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DomainSherpa Review – Sept 26: Happiness.com, WMHC.com, Winebar.com…

DomainSherpa Review with Michael Cyger, Andrew Rosener, Dave Evanson 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: Happiness.com, WMHC.com
  • An investor’s portfolio is appraised: Phasor.com, Jazziness.com, GiftGenie.com…
  • Get your bids in soon for these NO RESERVE NameJet auctions: Winebar.com, Reader.net, Gozi.com…
  • Plus, much more!

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

Review (65:39): Watch | Listen/Download Audio | Domain Lists | Transcript

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Investor Submitted Domain Names

BeerGenie.com
BeerLabs.com
Cannabic.com
Chigg.com
EnergyROI.com
eTrigger.com
Eventize.com
Fauxter.com
FoodFu.com
Foretell.com
GiftGenie.com
Gratu.com
Grayly.com
Greyly.com
Jazziness.com
Moodeo.com
Pentice.com
PetDom.com
PetGenie.com
Phasor.com
PupInn.com
Rhomb.us
Sparsity.com
Spiceful.com
Tagalize.com

NameJet.com Pre-Auction Listings

98918.com
floridapools.com
fraudreports.com
gozi.com
landinvesting.com
longislandwebsitedesign.com
reader.net
sanfranciscoproperties.com
siteusability.com
truview.com
ttvi.com
unifyapp.com
winebar.com

This Show’s Sherpas

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

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

More shows with Andrew Rosener »

Dave Evanson
Dave Evanson
Dave Evanson has 35+ years' experience in high level consumer and B2B marketing, strategic planning and corporate sales. He has successfully brokered one hundred million dollars in premium domain names. Dave focuses on acquiring and selling ultra-high value ($100,000 +) premium domains. His specialty is one word and two letter .com domains.

Since joining Sedo.com in 2010 as Senior Broker, Dave has completed more high value, published sales than any other broker in the domain industry. Some examples are Broker.com, Results.com, Give.com, MM.com, Cooking.com, Moms.com, Kush.com, RX.com, Metal.com, Intranet.com, Christian.com, Profitable.com, Ignite.com, Spend.com, Physician.com and Plants.com.

Prior to Sedo, Dave brokered independently while running a global management consulting firm focused on marketing and strategic planning. During the twenty year period following his founding of the firm in 1991, Dave’s consulting clients ranged from two dozen Fortune 500 Companies to small firms, and included American Express, VISA, Dun & Bradstreet, Verizon, Reed Elsevier, Consumer Reports, General Motors, Bank of America, and General Electric. Before that, he worked at Senior Vice President, Marketing level for two of the nation's largest banks.

Dave has spoken at several domain industry, banking, publishing, and direct marketing conferences, and has served as guest lecturer on strategic marketing at universities. From 2007 to 2010 he was on Name Media’s Advisory Board. Dave was honored by The Domain Conference and its predecessor T.R.A.F.F.I.C. with The Domain Broker of the Year Award in 2012, 2014 and 2016.

More shows with Dave Evanson »

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-20160926/

Do not miss today’s Review, the Sherpas discuss the recent deletion of hundreds of thousands of new gtlds from registries and whether it’s an investment opportunity for you, Drew tells us about his happiness.com acquisition, i leak some information about one of his past sales, and we discuss some great names for new investors going to auction soon at NameJet.

Michael Cyger: Hey Sherpa Network, I’m Michael Cyger, publisher of DomainSherpa.com, and this is the DomainSherpa Review. This is the show where we get into the minds of successful domain name professionals using real examples so we can learn strategies and tactics to pick better domain names and determine their true value. We have three segments to the review. We’ll start off learning what the Sherpas recently bought and sold, next we’ll discuss and value an investor submitted domain name portfolio, and finally we’ll preview some domains going to auction soon at namejet.com that you may want to put some bids in for. Joining us today on the DomainSherpa Review are three past Sherpas and industry thought leaders. In order from left to right we have Andrew Rosener, CEO of the domain name brokerage firm mediaoptions.com; Dave Evanson, senior sales and brokerage consultant at sedo.com; and Shane Cultra, publisher of the blog domainshane.com and owner of the Country Arbors Nursery in Illinois. Today’s show is sponsored by six awesome domain name industry providers that I’m going to tell you about later in the show that include Estibot, Escrow.com, David Weslow Legal Services, domainIQ, Efty, and DNAcademy. But before that…Sherpas, welcome to today’s show!

