s go over to you, Drew. Before I let you turn you loose on this list, uberx.com.
ANDREW: We were actually brokering that name for him back in 2014.
MICHAEL: You’ve got a good memory.
ANDREW: And if I remember correctly, I think he told me that he bought it before Uber ever existed. I could be wrong on that, but I think so, because generally I wouldn’t have taken it on the broker, otherwise. And so we approached Uber. They passed. They didn’t want it…shocking. He even dropped the price to very, very low. I’m not going to say what the price was because I don’t want to hurt what the price could be in the future for him. But, you know, God’s honest truth, I like it. I really like “uberx.” I completely agree with what everybody said, but as stupid as it is, there’s a bunch of pretty big companies branding themselves as Uber these days. There’s, like, Uber food products, there’s Uber, like, vacation rentals, there’s Uber traveler, something. There’s, like, five or six companies that are, like, material, called Uber something, and, you know, if you can’t have Uber, UberX is next best thing, in my opinion. So, you know…
MICHAEL: So it’s definitely not a drop. You think it still has value.
ANDREW: No, the name’s got traffic, and as long as, you know…I don’t think you want to go pick up the hot potato necessarily because you don’t have the same rights that he has. If he owned the domain for Uber, had any trademarks, you know, you don’t share in those rights. But I think that he’s got a nice name there that eventually somebody’s buying. I mean, somebody will buy that name.
MICHAEL: So is that the best name on his list in your opinion, Drew?
ANDREW: Yeah, for sure. The only other name that I actually like on the list was “offshoreibc,” Offshore International Business Corporation. That’s a pretty big business, like, you know, forming offshore businesses, big business. So I think that’s a nice little brand. A lot of those companies have crap domains. I think that you could sell that fairly easily in the $3,000 to $5,000, maybe $8 grand range, maybe $10 if you got really lucky, not much search volume, but a decent CPC, and, you know, there are a lot of companies with very similar names and crappy domains, and one of them will probably pay because, you know, really it comes down to trust with that type of stuff. So having a good domain goes a long way. I can see that one selling for decent money. But I think you’ve got to go contact those folks. I don’t think that they’re coming to you.
MICHAEL: All right. And would you even take on a brokerage for a domain name that max has a $10K retail?
ANDREW: No.
MICHAEL: No. So if you own a domain name like that, you have to do your outbound, you have to do the marketing?
ANDREW: Yeah.
MICHAEL: Let me ask you about…
ANDREW: I kind of like the trivolo.com, too. I think that’s a really nice brand. The problem, though, is you have Trivago out there, and so it might be too close for somebody to say, “Okay, I’m going to try and build this namespace.” It may not differentiate enough from Trivago, who’s so dominant, but maybe, you know. It’s a nice name. “Trivolo” is a nice little…
MICHAEL: Yeah, I like it, too. It’s funny you should say that because, you know, just in the prior sentence we were talking about “uberx” and how many “ubers” there are, and, you know, it just seems like there are a million brands that are very similar.
ANDREW: Hold on. So step back for a second because “uber” is a different entity. “Uber” is an actual generic word. “Uber” is German for, you know…
MICHAEL: Correct.
ANDREW: …over, basically, but it has other meanings. So that’s a generic term.
MICHAEL: Yeah, as is Amazon, as is Apple.
ANDREW: Yeah, but “trivolo” is not. That’s my point, so you’re not comparing apples to apples.
MICHAEL: Okay, but you’re saying it’s still…even though that’s a unique brand that nobody else uses in the world, it’s still pretty close to Trivaga…Trivago.
ANDREW: Trivago.
MICHAEL: Yeah, okay.
ANDREW: Also a crap brand. In fact, I like “trivolo” way better. They should just rebrand the company to Trivolo.
MICHAEL: Hey, Drew, let me ask you. Ticketclearance.com, it seems like, you know, you got your noun, the ticket industry is big, the adjective is, like, clearance.
