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DomainSherpa Review – Aug 7: Vape.io, ScreenSaver.com, SelfDriving.com, FlyPaper.com…

DomainSherpa Review with Michael Cyger, Ammar Kubba, Frank Schilling 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: Vape.io, ScreenSaver.com, Etherium2.com
  • An investor’s portfolio is appraised: SelfDriving.com, DriverlessCar.com, AutonomousCar.com……
  • Get your bids in soon for these NameJet auctions: FlyPaper.com, BrainPlug.com, SnapTrap.com…
  • Plus, much more!

We’re joined by three Domain Sherpas: Ammar Kubba, Frank Schilling and Shane Cultra.

Review (78:18): Watch | Listen/Download Audio | Domain Lists

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Investor Submitted Domain Names

SelfDriving.com
Self-Driving.com
SelfDrivingCars.com
Self-DrivingCars.com
Self-DrivingCar.com
DriverlessCars.com
DriverlessCar.com
AutonomousCars.com
AutonomousCar.com
AutomatedCars.com
AutomatedCar.com
SelfDriveCars.com
Self-DriveCars.com
SelfDriveCar.com
Self-DriveCar.com
SelfDrivenCars.com
Self-DrivenCars.com
SelfDrivenCar.com
Self-DrivenCar.com
SDCar.com
S-DCar.com
SDCars.com
S-DCars.com

NameJet.com Pre-Auction Listings

azreporter.com
brainplug.com
epersonnel.com
flypaper.com
geezers.com
sextutor.com
snaptrap.com
thedevils.com
vjuice.com
workoutguide.com

This Show’s Sherpas

Ammar Kubba
Ammar Kubba
Ammar Kubba is a principal and the chief executive officer of Thought Convergence Inc. and its various portfolio companies, including TrafficZ, the industry’s oldest and most experienced domain parking and traffic monetization service; LeaseThis.com, the global leader in domain leasing solutions; and Idea.net, an incubator for the development of avant-garde Internet sites, services and technology.

Through the Name Intelligence acquisition in 2008, Thought Convergence is an owner in DomainTools.com, the ultimate source for domain research, and DomainRoundtable.com, annual conference focused on domain names, new products, technologies and companies in the domain marketplace.

Ammar is a leading authority on Internet domain development and traffic monetization, as well as an active proponent for the continuing advancement and evolution of the domain industry.

More shows with Ammar Kubba »

Frank Schilling
Frank Schilling
Frank Schilling is an Internet investor, entrepreneur, and founder of the DomainNameSales.com platform and the registry and registrar Uniregistry.com.

More shows with Frank Schilling »

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-20170807/

MICHAEL CYGER: On today’s DomainSherpa Review, the Sherpas talk about vape.io, screensaver.com and enerium2.com, and how much they paid or received for them, a portfolio of self driving and driverless car domain names is evaluated, and some great brands like flypaper.com, snap trap.com and brainplug.com are heading to auction soon. Hear what Ammar Kubba, Frank Schilling and Shane Cultra think are the winners and losers in auction this week. Stay tuned!

MICHAEL: Hey, Sherpa Network! Thank you so much for joining me today. My name is Michael Cyger, publisher of DomainSherpa.com, and this is the “DomainSherpa Review.” This is the show where we get into the minds of successful domain name investors using real examples, so we can learn strategies and tactics to become better investors. We have three segments of the review. We’ll start off learning what the Sherpas recently bought and sold. Next we’ll discuss 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 for you. Joining us today on the “Domain Sherpa Review” are three past Sherpas and industry thought leaders. In order from left to right we have a Ammar Kubba, serial domain name investor, serial entrepreneur, and angel investor. Frank Schilling, CEO of the registry and registrar Uniregistry.com. Shane Cultra, publisher of the blog DSAD.com, and owner of the Country Arbors Nursery in Illinois. Sherpas, welcome to today’s show.

SHANE CULTRA: Thank you.

AMMAR KUBBA: Hey, Michael.

FRANK SCHILLING: Thank you so much.

MICHAEL: My pleasure. It looks like my video just froze. Does it look like that…

FRANK: Yeah, [inaudible 00:01:04]

SHANE: Yeah. [inaudible 00:01:07], you’ve been frozen on a smile for a while now.

MICHAEL: Frozen, let me turn it off. Let me turn it on, see my smile live.Can you see me?

SHANE: Nice.

FRANK: There you go, you’re live again.

MICHAEL: Awesome, awesome. All right, I wanted to mention Drew Rosener [SP] is traveling today. He is in another country, and I’m not even sure which one. I believe it’s Germany. But it’s good to have all of you Sherpas today. Right before we hit record, we are talking about the summer of birthdays. All four of us had our birthdays within the past couple of months. Who had the best birthday activity?

FRANK: I’m going to say it’s you guys. Honestly, I had a very low-key birthday. I was as a great place, but the actual birthday went down kind of low-key.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: So, yeah.

AMMAR: Yeah, [inaudible 00:01:48].

FRANK: I was in Mykonos, in Greece. A lot of domainers there this year actually.

MICHAEL: Greece…

FRANK: There was…

MICHAEL: …sounds like a great place.

FRANK: Yeah, [inaudible 00:01:52]

MICHAEL: That is the country that I’ve yet to go to. But whenever I see pictures of other deomainers traveling to Greece, it always looks phenomenal.

FRANK: Great place, can’t say enough about it. Love the Greek people, always have. Love going back there. Mykonos is a fabulous spot.

MICHAEL: We’re doing a paella party next month for my birthday. So I [inaudible 00:02:11].

SHANE: That’s essentially going to Greece. I mean, it’s…

MICHAEL: It’s like the same.

SHANE: …it’s pretty much the same thing.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

AMMAR: Paella’s Spanish, guys.

MICHAEL: It’s the same…

AMMAR: [inaudible 00:02:20], you know?

FRANK: We’ll do a Greek paella party.

SHANE: Right.

FRANK: The Greeks will love it. They probably invented it.

MICHAEL: That’s as close as I got.

FRANK: The Spaniards stole it.

SHANE: Paella.

AMMAR: It’s the right continent, wrong country.

FRANK: I’m pretty sure…

MICHAEL: I’m just throwing it out there. I’m not saying it was like the right country.

SHANE: And I had a burrito at Chipotle, so I…

MICHAEL: I’m going…

SHANE: …know what you mean.

MICHAEL: …topless too, at that paella party. Get it? Topless? All right. What about you, Ammar?

AMMAR: Actually this was the most low-key party I’ve had in a long time. But coincidentally, I went to a Greek restaurant.

MICHAEL: Oh, look at that. It’s all coming together.

AMMAR: And I had paella.

FRANK: Oh my god! Oh my god!

MICHAEL: You did not.

FRANK: Ammar went shopping for art. You’ve got a whole collection back there.

AMMAR: Right.

FRANK: Very expensive stuff.

MICHAEL: Yeah, he’s had Mr. Bones back there, for a while.

AMMAR: Yeah.

FRANK: Cool.

MICHAEL: Yeah. All right, today’s show is sponsored by six awesome domain name industry providers, that I’m going to tell you about more during the show. They include Estibot.com, Escrow.com, David Weslo Legal Services, domainIQ, Efty.com, and DNAcademy. But before I tell you about them, we’re going to start off with a segment called “What’s New, Sherpas?” Where the Sherpas get to share one purchase or sale that they’ve made over the past few weeks. We get to learn what they paid or received for the domain name, why they thought it was a good deal, and how the negotiations progressed. I’m going to lead you through the questions, but the Sherpas will get to comment during the process as well. This segment will go Ammar, then Frank, then Shane. Ammar, what’s one domain name that you personally bought or sold the past few weeks? Tell us the domain name, and not the price yet.

AMMAR: Sure. I sold vape.io.

MICHAEL: Oh.

FRANK: [inaudible 00:04:02]

MICHAEL: You know how I love my .ios. I didn’t hear about this one.

AMMAR: Yeah, sorry I didn’t know.

MICHAEL: So let’s find out what the other Sherpas know about .io. Frank, what do you think Ammar sold vape.io for?

FRANK: I think io names are hot, and the vaping industry is a hot space. Fifty grand?

MICHAEL: Fifty k. Shane, what do you think Ammar sold vape.io for?

SHANE: Well I sold smoke.io.

MICHAEL: Did you?

SHANE: And it bounced three times, he never got it. It’s still sitting in my account one year later.

FRANK: What did you…

MICHAEL: How much did you sell it for?

FRANK: Yeah, what’d you get?

SHANE: So I think I got $2,800 for that one. And vape has a better business model. Like a direct business model. So I will say $13,500.

MICHAEL: Thirteen and a half thousand dollars. Ammar, they’re way off, aren’t they?

AMMAR: Well they’re both very far apart.

SHANE: I won.

FRANK: Yeah.

SHANE: I don’t know.

MICHAEL: Which one are you closer to?

AMMAR: Shane undershot, Frank overshot.

MICHAEL: Oh, nice work. What did you…

AMMAR: I got it…

MICHAEL: …sell vape.io for?

AMMAR: At $24k .

MICHAEL: Wow, $24k.

AMMAR: You know, I’d been buying up some .ios, but only, you know, one-worders that really make sense.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

AMMAR: And that’s pretty high for a .io from, you know, what I’ve seen. So I was pretty happy with it, but you know, $50k would’ve been nicer. But this guy has been working me for a year, and…

FRANK: I’ve heard of high dollar sales. You know, there’s a lot, so…and I know you’re like a premium guy. You know? So that makes sense.

MICHAEL: Yeah, okay.

AMMAR: Well I really appreciate that, Frank. I think I’m pretty good too.

MICHAEL: Well I just had…

AMMAR: [inaudible 00:05:54]

MICHAEL: I just had Josh Schoen on talk about give.io, where you bought it for $800 and sold it for $15,800. And I think give, the keyword matches the .io very well, where there’s a lot of SaaS type businesses or marketplace type businesses, that a programmer wanna build to. With vape, I sort of questioned it. I wasn’t sure if there was a, you know, business model that relates to entrepreneurs building something for other entrepreneurs.

AMMAR: Well vaping is really hot right now. Not just for the e-cigarettes, but also for the stuff that Drew enjoys.

MICHAEL: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

AMMAR: Right.

MICHAEL: So how long has this guy been…

AMMAR: Well his first offer was a year ago.

MICHAEL: Wow.

AMMAR: A little over a year actually, it was last July. And his first offer was $2,600. And at the time, I was asking 16, and then $16,888 I think was my asking price. And I told him, you know, I even had a “buy now” on it I think. So you know, he wouldn’t go up that high. He might’ve countered once or twice. I’m like, you know, “If you change your mind, I’ll still be around. And I don’t know if the name will be.” But I’m a premium guy, as Frank says. And then…

FRANK: [inaudible 00:07:18], so you were trying to convince them you were Chinese.

AMMAR: Right, that was it.

FRANK: I’m Chinese, man. I’m going to take $16,888.

AMMAR: [inaudible 00:07:26]

MICHAEL: Exactly.

