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From a $27 Expired GoDaddy Auction to $10,000 Sale – With Marty Pelletier

On this Profitable Flip show, we talk to Marty Pelletier, a domain name investor who focuses on marijuana-related domain names.

From his personal experience, he understands the difference between cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), two main ingredients in the marijuana plant.

While many other domain investors focus on THC, Pelletier has bought up many CBD domain names, one of which he picked up as an expired domain name for $27 that he sold for $10,000.

Learn how he’s managing his portfolio and is expanding into other positively trending areas like virtual reality and drones.

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About the Interviewee

Marty Pelletier
Marty Pelletier
Marty Pelletier is a photographer and individual domain name investor.

His domain name portfolio can be viewed at HoloDomains.com.

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Michael Cyger: On today’s Profitable Flip show, we’re going to learn how a $27 domain name bought at a GoDaddy auction sold for $10,000. Stay tuned.

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Michael: Hey, Sherpa Network. Thanks so much for joining me today. My name is Michael Cyger and I’m the publisher of domainsherpa.com, the website where you can learn how to become a successful domain name investor or entrepreneur directly from the experts. This is the show called Profitable Flips. In this series, I invite domain name investors to share all the details of how they bought low and sold high. Today, I’m pleased to welcome Marty Pelletier, a domain name investor based in Colorado. Welcome to the show Marty.

Marty Pelletier: How are you doing Mike?

Michael: Doing great. It’s great to have you have you here. I love to start these profitable flip shows with the basics, so that people know the magnitude of the deal, before we get into like all of the details from A to Z.

Marty: Sure.

Michael: What was the domain name that you purchased and how much did you pay?

Marty: It’s CBDRemedy.com, and I picked it up for $27 at GoDaddy experiment [SP]. I think it was me and one other bidder, so didn’t go very far. 27 bucks is very cheap.

Michael: Yeah. 27 bucks that’s a phenomenal deal. How long ago was it?

Marty: So this was back September 2014.

Michael: Okay, 2014. And then what was the sale price that you sold CBDRemedy.com for?

Marty: It’s sold for $10,000.

Michael: Wow. This is like this is the golden ticket. This is what every investor is trying to get from a hand registration or pretty down close to it at a GoDaddy close out of $27, where only you and one other person realized that this domain name had value, out of all the people looking through all the auctions, and then got a $10,000 sale.

Marty: Yeah. Those names are not slipping through. Like they were a few years ago, I’ll say that.

Michael: Yeah. So for anybody that doesn’t know what CBD is, what does the acronym stand for?

Marty: So CBD stands for Cannabidiol. Pretty terrible clunky word. CBD works a lot better. CBD is part of the cannabis plant. So when people talk about medical marijuana, essentially they are talking about CBD. THC is the other constituent which is very medical but the cannabidiol, or the CBD, it’s truly incredible. I mean it’s helping alleviate everything from cancer to crohn’s. I have a seizure disorder and that’s how I actually found CBD looking into it. Because it’s helping children that have thousands of seizures a day.

Michael: Wow.

Marty: I’m sorry. Not thousands a day. Literally hundreds of seizures a day down to one or two. So I was looking into it back in about 2010, and started to pick them up in about 2011. About 100 hand wringers [SP]

Michael: Wow. And that’s funny because you know before we start talking about this domain. I haven’t even heard of the acronym CBD but of course I’ve heard of THC. Why is there such a disparity between…I’m not an investor in marijuana or cannabis related domain names, so I only sort of pick up things that I read. It’s legal here in the state of Washington for recreational use as well as medical use. So CBD and THC how are they different and why have people not been referring to CBD in the past?

Marty: Right. Well, you know essentially THC is the part of pot that gets you high. It’s the one that the growers are really trying to get the most THC as possible. And in so doing that kind of bred the CBD. And so just recently they found kind of the higher CBD strains are really good for certain things. Another one that’s super good for is PTSD. I mean some of the worst ailments in our society right now, CBD is showing incredible promise work.

Michael: Yeah, that’s fantastic. And so there is so much about marijuana that’s still being discovered, and with so many states, Colorado where you are based is legal for recreation, Washington just was last year. And I think in the election like three or four more US states allowed recreational use of marijuana. So now they are getting into all the details of which types of strains, and the THC are gonna give you which kind of highs. And now it’s interesting to see CBD being analyzed for what kind of ailment you have, or what issues you face and how that might be able to help. So that’s phenomenal. So I thank you for telling us a little bit about the issue you face, and how you came to know about CBD Marty. I think it’s really important to note that investors should understand this. Because we all have areas of expertise.

We all have issues that we face. We are all exposed to different environments. Some people may live in a second or third world country, and they may think like, “I can’t even go to work, or I can’t get a job, or I don’t have an education.” You know and the point is like you’re disadvantaged, your issues that you face might be the advantage that you have that others don’t, because you understand something better. You understand how domain names are used in a second world country. Because you are in the country and you see the billboards, and you know how marketing is being done. Where I would never understand that being an American and not travelling. So I just wanna make that clear that people should use the experience and the life that they have in order to find that opportunity for themselves in the domain name industry.