ANDREW: The ticket industry used to be big…
MICHAEL: It used to be big.
ANDREW: …until Amazon just announced they’re going into the ticket industry.
MICHAEL: Oh, I didn’t hear that.
ANDREW: And now the ticket industry will be no more existing except for Amazon.
SHANE: And [inaudible 00:46:59].
MICHAEL: I did not hear that. All right, so “ticketclearance,” you don’t like because now the industry is going to change? Assuming…if we take this a month ago, and Amazon didn’t make the announcement, why wouldn’t you like ticketclearance.com?
ANDREW: Because we’ve tried to broker most of the biggest domains in the ticket industry, already, and have never sold one. And I don’t admit defeat very easily, I literally have zero interest to ever sell a domain in the ticket industry ever again. I mean, literally, like, I’m telling you, we’ve tried to sell all of them from ticket.com to fewtickets.com [SP], tickets.net…what’s [inaudible 00:47:46] thing we tried to sell? Ticket….you know, just literally, I don’t know.
MICHAEL: Just too hard.
ANDREW: There’s just nobody in that market willing to pay any money, nobody. Very complicated market.
MICHAEL: All right, good to know.
All right, thanks, Drew. Scott, 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 at NameJet, and whether the Sherpas think they’re good investments for you, quick message from three of our sponsors that helped make this video, show, and podcast possible.
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MICHAEL: We’re going to move on to the marketplace list. This segment is sponsored by NameJet. We’ll be reviewing, I believe, 12 no-reserve domain names heading to auction soon. If you like one of the names below, click through soon, because once they go to auction, you lose your chance to put in a minimum bid and be part of the auction or just watch the results, and I think some of the earliest auctions take place the day that the show airs. 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 btalk.com, and it ends with zulie.com.
This segment we’re going to go Shane, then Drew, then Mike. Shane… Oh, and I also ask for transparencies. Are any of the domains on the list below, Sherpas, owned or brokered by you?
ANDREW: No.
MIKE: No.
SHANE: No.
MICHAEL: Yeah, I didn’t think so. All right, so, Shane, let’s start with you. What do you like from an investment, a newer investor perspective on the NameJet list, and why?
SHANE: Well, the one that stuck out for me was “gamefan.” I mean, “gamefan,” sporting events, video games, there’s just billions and billions of dollars of industry that can be used for that. So, to me, that stands out. It’s a 10 when everything else is a 6. It’s my favorite, by far.
MICHAEL: Nice. And so on gamefan.com, the bid…so no-reserve, the bid was at $180 a couple of days ago. And so what would you price it at retail if you owned it?
SHANE: Oh, I’d definitely be in five figures, $20,000. You know, Drew would be much higher, but, yeah, I think that’s…can be a big brand for somebody. I even at auction, I think it hits $1500, even starting at no-reserve. Could go higher than that. I mean, it could go a lot more, but, yeah, I think it’s a solid, solid name.
MICHAEL: Cool.
SHANE: Video games alone, that’s…you know, again, I don’t play a lot of video games anymore, but when I see the titles come out at a billion dollars competing with movie titles and crushing them, take-two interactive and those studios have cash.
MICHAEL: Yeah. Well, the interesting thing about this, which never happened when, at least, my generation was grown up, is that my boys, 6 and 10, they go and they watch people gaming nowadays. They don’t even want to play along, they just want to watch other people gaming.
ANDREW: It’s the most absurd thing. Really it makes me so upset that this is the world we live in today, that people spend their precious time on YouTube watching people play video games.
MICHAEL: Well, let me tell you, Sunday, I sat on my couch for two hours…
ANDREW: [Inaudible 00:51:16] video games that people play, but at least there was, like, some thinking involved. Now it’s watching people play video games.
MICHAEL: Last Sunday, I sat on my couch for a couple hours watching my Seahawks kick the Chargers butts all over the field down in San Diego. I did that for two hours. What’s the difference?
SHANE: There you go right there.