Dave Evanson: Great to be here. Thanks, Michael.

Michael Cyger: Hey, you’re muted, Drew. And I’m coming first to you, buddy because…

Andrew Rosener: Hi, I’m here.

Michael Cyger: …It’s been months…so, like, it seems like it’s been months since I’ve seen you on the show. I miss you, buddy.

Andrew Rosener: I’ve missed you too. I’ve missed you too. I’ve missed the show, man. I mean, it’s been, uh…I’ve been occupied.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, so you left, Panama, you went to Germany, you had a baby…well not you, Anna. How is baby Michael doing?

Andrew Rosener: Baby Lou?

Shane Cultra: He thought you named it after himself.

Andrew Rosener: Baby is doing great, you know…all good, all good. No complaints, we’re settling back in home, and very, very happy to be back home, and, you know, all good.

Michael Cyger: Awesome.

Andrew Rosener: Finally sort of getting my head above water, and happy to be in a normal time zone again.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: Being in Europe is really…like for an extended period of time…I honestly, like, I’m impressed by anybody that has managed to, like, run a successful domain business, like, from Europe, that is not focused on European clients, because…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …killer.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, because it’s tough to get back onto…

Andrew Rosener: Well, I think…

Michael Cyger: …U.S. time and yeah…

Andrew Rosener: Well, I think, you know, like sixty percent or more than that…at least sixty percent of our clients are… you know, like, let’s say Chicago or West, and so, you know, you’re talking eight, nine hours behind you and so you know, I’m trying to finish up my day when everybody’s just trying to start, you know?

Michael Cyger: I’m not good at 8 a.m. and it was always like 5 p.m. your time and you’re like trying to message me, and I’m like, “dude, it’s way too early.”

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, no one wants like…if I’m trying to schedule calls with a client…like nobody wants to schedule a call at 8 or 9 a.m. in California.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: They’re like, “let me get my morning thing done and then I can have a call at 11:00,” and that’s, like, you know, 9 p.m. my time or something so it’s…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …Yeah, it was tricky.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: All good.

Michael Cyger: All good, and now you’re back on East coast time, right…Panama is East coast time?

Andrew Rosener: Yup.

Michael Cyger: Like New York time?

Andrew Rosener: Well, so, we are, but we don’t have daylight savings…

Michael Cyger: Okay.

Andrew Rosener: …So I’m actually one hour behind East coast right now.

Andrew Rosener: I’m…I’m…I’m due South of Miami…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …So I’m exactly on the Eastern standard, but we don’t have daylight savings.

Michael Cyger: Alight, it’s great to have you back, man, you were missed. Hey Dave…

Andrew Rosener: Good to be back.

Michael Cyger: …We just saw each other last week in Fort Lauderdale at the domain conference…great event put on by Howard, Barbara, and Ray Neu. I was fortunate enough to share two meals with you during the conference…I really enjoyed them. What did you…what did you think of the conference?

Dave Evanson: I enjoyed the two meals as well and certainly your company. I did like the conference very much, you know, the…the venue is set up such that you get to see almost everybody at the conference. You have to walk through one of two hallways to get to the hotel, back and forth to the show in the lobby. There were a lot of new faces as usual, saw a lot of good friends…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Dave Evanson: [inaudible statement here]

Michael Cyger: And congratulations to you.

Dave Evanson: Thank you very much, and to you as well.

Michael Cyger: Broker of the Year, one more time.

Dave Evanson: Thank you. Thank you, and to you as well. [inaudible statement here]

Michael Cyger: Thank you. What do you attribute…what do you attribute, like, Broker of the Year to, Dave? What…what’s the biggest success factor that’s, like…I think this might be four times?