As a side note you previously had a portfolio reviewed on the DomainSherpa review in October 2015. How did that go for you?

Marty: It actually went quite well. It was a really fun experience. The review was great. It felt terrific to have a pretty good review. The best part obviously was I got an offer from Drew, actually right there on the show. And we ended up closing a deal for 420 name. And I think I did pretty well. So he did great, I did well, and hopefully it opens a door for another deal in the future.

Michael: Yeah. That’s fantastic.

Marty: Yeah. It’s a lot of fun.

Michael: So how many marijuana domain names do you own roughly?

Marty: Well, I bought in back in 2011/2012, I started to buy quite a few. At that point I mean I ran up…this was me having not really sold a domain yet. I sold one CBD domain for a good price, 600 bucks to someone that really knew what he was doing, so I kind of got a lot more. But after that I just started buying tremendous amount of names. Probably I don’t know, 100s, 500, 600 and you know that’s how so many domainers get into is just, is they just buy tremendous amount of hand-wringers that they think sounds great at 2:00 in the morning that they end up dumping. And it did kill my ROY for a number of years but I can do…

Michael: Yeah, 500 domain names that you know an average of let’s just for round number say 10 bucks. 5,000 bucks right there if you hold them for two years there is all the profits that you just made on this one domain name.

Marty: It’s truly incredible and so many domainers really don’t survive. I feel very fortunate to have made enough small sales all the way through, and lean my portfolio down more and more, and just got smarter truly. Like you’re saying if you research the niche that you are in, and you really have expertise in it, you’re just gonna get smarter and smarter, buy better on the aftermarket and just be smarter with your hand-wringers. And so at this point, I’ve actually…I’m in the black thankfully. But it really all depends. It depends whether I just go crazy buying virtual reality names and you know.

Michael: Yeah, because right now you still own marijuana. How many domains do you have…marijuana domains today if you bought 500 or 600 before?

Marty: Right. So today I probably have about 200 to 300 left, and that really includes about seven or eight different keywords between 4-27-10 canna, cannabis marijuana, pot, ganja, dub. I mean really there is way too many names. That’s part of the problem.

Michael: Well, but you got in early on the whole marijuana trend, right? Like it’s still trending up. If we look at marijuana use in the United States over the next 10 years, we are on the upward trend. And so you got in, I wouldn’t say before the trend started. But its 2016 where the trend is clear now. In 2014 I think they were just issuing…no 2015 they were just issuing permits in Seattle. So you got in early. It wasn’t like the earliest but it was early.

Marty: Yeah. I am pretty fortunate to have gotten in before. I mean it’s interesting our NamePros, if you go back a few years there were some terrific hand wringers happening and then…I mean like with every single new trending niche, it’s like you just see the quality go down. The dot net start happening, the hyphens come in. so I mean it’s great to be holding some names that I think are some really good names that will bring me hopefully more five-figure sales.

Michael: Yeah. And so your skills in analyzing those 500 to 600 that you bought down, and rationalizing them down to 200 to 300, really you needed to figure out what commercial…what was the difference having 500 to 600 and having 200 to 300 now? How did you pair those down roughly?

Marty: Well, I mean you look at sites namebio and you really start to…once all your renewals [SP] start coming up, and you are looking at this daunting amount of renewals. You’ve got to do a little bit of research on what is all in the past. I often turn to NamePros, friends and there is a couple of guys on there that they’ve had six-figures sales, one guy on there. So he’s been super helpful over the years. And he just gets smarter about the sound of things. Brandables are so, so huge. Anything that’s really long tail it’s still exact match, but the short the sweeter the better and you just get…I’ve gotten a lot smarter.

Michael: And so you just needed to like look at them and say, “These are longer. These aren’t brandable or the keyword is not the right math or I don’t think they are commercial.” And then you just whittled your portfolio down.

Marty: Yeah. And you know to be honest, I’ve sold one marijuana domain. So you also just learn what keywords are killing it and what are just dry. And marijuana is pretty…

Michael: Yeah. And you look at the offers you get and you look at what’s selling on name bio to start making better decisions.

Marty: That’s right.

Michael: Fantastic. All right let’s dig into the details of CBDRemedy.com, and let’s start at the purchase. You mentioned $27 on a GoDaddy closeout. How did you come across the domain name for sale to begin with?

Marty: Well, it’s funny. Like I said buying hundreds of domains as a new beginner, it takes a lot of comments on posts before you actually listen what all these pros are saying which is, “Stop. Got to the aftermarket. Save 50 of those hand wringers that are gonna suck, and get that $500 up to a really-really nice name.” And so I started looking into it and it was incredible. Back in 2013, I mean, I picked up names like cbtreatment.com which I find that to be just terrific. That I also got for like $10 or $11. So I mean I’ve just been…I don’t know if it’s fortunate or just there weren’t people looking. But I picked up a lot of great names. $27 was great. I think at $27 that includes one year renewal, and then I had one more year. Is that right?

