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DomainSherpa Review – Dec 12: RAAS.com, Decimeter.com, FirstLastName.com…

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

In this DomainSherpa Review:

  • We learn what the Sherpas bought or sold recently: RAAS.com, Decimeter.com, FirstLastName.com
  • An investor’s portfolio is appraised: Grief.org, SMSMessage.com, Comment.net…
  • Get your bids in soon for these NameJet auctions: Supplier.com, eLuxury.com, Beerfund.com…
  • Plus, much more!

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

Review (78:33): Watch | Listen/Download Audio | Domain Lists | Transcript

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Investor Submitted Domain Names

BringToFruition.com
CallForwarder.com
Careering.com
Comment.net
CreditReportFree.com
DevelopMyBusiness.com
Grief.org
GunShotWound.com
HoverOver.com
ItsGameTime.com
KeepsOnGiving.com
Lad.net
Memorizables.com
Motorcycler.com
Patented.org
Privacer.com
RankAmateurs.com
Reunioning.com
Ridiculous.net
RVRVRV.com
SMSMessage.com
TrickPhotography.com
Unhateable.com
Websited.com
YouthfulDisposition.com

NameJet.com Pre-Auction Listings

beerfund.com
eluxury.com
fmms.com
hdcam.com
hybridautos.com
mediaflare.com
onlinedivorcelawyer.com
preleasing.com
supplier.com
webmasters.org

This Show’s Sherpas

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

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

More shows with Andrew Rosener »

Richard Lau
Richard Lau
Richard Lau is a domain name investor and entrepreneur.

Richard Lau, founder of Logo.com , has an impressive track record of building successful businesses. He has founded, built, and sold multiple companies including MyDomain.com , Resume.com , and NamesCon. Along with success on the business side, he has a heart for giving back to others and is Executive Director of WaterSchool, a charity focused on clean water projects in Uganda.

Richard Lau has generated millions of dollars in revenue in the internet industry. NamesCon, his in-person conference focused on domain names, began as an idea in the fall of 2013 and is now part of the GoDaddy family. Resume.com is an online resume builder for millions of job seekers and is another of Richard’s recent successful exits, this time to Indeed.com. His current project is Logo.com - an AI-powered logo maker that has the ability to design a unique logo for your company in just a few minutes.

More shows with Richard Lau »

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

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

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

More shows with Shane Cultra »

DomainSherpa Advertisers

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Interview Raw (Non-Edited) Transcript

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

Watch the full video at:
https://www.domainsherpa.com/review-20161212/

On today’s Review, we discuss odd forms of domain names and how it affects value, dictionary words that are terrible generics but awesome brandable domain names, and some great domains going to auction soon with NO RESERVE that might be perfect for newer investors. Stay tuned!

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 to the review. We’ll start off learning what the Sherpa’s recently bought and sold. Next we’ll discuss and value an investor’s 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.

Joining us today on the DomainSherpa Review are two past Sherpas and industry thought leaders. In order from left to right, we have Richard Lau, CEO of Ocean Networks and founder of the NamesCon Conference taking place in January in Las Vegas, and Shane Cultra, publisher of the blog dsad.com and owner of the Country Arbors Nursery in Illinois. Welcome gentlemen.

Richard Lau: Thanks for having me.

Michael: So, Drew Rosener is usually a regular on the panel. He is planning on joining us today but he is double booked right now acting as an expert witness in a lawsuit involving domain names, so you will see him pop on to the show at some point and we’ll just keep running with Drew on the panel at that point. Also I want to apologize in advance, I am just getting over pneumonia. I’m probably gonna cough and as Shane will attest to you my microphone has been terrible over the past few tapings. So I got a brand new mike which is awesome, sounds good except that I forgot to remember to buy a mute button so that I can actually, you know, cough, so apologies in advance if some of the coughing does get on to today’s show.

Big news today, just coming out the day that we’re filming this and fitting to have Richard on the panel. GoDaddy just agreed to acquire Host Europe for $1.8 billion giving GoDaddy seven million more domain names to manage in Europe as well as ownership of the NamesCon Conference which just a few months ago Richard sold to World Hosting Days, a division of Host Europe. Now the whole thing will soon be owned by GoDaddy. It seems like they’re taking over the world, Richard.

Richard: It’s amazing, doesn’t it? You know, I basically officially just have to say, no comment. What I’d like to say is that I actually traded NamesCon for Host Global and now I’m joining with Bob and Dave, but that’s not the case.

Michael: No. So you didn’t necessarily know that this deal was brewing with, you know, in Europe when you did your deal?

Richard: Not at all.

Michael: Otherwise, you would have worked in like free domain hosting for like the rest of your life and…

Richard: Yeah, exactly. And I’d have a shiny big house in Phoenix, Arizona now or something.

Michael: Yeah.

Richard: No, I mean, and I’m, to be quite frank I mean just looking at this from the industry perspective or from, if I put my…if I was to put a GoDaddy hat on or Host Europe hat on I don’t think it’s gonna change NamesCon. It’s, you know, if you look at the HEG Group and you look at NamesCon, it’s a small item. And so you know what GoDaddy, I’m guessing, and this is just my personal pontification, is that they’re after the hosting business, you know. And really I think the two players out there in terms of what I was reading online just yesterday, looking at articles from earlier in the year, is that it was really gonna come down to whether Endurance bought it or whether GoDaddy was to buy it.

Michael: Really? I didn’t see that.

Richard: And so that’s not my opinion, I’m just reiterating what I’ve read. And so, you know, when in terms of NamesCon, you know, the smartest move would be to continue to let NamesCon run independently just like it is currently doing under WHD. And, you know, it’s kind of by, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” kind of thing, you know like NamesCon…

Michael: Yeah, when I was reading the news this morning I was, you know, I read somebody’s analysis saying that GoDaddy would, you know, they definitely wanted the hosting, they wanted the additional domain names because they’re the largest registrar in the world, so they get another seven million in Europe and a lot of great brands that Europeans have come to know to when they need to register a domain name. And, you know, I think it was just yesterday or the day before they announced they purchased WP Curve which is, for $79 a month they fix everything related to your WordPress website. So basically, you don’t need a CTO or a programmer on board anymore. If you want to change like a banner on the right hand side, Shane, and move it down or split it up or whatever, like you just send them an email and they do it for you and you get like an unlimited number per month for $79 or a certain number per month.

Shane Cultra: Yeah, which is a killer to developers who you pay $79 to move the banner.

Michael: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Shane: But as a third party person, you know, I honestly, I think a lot of us feel comfortable with a GoDaddy name there. You know, I wasn’t familiar with the company out of Europe as much, and it’s sad that a billion dollar company I’m not familiar with. But GoDaddy has always been very good with personal attention when it comes to customer service reps and all the people, so I think something of this nature is perfect for them because they do a good, as big as they are, they really do a good job of personal touch to everything. So I think it’s gonna work out really well, and I think some of the people are even more comfortable now with a different name on it. I mean Richard did a fantastic job and we hate to see that go, but GoDaddy, I think they’ll be fine with it. I mean, I really think that this is something they would do well.

Michael: Yeah, definitely. Well, we’re looking forward to…we just talked about this on the last review, Richard, that we’re all looking forward to heading to NamesCon, seeing old friends, catching up with people, meeting new friends. It sounds like you’re busy. We were chatting just before we hit the record button?

Richard: Yeah, you know, I’m based here in Vancouver with Terri and Shalom and Stephanie and the team keeps, for NamesCon, keeps growing here in Vancouver and there’s no plans for change there. And the, yeah, I think the 2017, 2018, 2019, we’re all booked in at the Tropicana. The dates are all released and it’s going to just be continuing to be the same but better.

Michael: Now, are you still gonna be involved after this coming NamesCon session?

Richard: I will be still involved but more on the, hopefully, more on the hands off role, on advising and just making sure that it transitions smoothly. You know, it’s been my baby for three years, this is the fourth year now and I, you know, at the end of the day the only thing you have is your reputation and I’ve got so much at stake with NamesCon that I want to make sure that it continues to flourish.

Hey, I see a shiny face coming in here.

Michael: Andrew Rosener, CEO of mediaoptions.com. Welcome, Drew. You just finished your expert testimony?