AMMAR: And then I’ve been reading more about vaping. And obviously the marijuana industry’s only growing, and it’s legal and more and more states now. In Nevada and California. So I actually increased the price to $24,888. And then he came back after I had increased it already, and asked again, inquired. And I’m like, “Yeah, I still have the name, but it’s gone up.” And you know, we went back and forth a little bit, and finally settled at 24. And we did…

FRANK: Wow, you shaved off the 888. He figured out you were not Chinese, he says, “I’m not giving you the 888.”

MICHAEL: Exactly.

AMMAR: Well, and that’s…

FRANK: Not good work for you.

AMMAR: Yeah. So yeah, no, it worked out. But then I took some of that, and I reinvested it into a couple of other vape names. I bought two vape.coms. And so I actually think the ones I bought are probably six-figure names. So I’m pretty happy. And I’m a premium guy, Frank says.

MICHAEL: What’d you pick up in the .com? I’m curious now.

AMMAR: I bought a smartvape, singular and plural.

MICHAEL: Oh, nice. Yeah.

FRANK: Yeah.

AMMAR: I think those are both really good names.

MICHAEL: Yeah, great brand.

FRANK: As an adjunct, a while back we sold Ecig.com [SP], I think it was close to a million bucks.

AMMAR: Wow.

FRANK: Yeah, so I mean just that space in general is very hot.

AMMAR: Yep, yeah.

SHANE: And then nobody called it Ecig, that worked out great.

MICHAEL: Hey Ammar, I’m curious, from the time that he made his initial offer of $2,600 until you closed it a year later, how many other inquiries did you get on vape.io? Was that…

AMMAR: That actually did…

MICHAEL: Was that 0, 1, 10?

AMMAR: No, that one gets pretty good interest. I mean I don’t want to say it like not 50 inquiries, but probably 1 or 2 a month.

MICHAEL: Yeah, okay. Yeah, nice.

AMMAR: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Great sale, man.

FRANK: Well done!

MICHAEL: You got to…

AMMAR: Thank you.

MICHAEL: …report that, and make sure to get those .ios in NameBio.

AMMAR: Oh yeah, I don’t release that stuff. But…

MICHAEL: It’s out now.

AMMAR: Yeah. No, no, right. Right I mean, you know, the ios though, I think people…well we can get into it later. But I think people have gone overboard a little bit.

MICHAEL: Totally.

AMMAR: And I’ve been watching the prices go up. And A, you know .ios think have a ceiling. Right?

MICHAEL: They do.

AMMAR: And I don’t think you’re going to see six-figure .io sales. Right? I think you know, mid five-figures is probably as high as it’s going to get. That’s my opinion. And people are spending, you know, 5, 10 grand on .io names, which I think is a lot to to spend as an investor.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

AMMAR: It’s not a lot as an end user, but it’s definitely a lot as an investor. You know, and I’ve been watching. And I haven’t been buying as many lately, because they’ve gotten a little out of hand.

MICHAEL: Yeah, I agree 100% with everything you said. And I love to pick them up under a thousand, and I love to flip them for, you know, right around $5,000 I think is the sweet spot for entrepreneur investors who are working on startups.

FRANK: [inaudible 00:10:47]

AMMAR: And they got to make sense for something that you can imagine would be a disruptive technology, because .ios are for startups. Right?

MICHAEL: Right.

AMMAR: And for generally trying to be disruptive. So one I bought recently, darkroom.io, which is I think a great one. Right? I think that could be another 25 to $50k name. But I only paid $500 or $700 for it.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Right so…

AMMAR: All these go so high.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: All these are gonna get used, you know? This sort of, free-form, just it reminds me that all the new G stuff going on, people wrote-off [inaudible 00:11:21]

MICHAEL: Uh-oh. Hey Frank, I think your microphone is rubbing on your collar right there. We can’t hear you right now. I think it just unplugged.

SHANE: I think what he was going to say was those…

MICHAEL: What was he going to say, Shane?

SHANE: He was going to say,…

MICHAEL: Still can’t hear you, Frank.

SHANE: …”Some are going to get hot, and some aren’t. We don’t know which ones are.”

MICHAEL: No, he’s going to say, “Everything’s going to get used.”

SHANE: Oh, okay. So I should buy…

MICHAEL: “Don’t buy…

SHANE: …those then?

MICHAEL: …those ios too high,” is what he was going to say. Oh, he’s dropped off. All right, he’s going to come back.

AMMAR: Whoa.

SHANE: Oh, man. Now I can really say what he was going to say.

MICHAEL: Yeah, now would…

AMMAR: I think I [inaudible 00:11:54].

SHANE: Yeah.

MICHAEL: I’m going to send him back an invite real fast here.

SHANE: No, I’ll let him. But you know, in the .io it is interesting in the fact that, you know, there’s so many things out there, and you don’t…you know, why .io versus something else, versus something else. And that’s one of those cases where I think it was smart to wait and watch, and kind of see how things play out. And then once that something grabs hold, there’s still time to play.

AMMAR: Yes.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

SHANE: There’s nothing wrong with waiting. You don’t have to be first on board to make money, and io is a perfect example.

MICHAEL: That’s exactly what I thought Frank was going to say. Frank, can… Oh, we still can’t hear you. Oh, I don’t know what’s going on.

FRANK: Now?

MICHAEL: Oh, now we can. Yes.

SHANE: Yes.

FRANK: Okay, I’m going to get some new [inaudible 00:12:42] here. Sorry guys.

MICHAEL: No worries. We can hear you just fine.

FRANK: Yeah, no, what he said.

AMMAR: Right, [inaudible 00:12:48]…

FRANK: io when it first came out, people kind of wrote it off. Like I didn’t hear people say, “Oh, io’s going to be 5 and 7, $10,000 name.”

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: But, look what it’s become, right? And that kind of reminds me of the thing when you kind of think back to co, which at the moment is a startup kind of thing. You know, .co? And those have kind of cooled a little bit, but they’re still churning. You don’t see those great names in .co go below, you know, a $1,000.They’re not like, you know…

MICHAEL: But there’s a difference between the two, right? Like [inaudible 00:13:19]…

FRANK: Absolutely.

MICHAEL: …[inaudible 00:13:21] at .co when they ran it, they created that groundswell by promoting it. And since they’ve sold, I haven’t really seen as much emphasis on .co. Whereas .io was a groundswell from the beginning. And so you know, it’s sort of self-reinforcing when entrepreneurs see other really cool startups building on .ios. And then they go look at .ios themselves.

FRANK: Yeah, that’s spot-on. That’s spot-on. But you know, I wouldn’t chalk it up only to management.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: Because I know the owner of .io, and I can’t imagine he’s leaning forward really hard on, you know, making that the juggernaut it is. There’s definitely, you know, the groundswell effect. It’s just interesting to watch, you know?

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: But I will say that it’s interesting to watch in this sense, that names get used, a floor develops, right? And names rarely go below that floor, right? You know, you don’t see really great names in good namespaces, you know, with big dictionary words, like ones that Ammar’s going after, trade for below 2, 3, $5,000. There’s money in the street, it’s like amazing, you know? I mean the key is getting those names below premium prices. You know, if you can get them from where ever, that’s always been the key, right?

MICHAEL: Yeah.

AMMAR: Right.

SHANE: And to me it’s similar to a trading market. If you want some of the inventory taken out, in order for this to continue on from a reseller market, it has to be use-driven rather than marketing-driven. If use-driven takes names out of the fold and takes the good names, then it starts to create some holes. And and it can’t just be driven by resellers, it has to be driven by actually use. And…

FRANK: Absolutely.

SHANE: …that hasn’t changed since the beginning of our industry. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t a market early buy marketing, .co is a perfect example. There was some trading involved. But actual use, I mean, they were doing everything they can to prove that people were really using it.

FRANK: You know, they key there, I mean you know, is time. I mean, not to go off on that tangent. But you know, you make a great point. But you know, there’s no best before date on names, you know? So if you’ve got a namespace that’s like a great namespace, but you’ve got it artificially set high at really high prices, $1,000 a year per name. Nobody’s buying, nobody’s using, the name’s dormant. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad namespace, it just means, you know, it’s all a timing thing. And you need to kind of find the model that, you know, or the timing to watch as a registry operator, I’m speaking from that perspective, put that hat on for a second. You got to find the right time. Because if you let all your good names out, you’re carrying the cost of the registry and then…it’s an interesting ballet to watch.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: You know? And it just kind of [inaudible 00:15:52], as Ammar was talking about. Sorry to go off on the…

MICHAEL: No, no worries. Well let’s run over to you, Frank. Thanks Ammar, for that sale. Congratulation. Frank, what’s one domain that your company has bought or sold in the past couple of weeks? Tell us the domain name, and not the price yet.

FRANK: Okay, and actually this one was a surprise for me. I bought screensaver.com.

MICHAEL: Oh, screensaver.com. Shane?

SHANE: I followed it, but I didn’t…

MICHAEL: I know,…

SHANE: …follow it to the end.

MICHAEL: …I followed it as well. I think it was on NameJet, right?

SHANE: I’m watching him on iEmojis [SP] right now.

FRANK: I’m out, I’m out, I’m out.

SHANE: Well no, you second bid. You’re not out, right?

FRANK: [inaudible 00:16:29]

MICHAEL: What do you [inaudible 00:16:31]

SHANE: Not over yet.

FRANK: Right.

MICHAEL: Yeah, that one’s crazy, iEmojis.com. All right, let’s go back to screensaver. What do you think…

SHANE: That does screensavers.

MICHAEL: … Frank bought…

SHANE: Yeah, I saw that. Got I can’t…I lost that one. I was on vacation when that thing went through. God, I’m going to make a fool of myself because I… My hands are here, just to prove I’m not typing anything out and looking for it. Oh, I can’t remember. I’m just going to say 20 grand. I just can’t remember what it was.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Ammar, what do you think Frank paid for screensaver.com?

AMMAR: Well I remember the plural was for sale couple years ago. It was offered to me, and like I think it was around $75k or something. Screensaver, obviously it’s not going to be used for whatever it was originally thought of. So it’s something for a phone or something like that. I don’t know. I don’t know if I’d pay that much for it, but I guess 20 sounds about right.

MICHAEL: Yeah, around there.

FRANK: [inaudible 00:17:36]

MICHAEL: You don’t know if you’d pay 20 for it?

AMMAR: I’d pay even less I think. I don’t know.

FRANK: I paid 25. I like it.

MICHAEL: Twenty-five, right in there.

FRANK: Yeah.

MICHAEL: So Frank, you know, I sort of feel the same way as Ammar. I watched that auction on NameJet, it was going up and up and up. I didn’t follow the end of it, because it got way above what I would try and pick it up for wholesale.

FRANK: Neither did I, I didn’t follow it either. Hey, what happened? Well I’m surprised it went so low. [inaudible 00:18:01]

MICHAEL: Was the Uniregistry bot that was in there, like just bidding?

FRANK: Yeah, well the Frank-bot I guess, so yes.

MICHAEL: The Frank-bot.

FRANK: Yeah.

AMMAR: Frank, what do you see as the…I mean I know you’re a premium guy, so…

FRANK: I’m actually not. I’m a bit more of a bottom feeder, you know? I mean I’ve got a lot of volume, a lot of…

AMMAR: But what do you as an end user use for that there?