Michael: Yeah.

Marty: Yeah, one more year. So I had about 50 bucks on it.

Michael: And the funny thing is these are expired, right? So you weren’t the first person to think that CBDRemedy or CBDTreatment weren’t good domain names. Somebody thought of it before you, registered it and then didn’t renew it.

Marty: Yeah. It’s curious. I actually want to…I think domaintools.com would give me the availability to go back and look. I’d feel really bad if it’s someone on NamePros that saw that. I mean that’s the game but.

Michael: Yeah. I’ll go onto domainIQ after the show and will look it up for you.

Marty: Yeah. Let me know.

Michael: So do you go to GoDaddy directly and do searches for the keywords that you are investing in, or were you using a third-party tool like expireddomains.net or something like that?

Marty: You know I’m mainly right now I’m looking at GoDaddy expiry names.

Michael: Yeah. Because GoDaddy is the largest registrar in the world. They have the most amount of domain names, yeah.

Marty: It’s a ton. It’s a blurry list to go through for hour. But I mean it’s been great. So yeah, it turned out to go for 10,000. I think that’s minus the escrow.com fees which were minimum. Couldn’t believe it was like less than 180 bucks. $1000 commission, they took nothing. So it was about 20,000% ROY.

Michael: Yeah, exactly.

Marty: Which [crosstalk 00:14:02] again.

Michael: All right, so you bought it on GoDaddy. As soon as you own the domain name, what did you do? Like what’s your action? What are the details of what you do once you buy a domain name?

Marty: Well, it went into my GoDaddy manager. So I just put it straight up onto GoDaddy auctions. I also had it at Sedo.

Michael: So you listed it for sale on GoDaddy and on Sedo. Did you put a “buy it now” price or did you just list it “make offer?”

Marty: I don’t remember.

Michael: Okay.

Marty: I don’t remember on either of those platforms what I did.

Michael: It was probably a make offer, because then the next thing you did was do what?

Marty: Well, yeah I was gonna say typically I do have it just make offer unless I know it’s a name that you know I would be happy dumping for 100 bucks, then I’ll put 100 bucks because I’ll probably drop it anyway. So I sat on it basically. I did end up putting it on an FT landing page. And that was terrific. FT has been really good to me. They’ve got great landing pages and on that page, I definitely didn’t have a price on it. It’s just to make offer and…

Michael: What theme did you typically choose for your landing pages on FT?

Marty: I don’t know the name. It’s a very out of focus nightscape. I think it’s New York City skyline. It’s great.

Michael: So it’s one of like a city sort of blurred and dark, and then form in the content or right on top of it?

Marty: Yeah. It’s a nice clean page. It’s nice. That’s the main reason why I signed up for FT were the landing pages. The four sale pages because for some reason GoDaddy just didn’t really have a way to put that little banner up there, to really help out their [inaudible 00:15:58]. So I put that up and…

Michael: And then how many inquiries did you get on it before you sold it?

Marty: So at Sedo I think I got two or three, and I think I got two or three at GoDaddy. My initial was 2,400 and there were numerous amount of counters that both platforms over a number of months, and both places that came down to about 800. That was my lowest and I never heard from either one of them again, frankly.

Michael: So you got multiple inquiries through GoDaddy and Sedo, where they made an initial offer and you’re like, “No, no that’s much too low. I want 2,400 for it,” And then they countered and then you countered at 800, and the deals just fell apart and people just walked away.

Marty: Yeah. At GoDaddy I think the bidder went to 240, and rocked after I went to 800. And Sedo I think it went up to 301, something like that and they walked.

Michael: And then where did you get the offer that it ended up selling?

Marty: So the great thing about FT landing pages, is that the offer comes in… It came in let’s see. Like the 23rd of September, and those pages are amazing because you get the ISP, you get the name, phone number offer of course, and email. So it’s a verified address. It’s not through GoDaddy and completely anonymous, and very discouraging when you don’t have it…

Michael: And Sedo is anonymous as well which just drives me crazy that you know, yeah. And you know I should make a quick side note that I am a partner in FT. That wasn’t the reason that you were selected. It came out during the pre-interview that you used after, and I’m glad to hear and I agree. That’s why I invested in FT. because you do get all the information of the person that’s making the inquiry. And FT does verify that they are a real person that a real email address before we forward the lead to you.

Marty: It’s terrific. I’m not sure exactly why. But you don’t really have to put in your full name but everyone does. You don’t have to put in your real phone number, but everyone has. You don’t have to actually put a message in there but everyone does too. So you get a descent feel for everything going on, plus you can do a tremendous amount of research.

Michael: So what did you learn from the person’s information that submitted the offer. What did you do and what did you learn?