MICHAEL: You know, it’s [inaudible 00:51:40].
ANDREW: I don’t know. You were supporting, like, real live human beings putting their — on the line on a field, you know.
SHANE: You ever seen the skill it takes to defeat a 10th level Ork? Crazy.
ANDREW: I don’t know. Listen. This is all lost on me. I just…I don’t know, in my gut I feel like it’s so wrong.
SHANE: But I mean, “gamefan” is a perfect game, something like that. It’s a great one.
The other one…I like “skyhub,” as well. I think it can be used for a lot of things in the flight travel industry. I think that’s a really strong name. I liked “trainbrain,” but then I thought I’d rather have “braintrainer,” you know. I think I’d like another form of it, but I do…I’m really getting into this whole mind…I don’t know. Onnit has this Alpha Brain stuff, like some pills to help you think more clearly, you know, just different medicines to train your brain in addition to your body. So…
MICHAEL: Isn’t Rogan a sponsor or part owner of Onnit?
SHANE: Yeah, he is the owner of Onnit.
MICHAEL: Oh, he is.
ANDREW: Oh, really?
MICHAEL: He’s one of the owners. I just listened to a podcast, and I’ve never heard of Onnit before until you just said it, until that podcast, and I’m like, “I think Rogan’s involved,” and I know you’re a big Rogan fan.
SHANE: Yeah, I mean, you have to dedicate half my day. He puts out, like, two hours of long conversation a day. But it’s intriguing, you know, all these different diets. I don’t know, maybe just I’m older, starting to get more into every day, you wake up and you can think a little less clearly, and you’re a little more sore, or whatever you can do to reverse that process.
MICHAEL: I’m with you.
SHANE: And train your brain. It’s undoubtedly proven that you exercise your brain and it will become stronger. So “trainbrain’s” in that realm. I think it’s something, you know…I wouldn’t mind owning the name at the right price. And you know what?
MICHAEL: Which is better? Trainyourbrain.com or trainbrain.com?
SHANE: I think I could remember “trainyourbrain” better than “trainbrain,” honestly. I mean, I know it’s longer, but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s really about memorability. Normally shorter is easier to remember, but “trainyourbrain” probably is easy to remember.
And then the one I didn’t like, the first one is “xenergy.” Speaking of drinks, Xyience has a drink called Xenergy drink, and I think that’s being used quite a bit. That’s a UFC Joe Rogan thing. Sorry I had to throw that in there, too. Yeah, I mean, I think the word’s good, but I think it’s already being used quite a bit. And I’ll leave the other ones up to these other guys.
MICHAEL: Hey, before we go on, skyhub.com, you said you liked that one. Bid is at $196. What do you think the retail value for “skyhub” is?
SHANE: I’m in the same thing. I mean, a name like that, to me, is a $25,000 name. I should be better at shooting higher, but usually names that are…when I see…there are certain names that I know are $100,000 names, and I admittedly struggle to figure out why certain names that are $100,000…and Drew is better at what he does, and he’d say, “That’s $100,000,” and gets it, and I’ve met other guys. And so…I mean, that’s part of this process, is learning how to have the confidence in a name that you can get that price. But for me, that’s $25,000.
MICHAEL: Okay, cool. Thanks, Shane.
Drew, let’s go over to you. “Xenergy,” what do you think about that one?
ANDREW: “Xenergy.” I like it. I’d love to see that “X” on the other side a lot more.
MICHAEL: “EnergyX?”
ANDREW: Yeah, but, you know, it’s got something. It’s got legs.
MICHAEL: All right, you’d pick it up and you’d put in your portfolio if it were low enough?
ANDREW: Yeah, for sure.
MICHAEL: What would you pick it up for?
ANDREW: Few hundred, you know, up to $500 maybe.
MICHAEL: Yeah, and then you’d probably ask $5,000, $10,000, somewhere in there?
ANDREW: Yeah, $15,000 to $25,000.