FRANK: That name’s going away, you know? Believe or not, there are still screen savers being sold out there. I mean it’s still a business. I even [inaudible 00:18:34]…

AMMAR: Oh yeah, right now they’re selling them for the TVs and things like that I know.

FRANK: Exactly right. And you’re not going to call them something different. And it’s just, you know, we sold names like that for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Download themes, you know, those types of names. And I’ve seen those deals go down over and over again. And you know, I just think all day long that’s a couple hundred grand, you know what I mean?

AMMAR: Mm-hmm, right.

FRANK: So buying it for .10 on the dollar seemed like just an easy low-hanging thing to do, you know?

AMMAR: Right.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So I know that Frank-bot’s a big black box or like the Google algorithm, but do you…

FRANK: It’s not that, [inaudible 00:19:12]

MICHAEL: …go in there and do you have to set the retail price, and then the Frank-bot goes in there and bids up to like any-something-dollar?

FRANK: I mean actually there’s some human intervention in that. But by and large, the whole thing is a bot, you know? But you know, it’s just we’re doing so many different names, across so many different auctions. And we have people that work on that piece of it. And you know, it’s a nice little stand-alone business that just does it’s thing, and we’ve been doing that a long time. And just to mine, you know, the proxy is way higher than. You know, like way higher. So that would’ve been a much higher sale, you know? And you know, I think a name like that, you know, we may get a half a million for that. So you know I mean, I think…

MICHAEL: So is it safe to say…

FRANK: …that’s cheap actually.

MICHAEL: …that your robot would’ve gone up to $50,000 on that one?

FRANK: Mm-hmm. Might’ve. You know what? The thing you got to remember with names like that, is they’re going to have traffic forever. I own y2k.com [SP], you know? That still gets traffic, right? Lots of it. It’s a big, big world out there, people still think the Y2K disaster’s going to happen. 2000 was way back.

AMMAR: Right.

FRANK: Either that or time travel’s been invented, because that name is still vibrant.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: It is still.

MICHAEL: So is that your MO, Frank? Are you trying to buy domains for .10 on the dollar? You know, .10…

FRANK: Yeah.

MICHAEL: …wholesale on the retail dollar basically?

Frank: And I think that’s whether you’re buying…yes. So when you’re buying, you know, premium .coms, or you know in your heart you’re paying $100 for a new GTL [SP] or on a resale, you know, that you know for sure is worth $1,000, yeah, that’s a good way to make money.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: You know? And there’s all different schools or levels of people in this industry. There are miners who will bring you names all day long at a $100 and $200 range. You know, there are the $200 miners? There are guys that will mine for names they’ll bring to you all day long for $1,000, and turn in volume. You know? And then there are guys who only sell to end users, who will hold out for premiums, that’s you. You can arbitrage against the miners. Against premium guys, and use your own bank account as, you know… There’s so many ways to operate in this business. I was surprised by that one because I was surprised how cheap it went for such a big, big term with traffic. Right? Well I mean, I chose to use sort of the side stand of the traffic market today. Right? The market for clicks, right? What are you going to earn per click? And even with thousands and thousands of uniques, you’re still not going to, you know, make that much, because traffic payments are what they are. But I thought that was a low number, you know? I was surprised it, for such a masthead type name.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Well congrats on that purchase.

FRANK: Yeah, yeah, woot! I’m happy.

AMMAR: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Thanks, Frank. Shane, let’s go over to you.

SHANE: I got one. No, actually I got a prime one I know I forgot about.

MICHAEL: I started throwing that out, I’m like, “Oh, no! Shane doesn’t have one.” Because we just taped a show a week ago.

FRANK: I always do this segment poorly. I always pick it as I’m [inaudible 00:22:13]

SHANE: Yeah.

MICHAEL: You did great.

SHANE: I forgot I did do one…well, I won’t say what..

MICHAEL: So you did…

SHANE: So I bought…

MICHAEL: …a buy, I’m sensing?

SHANE: It’s of course a buy, yeah.

MICHAEL: All right, and what’s the name?

SHANE: Ethereum2.com

MICHAEL: Oh, interesting. So E-T-H-E-R-I-U-M?

AMMAR: E-U-R.

SHANE: Correct spelling, 2.com, with a number two, .com.

MICHAEL: All right, so it’s not I-U-M. It’s E-U-M at the end?

AMMAR: Yeah.

SHANE: No, it’s I-U-M. I mean it’s the correct spelling, it’s…is that right? Oh, boy. Maybe that’s why I got it.

MICHAEL: So this is why I need you…

SHANE: Hold on.

MICHAEL: …to spell it out.

SHANE: Let me look.

MICHAEL: Go look, and tell me if you bought the I-U-M or the E-U-M. I thought it was I-U-M.

FRANK: It’ll be a great story either way.

AMMAR: Oh, it’s the E-U-M is the coin.

SHANE: Yeah, so let’s…

MICHAEL: Oh, E-U-M is the coin.

SHANE: …go onto the next person. [inaudible 00:23:03]…

MICHAEL: Now I want to find out what you paid for it, Shane. Hold on, we’re going to come back to you. Ammar, Shane bought the non-correct spelling, which we’ve all done. E-T-H-E-R-I-U-M, then the number two, .com. What do you think he paid for it?

FRANK: Oh, [inaudible 00:23:21]

MICHAEL: And this shows how little I know. I know about Ethereum, I didn’t know how it was spelled. And is there like a versioning? Do they go like Ethereum one, two, three?

AMMAR: Well there’s Ethereum and Ethereum Classic. And then there was just a bitcoin fork today. And so Ethereum, maybe there’s going to be another Ethereum fork, or [inaudible 00:23:48]

MICHAEL: Right, maybe they’ll fork it and come out with a new number for it, and maybe they’ll change the spelling.

AMMAR: I hope you didn’t pay more than $500 or $1,000.

MICHAEL: All right, we’ll be kind and say $500. Frank, what do you think Shane paid for Etherium2.com?

FRANK: I don’t know, but if he hurries, Etheriumii, little I, little I, might be available [inaudible 00:24:09]. Little I, little I, I am totally serious, you know? No, at $2,200, I think he was had.

MICHAEL: Twenty-two hundred. Shane, what did you pay for Etherium2.com?

SHANE: I hand-ragged [SP] it. Now you know why I hand-ragged it.

MICHAEL: Good for you, man.

SHANE: You know, that’s why I don’t hand-rag hardly anything. If it’s available, it probably is shit. And every time I get excited, I realize I’ve done something wrong during the…

MICHAEL: So here’s the thing, like maybe they’ll come out with Ethereum 2, and how many people are going to spell it wrong when they type it in? And so…

FRANK: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right, you’ve…

MICHAEL: …is this a long-term hold, Shane? Or is this like, you wait…

SHANE: It is not a…

MICHAEL: …until the end of the first year?

SHANE: …long-term hold. It is for sale for $10.

FRANK: Oh, boy.

SHANE: A 20% increase, yeah. No, that’s really smart of me. Yeah, that’s what I get for drinking and hand-ragging.

FRANK: Every now and then you get lucky doing that. That works.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: Just don’t drink too much.

SHANE: Yeah. When he said, “How did you spell it?” I went, “Oh, boy.”

FRANK: I’m going to use the Uniregistry app right now if I can, to buy the [inaudible 00:25:20]

SHANE: That’s like the guy that said he got in calendar in Spanish. Remember, he said, “I was pretty excited”?

MICHAEL: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SHANE: And I go, “Well, you should be pretty excited. It’s only has one L, instead of two.”

FRANK: So is the correct spelling with a U?

SHANE: E.

AMMAR: E-U-M. H-E-R-E-U-M.

FRANK: Done. There you go, I just bought it with a little II. I’ll push it to you as a gift. As a consolation…

SHANE: [inaudible 00:25:44]

FRANK: …gift.

SHANE: Hey Frankie, you did hear I bought uncomfortable.com. So I’m officially in the uncomfortable game.

FRANK: Yeah, I did [inaudible 00:25:53]

MICHAEL: Yeah, you did talk about all these sort of learning activities that make us uncomfortable, and that’s how we learn.

FRANK: I guess, right? I didn’t…

SHANE: And that was one right there.

FRANK: Business is booming.

SHANE: Yeah.

AMMAR: We’ve all done that, so that’s okay.

MICHAEL: Oh, yeah.

SHANE: Oh, that’s exactly right.

MICHAEL: All right,…

FRANK: [inaudible 00:26:09]

MICHAEL: …thanks Sherpas.

SHANE: I [inaudible 00:26:10] that.

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MICHAEL: We’re going to move onto the next segment of the show. In the domain portfolio review, we take user submitted domain name portfolios and provide honest and constructive feedback to the owners so they can either cut their losses, continue to hold long-term, or figure out a sales strategy going forward. Today’s portfolio was submitted by Brian Susi. As part of Brian’s submission, he made a generous donation to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to help us all find a cure for cancer. Brian’s listed 25 domain names are all around self-driving cars, a growing trend. And they start with self-driving.com [SP], and ends with s-dcars.com [SP]. If you’re watching this show, this is the point where you should press the pause button, review the domains. Pick your top three and your bottom three, what you would keep and what you’d drop. Price them retail, and then come back, press play and listen in as the Sherpas share their insights. This segment, we’re going to go Shane, then Ammar, then Frank. Shane let’s start with you. What do you think as overall strategy around Brian’s self-driving portfolio investment?

SHANE: I think as part of an overall portfolio, there’s nothing wrong with doing this. I mean it’s a scattershot type approach. But at the same time, you know, if you’re really into something or you really believe in something, there’s nothing wrong with getting as many names in that category as you want. Now here’s where I stray a little bit from what he’s done and what I would do, is I’m not a believer that people in the space are going to name their companies the exact name of the product anymore. I don’t think that’s where people head, you know? I don’t think a self-driving programmed car company is going to be called “Self-Driving.” It’s going to be called Drive Me or Driverly, or you know Drip Drive. You know, something along those lines that the name still exudes what they’re doing, but it’s not necessarily going to be an exact match. And that’s a trend that you’re seeing more and more and more, because people aren’t typing that in. Now if you want to do a site about self-driving cars, I think he’s in the right category. I think that he could do something with one of these names. But I think he’s going to find that all these names, albeit a big future technology, I think it’ll be a part. I think Frank when he gets old will not have a driver, he will just a hop in his car and it’s going to drive him to work across the beach. But everybody else will still have to drive themselves. But yes…

FRANK: I’m getting a jet pack, just for the record.

SHANE: That’s right.

MICHAEL: I’m thinking that my six-year-old, by the time he gets to driver’s ed, there maybe self-driving cars at that point. And he may not need to learn how to drive.

SHANE: There is no doubt in my mind, that he is in the right category. You know, not just because [inaudible 00:29:02]. But I am completely into solar, I’m completely into autonomous driving, and I’m totally into electric cars. I think that’s a feature…

FRANK: You also like tunneling under L.A. I hear.

SHANE: Yeah, I know. You know, I guess if you can’t go up you might as well go down. That’s a pretty simple concept as well. But yeah, again, I think the idea is great. I think the technology is a really good one. I think self-driving’s the best of the group.