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Michael: So what did you learn from the person’s information that submitted the offer. What did you do and what did you learn?

Marty: So I started checking them out. He is in San Francisco. He’s in a band, right? Which is a little discouraging because you don’t really figure band members have got a lot of coin to spend on domain, even if that’s the name of their band, which I would hope it wouldn’t be. So anyway I looked him up. He seemed to be…I don’t know what the word is, self wealthy or whatever. He had some line on his LinkedIn that said, “I’m the only person in San Francisco whose wealth didn’t come from technology.”

Michael: Interesting. So he is admitting he is wealthy right there.

Marty: That’s a good sign. I mean that’s not [inaudible 00:19:20]. So basically I did a little bit of research, and I had no idea whether to just immediately make an Escrow, and say I accept, whether to sit on it. You know there is the whole…

Michael: Because he gave you his name, his email, his phone number, you get his general location and you get the offer. And the initial offer was what?

Marty: the initial offer was $10,000. And I’m sitting there literally in bed reading it and counting the zeros and I had to put my finger up along the zeros, just to make sure I’m counting the right. Because you know it look like 1,000 bucks. Obviously you are not thinking $10,000. So yeah, that was really exciting. And so I…

Michael: Yeah. So clearly that screwed up sleeping for the night.

Marty: No. This was in the morning. It was a fantastic way to wake up in the morning.

Michael: Yeah. That’s a good way to wake up.

Marty: So I believe the offer came in late the night before, and it came in say on the 23rd. I believe it was 23rd, and I wasn’t sure what to do because there is really this idea that if you accept the same day, within like 12 hours or whatever, the buyer might get scared away say, “Wow, this guy is pretty desperate.”

Michael: I overpaid. He accepted too quickly. Exactly.

Marty: Yeah. I mean that’s a really concern, right?

Michael: Yeah.

Marty: But yeah, there was no way I lasted more than six to 12 hours, before I sent him a link to the escrow.com transaction that I created for him. I mean the neat thing was he was a…he is. I haven’t heard back from him since. But he is a really-really nice guy. When I created the excrow.com, I sent him the link, I sent him an email. I said, “Thank you very much.” And he was like ecstatic. He was so thankful and he said, “I know it’s difficult to part with your names, but I’m gonna put it to really good use. Thank you so much again.” And so I mean…

Michael: That’s awesome.

Marty: It really is. It’s true that.

Michael: What did you do in the six hours between when you opened the email, and when you went into your FT account and clicked the button to push it to Escrow and start the transaction? What happened in that time?

Marty: I think minus the freaking out a little bit, I’m sure I went to name NamePros, and I think I probably talked to the one guy I was telling you about, who would have a pretty good idea what to do. I already knew what I was going to do [crosstalk 00:21:50].

Michael: Yeah. Well, it is nice to like interact with peers and get their take as well.

Marty: Yeah. The idea too there is whole another thing of you never take the first offer, especially when an initial offer is in four to five figure range. Obviously, they have more to pay. But again for me I’ve had a lot of people walk away over the last few years when counter pretty reasonably, and that initial offer is 10 times the amount I would have taken anyway.

Michael: You would have taken 1,000 bucks. It was 10,000 bucks so why push it? You didn’t want to accept immediately. But you just sent it and like let’s get this deal done while he is still motivated.

Marty: Absolutely. The idea that I might have left money on the table, that is like I didn’t leave 10,000 on the table. You know I got 10,000 in my pocket because of it. Not anymore.

Michael: So then after you initiated the Escrow. He needs to sign in, create an account, agree to the terms and conditions of the deal and then fund it. How did that progression of steps go?

Marty: Slowly and a little painstakingly, considering the deal on the table. So you know like I said right away he was so excited, so happy. He actually said…that was the message that he left in the FT page was “will pay same day”. That’s nice to hear, right?

Michael: Yeah.

Marty: So he signs in. He decides the type of payment. but four days go by before anything else happens, and in those four days I’m a little bit freaking out, not knowing whether it’s actually gonna happen and it’s all pretty still surreal. The Nigerian prince showed up.

Michael: Exactly.

Marty: So I’m freaking out. And in fact it’s kind of funny what I did as I’m sitting there wondering whether it’s all falling apart is I about CBDRemedy.net. Felt like an asshole but you know a little bit of insurance and…

Michael: Yeah. Insurance because you thought well, while you are waiting for these days to progress and the money to show up, everything is running through your head, is the deal gonna fall apart? Did he pick a different domain name? Can I hold him accountable if he sign on you know, agree to the terms which you can’t you know at escrow.com. It’s not like a legal agreement. It’s just an agreement to escrow. And so you were thinking, “Well, what if he goes with another domain name? What if he goes with the dot net for less?” So you just went and hand registered it.

Marty: Yeah. I feel bad…

Michael: And then what happened at the end of the four days?