MICHAEL: You’d ask $25,000?
ANDREW: I’d probably ask a little less. I’d probably ask $15,000 or $18,000, or, you know, $10,000, $12,000, $15,000.
MICHAEL: All right, what else do you like in the list?
ANDREW: This one, though, it’s going to end up going a lot higher because the PR6 [SP], the “xenergy.” But the domain name, you know, in terms of brand value, I think, is probably not, but this will end up going for a couple of grand on NameJet.
MICHAEL: Yeah. Now, somebody’s going to be questioning, like PR6, Drew, I know you probably pulled that out of EstiBot, but Google doesn’t even calculate PRs anymore. Is that number even valid?
ANDREW: It’s hysterical [SP] and it may…you know, I don’t know. I’d have to dig in and look at like what Moz says, and, you know, spammy links or whatever. But it’s, you know…I’m seeing a lot of these names that have strong SEO value going for [inaudible 00:56:41] money on GoDaddy and NameJet, names you look at and go, “What the —- is that name selling for?” Any price for, and then you look and it’s got, you know, strong backlink profile or whatever.
You know, I don’t know, I don’t really love this list. I think “gamefan,” solid, solid name, great brand. “Skyhub,” I like, too. “Skyhub’s” got a bunch of traffic. I kind of like “vintagedesign.” You know, “vintagedesign” is definitely one I would pick up. But, yeah, I mean, you know, it’s nothing I’d pay a lot for. “Btalk,” I kind of like, you know, a little bit of traffic, not much search, but it could be “bitcoin talk,” but, you know, nobody just says “B.” It’s usually “BTC talk,” or…you know, which actually I think that’s even the form. The main form is bitcointalk.org. So I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t love any of these, really.
MICHAEL: No, and they’re all no-reserve and they’re all pretty low price. You know, they’re no…I didn’t pick any single words, anything that’s close enough as brandable, so like “Julie” with a “Z,” Zulie.” For a newer investor, is that something that you would pick up as a brandable?
ANDREW: Truth is, that’s probably the one that stood out to me, but I can’t reason why that name has any value, whatsoever, so I really bring it up. But it is the name that kind of just popped out to me. My eyes were stuck on “zulie.” You know, it’s like a funny name. Like, if my daughter’s name was Julie, I’d probably call her Zulie, because you say such stupid things to your kids.
I don’t know, but I do…
MICHAEL: You’re going to bid on it now, aren’t you? You like it.
ANDREW: If I’m honest with myself, I like “zulie,” yes.
MICHAEL: All right, cool. Thanks, Drew. Let’s go to you, Mike. What stands out to you, Mike? From the mind of a .io investor, do any of these have interest to you?
MIKE: See, that’s the thing…like, switching from .io to .com, it’s like, “Man, all these domains suck.”
MICHAEL: Right, because they’re all two words, so they’re made up, or…?
MIKE: Yeah, I mean, instead of “trainbrain,” like brain.io or train.io, you know, it’s something like that. But, yeah, I mean, “skyhub,” I like that because, like, it seems like there’s a lot of people that are…I mean, I know Shane said, like, for airline stuff, but there’s a lot of tech companies that are, like, trying to put the internet…like a backup internet, or an alternative internet with the satellites up in the…you know, and like bitcoin even, there’s a company called Blockstream that they’re going to put satellites up there because bitcoins are relying on the internet, so if the internet goes down, you can’t use bitcoin, so they’re doing that so that, you know, a lot of people in developing countries, and stuff, who don’t have access to that could you use bitcoin. So I like “skyhub” and…I don’t know. “Zulie” stood out a little bit, but it might be a little hard to spell, I guess. You might have to just say “Julie” or “Suzie,” but it seems like kind of a cool brand. It is a name, I think. I searched it. Wait a minute.
MICHAEL: Oh, is it?
MIKE: I guess that’s about it.
MICHAEL: Yeah, it’s a girl’s name. Wow! Huh.