MICHAEL: Okay.

SHANE: Or driverlesscar perhaps. I just don’t see these as big money. And I hope that he didn’t pay a lot of money to put this portfolio together, because I don’t think the return is going to be there. Unless it’s somebody else who doesn’t understand it either.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Okay, so today, you know, the market’s not there yet. There aren’t a whole bunch of self-driving cars you can buy and and operate on your own, so the market hasn’t fully evolved. But it’s heading in that direction. You think self-driving.com and driverlesscar, the singular, .com are the two best on this list. What would you price them at today retail value?

SHANE: Well one thing I’m going to add to what you said, is the technology’s not there. But I think the hype for the domain names is 100% there, as was 3D printing right before 3D printing became. So I think you’re right about the technology. I think you’re wrong about it being at a, I don’t want to say peak, but we’re getting pretty close to peak of what people are paying until the technology comes around and the actual end users are buying them. But that being said, your question answered, you know, I would put 10 to $15,000 on there, hoping that somebody comes around and was willing to pay that because they have that technology. Only as a forward to their actual real company name.

MICHAEL: Yeah, okay. All right, thanks Shane. Ammar, let’s go to you. Do you agree with Shane’s assessment, that self driving.com and driverlesscar.com are the two best on this list. Or do you think that there are some others that you would definitely hold onto as well?

AMMAR: Self-driving.com I’d say is the best one, and maybe…I like autonomous. Like I kind of like that.

FRANK: Hard to spell.

AMMAR: Yeah.

SHANE: I can’t spell Ethereum, so I definitely can’t spell autonomous.

AMMAR: I agree.

FRANK: Exactly, exactly.

AMMAR: But back to what Shane was saying, I agree very much that new companies are probably not going to name their company after an EMD like this. But I could see self-driving working actually for that. That kind of works as a EMD and a brand. I would go for a name like driven. I think that would be an awesome name for a self-driving car.

MICHAEL: I wonder who owns Driven.com.

AMMAR: I checked, it’s [inaudible 00:31:54]

MICHAEL: Oh, it’s not you?

AMMAR: It’s developed. But I….

FRANK: I like…

MICHAEL: Oh, I thought you had one like that. Don’t you have like Drive or Driven? You’ve got some name like that, don’t you?

AMMAR: Me?

MICHAEL: Yeah, you.

AMMAR: I have a bunch of car names. One that I bought from Mr. Premium, over there.

FRANK: Thank you very much for keeping the machine moving.

AMMAR: Yeah. But anyways, if I were them… I like the niche a lot, just like Shane does. And I believe that’s obviously going to be part of our future. But I would try to go out and get brandables related to that space. And you know, I would go out and try to get driven, or autonomous, or…you know, come up with some brandables around that space. And I think those were the ones that are going to have huge value. And then when you back those up with, say you know, “Hey, look I have this whole other portfolio of the exact match that you could use to,” you know, “create kind of feeder sites or whatever information sites.” I think that kind of works as a strategy. But for me, the only one on there that’s really brandable is probably self-driving. And I disagree a little bit with Shane. I would price that a lot higher. I would…

MICHAEL: What would you price it at today?

AMMAR: I would price that at least $100k. Hundred k plus, I would price it. The other ones I don’t love. You know, driverlesscars, I guess that’s probably the second best one, even though I said autonomous. Autonomous I like as a word, autonomous.com I would pick as a brand.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

AMMAR: But autonomous cars is probably not as good as driverless cars. But self-driving is definitely the best one for me. And I might even price it at 250, and kind of go from there. But you know, hopefully the sale of one or two of those will, you know, more than make up for the cost of buying the whole thing.

MICHAEL: Would you hold on to this entire portfolio with the hyphens, in hopes that one of them is going to pay for the entire investment?

AMMAR: Well the hyphens only works in Europe, and they don’t mind hyphens so much there, from what I’ve seen. But I don’t know. I guess, you know, at $10 a pop I’d keep them. I’d probably get rid of s-dcars and s-dcar. Those are the two I’d probably drop today. And then the rest I would probably just hold onto.

MICHAEL: Okay.

AMMAR: Or actually the ones that are self-drivencar, I’d get rid of that one. I guess I’d get rid of all the hyphens except self-driving, that’s the only one I’d keep with a hyphen.

FRANK: He’s really getting surgical. Look at Ammar, man.

MICHAEL: Yeah, I appreciate that. Like I want to know what people think specific domains are worse, in their opinion, on my portfolio than and the better ones. So that’s that’s good. Hey Frank, you know, after I interviewed the Castello brothers years ago, and understood that GEOdomains [SP], at least back then, were doing really well. Nowadays, I don’t think they’re doing as well. I went out and I bought a similar portfolio to this. I bought everything with Bainbridge Island, because I wanted to own my island. I wanted to be the governor. You know, the guy that says he owns Bainbridge Island, but doesn’t have to actually do any work.

FRANK: People are going to line, and you’re…

MICHAEL: That’s me.

FRANK: …going with [inaudible 00:35:27].

MICHAEL: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I bought Bainbridgeisland.com, I bought bainbridgeislandrealestate.com off of you, Mr. Premium.

FRANK: I remember. Thank you for…

MICHAEL: And then I bought like 50…

FRANK: …moving the machine forward.

MICHAEL: Yeah, exactly. And then I bought like 50 domains that were like very similar to this. Maybe they had hyphens, maybe it was Bainbridge Island restaurants, maybe it was bainbridgeislandplumbers.com, like the whole list. And you know, it’s not a big city to begin with. And I realized like over the years, those are dead weight in my portfolio. Nobody’s coming forward to buy those less-than-stellar domain names, and I’m just going to hold on to, you know, the great ones that that I do have. Do you agree with that kind of philosophy? Or do you think that holding onto the entire list might be a better strategy?

FRANK: You know, I’ve said it before… So firstly, this is a pattern-buy. This is a classic pattern-buy. But what we’re talking about, so he’s bought a pattern, we all do it when we’re starting out in the industry. But there’s a difference here with Brian’s list. He’s got some real discipline that he’s applied. He’s gotten the good one, and then he’s back filled the good one with others. So he’s done a pattern-buy this more surgical. I think one or two of these might be [inaudible 00:36:36]. But I would bet he’s actually gone out and methodically purchased these for value from their owners. He hasn’t been lucky enough to register self-drivingcar.com and driverlesscars. I mean he’s gone out and surgically gone after and built this. That’s a very disciplined approach that most domainers don’t pursue. Most of us go out and we make a list, a scattershot, and we get what we get. And we got a giant list, “Look at us,” right? But we miss the jewels. This guy’s gone after all the good stuff, you know, methodically. And I wouldn’t be so quick on that s-dcar and s-dcars, I think those are great for San Diego car and cars, you know? I think that’d be great. That’s probably what…

AMMAR: But what about the ones with hyphens I said?

FRANK: Oh, the ones with the hyphens. Yeah, sorry. I didn’t hear that. You know, I would hold on to them as duplicates of the San Diego car.

AMMAR: Right.

FRANK: I think s-dcar does better in San Diego than self-driving. Because of to your point, or to the thing we touched on earlier, you know, me selling Ecig and thinking that was the best thing ever. Well they call it vaping, you know? Not Ecig, right? So it’s just, you know, you never know where that little Pachinko ball will fall. You know what I mean, when it comes down, right? So you know, I look at this list and I agree. You know, you guys have said it [inaudible 00:37:47]. Self-driving is the way to go. And I’ve said it before, you know, doing this, going after a pattern, buy like this. Whether you’re successful or not, you know, in selling the pattern… One of my first sales was a pattern-buy. I bought like building materials, construction materials, construction supply, action! Packaged it up and I did a cold call to a construction company, and I got it sold for, surprise 100 grand, right, for the package. You know, you need events like that to move you forward in your career, and sometimes it works out. But you know, for every day like that I’ve got a lot of stories, like all the WAP names I bought. They don’t call anything WAP, you know? So yeah which was a [inaudible 00:38:25] protocol from back in the day, right?

MICHAEL: Wireless Application…yeah.

FRANK: Wireless Application Protocol. I got WAP everything. WAP cars, WAP houses, WAP…you know, I was the WAP-man. And I probably still am, because I haven’t gone through and, you know, purged that part of my portfolio.

But anyway, so I think that, you know, the good ones are the good ones in here. I’m with Shane, that’s where I was going. It’s like, you know, I have rumbleseat.com. I’d much rather have rumbleseat.com as the name of a of some kind of a self-driving car thing, even if that sounds a little unstable and precarious. Just because it hearkens the past, it’s an old term. Old folks will get it. And it’s got a kind of a cool cachet to it, you know, because it’s old. And because the names don’t go away, you know? Even though I don’t know any cars that are built with rumble seats. It’s just one of those, you know, adjectives or one of those…oh, I guess it’s a noun. One of those things that just doesn’t go away. The word doesn’t leave the vernacular some how, right? So that doesn’t mean, you know, you get rid of these. You know I mean, you’ve made a capital investment here. I would sell into it, you know, don’t hold onto these like, “Oh my god, I’ve got to sell them as a set.” I know a lot of domainers who fail that way. Who are like. “I built the set, I’m only selling it as a set.” No, no. So you know, if you got one or two that you want to hold together and must hold together, okay. But like, break them up. Sell the self-driving chunk to one guy. Sell the driverless to another. Sell the autonomous to a third. But selling to the to the craze mania…or, wrong words. The epoch-like change. Selling to the epoch-like change occurring. Don’t holdout of these, you know, forever and a day. And [inaudible 00:40:06]…

MICHAEL: All right, and what do you think the best ones on the list are, Frank?

FRANK: Self-driving, right at the top, great name.

MICHAEL: What do you think the retail value of that one is?

FRANK: You know, [inaudible 00:40:15]…

MICHAEL: What would you ask today? I know because we can’t see like 10 years in the future. We don’t know if it’s going to be a WAP, or if it’s going to be like a 3D…

FRANK: Well it won’t be WAP. It won’t be WAP. Self-driving is what it’s going to be. But I-N-G names don’t do well, and I’ve said that before on the show. They just don’t.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: Well there are a few that do, like shopping. But like to take that out of it, and I-N-G names historically just don’t do well. And autonomous is too hard to spell. I sure hope he didn’t pay too much for some of these big masthead names, and he was the guy who paid the kind of money we’re talking about. But I would be selling these, like self-driving, if I could get a 100 grand for it, and sell them to the euphoria.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: I would do it. And if I could only get 80, I would probably take it. You know what I mean?

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: It’s like a $20,000 swing, you know? So it shows you where my loyalty to these kind of lie. You know, I do respect the discipline putting it together. But you know, to your earliest point, a scattershot approach where you’re getting more cutesy automotive names and trying for those is better I think, you know, than trying to buy the whole category and just the…you know.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: The exact descriptive, you know, of what the category’s called. It’s part of…

MICHAEL: So seeing the trend, looking at where it’s going, and then trying to buy a brand that people know that companies would choose for a self-driving car. And that’s the tough part to do.

FRANK: I think s-dcar and cars, it’s more likely that they’ll be [inaudible 00:41:40] about those as emails shorteners for the longer one. I’m not sure what the thought was in there. Or as a redirect within Twitter, I don’t know what, you know, he was thinking at that moment. But I think those could wind up being GEO names, like San Diego cars.