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, but the judge actually said that I’m now required in court, so I have to go… Speaking of NamesCon, the case is in Las Vegas so they’ve actually accommodated me and I have to show up on the 26th, the day after NamesCon ends.

Shane: That’s perfect, though. At least you’ll be there.

Andrew: Well, except that I’ll probably be, you know, hangover, exhausted and, you know?

Shane: Yeah, you’re just like where do I keep my 27 suitcases while this is going on?

Michael: Exactly, storing all those suitcases.

Shane: If you haven’t seen Drew, you know where Drew is at the end of a show because he looks like Eva Gabor from the 50s with all these suitcases and like it’s amazing, the whole hotel is full of his suitcases. It was great.

Michael: Right. And why does he have so many suitcases? Because he’s heading back to Panama and he needs to like buy all the stuff in America that he wants to take back with him. So Drew what was the expert testimony, what can you tell us? I didn’t realize that you actually served as an expert on different, you know, there was even a need for experts in domain names when it comes to certain lawsuit.

Andrew: Yeah, I don’t think I can share much but, you know, basically the case has to do with a joint venture contract that was entered into between a public company and an individual who owned a very, very good domain name. It’s a very, very valuable domain. And that joint venture went south. The things that were promised were never performed on and ultimately we’re at a stage in the case, this has been going on actually for almost three years. And we’re at a stage in the case now where the defendant, who I represent or who I’ve been hired by, has won. He’s been given a summary judgment and the judge is trying to assess damages. And so my testimony is to, you know, basically, essentially opportunity cost over the course of the, you know, they entered into this contract. You know, there’s a lot of different things that are being taken into consideration, the value of the domain.

So my testimony centers around what is the value of this domain name, how do I arrive at that value, and then based on that value if this arrangement had been a lease as opposed to a joint venture, which is what it should have been, and basically the terms of the contract lent themselves to being a lease as opposed to a joint venture. But, you know, they entered into it as a joint venture, there should have been a joint benefit from the growth of the entity that was created, but that wasn’t the case. And so, you know, what were the damages done to the registrant of that domain name by the other party not performing their obligations.

Michael: Got it.

Shane: Good thing you didn’t [inaudible 00:10:32] about it.

Andrea: What?

Shane: I think your bread’s burning.

Michael: We’re seeing a little bit of smoke going by you there.

Andrew: Well…

Michael: Yeah, he’s got a toaster oven. Oh, it’s a…

Shane: Oh, I see.

Andrew: A diffuser. This is my essential oil diffuser.

Michael: Oh, see Shane, you thought it was something else. You thought he had a toaster oven next to him.

Shane: I thought he had a toaster oven, that he didn’t flip his bread.

Michael: Yeah, yeah. All right, well, welcome Drew we’re just getting over a little industry happenings going on. So we’re gonna jump in it. Today’s show is sponsored by six awesome domain name industry providers that that I’m gonna tell you about more later in the show. They include Estibot, escrow.com, David Weslow Legal Services, domainIQ, Efty, and DN Academy. But before I tell you about them we’re gonna start off with the segment called, “What’s New Sherpas,” where the Sherpas share one particular sale that they’ve made in 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 gonna lead you through the questions, but the other Sherpas will get to comment on the process as well. The order for this segment is gonna be Drew, then Shane, then Richard.

Drew, do you have a domain name that you personally bought or sold, negotiated, in the past couple of weeks?

Andrew: Can you come to me last? I’m a little off my game [inaudible 00:11:55].

Michael: Yeah, because you just joined us late.

Andrew: …this phone call and then jump on here.

Michael: You bet. 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: Okay, I sold Decimeter, like the, you know, the measurement.

Michael: Oh, interesting, decimeter.com. You know, I was just watching the last show right before this one where you talked about XUSK and Frank was on and he didn’t know that you had actually sold it to him or that he had even bought it. I love that.

Shane: Yeah, and he was like, “Oh, man, I love that name. Oh, I wish I owned that name.”

Michael: Yeah, you bought it. Yeah, that was a great one. All right, decimeter.com. Drew, let’s go over to you…Shane did you buy it or sell it?

Shane: I sold it.

Michael: Sold it. Okay, Drew let’s go over to you. What do you think Shane sold decimeter.com for?

Andrew: Decimeter, I mean, I guess, and I’ll ask, I guess in all honesty I don’t even know what a decimeter is, although it does ring a bell. Definitely, it measures like pounds.

Shane: That’s typical American for you.

Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, he’s Panamanian baby, so like millimeter, centimeter, meter, I think decimeter is like…

Andrew: [inaudible 00:13:14] but does it measure decibels or does it actually…

Richard: It’s one-tenth of a meter.

Michael: Oh, its one-tenth, I was gonna go 10 meters. All right, see, leave it to the Canadians, they know their metrics.

Richard: You know, we’re bilingual.

Michael: All right, one-tenth of a meter Drew, it’s distance.

Andrew: Decimeter, one-tenth of a meter? So centimeter is a hundredth of a meter, decimeter is a tenth of a meter.

Michael: Yeah.

Andrew: Okay. I don’t know what the commercial application for that domain would be. It is a one word dot-com so that, you know, it has some inherent value. I’m gonna go with, I’m going low, I’m gonna say you picked it up for $600.

Michael: No, he sold it. What do you think he sold it for?

Shane: I sold it.

Andrew: Oh, sold it. I’m gonna say $3,500.

Michael: Thirty-five hundred. Richard, let’s go over to you, what do you think Shane sold decimeter.com for?

Richard: I think he sold it for $5,000.

Michael: Five thousand.

Richard: I think that it’s a…I have to ask, is it…the ending is -er for the British Canadian or is it -re?

Shane: It’s -er. No, -er.

Richard: Okay, so sorry, so the -re is the British, and the -er is the American. Decimeter, I think it’s good brand, you know, I think it’s an interesting brand rather. I don’t know if I would be concerned if I was the owner that I would want to own both versions. So if they haven’t bought the -re version, they should be, if they have any intention of expanding outside of the United States. But, yeah, I would say $5,000.

Michael: All right, $5,000, and $3,500. Shane, let’s go to you. What did you sell decimeter.com for?

Shane: All right, I’ll start off by saying you’re supposed to make a message out of your mess, well, this is a mess. So I actually sold it at NameJet for $240. I didn’t put a reserve on it. I only paid $200 for it three months ago and I just put it back up thinking, “Oh! Easy resale,” you know, I never got any offers on it in the three months, not one, and then it went for $240 and it’s like SUXK, it’s like why did I let that go, because even for $200…I don’t need that $240, why did I even bother with it.

Michael: Right.

Shane: You know, Drew has me in the you got to keep moving names, so I keep moving names but every once in a while I go, “I shouldn’t have moved that name.”

Michael: Yeah, so here’s the thing, so Richard when he said $5,000 was assuming that it was to an end-user, right, Richard?

Richard: Absolutely.

Shane: That’s correct.

Michael: Because you said, if I were the buyer I’d want to own the -re as well, and if I was a business owner I’d want to own the alternate spelling just in case you have customers in that part of the world. So $5,000 retail, now if you go to NameJet, you take your chances. There might be two people that love it that are gonna fight for it, but if there’s only one person that likes it it’s gonna sell for $240.

Richard: Yeah.

Shane: And that’s the true resale value because twice it was sold in that range for $200 to $250 and that’s the reason I bring these out. I mean it’s a good learning example. There’s liquidity there but the liquidity is nowhere near…and I thought Decimeter made a good brand for a $1,000, you know, for $200 I thought I could make money on it. And that’s the name of what we do. It’s nice to get $20,000, $50,000, but if you can get a $1,000 for a $200 name you can keep moving and do fine, but at $240 minus commission you don’t make jack, so.

Michael: No, yeah, but it’s a great learning example and I’m appreciative that you bring it up Shane. You know, you win some, you lose some, the past two weeks were losses but you had some big wins as well on others shows, and so…

Shane: Yeah, it evens out.

Richard: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah, it does work out, and so here is the lesson learned. It has liquidity, you know, it’s a dictionary word, right? Everybody assumes, “Oh, dictionary words, it’s gonna have this much value. It’s got all these people that could want it.” Well, as a dictionary word it doesn’t have that much value, but as a brand it actually has some value. And so the value that Drew and Richard said was $3,500, $5,000, but if you want to liquidate it you always got to think about the wholesale value of that. If I need to liquidate it today on GoDaddy or NameJet or put it up in auction on Flippa, what am I gonna get? And it’s probably gonna be about, and it is exactly $240.