SHANE: Everything’s a name.
MICHAEL: I know. Oh, it’s in Urban Dictionary, too. I don’t want to read it, otherwise I may not like the name.
SHANE: What to what?
MICHAEL: Hey, Drew, let me ask you. You know, I picked a couple of domains because they were old, and when I typed the words into Google, they had companies associated with them. Two of them that I think were that way were empiremed.com and execgroup.com. For a newer investor, are these the kinds of names that you can pick up for maybe $69, 199 bucks, and then hustle and go sell them for 500 bucks to a company that might want it shortened from “empiremedical” to “empiremed,” or execgroupinternational.com to execgroup.com?
ANDREW: Yeah. Specifically, “execgroup,” I can see that name actually probably selling pretty decently.
MICHAEL: Like what? Just ballpark.
ANDREW: You know, nobody’s retiring [SP] on it, but it’s, you know, I don’t know, probably 2,500 bucks.
MICHAEL: Yeah, right. So, you know, I think that this is a valuable lesson for investors who, all you have is a couple hundred bucks, you put that into a domain like this, you do some research, you put out some emails, you follow up, and you turn 200 bucks into 2,000 bucks pretty quickly, right, Drew?
ANDREW: Yeah, if you put in the work, if you put in the work.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
SHANE: To me, the value of a domain is how many potentials end users you have. And if it’s an upgrade domain for one company, you’re rolling all the dice on one company. You know, I have people say, “This is the biggest so-and-so in the whole industry.” Okay, well, if you sell to them, great, but if you don’t, then you’re stuck with the name. So I do like upgrade names like common names, like “greenlawn,” “greenmowing,” or something. There’s 70 companies with that same name, and you’ve got a chance to sell to one of them. But, if there’s one…so that’s how I kind of do that upgrade thing.
MICHAEL: Yeah. Drew, do you agree? Like, when I look personally on that…and I don’t buy a lot of these, I’ll look for at least 10 companies I can contact, and I’m hoping that 1 out of 10 is going to want it, because it’s a numbers game.
ANDREW: It depends on the price category. So if I’m looking…you know, if we’re talking about, like, a six-figure name, I want to see as many as possible, but if I see two or three, that’s generally enough. If I see two, three companies that have raised, you know, several million dollars in venture capital, they’ve got some —– prefix, or they were suffix, or they’re on a .io, or were on a .co, then I know that they’re going to come knocking when they decide to be a real company. So that’s generally enough for me at a minimum, at absolute, you know, baseline. But sometimes even one. Like, if I see somebody who’s raised $10 million, $20 million in venture capital, and they’re, you know, doing any of that foolishness, then I know they need that .com eventually. It’s really the exception, not the rule, that they would not come knocking eventually, as you recently found out with tulip.com.
MICHAEL: What are you talking about?
ANDREW: I think that Jamie Zoch posted something about tulip.com transferring today.
MICHAEL: Yeah, I cannot confirm nor deny anything right now, but maybe on a future show.
ANDREW: Okay. So the…where was I going with that? So in a lower price category, then I agree, then you need many more options because you’re talking about less sophisticated buyers, probably the domain name matters less to them, and so you need more options. You want to have 5, 10, 15, 20, as many as you possibly can find, you know, potential buyers for that name. And if you’ve got 10, 20 people that could, in some way or another, upgrade to your domain, and you’re talking about a $2,500 or $5,000 upgrade, you know, I like those odds, but, again, you’ve got to put in the work. It’s easy for us to talk about this.
What’s frustrating for me in all of this is that…actually, you know what? I want to bring it up later, but very few of the people actually put in the work. Very few of the people, actually they’ll go in and say, “Okay, I heard that, and I’ll go get those domains, but then they don’t do the work. They don’t go contact these people, they don’t do the follow-up, they don’t do the research. But actually it was really nice. I’m going to try and look up…I think I forwarded it to you, Mike. I had somebody who was watching this show and listened to some specific piece of advice that I had given, and he said, “Look, I followed your advice to a T. Here’s what I did. I went on NameJet, I followed your advice to a T. I bought this domain name,” and it was a great domain. I actually happened to have been in that auction. I regret not paying more. It was dreamscapes.com.