MICHAEL: So self-driving.com only EstiBot value of $890, but actually three of you all thought it was the best domain on the list.

FRANK: It’s a great name. We run .cars [SP], myself and Dan Negari [SP] at .xyz, are partners in .car, .cars, and .auto. And self-driving was one of the first ones to go.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: You know, and that’s a $2,000 wholesale year. I think the register’s paying $3,000 a year to carry that.

MICHAEL: Wow.

FRANK: So that’s a great [inaudible 00:42:24], you know, in 10 years that register’s going to pay $38,000 for one name. And all of them are around car, cars, and auto. So I mean, you know, it’s definitely a hot space, it’s not going to go away. And the name has value, you know?

MICHAEL: And so that one is sold you’re saying? Self-driving.cars [SP], it’s already sold?

FRANK: Yeah, I’m pretty sure. One or all are sold, you can check your register. But I’m sure one or more of those are placed with [inaudible 00:42:49]

MICHAEL: Wow, so that’s a great comp for self-drivingcars.com.

FRANK: Well it’s great because, what’s that in 20 years? And so now It’s $70,000 in 20 years. You know what I mean?

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: It’s the time value of these, right?

MICHAEL: So given that that one is taken right now Frank, would you say that self-drivingcars.com is a better domain than self-drivingcar.com the singular?

FRANK: No, no, I like it…well, you know, car is the same length as com. So I like it as it’s placed. But yeah, I mean you can pick up both if you can get self-drivingcar, you know? Then yes, the register there of that name is also is in the money. You know, and…

MICHAEL: If you owned those two, what would you price them at retail, self-drivingcar.com and self-drivingcars.com?

FRANK: You’re really putting me on the spot. Self-drivingcar and cars.com?

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: I’d ask 50 grand, you know? Probably sell them as a set, you know? Again, trying to…you know.

MICHAEL: Because right now…

FRANK: [inaudible 00:43:49]

MICHAEL: …somebody is registering and paying for $36,000 a year, just for one of those domains…

FRANK: Yeah, I mean…

MICHAEL: …in .cars.

FRANK: …it depends which registrar you’re using. You know, at Uniregistry we sell those at cost. You know? I mean you know, but we don’t get a discount from the registry. It’s an arm’s length deal, we pay whatever the registrar does.

MICHAEL: Gotcha.

FRANK: We just build in the credit card fee and very little else. We treat it like a .com name, you know? So that means, you know, you’re buying pretty close to registry wholesale, plus the credit card charges. Right?

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: Of 3 or 4%, or whatever.

MICHAEL: All right.

FRANK: But yeah, that…

MICHAEL: Let me throw one more out, driverlesscar, do you guys like that or not like that?

FRANK: I like that better because there’s no I-N-G on the end, and it’s easier to spell than…

MICHAEL: Autonomous car?

FRANK: …autonomous, yeah.

MICHAEL: What do you think, Ammar? Driverlesscar?

AMMAR: I prefer self-driving. I mean, I think that that’s what the term of art is, and that it’s got…

FRANK: It’s going to wind up being Ecig/vape. It’s going to wind up being, you know, Idrive or something like that. You know, it’ll be named after the dominant leader, you know?

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: That’s how I’d come up with some brand for something, for their self-driving thing, and license it. And then everybody’ll do a play on words. Just like Facebook came along, and everybody wanted this-book, or that-book, every-book.

AMMAR: Right.

FRANK: Right? So it’ll probably wind up being something like that. It’ll be a play on the leader’s brand,…

MICHAEL: Like Bitcoin?

FRANK: …but it’s not…

MICHAEL: Ethereum with I-U-M?

FRANK: Like Bitcoin, something-coin. You got all the coins now, because Bitcoin was the leader. Great example though. Ethereum though, you’re right. But I mean, that’s a new brand as a masthead.

MICHAEL: And there’s a ton of coins out there.

FRANK: But you know…

SHANE: I was looking up scattershot the whole time. Five-thousand dollar, buy it now. I almost bought it during the conversation. He’s like, “Domainers can’t concentrate. They go to scattershot.” And I went, “Oh, scattershot.”

[crosstalk]

FRANK: Is that one T or two?

SHANE: Exactly, I get nervous now.

FRANK: Skater? Skatershot? Scattershot? Oh, damn.

MICHAEL: All right, thanks Sherpas. Brian, thank you for submitting your portfolio and making a donation to cancer research. We hope this review has been helpful to you and your domain investing activities going forward. Be sure to let us know when you sell your first domain name of this portfolio, we want to give you a congratulations on the air.

Before we jump into the domains going to auction soon, I want to tell you about our other three sponsors that support us in our educational mission.

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Finally, if you’re struggling with how to buy, sell, and value domain names, you need to check-out DNAcademy.com. Published by me, Michael Cyger of DomainSherpa, and trusted by Uniregistry to train their new employees, you too can learn using the DNAcademy accelerated learning system for domain name investing. Learn more at DNAcademy.com.

MICHAEL: We going to move onto the marketplace list. This segment is sponsored by NameJet. We’ll be reviewing 10 no reserve domain names 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 to the domain names go directly to NameJet. They’re not commission link, they’re just trackables so NameJet can see what kind of traffic were sending them. The list starts with azreporter.com, as in Arizona reporter, at least that’s the way I took it. And it ends with workoutguide.com. I always ask the Sherpas if any of the domains below are owned or brokered by them. I don’t believe so when I went through and picked them. I thought they were all expired. Nope? Okay. Again, if you’re watching the show, this is the point where you can press pause on the show, review the domains, pick what you think are the winners and the losers. And then come back and listen to the Sherpas tell you what they think the retail value are of the ones that they like. This segment will go Frank, then Shane, then Ammar. Frank, let’s start with you. From an investment perspective, from a newer investor perspective, what do you like on the NameJet list and why?

FRANK: Boy. Well let me back up and before I start, let me say this really quickly. I think, you know, from what I hear from the team here, it’s been pretty thin in the auction market in general. I don’t know whether it’s because everybody’s gone for summer or what, but there’s not a lot inventory out there to buy right now, and that’s kind of skewing prices upward. So if you’re a seller, this isn’t a terrible time to list your stuff because [inaudible 00:47:36]. You know, that’s a general honest, you know, that’s a general honest statement spoken.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: But you know, nothing in here is like, “Oh my god,” blowing me… Like these are great, what I call the belly of our portfolio. We got lots of names like these, you know, within the belly of the portfolio.

MICHAEL: Yep.

FRANK: And we all do. It’s important to have these because these are the types of names that all kind of sell for…maybe you’ll ask for 20 or 30 grand for all of them. So to an extent, you can buy these cheap, and you won’t be able to after this review. You know, these are good to get, and you just hod onto them. The ones I think have the best potential looking at it, snaptrap. That just looks like the type of name we get 20s and 30s for. I like brainplug, again these two-word catchy resonant… There’s so many people that look at them for one word or the other. You know, you don’t know which side. Like it maybe that people are looking at snaptrap for traps, or it could be for the snap bit. It could be that people are looking at brainplug for the plug, or for the brain. We just don’t know, right? The ones I don’t care for as much are e-personnel [SP], because you know, “Is it two Ns and one L, or one N and two Ls?” You know, all the typographical issues. And there’s an E in front of it, and I think E names are over done. You know, I think thedevil’s [SP], it’s just too unique to a brand. You know, the New Jersey Red Devils or some other team called The Devil’s, that are more likely to send you a UDRP or cease and desist, than they are to write you a check, which is really what you want. I like sextutor, that’s like a very nice name on there. Although you know, I really don’t want to be tutoring health in that department if I need it. You know, it’s like just an admission of failure, and there’s not really [inaudible 00:49:20]. And then you know, easyrecorder [SP], that’s not incredibly strong. You know, flypaper, real nice. Snaptrap. Users is kind of cute, you know? [inaudible 00:49:34]

MICHAEL: So let me back up there. So you said four that you like, the snaptrap, brainplug, sextutor, flypaper. Because we just talked about your buying, you know, .10 on the dollar or a tenth of what you’re trying to sell it for. What would you try and sell these for? Let’s start with snaptrap.com. And before you tell me what you think you’d it sell it for, tell me what you think it’d be useful for. Because often times I look at domain names and I’m like, “I don’t even know what it’d be used for.” And then Sherpas often say like, “Oh, well that’s applied to this category,” or, “this segment,” or, “this industry.”

FRANK: On a name like that one, you’ve taken a name there that really is all over the map. It could be almost anything. It could be some telephony app, it could be…you know. But those are delicious because they have so many uses. You just never know how people going to utilize them.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: And you know, so I don’t have a good answer as to what I’m thinking for that one. I…

MICHAEL: Okay. So what…

FRANK: …could give you…

MICHAEL: But that’s a good answer.

FRANK: …a lot of things.

MICHAEL: So what do you…

FRANK: Telephony, you know, I’m thinking. I just think [inaudible 00:50:28]…

MICHAEL: What would you price snaptrap at?

FRANK: Well I’d want to try to get 28 grand for it. I’d ask 28, 38, somewhere in there, and see where it settles out. These names that are sort of, you know, 10 characters and under, they just are catchy and memorable. They make great email addresses. They make great with resonance, you know? They have that voice, that radio effect where you can say it on the radio. And snaptrap.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: Like, “Oh, okay. Yeah,” you know? It’s not like, you know, “What did he say?” You know?

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: It’s like, real clear what I said.

MICHAEL: All right, what about brainplug?

FRANK: Brainplug? I mean you know, education. Something to do education, I like it for that reason. I don’t know what…it could also be, you know, mental healthcare, sodoku, that type of thing.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: Flypaper is just, you know, a lot of things. It can be anything to do with travel. Anything to do with paper. Anything to do with stationary. I mean, there’s so many things like this it can apply to. I like names like this for that reason, because you really just…I know that names like these are going to get a lot of inquiries from different people, for different reasons. And those inquiries, that will guide over time. It probably won’t sell right away. You’ll probably carry this name for two years, three years. But over those three years, if you’re, you know, using Uniregistry or another great sales platform, you’ll be able to monitor the number of inquiries that come into the name. And you’ll build a repository of information that you can reference over time. And your CRM, you know, in your Uniregistry market, be able to look at it and say, “Oh…” And then have a more educated method for assigning a value to them.

MICHAEL: Right. So what would you price brainplug.com at, retail?

FRANK: Yeah, again, I’d put…

MICHAEL: Same?

FRANK: …all four of those in the…

MICHAEL: All four of those?

FRANK: All four of those in the high 20s, below mid-30, you know? [inaudible 00:52:17] And now before he gets all excited and lathered up and spends 15 grand at auction, don’t do that. You know, you want to buy these cheap. And now somebody who’s watching this, or one of the other Sherpas, may have an idea that’s even bigger, you know, than the ones I’ve put forth here. [inaudible 00:52:33]

MICHAEL: Or maybe they’ll say like, they owned it like 10 years ago, like Drew always does. And like, “No, you shouldn’t buy that. Because when I owned it, yeah, I never got any inquiries,” or whatever. So yeah, you know, you’re one…

FRANK: There’s so many ways that you’ve touched on very articulately. There’s so many different business approaches, methods. You know, there’s so many different right ways to do this business. As wise as we all prefer to be, the truth is we’re just the ones who’ve actually done this consistently enough to be successful at it. It doesn’t mean where the burning bush.