Shane: Yeah, I’ve proven it’s $200 to $250, yeah.

Michael: Yeah.

Richard: I mean what I like about it as a brand is that if you go and search in Google for decimeter you are not going to find any other businesses under that name. So if you are a business, and let’s say you’re in construction, you’re in interior design, you know, you can make a play on the measurement on the exacting standards, etc. and you could really build something around decimeter.

Shane: Yeah, not a lot of competition for the term.

Richard: Yeah, but in terms of the price is right, I think Andrew wins because, you know, if it’s sold for $250, $249, and you’re, you know, a lot of people that I know that are buying on NameJet used the 5-10x, right? So if it’s selling on NameJet for $250 then the end-user pricing should be, you know, $1,500 to $2,500, somewhere in that range. So I was definitely a bit high. I would have…I guess, you know, seeing it sell for $500 on NameJet I wouldn’t see, I wouldn’t be surprised, $249 does seem a little low to me.

Shane: Yeah.

Michael: A little low to me too.

Richard: Come on, it was only three months.

Michael: I know.

Shane: That’s true.

Michael: All right, thanks Shane. Richard, let’s go to you, what…do you have a domain name that you’ve bought or sold in the past? I know you’ve got NamesCon coming up in like a month and you’re like head down and we’re glad that you had enough time to peel out of your schedule to come on the show today. Have you, do you have a domain name that you bought or sold in the past couple of months that you can tell us about?

Richard: No, you know, my last show I was dodging the bullet on a big sale but since then I’ve just been heads down on the conference. You know, we’ve got 50 exhibitors and everyone of them needs different attention.

Michael: Yeah.

Richard: And so we’re, you know, what I have been doing is helping a couple of friends out, as I was saying, I’ve got a chiropractor, he’s a friend. I actually don’t see him, but a chiropractor friend, and I got an email from his wife saying, “You know his name, first, last name.com is owned by someone and, you know, how much is it worth, you know, can you help me out because you know domains and I don’t know anything.”

So, you know, I poked around into it, and I’m in Vancouver, and the owner of this domain is in Vancouver, and so I’m like, “Okay, well, let’s dig it a little further.” And suddenly I find, okay, they own 80,000 domain names yet I don’t know who these people are. I’m sure I’ve probably run across them at one of our meetups but their name just doesn’t spring to mind like, “Oh, it’s Andrew or it’s, you know, domain Jay or…”

Michael: Yeah, that is not a small portfolio, that’s costing them like $700,000 to $800,000 a year just to maintain. So they’ve got to be selling more if they’re making money.

Richard: Right. So, you know, I just kind of go through them and they’re like, “Oh, yeah, well they were asking an insane amount of money.” I have no idea, they didn’t tell me how much the asking price was. But I just replied back saying, “Okay, we’ll let’s do some math here.”

So if they’re holding 80,000 domain names and they’re selling 1% per year, then they have a cost of business. And so you have, as the potential buyer, you have to recognize that the business that this person is in is not just to sit on names and then sell them, but they’re in the business of allowing you the opportunity to still buy it rather than, you know, someone else with your same first name, last name.com having bought it and, you know, has an inactive blog on it. So at least you have the opportunity to even have the conversation of how much is this name domain name worth, am I willing to buy it. And so then you look at the numbers, okay, $800,000, they’re selling 1% per year, you know, you just run the numbers. And they need to sell the domain name to you for at least a $1,000 just to break even.

So if they sell it to you for less than a $1,000 they’re losing money. So just the market value of you having the opportunity to even have the conversation about owning the domain name or buying the domain name means that you have to be willing to ante up [inaudible 00:22:15] and one, right? If you’re buying it for a $1,001 they’re making a dollar profit. And profit isn’t a dirty word. So it’s like well, what’s it worth? Well, it’s probably in the $1,500 to $2,500 range because these guys have to feed their families. And so it was an interesting conversation to have with someone who is coming at it like, “Oh, he picked it up for nothing, you know, anything he gets above that is, you know, cybersquatting, you know, dirty money.” And it’s like, no, no, no, wait a second. You have to recognize that, you know, this is land and they’re keeping it available for you. If you’d like to buy it you have a smooth process here of just making an offer, doing a negotiation, buying the domain, and suddenly you own it. So, yeah.

Michael: So did they end up moving forward and making an offer on it?

Richard: Not yet, but I think they will.

Michael: Yeah.

Richard: I think they will. I think they’re in an interesting phase because they are facing what a lot of people are facing which is do I go with paying a premium price for a .com or do I just pay a regs fee for a .xyz or .click or .link.

Michael: Yeah.

Richard: And, you knew, they’re struggling with it right now.

Shane: And if he’s a typical chiropractor it’s gonna take six sessions to get it done anyway.

Richard: Seven minutes per time.

Shane: Exactly. It can never be just once. He’s got to come back to it, we’ll see you tomorrow.

Michael: Speaking of chiropractors, have you started any of that laser therapy Shane?

Shane: No. Is it a chiropractor…

Michael: You haven’t heard of it? They take like a class four laser and they, if you are injured in any place they’ll use the laser to sort of instead of like physical therapy or massage or something like that. The laser will cause more blood to flow through it and it supposedly helps you recuperate faster from injury.

Shane: I’m scared of lasers.

Michael: I know, I don’t want to get them in my eyes.

Shane: I mean I don’t mind hot and cold but when you start throwing light into me, yeah, I don’t…I’m scared of chiropractors.

Michael: Speaking as the man who in Vegas last year got into a cryogenic cave or something like a bath, but you’ll do that, I’ll freeze my body…

Shane: In the same place where a lady died too.

Michael: Exactly.

Shane: I found out afterward someone had died in that place.

Michael: You’ll freeze your body but you won’t like try a laser on your hamstring.

Shane: Hot and cold is natural, laser is not.

Michael: All right. All right, thanks Richard. Drew, let’s go over to you. What’s one domain name you’ve bought or sold in the past couple of weeks? Tell us the domain but not the price yet.

Andrew: I have a couple of smaller names. I don’t have anything like really exciting.

Shane: Like Decimeter, I know. Go ahead though.

Michael: We can’t all have Decimeters.

Shane: Yeah, keep going.

Andrew: I have an interesting sale that I could [inaudible 00:25:15] but I think I’ve had an NDA because of, there’s a stock component.

Michael: Give us an ordinary, like a block and tackle, not everyone has to be like a $500,000 domain that you bought for $5,000 bucks.

Andrew: All right, so let’s go with the raas.com.

Michael: All right, Raas, raas.com. Shane let’s start with you. I’m sorry, Drew did you buy or sell?

Andrew: Bought it.

Michael: Bought it, all right. Shane what do you think Drew bought Raas for?

Shane: I hate his buys because there’s something behind it like, you know, it was owned by Mrs. O’Leary’s cow or something. They kicked over the fire and…let me think.

Michael: It was one of these unbelievable ones that was registered in…

Shane: Yeah, it stands for Rhythmic Alterior…

Michael: Yeah.

Shane: Don’t you know it’s the basis of all monetaries…Raas, I mean it’s great letters, fantastic letters, you can’t get much better letters in just the acronym form but if it stands for something I don’t know about, but I’ll say as a buyer he’s been killing it on to buy. So I will say $3,200.

Michael: All right, you think he bought it for $3,200. Richard, let’s go to you. What do you think Drew bought raas.com for?

Richard: I think he’s a sharp buyer. I think he bought it for $2,200.

Michael: Twenty-two hundred. Drew let’s go to you. What do you buy raas.com for?

Andrew: Okay, so I paid a lot more than both of them are guessing. But it also means something that you guys are not aware of, which is “Recovery as a Service.”

Michael: Recovery.

Andrew: So data recovery…

Michael: Interesting.

Andrew: So there’s like software as a service, yeah. Raas, R-A-A-S, Recovery as a Service, it actually has a bunch of different meaning. It has some very strong medical meanings as well, but Recovery as a Service was really the reason I bought it. I bought it from, I’m actually drawing a blank about it, but it was a large, very, very large public tech company that I bought it from, I want to say it was Oracle. It might have been, not Cisco, but, I don’t remember. So without looking I actually don’t recall exactly.