Marty: Okay. So at the end of the four days finally it does show that he funded the transaction, and then he falls off the map again. No, okay. He didn’t email. He did fund the transaction and it shows up. But then all of this time I’m basically telling him to accept the domain that I’ve pushed. Just go ahead and put it to…authorize it into his account. Go to escrow, hit accept then I have to wait. But at least I get my funds eventually. Nothing, nothing, nothing from him for days on end. I have to end up taking screenshots to show that who has changed the show, you know, the name leaving my account. And then…

Michael: So he actually accepted the name from you. You sent him the authorization code and he transferred the domain name. But then he never signed back into escrow.com and said, “I’ve received the domain name.”

Marty: Yeah. He did get the name into his account but he never hit accept. And then Escrow takes a full another day. If that’s when happens, they give another day inspection period. So it’s all good.

Michael: It’s all good in the end. It worked out over a lot of like highs and lows during that week.

Marty: That’s absolutely right. It all worked out and he is a really nice guy, whatever, he must be very busy or whatever. He was very happy at the very end. He did finally get back to me. I let him know that you know, “If you needed CBDRemedy.net to protect his brand.” Even though I haven’t seen anything up on the site yet. You know I do it for 350 and he was very happy about that price.

Michael: And so he bought that one as well?

Marty: He did.

Michael: You didn’t do in Escrow for $350, did you?

Marty: We did because I offered it to him and it took another four or five days, and I wasn’t sure if he was uncomfortable and I wanted another reason to get back to him. So I sent a link with an already established…he said he would buy it and then he fell off the map. I said, “PayPal is great.” And then didn’t hear from him. Sent him a link and finally he just did that and then read the email above that or below that that said, “Let’s do PayPal.”

Michael: Got you.

Marty: So he said, “Hey, so sorry about that, maybe next time.” And so I’ve been trying to hit him back up with another name, but he won’t get back to me.

Michael: That’s so funny. Well, he’s got to get CBDRemedy.com up and running. I wanna see what he is gonna build on that.

Marty: You know the only thing I can think of that there is a CBD strain out there called Remedy. So I mean if he is the owner and breeder and that’s his strain that might be it. But I cannot think of what he is paying that money for. It’s not like category killer at all.

Michael: Yeah. That’s interesting.

Marty: It’s a decent name. It’s a good name. It’s got good name to it but you know.

Michael: So you bought a lot of domain names. You’ve gotten some smaller sales. You mentioned to me $500, $800 that was typically the area that you were selling in. Did you treat yourself to anything special with the proceeds of the $9,950?

Marty: Well, other than reinvesting in four or five domains. I did pick up a very stupid hobby. I do not recommend this hobby, RC Airplanes.

Michael: Oh yeah.

Marty: They are awesome until they go flying into the ground at about 40.

Michael: Or into a tree, yeah.

Marty: Yeah. Or almost hitting a car driving by. They are fun and it’s exciting to watch them almost nail a car. But I don’t really recommend that.

Michael: No. Maybe drones because don’t you invest in drone domain names as well now?

Marty: That’s actually Mike what brought me into the hobby shop. As I was looking for a drone, realized that that’s about $1000 that you want head gear and the FPB and all that. And you know I looked above my head and there is all these planes and…

Michael: That’s so funny.

Marty: Yeah. But I did reinvest in I think four names. I’m moving a bit into a different tech niche into a virtual reality, sharable cars, stuff like that. So I think I spent about 2,000 on four names. The majority bulk of that is on one name, a VR name, Vegas VR. So I’m exceptionally happy to have a topnotch VR name. I mean it almost feels like a freebie to have sold one name that I would have take $1,000 for, and get a name that I feel I should have paid $3,000 for.

Michael: Does this sale make you feel like you are under-pricing your domain names, that you should be asking $2,000 to $3,000 per domain name?

Marty: You know absolutely it does. But I’m not essentially doing this for living, and it’s one of the things I can’t stand in life is this little part of domaining is having people walk away. So I really like to close deals. It’s just a really nice feeling to get a name out. And I mean if I don’t think about the name and it’s gone out of my account, but I’m richer for it then why wouldn’t I keep pushing then out? I got a lot of them.

Michael: Yeah, definitely. So you are investing still in Marijuana related domain names. You’ve got some VR domain names, and you are investing in drone domain names? Are those the three areas that you are focused on?

Marty: I’d say yeah, virtual reality, mixed reality, hologram or holo names, and then drones as well. Sharable cars, shareable vehicles, self-driving and driverless vehicles, that’s also pretty much blowing up right now. So I’ve got some good names right there.

Michael: Yeah. Those are fantastic. So you are picking all the upward trends, right?

Marty: I’m trying to get in as early as possible. I mean it’s so difficult to be in there in the first few days, let alone few weeks. But I’m trying to get in there in the first six months and still stock up whatever is left.

Michael: Totally. And so now that you have a little bit more cash in the bank for investment, are you looking instead of just looking at the drops are you looking at domain names that…are you coming up with some and then looking to see who owns them, and then trying to approach end users that might own domain names but aren’t doing anything with them? Is that a tactic that you are looking at?