SHANE: Yeah.
ANDREW: He said, “Boom! Here I am.” He had an offer on it, and he was like, “Look, I think this name’s worth more. What do you think? I was just wondering if you could give me some advice.” And I was like, “You know what? Look…” So I gave him, you know, the advice that I could, and offered to help him out because, you know, I really appreciate that he actually followed the advice, he put in the work, he did what he was told to do, and he was sitting pretty on a nice domain that he’s going to sell for way more than what he paid for it. I mean, I would pay more than he paid for it, so [inaudible 01:06:19].
SHANE: I was in on that one, too.
MICHAEL: Yeah, it’s a nice name.
SHANE: It’s a good landscaping name, too.
ANDREW: Great name.
MICHAEL: Awesome. All right, gentlemen. We’re at the end of today’s show. I’d like to give the Sherpas an opportunity to share anything they want about names they’re brokering or selling, opportunities they’re looking for, maybe new services they are offering, anyone they want to give a shout-out to.
Let’s go via in order. Let’s start with you, Drew. You just sent out an email. We were talking about it just before we hit the record button. You are…MediaOptions.com is now brokering cryptocurrency for customers.
ANDREW: You know, this isn’t a primary service. We’re not changing businesses, but what I am seeing is the convergence of domain names and cryptocurrencies, and blockchain technologies more and more, and I’ve had a lot of people approach me with some really exciting ideas, and I think that’s only going to continue. And I think, you know, to me, it’s really important that people that were early on the first internet understand that what’s being built with blockchain is a second internet. We’re building a new internet that is about value transfer, where the first internet was about information transfer, and the first internet was really never very good at transferring value. You know, PayPal was the best thing that we’ve got, and that’s not very good.
So it’s really exciting, and I think that anybody in the domain community would be remiss not to investigate further and look further, and what I’m finding is that a lot of people are. A lot of people are very intrigued, interested, investing, trying to participate, trying to understand, trying to educate themselves, and I have a lot of people asking us, you know, “How can we get in?” And, you know, the fact is, is you have to put in a lot of time and research to understand it and to get a grasp of how it works. And then once that’s done, and then you open an account, you’ve got a $500 limit on your account or $2,000 limit. And it’s really difficult to deploy any serious capital into the market. And so because of some strategic advantages that we have as Media Options, we were able to get an institutional account opened with an exchange. We have basically an unlimited trading volume, and so, you know, we’re opening that up to domain customers who we have existing relationships with, that are looking for an outlet to buy or sell cryptocurrencies, and, you know, we’ll see where it goes from there. But we have some, you know…really this is an entree into some much more exciting things that we have cooking…
MICHAEL: That’s cool. But I feel like, for example…
ANDREW: [Inaudible 01:09:18].
MICHAEL: …if Media Options brokered a name for me, and I wanted to take half of it as cash and half of it is bitcoin, you could do something like that?
ANDREW: Absolutely.
MICHAEL: Very cool. And if bitcoin’s way up, and if I wanted to, like, sell my bitcoin, and you had a domain I wanted to buy, I could just pay with bitcoin for it, take the growth in bitcoin and get a great domain name through you guys?
ANDREW: Yap, absolutely.
MICHAEL: Awesome. That’s great. And then you’re charging a little bit of a markup for that, I believe, like a standard fee for [inaudible 01:09:53] the transaction?
ANDREW: Five percent.
MICHAEL: Five percent. Very cool. Well, look forward to seeing what’s going on with that. As you know, I sold all my bitcoin, and it pains me to see it going up and up. But I actually put it all in as credit at Park.io. So I traded my bitcoin when it was high for me…not as high as it is now, for .io domains.