But anyways, data recovery, big business, recovery like so just IT recovery, like systems recovery, hardware recovery, you know, big, big, big business. These guys are making, you know, tens of thousands of dollars at the enterprise level per, you know, per job, disaster recovery also a part of this equation. So this is, you know, I think that to the right buyer it’s a big ticket. I paid $10,000 to buy it. You know, I don’t think like it was like a give away, but I am quite sure that it’s worth some multiple of what we paid, so I think probably…

Michael: I’ve never heard of Recovery as a Service, like recovery is just a service in general. Is that a phrase that is coming into, that’s trending up that I just haven’t come across?

Andrew: The difference is in terms of like, you know, so you have like everything, right? Like everything that turned out to be a service now, you know, you could like the cloud is just hosting, it’s all that it is, right? But, you know, now you’re getting like everything as a service. So this is, you know, you have disaster recovery, you could…one disaster and pay some exorbitant amount to recover from that or you have like an insurance policy basically which is, you know, as a service. So anytime anything happens, you know, these people come in, fix it and keep paying.

Michael: Yeah, well, Recovery as a Service is big in Google.

Andrew: Data recovery service, there’s a lot of different types of recovery as a service.

Michael: Yeah, definitely. So what is, you know, you had another area, if the audience is watching here’s a prime example of being an expert in technology or, you know, Cloud services or some area in understanding where the market’s going, what has value. Of course, Drew negotiated with a large corporation in order to buy this one and a lot of people are afraid to do that but here’s the benefit, $10,000 and you own a great acronym for a massive industry. I just typed it into Google, Recovery as a Service, and I see zerto.com is offering, “recovery as a service” is the heading. Business resiliency, disaster planning, the definition from Wikipedia is right at the top there. So, yeah, big industry probably, you know, and growing. What are you gonna ask for raas.com, Drew, if you got an inquiry today?

Andrew: Probably I’m gonna ask like $125,000 with a hope for selling it, you know, $75,000, something like that.

Michael: Awesome, congratulations, great buy.

Richard: Yeah, I think I should have asked, you know, where did you buy it from because that affects it so much, you know, whether you’re buying it on a wholesale market versus buying it from, you know, really from an end-user. You know, buying it from an end-user is much more difficult and, you know, hats off to Andrew for being able to even, you know, get through the gatekeepers to find the decision maker. So that’s a, it’s tough.

Michael: That is the tough part. Drew, how did you do that in this case?

Andrew: So in this case, we literally just reached out to them. Okay, so to be fair, hold on, oh, that’s right, okay. Got it, I’m with it now. It was Honeywell, we bought it from Honeywell and actually they had approached us about helping them to sell a totally unrelated domain name. And I happened to meet, it was their counsel that had reached out to me and we then circled back with them. Actually, this is actually a longer story but, so we just circled back to them and ended up, you know, making offer and getting the deal done. I used the, you know, DomainIQ to see what other domain names they own. I saw that they had a few that weren’t being used, you know, and made offers on few different domains. This is the only one that we were able to get done. The rest, they didn’t…they weren’t interested in selling at this point.

The origination of this goes back awhile actually. We were offered Raas by a different domain company, by FairWinds like a while ago, like maybe a year and a half ago and funny enough we’d actually made the same $10,000 offer and they were not able to get the deal done. And then we subsequently, you know, we were able to get it done directly with them after they had reached out to us. Sorry FairWinds, apparently they weren’t happy with your service. And, yeah, that’s it.

Michael: Awesome. All right, great to hear how all that came through and so sometimes if somebody is reaching out to you you can start a discussion knowing what other domain names they own where you might be able to get a deal done, and that was a great deal Drew.

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Michael Cyger: All right, we’re gonna move on to the next segment of the show. In the domain portfolio review we take user submitted domain name portfolios and provide honest and constructive feedback to the owners so they can cut their losses, continue to hold or figure out a sale strategy going forward. Today’s portfolio was submitted by David Harris. As part of David’s submission he made a generous donation to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to help us all find a cure for cancer. David has listed 25 domain names, starts with bringtofruition.com and it ends with youthfuldisposition.com.

If you’re watching the show, this is the point where you should press pause on the video or the audio, review the domains yourself, price them, pick your top three, your bottom three, you know, your top three that you’re definitely gonna hold long term, your bottom three that you might drop and then come back and listen in as the Sherpas share their insights. That’s the way you improve your skills. Test yourself. Hear what the experts have to say.

This segment, we’re gonna go Shane, then Richard, then Drew. Shane, let’s start with you. When you look at David’s list what’s your overall impression of the domain names?

Shane: Well, my first impression was I don’t like the forms of his words, like one of the biggest mistakes I think personally is when they get to odd forms of verbs or like -ings or just terms that…they’re words we know but they’re forms of words we don’t use, and so that was the first thing that caught my eye. But then the second thing that caught my eye is I’ve seen a lot of these names because I’ve worked the auction list every day, hour after hour and I’m like, “Okay, I’ve seen a lot of these names at auction.” Here’s what I think I would pay for it, and then I went and look and saw what he really paid…I don’t know if it’s he paid for it but whoever bought it last in the last year. So I’ll talk a little bit about that.

The first one that caught me is comment.net, obviously comment.com’s an amazing name but we’ve had these discussions before about .net and it’s a whole another world. It’s an incredible value if you’re gonna develop in my opinion because .net still works, but in the resale market it’s a tough market. At least I thought it was a tough market until I saw that it’s sold in November of ’15 for $1,700.

Michael: Wow. So you’re saying $1,700 is a good sale price for comment.net?

Shane: It’s a good sale for whoever sold it for that but if he just recently picked it up at $1,700, is the seller sitting over on the other side?

Andrew: That’s me, baby.

Shane: Okay, well that’s why he’s an expert, because that’s a good price. I would sell it for $1,700.

Michael: All right, so Drew sold it to David is what I’m understanding for $1,700.

Shane: Yeah.

Andrew: Via Flippa.

Michael: Via Flippa, yeah.

Andrew: I believe, I think so.

Shane: Yeah, because Drew had a lot of good .nets there running last year.

Michael: All right, so let me understand what you’re saying here Drew. You think that…and we’ve talked about this over and over again on the show, .nets are…

Andrew: Addressing me or Shane?

Michael: Say it again?

Shane: You, he’s asking you.

Andrew: Oh, you’re asking me or Shane? You said Drew but you [inaudible 00:36:21] Shane.

Michael: Oh, I’m sorry, Shane. I’m addressing it to Shane, and just in general summary the .net is depressed right now. It’s tough to get the higher dollar sales on the .nets. Comment.com is a great domain but comment.net probably has a value of $1,700, like he paid close to retail value for this domain name. And they could, just like we discussed on the last review, the .nets could make a comeback, you know, as the whole new gTLD settle out but we’re not gonna know that for a while and right now we’re at the max of the retail value.

Shane: Yeah. As, my opinion and that’s the easiest way to start it, I think there’s better opportunity in other endings right now, but I will say if I was a business owner and I had the opportunity to build on the .net I would not hesitate to build on a .net now because I do think it’s identifiable. I do think people understand, will remember it, and the value is great, you can get some amazing keywords. But if you’re gonna try and put your money into it and hold it and wait for a resurgence it’s a tough market, unless you get a great deal and that’s what we’re talking about today. I don’t think $1,724, it’s only for the people that are wearing the picnic lunch shirts.

Michael: All right, what do you like on David’s list? What domains standout to you as like winners?

Shane: I did like patented.org. Again, I’m not saying I like it as a great value name but I do feel like it’s a good search, a build out for someone to search for things that are patented because that’s something we do. Some of the names of the sites that are, you’re looking for trademarks and patents have odd names that I can’t remember and patented.org, even in the form of -ed, past tense, still works for me. I though trick photography was great. I thought trick photography would be a decent name. SMS message would probably be the other one that would probably sell for a decent price, but the rest of them are just not great names. The keywords in the .net are good, you know, grief and .org and LA and lad.net and all those are good but when you’re paying $1,900 for grief.org, you’ve kind of paid retail market so the resale is not there.