Marty: Not especially right now. I am really trying to lean down and get…I’m trying to thin out and get names out and figure out what needs to get dropped. I’m trying to get down 500 names between those four or five niches.

Michael: And it just takes time sometimes to figure out which ones are the good ones, and which ones just aren’t going to develop into a commercially viable brand for companies?

Marty: Yeah. And you are not always right. Often enough you go back a month later and see your name in huge domains or somewhere else, and you are kicking yourself. But who knows if it’s gonna sell over there, right?

Michael: Who knows? I did a big investment in SEO related domain names when I first started in the industry. and I was just doing a full analysis for DNAcademy that I’m gonna share with students about which ones sold, which ones didn’t sell, what were my carrying costs, what I learn from those and you know some of the domains that I’ve never gotten inquiries in the five years that I’ve owned. I put up for sale at NameJet, they sold. Michael Berkens picked one of them. It’s in his portfolio and it’s like you just never know. It didn’t get any inquiries for me. Maybe he’ll get lucky and it will.

Marty: Right.

Michael: Yeah. If somebody wants to view your portfolio and potentially make an offer on a few domain names, where can they go check out your portfolio Marty?

Marty: Go to Holo Domains, H-O-L-O.

Michael: holodomains.com. And if somebody wants to contact you to discuss anything you know, talk about domain names, network with you. What’s the best way for them to do that?

Marty: marty@holodomains.

Michael: Awesome. And what’s your username on NamePros, if somebody is on NamePros and they wanna connect with you there?

Marty: I am 420domainer.

Michael: 420domainer on NamePros. Awesome.

Marty: That’s it.

Michael: And are you doing any…you mentioned that you have FT landing pages. You list your domain names on Sedo and Afternic, which is exactly the way to do it to get full exposure no matter how anybody is looking for the domain name. Are you doing any outbound marketing, or are you just waiting for inbound offers on your domains?

Marty: Well, first off I’m also creating a market through FT. and I should have all of the names through Holo Domains right there. So that’s also a nice little market. But I’m doing a lot more outbound definitely. That’s partly what’s increased my sales, is a couple outbounds a day and then wake up hopefully to offers. That’s my…

Michael: So what kind of domain name would you do an outbound on, and who would you reach out to?

Marty: Well, some of my 420 names, I am like for instance 420festival, that’s one right now that I’m trying to solicit that one to the different 420 festivals going on right now, since they are probably gearing up about five months out. They are probably getting there, settling all their vendors and stuff. So that’s one that I’m definitely looking for an end user to pick up. I like that one.

Michael: So you’ll basically look for the organizer or producer of the conference or festival, and you’ll reach out to them directly via email?

Marty: Yeah. There is a big 420 festival that it’s through a brewery. It’s not in Seattle. I think it’s in Georgia or something. But they’ve got 420 Fest and Sweet Water 420 festival. So they are my best bet. I have not received anything back but maybe I haven’t hit the right guy yet.

Michael: Yeah. You know I just tapped a show right before yours, the DomainSherpa Review. And Drew was saying, “You just need to pick up the phone sometimes. Don’t send them an email because people are often too busy but if you pick up the phone you get them on the phone, you tell them that you have this asset and you…”And they are like, “No, I don’t think I’m interested.” And you are like, “But I haven’t even told you a price. Don’t you wanna know how much the domain is? It’s 1000 bucks.” And they’ll be like, “Well, 1000 bucks you know I could probably do 500,” But you just keep the conversation going. You get them to commit right there on the phone.

Marty: That’s 2017 is stepping it up with my out bounds. I mean I definitely heard that. get on the phone, get on Skype, get more personal and it allows you if they don’t like what you said and they counter right then and there it gives you another chance. They don’t drop away as soon. Yeah, 2017 I’m stepping it up.

Michael: Awesome. I can’t wait to hear what 2017 brings for you Marty. If you are watching the show and you have questions, please post them in the comments below the video, and I’ll ask Marty to come back and answer as many as he can. I also encourage you, the person who is watching this interview to get out from behind your computer, reach out to the people in the industry, start making connections. Business is done through relationships. Marty came on the DomainSherpa review, ended up selling a domain name to Drew because he made that connection. The easiest way for you to start making connection is by simply posting a comment below and say, “Thanks Marty,” Or “I appreciate you telling your story because it’s motivating,” Or whatever you like.

Whatever you feel like saying, the most important part is just reaching out. And also go to NamePros, sign up for an account, follow Marty. You can send him a private message through that or you can message him by sending him an email [email protected]. I’m gonna be the first to say thanks to Marty. Marty Pelletier, thanks for coming on the DomainSherpa show, sharing your story about a fantastic domain name flip. And thanks for being a DomainSherpa for others.

Marty: Absolutely Mike. Hey, happy holidays.

Michael: Happy holidays everyone. Thanks for watching. We’ll see you next time.