MICHAEL: Exactly.

FRANK: We have all the answers, and we’re all right. I’m wrong… I’m just right 51% of the time.

MICHAEL: Exactly.

FRANK: And that keeps everybody just [inaudible 00:53:10]…

MICHAEL: And everybody’s got a different budget and a different investing horizon. A different risk profile.

FRANK: Exactly.

MICHAEL: And so don’t take anything that Frank says and apply it, because…

FRANK: Boom.

MICHAEL: …Frank said it.

FRANK: And [inaudible 00:53:18]…

AMMAR: Don’t do anything Frank says, period.

FRANK: No, don’t take it literally, you know? I think [inaudible 00:53:25]…

MICHAEL: Well take it literally, but it applies to Frank’s situation, not your situation.

FRANK: Boom, boom.

MICHAEL: No, you’re not Frank.

FRANK: I like that.

MICHAEL: All right.

FRANK: I like that.

MICHAEL: Thanks, Frank Let’s go to Shane. Shane, what do you like on the list and why?

SHANE: Yeah, I think we’re fairly similar. Now I will say, when a brand is built that becomes huge, like Snapchat, I’d get nervous owning a brand like snaptrap.

MICHAEL: Oh.

SHANE: Very similar, very close sounding. And I’m not one to tell people what…

FRANK: I didn’t even make the connection [inaudible 00:53:55]

MICHAEL: Neither did I.

SHANE: Yeah.

MICHAEL: But yeah, now that you say that, you know, it’s like when things come out coin, and suddenly everything’s named coin. Or whatever.

SHANE: Yeah. And again, I know my daughter, if I said snaptrap to her, she would automatically say, “Well is that something from Snapchat? Is that a new Snap company thing?” That’s the first thing she would say, and she’s the generation were talking about in my opinion.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: Yeah.

SHANE: Now I know it’s going to sell and somebody else may not think about that when they buy it, but I think they’ll regret it when they do and realize that they’re trying to brand…especially technology.

FRANK: You know, I’m probably the world record holder UDRP wins. And now this is not legal advice, and blah, blah, blah, disclaimer, disclaimer. But I think you’re all right on this. You know, like I mean, I think you’d be [inaudible 00:54:40]…

SHANE: No, I don’t think you’re going to get hurt. I just don’t think that you’re going to get as much money because of it. That’s the thing. It’s not that I think you’re going to lose money on it. I just think that the next guy coming up is not going to be as willing to pay $50,000.

MICHAEL: Right.

SHANE: Because he’s branding a big business on something that’s very similar to somebody else. That’s just an opinion, and…

FRANK: Well I won’t say the name, we sold a name for $100,000 to somebody. And they got UDRPed and lost the name. So I mean, you know…

SHANE: Yeah.

FRANK: And it’s owned by the…you know.

SHANE: Yeah, I just think it’s unwise in general as a marketing person to…you know, you’re trying to create your own brand. And when you name something Isomething, you’d better have a product that goes with apple. And you know, that’s just my opinion. That’s just how I look at it, so…

MICHAEL: Hey Shane, you know, when I was pulling these names, I saw it on the list and then I thought, “This is just like EasyAngle [SP], that Adam Strong talked about on the last show.” Where you know, he held it for I don’t know how many years, but then he just sold it. And I’m like, “EasyAngle, that doesn’t make any sense.” And I typed it into Google, and there’s a billion EasyAngle type tools, or you know, rulers or things out there…

SHANE: That’s a general term, that’s the key. Did it make you think of anything in particular? That’s what I’m…

MICHAEL: No.

SHANE: …trying to avoid, other than maybe a profit.

MICHAEL: Yeah. But snaptrap, when I typed it into Google it actually came back with the similar type of results. There’s a lot of snaptraps out there, mostly related to rats and rodents. But…

SHANE: Yeah, I was going to say a mouse. And so that’s just something to think…that’s not right or wrong, I’m not saying avoid it. I’m saying take that into consideration when you’re doing something, and if it’s [inaudible 00:56:14]. You know, the word “uber” is tough right now. You know, Uber?

MICHAEL: Right.

SHANE: I know there could be uber chef, and uber… But when you say uber something right now, you know what they’re thinking when you said it. So it’s kind of diminished that brand if your uber something else.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

SHANE: Again,…

MICHAEL: I agree.

SHANE: …maybe it’s just my opinion, but you know, if you did a survey, I think that you would not want to be uber something. Because somebody else owns that right now. Same with Amazon. You know, we could go and name 20 things that sure, there’s going to be a lot of other things with that name. But somebody else really steals your thunder every time you mention your brand. So I think Frank’s right on the money. I love names like flypaper, even v-juice. You know, v-juice can be vape juice. It could be some, like get-strong-muscles juice. There’s…

MICHAEL: I though you were going to say vegan juice.

SHANE: It could be vegan juice, what’s left at the bottom of the casserole. Mmm, that’s the best stuff. I’ve really become the vegan king for some reason, for a man that eats a lot of meat. I get a lot of people emailing about whether or not I want to buy vegan names.

MICHAEL: Do you?

SHANE: All because of this lovely show.

MICHAEL: Do you want to buy them?

SHANE: You know, it’s not a bad category. Now that we’ve talked about it…

MICHAEL: No.

SHANE: …I’m like [inaudible 00:57:29]…

MICHAEL: I was giving you an opportunity to say no, so people wouldn’t email you anymore. Not [inaudible 00:57:33]…

SHANE: I’m not going to say no. Because I’m not buying any, but I absolutely watch every auction now for every vegan name, and they sell! They absolutely sell. There’s no doubt in…

MICHAEL: Are they selling retail?

SHANE: …mind that vegan [inaudible 00:57:45]…

MICHAEL: Or are they selling to investors because you keep talking about them?

SHANE: Yeah, they actually sell because of us. They had 0 value, but the Sherpa show… Talk about inflated in marketing.

MICHAEL: Totally.

SHANE: That’s [inaudible 00:57:55]. I do like a brainplug. I’ll tell you the only name that I really don’t like is azreporter. Workoutguide, I’m not a build-out guy. Anything that needs a build out… We’ve talked about this a million times. Build-outs just are tough. And every night we go, “I’m going to build this out, and do this.” And we build-out exactly goose egg.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: Well that’s because we have too many names. I mean if we only had one name and the luxury of time, we would have the developers. It’s just, you know, you kind of pick your lot in life. You’re either a developer, or you’re a domainer if you have [inaudible 00:58:29]…

MICHAEL: But I also think you have, on this panel, maybe some of the very few business people. I mean people that actually run businesses or have developed businesses. Most domainers are traders. Most people aren’t business builders. That’s just not what they do. They’re flippers. You’ve got three people… I mean mine’s totally unrelated to domains, but I’m making business decisions and building and all that. And both of us here, I mean Ammar’s probably done the best thing. He keeps getting out of them, and selling them, and doing well with them. He’s probably the brightest of the group. Frank and I are slaving in the office everyday.

FRANK: Certainly the most relaxed over there, I got to tell you.

SHANE: Yeah.

FRANK: How is my art collection?

SHANE: Give it time, you just got married. You’ll be crushed in a second.

MICHAEL: Give him a few years.

SHANE: Wait till that baby comes on there, and he’ll actually start growing hair again.

FRANK: Well you know, hey, I’ve got a 13-year-old daughter, who’s now vegan. So [inaudible 00:59:30]

SHANE: There you go. See? You’ve got some real insight.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: There you go. That’s how that journey goes.

SHANE: So on these names, I’m right there with Frank. And those are the names that I want to buy under $500 if I can. And I’m a 10 to $15,000 on those. I don’t need as much return as some of the other guys. And that’s what I’d put them all…

MICHAEL: Yeah, but you’d put 10 to 15 retail on, maybe not snaptrap, but brainplug, sextutor, flypaper.

SHANE: I’d still put 10 to 15 on it. I’m just probably more willing to come down on snaptrap than the others.

FRANK: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Thank you for saying that. I don’t mean put it down. Like that would be your retail pricing for it, and you would want to try and buy it for something as low as possible. Would you buy would you buy at 10% if you thought that brainplug could get $10,000 retail on it?

SHANE: No. I’m still not there. You know, I’ve seen…

MICHAEL: You would try and buy it for what? What price? Like you as investor? Not saying anything about Frank…

SHANE: I’m under $500. I wouldn’t pay more than $500 on it. But…

FRANK: All you’re saying is it’s a 5% versus 10%. So he’ll buy it for 5%, and hope to stay under 3% to 5%.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

SHANE: Yeah.

FRANK: Which is actually a smarter way to buy, which is the truth. Because there is a cost to warehousing names or holding them. You know, or running a portfolio when you do for traffic on resale. I mean there is a maintenance cost, and the cost of your cash. I think there’s something going on right now, because I think inventory is tight. I don’t know whether it’s sellers away for summer. I don’t know whether we’ve been spoiled by a lot of inventory recently. But definitely I see there’s a lot less inventory out there to buy. You know, and it’s a great time to be a seller. You know, don’t fear you’re going to run out of names. You won’t. You know, it may look like you will, but you won’t. So last year with all the stuff we did, you know, and we didn’t buy that much, we still
added way more names than we sold. You know? And I think that’s true with everybody, you know?

MICHAEL: Great.

SHANE: Yeah. I mean there’s definitely some data, and you probably know better than anybody, but percentage. You know, there’s a percentage that you sell, and that changes. And Josh is a person that I pay attention to. Now granted it depends on who the buyer is of the names what percentage you’re going to sell. Because the if you’re a good buyer on what type of names though, you’re going to be higher than others. But even the best… Frank says 51%, if you us 51% on names, he’s got a billion in the bank. Because nobody’s 51% on names they sell, if you’re doing big numbers.

FRANK: Well you know, I think it all depends on the machine you’re using to unlock the value. You know, that’s the whole reason I built that whole sales market thing, is because I really want to work hard to, you know, have a great outcome with my portfolio.

SHANE: So you’re saying you sell 51% of the names? Michael, have you got record on?

FRANK: Well no, I don’t. I don’t now, no, no. But I’m trying to get to that point where I can get that kind of liquidity, that’s what I mean.

AMMAR: Right, but like Frank said that he’s right 51% of the time, I don’t think…

FRANK: Well, yeah.

AMMAR: …you’re implying that you sell that many names.

SHANE: I know.

FRANK: No.

SHANE: I know. I did take that a whole [inaudible 01:02:41]

FRANK: Yeah, I see what you mean. I see what you mean. Sorry, I didn’t realize you’re driving our efforts to my portfolio.

MICHAEL: And when you refer to your “machine” Frank, you’re talking about the technology, and the personnel, and the processes that you have going on at Uniregistry to setup your portfolio.

FRANK: Yeah, and “the machine”, you know, my lifestyle, my cost of everything I have. The whole shebang, right? My [inaudible 01:03:03]…

SHANE: Your business model.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the machine, you know?