So as a domain investor, buying these names and reselling them, I think it’s gonna be very difficult for him to get his money out of them to make a profit I should say and he’ll probably lose money if he were to put this up again for sale. So I wouldn’t drop any of the names but websited, I shouldn’t say I would drop a lot of these names. Unhateable, you know, you’re just fishing for words. RV, RV is good, RVRV is okay too, now you’ve added another RV and now you’re just throwing away $8.

Michael: So you said you like patented.org. What would you ask on that domain name if you owned it?

Shane: Yeah, I mean if that were my name I’d be in the $3,000 to $5,000 range because I do think it has a build out. I think, you know, again, you look at the alternatives what you can use the word patent and buy, so he can buy patented.net, he could buy some other, you know, I think that the .org makes it sounds official and like an organization that actually helps people find patents, so I think it actually works in this case.

Michael: All right, and trick photography, you often state, you know, you think about domain names from a business perspective. Would a business buy it and name their company that, trickphotography.com, probably not a big business, probably a smaller business, right? It’s gonna…

Shane: Yeah. No, I think it’s…I don’t think it has great value but I do think that it’s something that people can spell and memorable but it wouldn’t be the business, it would be an entity within a business so people to build fun sites that you can go in and have contests like, you know, photo contests and things of that nature. I don’t see anything here that I would build a business on. I look through every name, I wouldn’t build, other than patented maybe that patent site. And grief, you know, I think, again, I was thinking about how do you do memorial service, but grief is such a negative word. It’s such a personal heartfelt word. I don’t even know if I’d build on that, so I’ll let these other guys and see. But if they were mine I could beat all of these with something else. You know, it’s just to me not where I would head and I wouldn’t advise anybody of buying most of these names. Other than good price, if you got the names, the .nets and .orgs I have no problem with the names, I just think the prices are gonna be a tough re-sell.

Michaela: All right, thanks Shane. Richard, let’s go to you. What two or three names standout to you as good investments on this list and what would you price them at?

Richard: Yeah, you know, I think that Shane really hit the nail on the head, you know, it was really well said when he was talking about the formatting of the names like “websited” or “unhateable” or “careering,” you know, I don’t go careering. Having said that, I like careering. You know, I run resume.com and I like careering in terms of the brandability but still built on a solid career-based, job-based name. So I like careering as a brandable in the employment space.

You know, grief.org, it’s hard to make money in such a negative industry but grief counseling is what I would imagine that to be. I don’t know that it’s, that you’re going to really be able to hang on and resell it to an end-user. I think it would be better to build it as a lead gen site for grief counseling. You know, maybe build in a forum and something that you’ll need to work and then, you know, then build it up and sell it on Flippa, but in terms of just sitting on that name and waiting it’ll be a while. And you know, over time as more new gTLDs come out, you know, we’re seeing the decline in .net, .org and others. So I would say, you know, build it on the fact that you got a solid, one word, name here but build some value into it. You know, roll up your sleeves and do some work.

SMSmessage.com? If you’ve seen the rise of Twilio that, you know, SMS is just the, I don’t know if you…the last time I picked up my phone I’ve got probably six different messaging services that I use. But when I’m dealing with the business I like my reminders to come in over SMS whether it’s my open table reservation reminder, or whether it’s my chiropractor, or my dentist sending me a reminder, I don’t want another app to install, just send it to me over SMS. So I think “SMSmessage” is something that, it has decent value in there and, you know, the…I could easily see that going for $20,000.

Michael: Twenty thousand, okay. So I was gonna ask, you know, I gave Estibot values, oftentimes Estibot is right on the mark, oftentimes it’s an order of magnitude, oftentimes it’s just plain flat wrong like unbrandables. You can put in, you know, like a budtender.tv and Estibot doesn’t know what a budtender is so they’re not gonna price that brandable domain name. But SMS message came through as, smsmessage.com was appraised at $32,000. You’re saying its $20,000, that’s the order of magnitude.

Richard: Right.

Michael: And that’s what you would ask if you owned it?

Richard: It’s not $5,000, but it’s somewhere in that range, you know, whether it’s $20,000 or $30,000, someone like Twilio or a Twilio competitor or a Twilio reseller because a lot of businesses need to build Twilio into their services or into their API or into their websites and they need, you know, but when they jump on to Google they don’t type in “Twilio” and if they do they generally misspell it. You know, they’re gonna type in “SMS messaging.” So that’s got value there.

Michael: Definitely, cool.

Richard: RVRVRV, I like it but I don’t think there’s a lot of value in there. I have a picture of a late night TV commercial, you know, Andrew standing in front of a 32-foot long RV saying “rvrvrv.com,” and…but anyhow, you know, my top three are careering, grief.org and SMS message. Those are the ones that I like.

Michael: Awesome, thanks Richard. Drew, let’s go to you. What else stands out to you on this list that wasn’t mentioned?

Andrew: I mean I think we mostly covered it. I like, I mean my favorite, you know, it’s game time, I think, you know, it’s cool slogan. I think it’s game time is a, I could see that going, you know, that’s one that [inaudible 00:45:36]would, you know, pop for $15,000, $25,000.

Michael: Exactly, yeah.

Andrew: And I think there are several companies that use that slogan, “it’s game time,” you know, or maybe like at least GoDaddy was, “it’s go time.”

Michael: It’s go time, right.

Andrew: But anyway, yeah, I like it, it’s game time, I think that’s good. I actually really like grief.org. I think that grief fits with a .org extension. I don’t feel [inaudible 00:46:02] that at all. I think that name could be the home of something really great. I could see, you know, the thing is, you know, you’re always limited by nonprofits because they’re likely not gonna spend tremendously for the .org but grief.org is a very, very good domain. You know, I would go so far as to say it’s an important domain. You know, grief is a very powerful psychological state and it’s something that a lot of people, everybody, every single person on earth deals with in some capacity and a lot of people need help with that. And so I could see grief.org being a really important and valuable domain name for that, other than the ones in the industry but for that, you know, sector or subset of people dealing with grief, so I like that name a lot.

Michael: What would [inaudible 00:46:55]?

Andrew: Tough call, you know, I’d probably say $25,000 and I think I’d have a hard time selling it to anybody for less than $10,000 or $15,000 even. You know, I might even stay firm at $25,000. We own ptsd.org and, you know, it’s in the same vein. It’s like, you know, I rarely even give a quote, you know, I just kind of ask, “You know, what are you gonna do with it? What’s your intention?” And, you know, it’s a hard names to price. You know, I think you definitely got to sell it for a decent price just because you want sure somebody with the right resource is getting it, you know?

Michael: Yeah, but it’s the kind of domain you’re gonna have to hold for 10, 20 years for the right person to come along that has the big idea that is gonna make use of it. And it is a perfect matching of the…

Andrew: Although, you know, I think it is good enough name. You could seek out the buyer. I’m not gonna do it but, you know, it’s [inaudible 00:47:58] name. You know, you could find…you could go out and do research and there’s a buyer out there that’ll pay you a decent price.

Michael: Yeah. And when you say that David could, the owner of the domain name, that it’s not valued high enough to hire a broker to actually go out and…

Andrew: No, I mean, I’m not saying that at all. I think, you know, there’s probably plenty of brokers that would be happy to do that for you. You know, we set our sort of minimum for end-user brokers a bit higher, but, you know, I think either David or, you know, someone else could certainly benefit from finding the right buyer for this.

Michael: Yeah, definitely. Drew, before we move on, do you agree with Shane’s comment at the beginning that sort of the forms of a lot of these domain names are just a bit odd, they’re not…they’re just…

Andrew: Well, I don’t hate this list. I think that he’s on the right track. I think that, you know, he did probably make some bad selections in terms of, you know, the form like Shane said, that’s really right, but there’s, you know, but that he didn’t do a terrible job. There’s some decent names on here. You know, even something like where it is the wrong form, but it’s…like creditreportfree.com where obviously it should be freecreditreport.com. But, you know, the credit report industry is so big and so competitive and the majority of the people that are driving traffic there are driving it through SEM, paid search. That I think, you know, having a name like creditreportfree.com, I think that’s a great name for somebody doing paid search, somebody that’s running a paid marketing campaign that, you know, essentially the domain is a burner but the amount of business they might derive from that campaign could be quite substantial. Like I could easily see creditreportfree.com, not an easy domain to proactively sell but I think, you know, over a five-year period I think there is a good chance that somebody is going to show up and pay you $5,000 to $10,000, you know, to buy creditreportfree as a burner sort of, you know, single campaign type of domain used for SEM.