Marty: See you guys.

Watch the full video at:
https://www.domainsherpa.com/marty-pelletier-cbdremedy-flip/

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51 Responses to “From a $27 Expired GoDaddy Auction to $10,000 Sale – With Marty Pelletier”

  1. Rakushka Lip says:

    Thank you very much. It is so aspiration story!

  2. John says:

    Heard his podcast. Love how Marty shared his knowledge about this matter.

  3. I think also this show have some issue with the podcast download as I don’t visualize it yet to be downloaded while the newer one about liquid domains is already available. Could you kindly give a check?

  4. Great article, nice to see Marty hit it big. I have many good 420 domains. thanks

  5. Great story. Very inspirational and I appreciate learning how other people make their sales. Thanks Marty and Michael!

  6. rob says:

    Thankyou guys, I have some lower level domains and a couple of upper level ones. Its a minefield and tips on how not to fail are great. I am very wary of spending anymore before I make money bck.

    all best,
    Rob

  7. Jan de Wit says:

    Thanks for the great and inspiring show, gents.

    Inspiriong in such a way that conducted a search to end up finding and acquiring the following canna-names:

    420suppliers/com
    420drugs/com
    420platform/com
    CBDpainpills/com

    Previously I wasn’t into the letter-number combinations. But with the cannabis market heating up I just give it a try. Especially seeing the high BIN’s on Sedo at similar domains.

    Thanks again for the show.

    1. marty says:

      I think CBDpainpills is great! Nice find right there!

  8. Ansh Deb says:

    Excellent work Marty. I have been noticing that topics related to AI, and more importantly .io domain names are also at a boom at this point. Best time to get some good dictionary word combinations for the the .io I believe.

    Gave me (and my Domain Flipping Mastermind students) a lot of amazing tips there Marty.

    Great work.

    1. marty says:

      Thank you very much, Ansh. I need to get a few .io names before everything is all gone there!

    2. marty says:

      Thank so much, Ansh. I’ll have to start looking at the .io aftermarket, if it exists yet.

  9. BisBrand says:

    Great interview Mike and excellent flip Marty. Like Marty also looking at VR and drone domains. Have explorerdrone dot-com and recently picked up vrtion dot-com as a short brandable.

  10. Vincent says:

    Thanks Marty and Michael for the interview. Marty your sale was Amazing. Congratulation. $10,000 is awesome. Did you do anything to treat yourself?

    Good news! I just got an email from afternic, some minutes ago, someone bought my domain for $900, already paid with escrow. First sale for me at Afternic, I just started using Afternic for about a month or so. That will take away $180 commission, which leaves me $720. Not bad. I wish it were a $9k sale.

    Michael, finally I got efty site to show up after of almost a month of trial. That’s because I had to spend time in between at Namescon and traveling to other places. I It’s a first time I have to do the A record of DNS. Glad I got it to work with little assistance from Godaddy rep.

    Great job to both of you. Keep up with the good work, Michael.

    1. Marty says:

      Thanks so much and congrats on your sale today, Vincent!

  11. THCNames.com says:

    Great episode as always Michael and I appreciate Marty sharing his story.

    I’ve found the majority of people interesting in the Cannabis/Hemp space these days are people that came into it for medical purposes. This is for personal or family reasons.

    Glad we own THCNames.com and CBDNames.com, hoping to develop these into nice domain marketplaces this year. :)

  12. Domainer Joe says:

    Wonderful interview. If only I had a niche I know a lot about. I’m way to mainstream.

  13. Andy says:

    Great interview Mike. Congrats on the sale Marty. All the best for the rest of 2017 :)

    1. Marty says:

      Thanks Andy, knock it out of the park this year!

  14. Pete says:

    Any idea what I should try to sell the following domain for….

    THCprices.com

    Was going to develop it but thinking it may be time to sell it.

    Any ideas on how to sell it?

    1. Marty says:

      I’d say hold it and develop it just like you were thinking, Pete. It’s a solid name and this type of content, geo-oriented thc pricing, may be pretty simple to have fed to a nice clean site. I think you will fetch twice as much for it after 10 hours of development. You would be the only keyword+prices to be developed as well. Cannaprices/potprices/marijuanaprices/420prices/cannabisprices- are all undeveloped.
      weedprices is nicely developed but is seed-based. You could be much broader than just seeds.
      Good luck my man!

      1. Pete says:

        Thank you for the reply Marty.

        I’ve been on the email list for quite some time and enioy the articles but this one really hit home so I finally got around to commenting:)

        I enjoyed the interview between you and Michael. Very informative. I have been registering names since mid 90’s but usually just for personal or project development.

        Some of course took off but others well… the winners pay for the losers. Had several 4 and 5 letter .com names come and go through the registar. Network Solutions charged quite a bit back in the day so unfortunately back then on the college budget I had to let several gems expire. Held a few and sold a few but it’s been fun along the way.