MICHAEL: All right, thanks Shane. Ammar, let’s go over to you. What did these guys say that you agree with or disagree with? You’re a cleanup batter here.

AMMAR: Yeah, on this part of the show, being third, all the good stuff’s been said.

MICHAEL: Just tell me what you disagree with these guys.

FRANK: I’m [inaudible 01:03:23].

AMMAR: My favorite name on the list is flypaper.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Why?

AMMAR: I love brands. And to me, I just think that has a really nice ring to it. You can’t misspell it.

MICHAEL: Yeah. It’s the most disgusting thing in the world, right? You remember seeing flypaper hanging, and the flies…

AMMAR: Right.

MICHAEL: …got stuck to it?

AMMAR: It doesn’t have to be that. It could be anything.

MICHAEL: I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, it’s a great brand, where you would think like it’s something that people are going to get stuck to. Or something is going to get stuck to, yeah.

AMMAR: I do like brainplug, especially if you believe in [inaudible 01:04:00] vision, that were all going to be connected. Our brains are going to be plugged in…

MICHAEL: So I just read his book and then I saw that on the list, and that’s why I pulled it out. So thank you for saying that.

AMMAR: [inaudible 01:04:11] So that one’s good. I do not like azreporter. I could see that as, “A to Z.” Like, “We report on everything from A to Z.”

MICHAEL and FRANK: Yeah.

AMMAR: I still don’t like it. I don’t like epersonnel, I wouldn’t pay a $100 for that. I don’t like thedevils, partly for what Frank said. And partly, you know, I just don’t know that there’s a lot of potential buyers anyway.

FRANK: There’s only one devil. There’s not multiple, right?

AMMAR: Right, yeah. I like snaptrap, but I agree with what Shane said, that it does elicit immediately Snapchat association and connotation. But I don’t think it’s dangerous, as long as you’re careful with, you know, what you’re putting on there.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

AMMAR: The one on here that I think is the sleeper is v-juice. And I think that one if you can get it cheap enough…I mean, again, I keep going back to the vaping and the marijuana and cannabis. All that stuff, they refer to it as “juice”, right? Oils or juice. So v-juice…

FRANK: There’s always one that you’ve swept up well, good sir. That’s a [inaudible 01:05:26].

AMMAR: So I think that one is the sleeper of them, but who knows what it’ll go for. So my favorite two would be flypaper and v-juice.

MICHAEL: And what would you price them at if you owned them, and you wanted to setup pricing?

AMMAR: Flypaper, I would price it at 50. And v-juice I would probably price it at 20.

MICHAEL: Okay.

AMMAR: Probably at 25.

MICHAEL: Brainplug?

AMMAR: Brainplug, probably 10 to 20.

FRANK: Fifty grand.

AMMAR: Yeah, right. Yeah, I mean, Frank likes brainplug better. I like flypaper better. But you [inaudible 01: 06:09]

FRANK: I think that all of them are $50,000. All of them are $50,000.

AMMAR: [inaudible 01:06:15]

MICHAEL: Frank’s trying to drive that line, that support line a little bit higher in the industry.

AMMAR: [inaudible 01:06:20] is a good one as kind of tongue-in-cheek, seniors type site, right? I think that could be fun for that. You know, I don’t know much somebody’ll pay for it. That one I l disagree with you, Frank. That’s not a $50k name in my opinion, because I think it’s going to be somebody who’s doing more something lighthearted.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

AMMAR: It could be, you know, a blog. It could be, I mean, things to do for older people, I don’t know. But I don’t think it’s a $50k name. Now he’s going to prove me wrong.

MICHAEL: He’s going to [inaudible 01:06:51], you’ll get it.

FRANK: Were we talking about sextutor? What were you talking about?

MICHAEL: No, we were talking about geezers.com.

FRANK: Oh, sorry. Yeah, geezers.

MICHAEL: But they may need that too.

AMMAR: Sextutor Frank, is where you go to work on your machine.

MICHAEL: I think I just found the excerpt for the introduction of the show.

FRANK: That’s good.

MICHAEL: All right, thanks guys. We’re at the end of today’s show. I like to give the Sherpas an opportunity to share anything they want about names, their brokering, their selling, opportunities they’re looking for, anyone they want to give a shout-out to. anybody’s going to the conference coming up, you know, let us know you’re going to be there. We’ll just go Ammar, then Frank, then Shane. Ammar, let’s start with you. Anyone you want to give a shout-out to?

AMMAR: To all my friends out there.

MICHAEL: All your lovely friends.

AMMAR: No, I don’t really have much to talk about. I’m still bored out of my mind. But what I am doing is I’ve really started spending more time reading. And I’ve been really getting back into Stoicism. I was a philosophy major at UCLA, and so kind of getting back to that. And reading about Stoicism has been a lot of fun, very educational. So that’s…

FRANK: What is Stoicism, in a sound bite? What is that? To save me Googling it.

AMMAR: Yeah.

FRANK: [inaudible 01:08:17]

AMMAR: It’s about not stressing out about outside influences. Not letting things that are out of your control affect you. It doesn’t mean that you don’t give a shit. It just means that you don’t let it affect you. And you go about focusing on what is in your control, and being the best you can be at that. And that’s probably a bastardized definition, but [inaudible 01:08:44].

MICHAEL: No that’s well said. You know, it’s funny because I get together with an entrepreneur group once a month, and we talked about Stoicism, and had our reading assignment and everything about a year or two ago. And so it’s always stuck with me. So I think you’re analysis there was a good summary.

SHANE: You need to get into gardening and planting, because you will find… That’s something that I learned, my whole business dictated on the weather. And it’s the one thing you absolutely can’t control.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

SHANE: And it’s the one thing that will stress you out, because everything about your income is based on something you can’t control. So you learn very early to concentrate on what you can.

AMMAR: Right.

SHANE: Do a good job at it. And the rest falls as it is. I mean, I’m being serious. It’s something that you learn early just [inaudible 01:09:28]

AMMAR: [inaudible 01:09:29] Stoic.

FRANK: I feel like I had the best college class ever, this episode. This is great. Honest to god, this is fabulous. I learn something every time, and this show is no exception.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

FRANK: Ammar should be a regular.

MICHAEL: He should, I agree. Awesome. All right, well so any other books that you’d recommend Ammar, to our audience here?

AMMAR: Well a really easy one to kind of ease your way into it, it’s a book called “The Daily Stoic” by Ryan Holiday. And…

MICHAEL: Oh, Ryan Holiday who founded…

AMMAR: Yeah, he’s a “New York Times” bestselling author. He’s a…

MICHAEL: Oh, right.

AMMAR: Yeah.

MICHAEL: He’s the guy that wrote [inaudible 01:10:09]

AMMAR: “Ego is the Enemy”, and he has a bunch of books.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

AMMAR: But anyway, “The Daily Stoic” is the one, and it’s kind of like one of those calendar books. So you just read one passage a day. It has the original text from, you know, the philosopher that said it. And then it has a very short kind of discussion about it. So it’s just a page. And literally you can read the whole page daily in a few minutes, and then you can spend some time kind of just thinking about it. And you just do one a day, and it’s a really nice introduction to the concepts.

MICHAEL: Yeah, awesome. Thanks for sharing that.

AMMAR: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Frank, let’s go to you. Anyone you want to give a shout-out to? Talk about some new developments over at Uniregistry?

FRANK: You know, no. This has been an interesting summer. It’s been a summer of… I tried to take a little bit of a break this summer, it didn’t work. You know, I was constantly pulled back into the business. So you know, I think this fall’s going to be an autumn of a lot of work for me, trying to get things back lined up so that they can run more without my meddling and intervention. You know, I’d like to not be involved in so many fires going into the fall. You know, a big shout-out, I’m trying to think. Rather than just [inaudible 01:11:25] the company, which is doing quite well. You know, I’m pleased with the overall dynamic, I’d like it to get bigger faster obviously always. I’m trying to think. You know, I’m going to defer this time. Normally I’m always in there real quick with the… I’d like to invite everybody to my next birthday, end of July, 363 days from now in Mykonos, Greece. So there you go.

MICHAEL: All right.

FRANK: [inaudible 01:11:49]

MICHAEL: I’ll go buy my airfare right now.

FRANK: A summer domainer gathering. I’ll buy the champagne.

AMMAR: Great.

MICHAEL: Nice. All right, and Shane, let’s go over to you. Anything you want to mention or give a shout-out to? Talk about what’s going on at your site?

SHANE: Yeah, I mean it’s summer, so I agree with everybody else. It’s a little slower time. I will say I still love you NameJet, even though we were kind of hard on them over the past couple weeks. They gave me a shirt, which is… I still love you. You’re still doing fine over there. There’s no hard feelings I hope, back and forth. I do agree with Frank, there’s lacking inventory. And if you have some stuff to sell, now’s a pretty good time to put stuff up. I mean, you know, I go through the list every single day. It doesn’t take me very long right now. So if you have a name that stands out, you’re going to get some eyeballs. Probably more than you would at any other time. That doesn’t mean the money’s not there, because a good name still sells for a lot of money. So that’d be my, you know, personal recommendation for an investor. If you’ve got stuff you want to get rid of, now’s probably a decent time to do it if it’s a decent name. There’s plenty of junk out there. And the guy’s at DSAD, I mean Erin [SP], and Travis, and Josh. I had a fantastic time. You guys are starting to slowly meet them in public, thanks to you and NamePros and all the places [inaudible 01:13:07]. Pretty good group of guys, they know what they’re doing. And it proves there’s a million ways to make money in this industry. Because not one of us four do things the same way, and yet we all seem to still be here making money, and continuing right along. So I think it says a lot about the industry, just having four completely different approaches all being successful, and laughing the entire way. I always say it’s about the journey. The people that get out of this, there’s information here, but I think they’d enjoy just as much the fact people are smiling and laughing and goofing off and having a good time. And there’s not many industries where you get to do that. So…

MICHAEL: Do you guys do a…

SHANE: …that’s it.

MICHAEL: …regular Skype call with your team, Shane? Like I think it be really…

SHANE: No, it’s mostly email.

MICHAEL: …fun to like every Friday night, you know, everybody gets a beer and sits down in front of their computer. You guys…

SHANE: No, it’s mostly Josh sending us 27 emails of the things he sold. You know, random things he sold that we all sit and say, “What the hell is that, and why did anybody buy it?” And then you know, Travis’ like, “I think there’s been a mistake, somebody bought one of my names,” kind of stuff. You know, I love those headlines. Like you know, “Something mus be wrong,” is what the email was today, and then it showed a sale.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

SHANE: You know, anybody that makes you laugh during the day, I’m a fan of. So I enjoy those guys. Hope everybody else does too, yeah.

MICHAEL: Nice. All right, if you received benefit from today’s show, please take a moment and post a comment below the video on DomainSherpa. If you’re out there running, commuting, working out, anything that you’re doing, and you found benefit from today’s show, come on back to DomainSherpa and hit the Twitter button, thank these guys or post a comment below. Thanks for Brian Susi for submitting his portfolio and making a generous donation to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Thanks to NameJet for sponsoring the portfolio and that segment of the review. And thanks again to our domain Sherpas, Ammar Kubba, Frank Schilling, and Shane Cultra for sharing their experience and insights. We’ll see you all next time.