I also disagree that, you know, $1,700 for comment.net is full retail value. I think that, I do think we got a good price for wholesale but comment, you know, that’s kinda big. You know, like I could see that going for quite a bit more, you know, $5,000. You know, any end-user, you’ve gotta remember. You know, I think that more than identifying a specific value for domain is I think domains really fit into tiers and so you’ve got, you know, you’ve got an end-user and so they’re, it’s an end-user that probably doesn’t have the money to buy .com or maybe they own a .com they want to support it with the .net, you know, whatever. But, you know, if it’s a serious entity, if they $1,700 they could pay $2,500, if they ca buy $2,500 they probably could pay $5,000, you know. So, you know, I think that if it’s an end-user I think, you know, I almost never will sell anything for less than $2,500. Domains that are far worse than comment.net, so, you know, yeah, I disagree.

Michael: Okay.

Shane: But the reality is we sold it and you sold it because there’s better opportunity, because that…

Andrew: Yeah, I sold it in a wholesale market, I sold it in Flippa.

Shane: That’s true, but the offers for us aren’t coming in fast enough on .nets to hold them, and we think we can make better money elsewhere, that’s really what I meant to say.

Andrew: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah. All right, fair enough. Thanks Drew. Before we jump into the domains going to auction soon I want to tell you about our three other sponsors.

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Michael Cyger: We’re gonna move on to the marketplace list. This segment is sponsored by NameJet. We’ll be reviewing 13 most, actually all reserve…no, we’ll be reviewing all no reserve domains going to auction soon. If you like one of the names below click through soon because once they go to auction you lose your chance to put in a minimum bid and be a part of the auction or even just watch the results. The links below go directly to NameJet, they’re not commissionable links they’re just trackables that NameJet could see the traffic that we’re sending them.

The list starts with supplier.com. I’m sorry, it starts with beerfund.com and it ends with webmasters.org. I believe only one of the domains on the list is being sold by the Sherpa panel, is that right?

Andrew: I don’t think we sell any of these.

Michael: FMMS.com, Drew? Is that Media Option brokered or owned?

Andrew: Yeah. Honestly, I have no idea.

Michael: Okay. I believe it is.

Andrew: It might be. It might be.

Michael: Yup. Okay, so this segment, we’re gonna go Richard, then Drew, then Shane. Richard, let’s start with you, from an investment perspective what do you like on the NameJet list and why?

Richard: Hang on one second, I just have a glitch on my screen here, so can you come back to me?

Michael: Yeah, Shane let’s go to…unless Drew, you ready?

Andrew: Sure.

Michael: Okay, let’s look at these names, beerfund down to webmasters.org, what do you like on the list and why?

Andrew: Okay, so I like beerfund. I think, you know, it’s kind of a common statement, you know, college kid, I got my beerfund. You know, so I could see like, you know, some kind of clever saving app, you know, or social payment app, you know made on beerfund.com, not a terrible name, it’s not gonna be high value, but, you know, it’s clever. It catches my attention.

You know, eluxury.com, I think that’s probably a, you know, great name. I think the e- and the i- names, prefix names are sort of going out of style, not as hot as they were for sure, but still luxury massive category, eluxury.com, you know, great name, many applications for it. So I like that name a lot and then, you know, of course supplier.com, just that’s a great and sort of category killer name.

Michael: Yeah, supplier.com had an Estibot value of a $137,000. When I sent you the list late last week it was currently at $4,200. Is supplier….you know, I often sometimes think of these generic words that are so generic that it’s hard to figure out what the business opportunity is, like what do you envision would be at supplier.com?

Andrew: Yeah, until that company comes along that did figure it out and then suddenly it’s worth a lot more. You know, we sold common.com for quite a bit of money and, you know, they’re literally by definition, I mean it’s like, it can’t be any more common than common.com, [inaudible 00:55:27]…

Michael: Yeah, but common was used as a brand, right?

Andrew: [inaudible 00:55:31] ridiculously generic that you’re like common.com, what the hell do you do with common.com, why would anybody own common…you know, like literally I actually always loved that name and people really were like “that’s a worthless domain, common.com. What the hell do you do with common.com?” And, you know, so I get what you’re saying but at the same time like being super uber generic in the right circumstance, which usually is a circumstance of you’ve got a really big company that has identified a reason to use that name. You know, it turns out to work out pretty well for you in terms of [inaudible 00:56:06]. So I think supplier.com, yes, very generic, you know, but look, I mean Alibaba, right? I mean like that’s kind of like the supplier model. You know, the U.S. Alibaba killer could be supplier.com, right?

Like so, I don’t know, I’m just thinking out loud here but there’s, you know, I’ve always been a fan of domains which lend themselves to something left of the dot. I always, even though nobody’s ever successfully really done it, I’ve always felt that there was some sort of, if not opportunity at least indication of the value of a name when you could put a subdomain on it and it made sense. Same way that we look at the right of the dot in terms of TLDs today, right? So, I think, you know, fish.supplier.com is, you know, it’s like anything that would lend itself to having those types of lots of different subdomains, I think is indicative of inherent value. So I like supplier.

Michael: Okay, so from an investor, newer investor prospective let’s say that they’re, you know, they have a limited budget. What would you think is a safe investment level on supplier.com?

Andrew: I mean, it’s gonna go higher and probably is reserve higher than the, but most [inaudible 00:57:30] new one.

Michael: No, it’s either no reserve or reserve’s been met. So $4,200 is current bid.

Andrew: I’m not entirely certain that’s true. I thought when I looked that it had a high reserve. But assuming that is true, assuming that is true I think, you know, look if you’ve got that under $50,000, I think you’re doing great. I mean if you got it for $2,500, you stole it, you know, I think that the value is actually higher than what Estibot is putting it at, you know, I wouldn’t sell that name for less than let’s say $250,000.

Michael: Yeah.

Andrew: So, yeah.

Michael: Okay, cool. All right, thanks Drew. Richard, let’s go to you. What do you like on the NameJet list and why?

Richard: Andrew, I think you should get the…you know, right now the supplier.com is, high bid is $5,001.

Michael: Does it say reserve, Richard?

Richard: It doesn’t say that it’s met reserve.

Michael: Oh, it has not met reserve?

Richard: It doesn’t say no reserve either.

Michael: Right, there’s no reserve on it, yeah.

Richard: Yeah. So, yeah, I mean your question was like, if you’re a newer investor it’s a lot of money to tie up into one domain.

Michael: It is, yeah.

Richard: Having said that, you know, are you better off as a newer investor, you know, spreading so thinly across a pile of, you know, unsellable names that your renewal fees are gonna kill you. So the adage of, you know, putting them into fewer but higher quality domains, you know, is definitely in line here and if supplier.com is available at $5,000 or $10,000 then you’re better off doing that than taking, you know, 500 names that no one’s going to even send you an offer on for $99.

So I like supplier.com as well. You know, it is generic but I think of someone like Alibaba and, you know, even just interfacing to the western world against Alibaba and there’s a lot of uncertainty with the change of Trump coming in, with the anti-China trade but, you know, China is the factory and whether it’s China or whether it’s elsewhere, you know, supplier, it’s got a great connotation and, you know, it’s not ambiguous on what it means. So I love supplier.com. If I was a newer investor that’s the one that stands out from this list as, you know, “Heck, can I get that? You know, let’s put as much of my budget as I have into that one.” And then, you know, whatever I have left over then I can, then I did do hand reg or go after names like HDCam. I think HDCam is a great one. You know, even if it’s just a small review site with Amazon links that talks about, you know, the GoPros and the other knock offs and competitors.

I would stay away from ones like mediaflare because it’s too brandable, it’s too ambiguous, you know, you could be sitting on that for years before the right buyer comes along. As a name I think it’s great, you know, heck, buy it and use that as your company name for your domain portfolio. You know, it kind of sounds like Media Options, but, you know, there is the concern of, do you spell it, F-L-A-I-R or F-L-A-R-E. But nevertheless, that’s a nice name but it’s not a name that you should be buying for speculation.

Onlinedivorcelawyer.com I think is a good one. It’s, granted it’s three words but there is a lot of money in law and that’s something that someone would open their pocketbooks for.