ANDREW: This is what kills me, is you have so many skeptical people about…
MICHAEL: I’m not skeptical. I just wanted to take…
ANDREW: No, no, hold on. Let me just…
MICHAEL: Yeah, go ahead.
ANDREW: Let me just walk you through this. So you’ve traded cryptocurrency, you’ve traded bitcoin which is, you know, let’s say the most widely adopted, the most widely acknowledged and known cryptocurrency, you’ve traded that for another form of digital currency, you’ve now got Park.io digital currency. You have no actual [inaudible 01:10:51].
MICHAEL: Well, I got .io domains. I paid for some domains with it, yeah.
ANDREW: And if Mike here decides to make a run for it, you know, your Park.io cryptocurrency is toast.
MICHAEL: That is true.
ANDREW: Well, it’s manly crypto. It’s just some digital…
MICHAEL: Well, that’s true when it was a credit in his marketplace, but I’ve bought .io domains with it, so the .io domains are mine.
ANDREW: Okay.
MICHAEL: Yeah. All right, speaking of .io domains, Mike, let’s go over to you. What’s the latest? Do you have any deals you’re brokering or selling, opportunities you’re looking for, anyone you want to give a shout-out to?
MIKE: Well, I mean, thanks for having me on the show. I feel like I made it as a domainer, and I’m on the domain…I mean, I listen to the show every week, and I mean the advice is so good, and I’m here with, you know, these legends here. So, thanks.
SHANE: Come on.
MIKE: And, yeah, I mean, I recently left my other job, so now I’m doing full-time Park.io domains, and so I’m pretty excited about this. And actually I’ve even started, like, working on…so besides, we’re going to add more TLDs, like we’re going to try to get .ai up on there pretty soon the next month or so. But besides that, I’ll be working on some other, like, projects with the blockchain, like in decentralized, trustless escrow service where you…so you can transfer domains with just two people involved, the buyer and the seller, and it’s all safe and secure.
So, yeah, if you want to find out and keep track of when that’s launched and stuff, make sure to sign up for the newsletter on Park.io or follow the blog.
MICHAEL: Nice. So don’t you need a trusted third party to say that, yes, things were satisfied, or is it enough to just say, “I’ve received the domain. I’ve received the money?” Because I guess you set up an escrow…do you set up an escrow bitcoin account?
MIKE: Well, so ethereum allows you to do smart contracts.
MICHAEL: Oh, that’s right, yap.
MIKE: So you can have, like, a program in the blockchain that, like, makes sure that, you know, the domain is transferred, the payment is made, things like that.
MICHAEL: So can you take the money in bitcoin and then just do a market translation to ethereum, like, on the spot?
MIKE: There’s ways to do that, I think, but I think probably the first thing will just be ethereum, you just pay in ethereum, makes it easier.
MICHAEL: Yeah, gotcha. I don’t even know how to, like, buy ethereum. Can I keep it in my Coinbase wallet, or…?
MIKE: Yeah, you can buy it on Coinbase or ShapeShift.io. ShapeShift, you can transfer currencies between each other.
MICHAEL: It’s a .io, Drew.
ANDREW: But ShapeShift just would…if you bought it on ShapeShift, they just do it through Coinbase.
MICHAEL: Oh, do they?
SHANE: Yeah.
MICHAEL: Got you.
MIKE: But you can transfer it…like, if you want to transfer to bitcoins [inaudible 01:13:55], you can do that, or you can transfer it to a million other currencies.
MICHAEL: Very cool. All right, Mike, looking forward to hearing when that crypto escrow service comes out. You already have a .io for it?
ANDREW: Actually, I think we own cryptoescrow.com.
MICHAEL: You do.
ANDREW: I think we have “bitescrow.”
SHANE: I got a better one. I have domainchain.com.
MICHAEL: Right. Thanks, Mike. Keep us posted when that goes live. We’ll give you a promotion for it. Looking forward to trying it.
Hey, Shane, let’s go over to you. What’s new over at DSAD?