        Occasionally I kick myself for letting some go, especially some that I had in past and see the sales… but then again I am happy to have been part of the journey.

        Good luck on your sales, the MJ revolution is definitely creating plenty of opportunities.

        Keep an eye out for THCPRICES I’ll throw something up in the coming months:)

        Pete

        1. Marty says:

          Great to hear a bit of your story, Pete. I can’t imagine trying to pay those crazy early renewal fees during college, it was all I could do to scrape up $8 for a pizza.
          I will be on the lookout for THCprices.com!

        2. Marty says:

          Cool to hear a bit of your story, Pete. I can’t imagine trying to pay steep renewals while in college. From what I remember, most every penny I had was spent on cheap ass late night pizza delivery.
          Hey, I will definitely be on the lookout for thcprices!

  15. Marty, as a newbie, a lot of the info you mentioned hit home home and it was cool to see just a regular guy just being honest, telling it like it is, although, I did feel you had some other useful info you were trying to impart if you were not interrupted a few times. It was a great and informative interview though. Just in case you may be interested, I own wesell420.com and would like to hear your thoughts on how, and when to sell it. I am not opposed to a partnership?
    You have my permission to get my email from the DS.

    Thanks
    TJ

    1. Marty says:

      Stoked you liked the interview Anthony, glad it hit home for you!

  16. Sean says:

    Really looking forward to listening to this episode, but it doesn’t show up in the DS feed. Just a heads up, MC

    1. Thanks for pointing that out, Sean.

      The “Flips” are a newer show I’m working to find content and produce, and our coding had inadvertently left it out of the RSS feeds. I’ve included it in the “ALL” feed: https://www.domainsherpa.com/how-to-follow-domainsherpa-on-social-networks-email-rss/

      I’ve also included a separate feed for just the Profitable Flips show.

      The Stitcher and iTunes systems should pull our feed again soon and update their systems with the Flip show.

      Please post again if you don’t see it by tomorrow! :)

  17. Paolo says:

    I think also this show have some issue with the podcast download as I don’t visualize it yet to be downloaded while the newer one about liquid domains is already available.
    Could you kindly give a check?
    regards

    1. Thanks, Paolo. You’re exactly correct…as I stated above to Sean.

      What podcast system do you use? iTunes, Stitcher, or another system that uses our RSS feed?

      1. I use podcast addict that is another app for podcast on Android.
        Thanks a lot

      2. By the way all is perfect now, thanks a lot Michael

  18. ikehook says:

    Did you own 420Domainer.com? It dropped a couple days ago… Let me know if you want it, I’ll give it to you since it’s your NamePro’s Id.

    1. Marty says:

      That’s really nice of you, ikehook, but I won’t be using that domain anymore.
      Thanks though!

  19. Nice going Marty . . . and by the way, I started watching this video today at 4:20 in the afternoon :-)

    1. Marty says:

      That’s not what I was doing at 4:20… just kidding, I missed it actually.

  20. Marty says:

    Sorry guys. Website is getting reconfigured right now and should resolve shortly.
    Email should be working though.

  21. Saro says:

    Thanks guys. Always great to know the backstory of a sale.
    That stress factor of an agreement reached but the buyer is m.i.a. for a few days or escrow taking too long is so dreadful! Then you get the secured funds email and life is good again :)

  22. Thanks Marty. Thanks Michael. Great Flip.

  23. john says:

    Marty’s website doesn’t seem to be working we sent him an email no reply so dont know if he got it.

  24. Marty says:

    Fun show, Mike, thanks again! And thanks everyone for the nice comments. Sorry about holodomains.com not resolving. Working on that.

  25. Leon says:

    Great interview, guys!
    Trying to visit holodomains.com but doesn’t seem to resolve??

  26. Hugh says:

    Thanks Marty….great show…thanks for sharing…

  27. Omar says:

    Nice interview Marty…keep up the good work, see you on NamePros.

  28. Tony says:

    Thanks for another great interview! I just made my first sale – MarijuanaStocksOnline.com hand registered 2 months ago and sold on flippa last week for $205

  29. Nice show Marty and Mike. Well done on the sale and good luck in 2017.

  30. john says:

    Great interview. We went and looked around and found CBDHOST.com Googled it and found over 17 million “results” . We’ll see what it brings in the future but thank you for the posting.

  31. Cheryl says:

    Great story. Very inspirational and I appreciate learning how other people make their sales. Thanks Marty and Michael!

  32. David Kelly says:

    Hi Mike and Marty,

    Interesting sale story. Thanks for sharing.

    Just to let you know that your website links aren’t working. Not sure if your site is down or you have simply just changed it?

    Thanks

    David

  33. Sinisha says:

    Another great flip, thank you Marty, very informative, great show, thanks Mike.

    1. Cannabis plants are made up of more than 100 different cannabinoids, chemical compounds that act on cannabinoid receptors in cells that alter neurotransmitter release in the human brain. These have different impacts on the body and are concentrated to different extents in certain parts of the plant.

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