Michael: What do you think an online divorce lawyer would pay for onlinedivorcelawyer.com? What do you think the going retail rate is?

Richard: I think they should be willing to pay between $5,000 and $15,000.

Michael: Five to $15,000?

Richard: You know, what they would pay is another thing but what they should be willing to pay is, you know, if I’m advising an online divorce lawyer and they’re saying, “Yeah, I like this name. What do you think, you know, Andrew will sell it for?” I’m like, you know, $12,000 to $15,000 is what someone like Andrew or Shane would sell it for. I’d like to hear from them what their thoughts are, but that’s my stab in the dark.

Michael: And then you’d want to buy it for one-tenth of that because you know you’re going to need to hold it for a certain number of years.

Richard: Correct.

Michael: Yup, awesome. All right, thanks Richard. Shane, let’s go to you and let me start by asking you, onlinedivorceattorney.com, do you agree with Richard that the asking price is probably, you know, retail asking price is probably $12,000 to $15,000?

Shane: Yeah, absolutely. You know, when I first started this I never understood why people put the world “online,” because if they’re typing in divorcelawyer.com obviously they’re always online but they always throw online. It sells very well and having the word “online” does not affect it and it really actually adds to the value of the name. Whether or not they can actually do a divorce online I’m not sure, but that’s not important. The legal side, yes, I mean people forget what they, excuse me, what they can make from doing things in the legal world or in the advertising world. They’re gonna spend, you know, they’re gonna make millions or make hundreds of thousands dollars, then $10,000 to $15,000 is a good investment for their company and that’s as an adviser I say exactly what he said. That for what you get in return out of this name, it’s absolutely worth a burner. You know, a burner, you could spend $50,000 on a burner name than an adverting campaign because they’re gonna burn a million dollars to get that advertised. It cost you a $170,000 to advertise on prime time TV for 30 seconds. Yeah, a domain for $10,000 is nothing.

So, I disagree with Richard on mediaflare. To me that’s a perfect name to add to your brandable section of your, where you’re gonna play the numbers game. So if you get it at the right price and you price it for $2,500 people that are searching for brands, if you can get your name in the right section, I mean, BrandBucket makes a living doing this. Josh, one of my partners at DSAD, he’s got a thousand names, he sells 13 a year, makes a lot more than he puts in it, and they’re name is just like that for companies hunting for a name. And yes, it doesn’t mean anything to anybody but sometimes when people are searh8icng names they want something that resonates with them, and it’s not a generic and it’s a perfect price point. And mediaflare, media names are hot. I got to the Droplist every day, I could put any word in front of the word media and sell it for a $100. It doesn’t matter what it is. Media names sell like crazy.

Michael: And you’re not just saying that .media, you’re saying something media or media something.com.

Shane: I’m saying, YellowMedia went for like $400 the other day. It’s crazy with the media and I think Raymond over at TLD Investors did a whole article on media names, that they just sell so well.

Michael: Yeah. Well, if you want to see the data, go over to NameBio, put media in and then select the pull down that says “starts with and ends with” and you can look at the actual data by date.

Shane: Yeah, and there’s a plenty of it there when it comes to media. So, you know, again, all of this comes down to how much you pay. You know, we know it’s on the buy side when you’re trying to do it, so there is a numbers game to our investing that if you can get a hundred names for a $100 and you can sell three for $3,000 then it works. But you also have to be, you can buy 98 really bad names very quickly if you’re not used, if you don’t know what people are gonna sell or are gonna buy, rather.

Michael: Shane, beerfund.com buy or not?

Shane: I like the name, I saw it as like a men’s magazine type university thing. I think it’s a fun name. Again, I don’t want to pay too much but it’s a great memorable name. Supplier, I’m right there with you, I’m like, I know it’s a good name. We’ve been doing this long enough to know its value, but I get nervous when things are that big and aren’t a brand. So if it’s orange or if it’s, like common is an amazing name. If I talk to, commons what a great, you know, common ground, I think there’s just so much you can do. Supplier is that, you’re a supplier of something and sometimes to me as a brand, and I know you can make it a brand because it’s one word but I, you know, I think it doesn’t resonate anything, it’s just generic. But I know you can make it into, when you put .com on it it becomes its own brand. But I know exactly what you’re thinking when you see something that common you think, “Man, that’s really common and I’m gonna have to…” but I also know its value and I know that supplier could be a good one.

You know, HDCam was fine but same thing, I feel that’s what you’re gonna do, HDCam, that’s you. If you do HD cams, you’re great, if you want to do something else it’s not gonna do anything and I hate getting too pigeon-holed into something like that because HDCam will not be a term in two years. We know it’ll be something else, it’ll be like…

Michael: 4K or…

Shane: Yeah, it’ll be some word that we didn’t know of that everybody is talking about. And you’re gonna own cassettetape.com pretty soon. So, and that’s really, and again the other one is hybridautos. We see it’s about $200 now. We know there’s gonna be lots of hybrid stuff and it’s a good name for a blog or something along those lines and there’s money in that kind of thing but again, opportunity is better elsewhere. So the names aren’t too bad and I do like the fact that you put it at the current price so we didn’t look like fools when we say it’s worth $12 and it’s now at $4,800.

Michael: Good, I’ll do that from now on. And a couple of these, you know, exactly to your point Shane, I’m glad you brought up hdcam.com, hybridautos.com, you know, it’s limited by what it can be used for. You know, you’re thinning down the amount of uses and so that thins down the price as well, it’s got to be a blog or it’s got to be, you know, an auto dealer, it’s got to be, you know, your limit, your options are becoming more limited which reduces the price. So if you’re gonna buy it you have to know that the price that you could sell it for is limited going forward.

Shane: Yeah, and I think a good, a real quick story is Morgan Linton, his company and I can’t believe I can’t remember the name, what’s the name of his company, Morgan…?

Michael: Fashion Metric.

Richard: Fashion Metric.

Shane: Fashion Metric, so there were some other names that I thought better described what he did and he explained it to me real simply and he said, “We wanted something that wasn’t so narrowing, and so, I didn’t want it to pinpoint exactly what we did in case we had to pivot to something else and how we change the brand and how we expanded, so I wanted more a name that didn’t say exactly what we did but gave us an idea of where we were and fashion was good and metric in measurements.” And I thought that was a great story and that’s exactly what he needed to do as a brand. He didn’t want to say, you know, like measuremeright.com or something, because maybe that’s not what he’s doing in a couple.

Michael: Yeah. But you know what would have been a better name?

Shane: What?

Michael: Decimeter.com

Shane: Yeah. There you go. There you go.

Michael: Oh, well, he could’ve had it.

Shane: Only $240, I bet I didn’t…he could probably tell a story but I bet Fashion Metric wasn’t a whole lot more, so, but it’s worth a whole lot more now.

Michael: Yeah. All right, we’re at the end of today’s show. I’d like to give the Sherpas an opportunity to share anything that they want about names they are brokering or selling, deals they are offering, opportunities they’re looking for, upcoming events, anything they want to give, anybody they want to give a shout out to. Let’s start with you, Drew.

Andrew: So we just published an eBook today on mediaoptions.com talking about domain names strategy. It’s actually targeted at businesses, at end-users as opposed to domainers. But I think there’s a lot in there that a lot of domainers, particularly newer domainers can learn from but, you know, the idea is that we are on a daily basis speaking to a lot of companies and the fact is, majority of these people they don’t understand, they understand that the domain name has value, they’ve heard about some of the big sales that have had happened, but they don’t know why. They don’t know, you know, how to assess that value or even how to use the domain once they get it, or why their company might need multiple domains, or why they might want to own the name of their products, the name of their services, the generic names that address their market.

And so we tried to cover all of that in this eBook. And it was written by my colleague, Chris Zuiker, one of our brokers and I think he did a great job and it is free. We now encourage everybody to go in and download it and read it and let us know your thoughts, you know, feedback, we love, we welcome feedback. You know, it’s an eBook so the beauty of that is that we can update it and improve it and we intend to do so. And, you know, we hope that it’s a tool that people can use to help educate some of, you know, their own buyers and clients that are looking to, you know, invest in, acquire domain name.

Michael: And where do they go to get that eBook, Drew?

Andrew: I think that you just go to mediaoptions.com. If you go to our blog you’ll see the white [inaudible 01:11:15], the latest blog post is, you know, a sort of summary with a link. Otherwise, you know, it’s actually terrible but I don’t remember the exact URL.