Watch the full video at:
https://www.domainsherpa.com/review-20170807/

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26 Responses to “DomainSherpa Review – Aug 7: Vape.io, ScreenSaver.com, SelfDriving.com, FlyPaper.com…”

  1. Simonds says:

    The blog is good and great and informative thanks for sharing it keep sharing. If you are fond of E-liquids and vapes so what are you waiting for we offer all the E-liquids and vape products from one roof that is a Vape shop In Dundee.

  2. Zac Zarev says:

    Great show Frank, Ammar, Shane and Michael!

  3. Dean Phillips says:

    Great conversation this week. Thanks, Ammar for the suggestion on the Daily Stoic book. I’ve just ordered a copy. I always look forward to Sunday night when I have another episode to watch-usually in a few parts during the week. Another one tonight!

  4. Lucas says:

    great show, thanx for sharing!

  5. Saro says:

    Thanks guys.

    @Shane, what you said about the show being fun and making you/us laugh and smile while conducting business being important was so spot on. Loved the positive energy from the show. It was really great to listen to.

    1. Shane Cultra says:

      Thank you Saro. I try and have a great time with everything I do. The journey has to be as exciting as reaching the goal.

  6. tldboss says:

    Thank you for sharing Sherpas, great show as usual

  7. Eric Jenkins says:

    Great Show……Thanks!!

  8. Deborah says:

    Thanks Ammar, Shane and Frank, and you as well, Michael, for an entertaining and educational show.

    I have a question that I know you guys can answer. There’s always a big disconnect for me when you discuss buying and selling. I get the buy low/sell high aspect. But there’s a big “how” that’s missing, which I’d describe as the delta between the low number you’d pay (maybe $500) and the price at which you’d sell (example being $10,000 for that 5% investment). I know you can’t always be selling that $10,000 name to an end user. So what are you guys doing? Do you buy at the lower price from somebody like Namejet, then just turn around and put it on Uniregistry, Afternic, and others for $10K and see who bites?

    I really want your responses on this. Because it’s something rarely covered in these shows. Except when there’s a guest who walks through an individual sale step by step. And those are usually to an end user.

    Thanks in advance for any of you who takes the time to enlighten me.

    1. Ategy.com says:

      Hi Deborah .. i’m not nearly as experienced as the guys on the show, but I’ll try to help you anyways … but you pretty much have the gist of it though .. in theory you can buy a domain from anywhere or anyone .. but all the names from the last part of the shows do indeed come from namejet.

      As for the first part of the show where the sherpas talk about their buys and sells. I think a good portion of them are from auction platforms (namejet, godaddy, sedo, flippa in some cases). In rare cases they might be handregs (like Etherium2.com .. lol .. but I’m thinking more for the old time sherpas who were able to grab good names 15-20 years ago). Sometimes buys can even be on a forum such as namepros.

      You also have to keep in mind that because many of the sherpas are well known as buyers, people looking to sell quick will often actually contact them for quick sales. Which in some cases leads to getting domains for cheaper than if there was a competition at auction .. or maybe simply just the opportunity to get a good name they feel has a higher % likely of selling even if the multiple might be a little lower.

      As for the selling, it can vary quite a bit for the Sherpas. In Frank’s case, he obviously sells them on the Uniregistry platform, and more importantly also has a team of brokers working for him.

      For the most part, a lot of the Sherpas choose to simply list their names on the various platforms (Afternic, Uniregistry, Sedo, etc) and wait for inbound offers. Although there can certainly be exceptions, usually you will be able to sell a domain for more money if the buyer comes to you, as opposed to you going out to find a buyer (who isn’t necessarily looking to buy at the moment you approach them)

      One extra they also have at their disposal, is a website with traffic or a mailing list of potential buyers. Which even if it takes them from a 3% turnover to a 4% turnover, makes for a huge difference at the end of the year.

      Obviously the price you set plays a factor. At the end of the day it’s all a question of visibility. Part of that is simply getting a good domain that a potential buyer might want who then visits the landing page or searches for it at GoDaddy, Uniregistry or wherever else. But when listening to the show you always need to bear in mind that the Sherpas do have added visibility.

      Don’t get me wrong though .. they have their visibility, web traffic, newsletters and contact lists because of the all the work they’ve done over the years.

      What you also need to keep in mind that while they might sell a domain for $10k .. the untold story is that they likely had several $1k-2k offers for the same domain name that they said no to. Something that’s hard to do as a new domainer because of the spending involved in building up a decent portfolio.

      OK .. it’s late .. I’m rambling .. I hope I covered what you wanted to know. If not feel free to ask more questions! :)

      1. Ategy.com says:

        Oh yeah .. forgot to add .. that in terms of buying .. some of the Sherpas actually go out looking for domains that appear to be inactive or neglected, and contact the owner directly. That’s more for the higher level domains .. although I see no reason why it couldn’t be done for lower tier domains like 2-word .com’s if they are good enough to make an offer that could appeal to a domain owner no longer actively using their website.

      2. Deborah says:

        Thanks, Ategy.com!

        You weren’t rambling and you hit some very salient points. Although the show features the occasional part time domainer who makes a hefty sale. The only way to have consistent returns of the types that were discussed in this show, is to buy and sell domains as one’s primary business. It’s a full time job that takes years to perfect. And the networks required to ratchet up high returns take years to build.

        I wanted some clarification on that because it would be easy to watch just a few of these shows and think, “Wow! Domains! Easy money!”. and I suspect that there is nothing further from the truth.

        I found your comments helpful also because it seems that there is no hard and fast rule of thumb as far as the process of finding buyers is concerned. The type of buyer seems to be somewhat dictated by the type of the domain itself. And the interpretation of names that are brandable vs. those that aren’t, is quite subjective. That’s where having a list of proven contacts/buyers would come in very handy.

        Bottom line it seems that if you want the dime, you have to spec the time.

        Thanks for responding to my question.

        1. It’s not easy money at all…

        2. Ategy.com says:

          No problemo .. and yes .. you hit it on the head .. every domain is different.

          The key to becoming a good domainer is to gain enough experience and knowledge to understand and evaluate the possibility of sale for each domain you cross.

          Some have potentially high end user price but low chance of selling .. others are vice versa .. while a few actually have high value and a high chance of selling … however at least 99% of domains out there actually have low value AND a low chance of resell.

          Most important to keep in mind is that 99% of domainers sell far less than 5% of their portfolio per year (unless they fire sale at wholesale prices). So while the show concentrates on successful transactions people need to keep in mind that these are exceptions .. even for the top of the top domainers.

          Maybe Michael should start a new show on all the lost sales and many of the mistakes some domainers have made .. lol. It’s a funny suggestion, but we’d probably learn just as much from it.

          1. Deborah says:

            You know, Ategy, that isn’t at all a bad idea!

            I’d love to see a show with some of these guys who are very experienced, and who have a lot of street cred in the industry, talk about the Worst mistakes they made. How they lost a lot of money on a deal. And things nobody should ever, ever do when buying or selling domains. Based on things they actually did and lived to regret.

            That would be extremely helpful, and no doubt very entertaining.

            Mr. Cyger, are you listening?

            1. Michael Cyger says:

              Always. :)

              1. Deborah says:

                Thank you, Michael. We can’t wait.

                I suspect there will be fodder for more than one show. Because you have numerous experts who must have stories like this.

                Monday mornings have just become more interesting!

    2. Hi Deborah,

      I try to cover this topic as frequently as possible. Watch the past DomainSherpa Review episodes and pay attention to the first segment, where the Sherpas talk about the domains they’ve recently bought and sold. You’ll hear that Drew often gets deals sent to him that he buys, he puts out hundreds of emails in inquiry format only to get one ‘yes’ response to sell, he’ll sometimes get a ‘yes’ response a year or more later when he follows up, etc. Other Sherpas you’ll hear buy on NameJet, GoDaddy, other marketplaces when the deal is good.

      I personally find it interesting to hear how they find their deals too, so I enjoy digging in and hearing that part of the story. I’ll continue asking as we go forward too.

      Thanks for posting your question,
      Michael

  9. Ayman says:

    Thanks Mike, Ammar, Frank and Shane for this great show.

  10. ikehook says:

    Auto.Auto is my vote for best new G self driving car brand. :)

  11. Niz says:

    Thanks Mike and Sherpas for another great show..

  12. Andy McBean says:

    Great show guys, thanks.

  13. vape.io 24,000 USD …. In 2007 my domain video.io sold at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. for just the reserve price they had asked me to set ($400).
    I thought it was a very low reserve but they told me not to worry…
    Months later the owner even let it expire, I had to warn them to renew… so dumb, I think it’s one of my biggest regrets, makes me really sad :(

  14. Ategy.com says:

    Thanks for another great show guys! :)

    lol @ Etherium2 .. This is my worst nightmare. Even for expiration auctions/closeouts I’ve won, I’m always paranoid about the spelling of my better domains. I’ve woken up in the middle of the night and rushed to my PC to copy/paste domains into Google to quadruple check they’re spelled properly! So I feel for you Shane!

    I’m really surprised about Vape.io going for so much. While I’d agree that “Vape” is a great SLD that would be worth something in any TLD, I just don’t see the fit with traditional .io end users (tech startups). I would have guessed $5000 would have been a fantastic sale .. so $24k is a fantastic sale! :)

    I picked up ScreenSavers.ws as one of my first buys as I started transitioning into actual “domaining” .. I recently let it go (either drop or part of a portfolio auction) .. no regrets .. lol

    In the portfolio I disagree that the _ing in SelfDriving.com hurts the domain in this specific case. I understand that _ing usually can hurt the value compared to the non-_ing version. But SelfDriving certainly is one of the many exceptions as the actual term commonly used is “SelfDriving”. The action version is what people use because it refers to the act of driving. “SelfDrive” would actually be the “one-off” at a lower value in this case.

    I also think that while I agree with the general theory Shane mentioned (and in prior shows) that companies won’t use exact key-words. I do think that *IF* the category is big enough the keywords still could hold value as marketing names or for defensive purposes. The key here however .. is that the term has to be in a high-value market. And the one-off deviations kill off value very quickly. So with SD Cars being a very very hot market, I’d say of the 25 domain portfolio, the following 5 would be good domains to hold:
    SelfDriving.com (by far the best)
    SelfDrivingCars.com
    DriverlessCar.com
    AutonomousCar.com
    AutomatedCar.com
    The rest I see as having little to no value (the ones with hyphens).

    Reach out to Adam Strong and sell him Self-Driving.com for a few hundred .. lol .. I don’t see any other buyer for that.

    Thanks again! :)

  15. Sarafadin says:

    To me, good brandables and service names surrounding selfdriving will work better in this niche. This can command Any sales figure from end users ( start- up,researchers, engineers ) . Something like DriverlessLabs.com, driverlessVille.com e.t.c and some keyword in Self-driving. It doesn’t have to be EMD like selfdriving car/cars, vehicle. EMD is not bad but I see brandable names in better position. It’s going to be a huge industry no doubt. I stand to be corrected

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