SHANE: That is a funny story. I bought “domainchain” to be funny because the Hispanics call me Chane instead of Shane, and so I bought “domainchain,” and I’ve gotten offers for blockchain domain purchasing because of that, and I thought, “Why in the world have I started getting offers for ‘domainchain?'” But I think people are doing, you know, blockchain, little parts of domain purchases or thinking about it.
MICHAEL: You might want to think about selling that one.
SHANE: I’ll sell anything. I’ll sell any of my names. The only one I can’t sell is my email. That’s it.
No, I mean, nothing really new. I’m excited fall’s coming up. For me, fall is always a fantastic time. Everything goes well from September, October, for some reason, for me. It’s always busy in the domain market, busy in the nursery market, gets cooler here in Illinois so everybody feels better, smiles a little more.
Starting to put a couple names up at auction. I was joking, but I do have weed.cc up there, and never…I always agree with Drew that it was more of a “canna,” “cannabis,” other… “leaf,” all these other names. I didn’t like “weed” as much, but people do, so it’s time to sell.
ANDREW: I mean, at any day, it is still the biggest search term by far.
SHANE: People still use it, still want it, so I think it’s a good time to let somebody else use it.
MICHAEL: Drew, why aren’t you buying it?
ANDREW: Actually I think I was the highest bidder, to be honest with you. I don’t know. You know, I’m not a .cc guy, but, you know, it’s weed, man.
MICHAEL: Yeah.
SHANE: Yeah, exactly. I tried to sell them coin.cc ’till I realized I own coins.cc.
ANDREW: Yeah, the plural didn’t do it for me.
SHANE: Yeah. It was going so well until I realized I didn’t even own the domain.
ANDREW: You were in the position of leveraging. It was like, “No, no. I need more money,” and I was like, “Oh.” And he was like, “Oh, shit. I don’t own it.”
SHANE: That’s like, remember, Drew, I did that with “genetictesting” and “genetictest,” and I was like…
MICHAEL: That’s right. I remember that.
SHANE: “Which one do I own? I don’t even remember, anymore, after I talked about them.” But, yeah, I spelled “ethereum” wrong, I got my domains wrong, daddy’s got to pay a little closer attention.
MICHAEL: But you did know how to spell “Pinocchio,” so nice job on that.
SHANE: Yeah, that’s my wheelhouse right there, fairy tales.
So the blog’s going up, every day. Again, Travis, Josh, Aaron, they’re all…Aaron’s killing it on the quiet side, Josh is doing his thing, and Travis is the most brilliant…him and Michael Sumner, don’t let those two…well, and Ugly Mike here, don’t let those three get together.
MICHAEL: Seriously, it’s a brain [SP] right there.
SHANE: They’re impressive. Again, I keep talking Travis up, but Michael Sumner is no different. There is nothing more satisfying than having ideas and talking to someone that knows how to implement it and code it. It’s just…I feel like a weakling. You know, I go through life thinking I’ve done a really good job, and then I meet someone like that and think of the things I could accomplish. And Mike here is proving it. I mean, that’s what Mike…when we met, he was doing programming for AutoTrade, and he was saying, “What do you want it to do? When do you want it…?” And he could write the code, come home from work, and he’d tell me, “Worked pretty well, or we blew our money in the first hour because it was coded bad.” And that stuff just fascinates me day in and day out. So I love being a part of that, and life’s good.
MICHAEL: Nice. All right, if you received benefit from today’s show, please post a comment below and thank today’s Sherpas. I want to thank Scott…did we say it was Mele? Scott Mele?
SHANE: Now he’s French.
MICHAEL: I’m not sure, Scott. I apologize. I meant to clarify before we aired the show, but thank you for submitting your portfolio and making a generous donation to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Thanks to NameJet for submitting their portfolio and sponsoring that segment of the review, and thanks again to our DomainSherpas, Andrew Rosener, Mike Carson, 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-20170821/