Richard: It’s under resources.

Andrew: Okay.

Richard: You go to Media Options, then click on resources.

Andrew: So yeah, go to mediaoptions.com then resources.

Michael: Awesome, Media Options, and I’ll vouch for Chris. That guy knows his stuff so I’m looking forward to reading that eBook. Congratulations on that. Richard, let’s go to you. Anything you want to announce, talk about, give a shout out to?

Richard: Absolutely, I mean, you know, NamesCon is coming up, it’s December now, you know, time is flying fast and you know, before you do your Christmas shopping just make sure you’re registered for NamesCon. It’s gonna be 1,400 of us there and the price goes up at the end of month and you don’t want the stickers shocks, so just register now and, because you know you’re gonna be there. If you’re not there you’re square, so.

Michael: Yeah. I’m definitely gonna be there. These guys are definitely gonna be there. I can’t wait for the event. I’m really looking forward to catching up with everybody. All right, Shane, let’s go to you. Anything you want to mention?

Shane: Yeah. I mean this is a…for me this is time where I start actually getting organized in the domain world because the nursery world is winding down with Christmas trees and it’s getting cold here in Illinois, so I’ve I really enjoyed doing, getting things done, actually looking and see if my domains have been renewed or not and those kinds of things. So, yeah, at DSAD you’ll see us all keeping working hard. Our auction went very well, names went through, I think most of them sold for the most part and we actually kept it organized.

Drew warned me that it was gonna be a organizational nightmare and he’s right. It’s tough. It is tough to get domain investors to make sure that they get excited when they’re about to sell their name and then they forget to send you the name to get to the person that bought it. So you’ve got to stay on it, and then the worst people are the people you work with sometimes, so…but it’s, you know, that’s part of business is you’re trying to, everybody’s got ideas and everybody’s got things they want to do but then making them work and keeping it organized is a whole other world, so. But it went well, I learned a lot, yeah, and I really am looking forward to the NamesCon. I’ve booked my flights for the show.

It’s the one time I get to see you guys in person. It’s fun seeing you here on the screen and talking with you on the phone but after, you know, Richard was one of the first people I met, I’ll never forget. You know, I’d been to…I’d only been to a show like 24 hours and we’re out and he had I think models.net was the business card that he was handing out at somewhere and I thought, “Oh, my God, this guy owns models.net,” who he, you know, I thought he was some young guy that, you know, not much more experienced than me and turns out he’s like the grandpa of the industry already, 10 years ago. But, you know, I came home and Richard was one of the people I talked about, like these guys are amazing, you know. It just, it was one of my first impressions, it was a guy sitting right there, so, and then nine years later I’m still sitting next to him, talking to him, so that shows you what kind of industry we have. Really looking forward to doing a little bit more of that in January.

Michael: Awesome, thanks Shane. If you received…

Andrew: How do you feel about [inaudible 01:14:30]?

Michael: What was that? What did you say Drew?

Andrew: That how does Richard feel about being called grandpa?

Michael: [inaudible 01:14:38], what do you think, Richard?

Shane: He is.

Richard: I tell you, I do feel old. You know, when you see these young kids that are going through the list now and they’re putting in the time and they’re putting in the dedication, yeah, you know, I’m…what year is it? I’m turning 47 next year. Yeah, I’m grandpa.

Shane: When [inaudible 01:15:00] knew the old guy you know it’s…

Richard: Yeah.

Michael: Yeah, exactly.

Richard: Too funny.

Michael: All right, if you received benefit from today’s show please take a moment and post a comment below to thank today’s Sherpas. Post want you liked about the show, what little tidbit you took away that you want to make sure that you internalize and write a comment and thank today’s Sherpas for that. Thanks to David Harris for submitting his 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 DomainSherpa Review. Thanks again to our Domain Sherpas, Andrew Rosener, Richard Lau, and Shane Cultra for sharing their experience and insights. We’ll see you all next time.

Richard: Thanks for having us.

Shane: Thanks Mike.

Watch the full video at:
https://www.domainsherpa.com/review-20161212/

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20 Responses to “DomainSherpa Review – Dec 12: RAAS.com, Decimeter.com, FirstLastName.com…”

  1. Trisha says:

    I really enjoy reading and also appreciate your work.

  2. Tom says:

    I think Richard made a great point about the big renewal cost associated with owning a lot of lower priced names compared to a few better names where the annual renewals would be much lower.

  3. Eric Jenkins says:

    Great show guys…..I will have to read Andrew’s e-book!!!!

  4. Ategy says:

    Hey guys .. thanks again for another great show.

    I have to agree with Drew on Grief.org … I actually recently picked up Grief.co .. When I saw it I immediately thought it would be a good brand for a funeral services company. Not just funeral homes, but things like caskets, urns, donations, flowers, etc etc. I never even thought of the counselling side of it (makes me even happier). Maybe in this case the .org hurts it a bit in that people won’t expect commercial services, but I think the trust factor of .org more than offsets most of that. The moment I got it I was pretty happy with the variety of possible end uses of grief.co .. coincidentally I just noticed I also have patented.co .. lol

    On the same note .. with the _ed and _ing verbs … I’ve been better at avoiding them .. but at the same time as the sherpas ended up discussing later, sometimes they do work very well. Also sometimes the tense of the verb not only changes the tense .. but the fundamental meaning .. best example is market/marketing … in terms of usage within domains, the non-_ing version of marketing is probably “media” oddly enough.

  5. Ategy says:

    Hey guys … I’m also curious about the FirstLast.com .. particularly given the huge number of domains the owner has, wouldn’t this be a case for UDRP? Unless the owner had the same name? Unless it’s a really famous person who name is accepted in public domain (world leaders, fictitious name like “Jon Doe” etc) then I thought that was one of the few cases where it actually is squatting? I’ve made a few mistakes in the past, but now I always do my most to grab as generic as possible.

  6. Tony F says:

    Another great interview! Thanks for sharing so much information, I’m working my way through your site listening to a two interviews day on my commute. As a new domain investor I’m very grateful for this resource!

  7. Ariel says:

    great show! thanks guys

  8. mark Lieberman says:

    As always your videos are very informative and carry value. Thanks for all you do and promote.

  9. nick says:

    Fantastic Show!

  10. mark Lieberman says:

    What do you think of brand names that are spelled phonetically and that have clarity.

  11. Michael Calabretta says:

    Thanks Andrew, Richard, Shane, and Mike. See you at Namescon.

  12. Lucas says:

    Great show, thanks sherpas and Michael!
    by the way, congrats to Shane for his Decimeter.com sale for $240. I do mean it. It may seem low but decimeter is just weird. In the metric system it is only common: kilo, centi and mili… but decimeter?? who the hell uses that? I haven’t heard that in my life… IMO nobody uses that unit of measurment.

  13. Jivan Bansi says:

    Drew; essentialoildiffuser.com, I know you like it, would you like to make a semi-modest offer,I’d love to sell it to a domain star like you [ you get a discount just so I can have bragging rights.Be well. Mr.Cyger: what do you think, can you tell Drew?

    1. Join Domains says:

      Wow ……..looks awkward

    2. Appreciate the offer but it is a bit long for me. I’d take it for $100 but that’s about it. But thank you again.

  14. levotaps says:

    Thank you guys!!

    I have learned so much watching the show, keep up the good work

    Downloaded the ebook, reading it now, thanks Julio for the link

  15. anonymous says:

    I enjoyed watching!

    NamesCon sounds fun. I’m new to the game but I think once I sell a few domains I’m going to put the earnings towards: 1. DJI Mavic Pro (Drone). 2. NamesCon (I love Vegas). 3. Better quality domains.

    Mike – do you have a YouTube channel for your videos? I’d love to subscribe.

    Thanks!

  16. JT says:

    Really useful discussion!

    Thank you Sherpas and especially you, Mike!

  17. Zac Zarev says:

    Great Show Guys!

    Keep up the good work!

  18. Thank you Michael & the Sherpa’s for the video!

    I read the ebook .com strategies that drew mentioned by chris zuiker the other day and I found it really good. On my blog I’m making a post about the ebooks that I collect from domain blogs. .Com strategies was my first ebook that I have read.

    I download it from http://chriszuiker.com/

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