Dave Evanson: Well actually the award’s been…been granted now five times. Sedo has it four times and the [inaudible] who I work with has one of those, I have three of them, and Drew with us here has the other one…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Dave Evanson: So Drew’s the only one outside of Sedo so far. Fortunately he was busy having a baby at the time so maybe that’s how he snuck in. I’m hoping that the two of you get to work in about a month or two so a year from now you’ll be having another baby at the time of the conference. So I think, you know, I…there…there’s a great list of brokers that were nominated. I think probably the voting was very close. I think there…that every one of us on the list knows, you know, we know what we’re doing…some of it’s credibility, some of it’s popularity perhaps…experience, you know? Sedo…Sedo also won best domain company of the year and I…I’m actually very proud of that. I’m actually happier about that than I am about Broker of the Year for myself to be honest. I’m happy about that, of course. But Sedo, you know, we are…we are one of the first companies in the space and years ago, I’d say going back to six years and earlier, I think…I’ve been with Sedo six years now, but six years and earlier…I think Sedo won awards almost every year. But over the last five or six years there’s been a lot of new companies and competition which is good because it makes us better…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Dave Evanson: …You know, you watch and you learn, so we’re very happy to come back and win that one this year.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Well congratulations, Dave, you’re a gentleman and a scholar. Shane, a person in the Sherpa network just posted a comment on a recent show… “I haven’t seen Shane in a while. Somebody in Illinois just won a hundred million dollar lottery…could it have been him?”

Shane Cultra: Yeah, I know, right down the road, right down the road.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. It wasn’t you?

Shane Cultra: That never happens, and I don’t play, but you don’t…they always win it in, like, some small town somewhere. Then when it’s in your backyard you’re thinking you actually could win it, but, you know? A hundred million I could use but…

Andrew Rosener: Man, you gotta go knock on their door and sell them an upgraded garden.

Michael Cyger: Seriously, dude!

Shane Cultra: Yeah. No, we…

Andrew Rosener: Time to upgrade your plants.

Shane Cultra: The…the big news here was Jimmy John sold a big chunk of his…his sandwich shop, and, yeah, he sold…I think he sold a percentage. He’s a majority owner but I think he sold the rest to a private equity firm.

Michael Cyger: Huh.

Shane Cultra: Old Jimmy John picked up hundreds and hundreds of millions, so my neighbor has got a couple hundred million sitting…that he didn’t have last week.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, leave it to a sales guy, man. You need to go knock on his door and sell him an upgraded garden.

Shane Cultra: He…he paved the street. Honestly, the street needed fixing and the city wasn’t getting to it so he just paved the entire road for everybody.

Michael Cyger: Wow.

Shane Cultra: And that’s when you know you have money…when you don’t wait for the city to get stuff done, you just build the road yourself. That’s the kind of domain money I’m looking for today.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, exactly. Awesome. Well it’s great to have all three of you on the panel for today. Before we get into the review, I wanted to ask you a quick question. I used to do a show called the DomainSherpa Discussion and so this is going to be a similar type of question. This past week, three blogs covered a news story…the TheDomains, onlinedomains.com, and Domain Investing all posted stories about Frank Schilling’s North Sound Names deleting two hundred and thirty thousand domains and Minds + Machines deleting a hundred thousand domains the day before. These were domains that both registries thought they would receive inbound offers on that they could sell for premium pricing but I’m assuming they didn’t get very many inbound offers, if any, so they’re dropping them so that they don’t have to pay ICANN their twenty five cents per domain, because, you know, I guess that adds up year after year. And instead they’re going to put them into the registration path so that if you go to —addy or another registrar and you type in the domain name it’ll show up there but with premium registration costs. Now, I’m not saying that all new gTLDs are worthless, far from it, but, actions speak louder than words so I want to know, in your opinions, should newer investors…what should newer investors take away from this action that North Sound Names and Minds + Machines, are, you know, just…just did? What do you guys think? Who wants to be first?

Dave Evanson: Okay, I’ll take a shot at that.

Michael Cyger: Okay, Dave.

Dave Evanson: I think there’s actually some [inaudible] news there for brand new investors, and some good news for brand new investors, probably because what’s happening right now…I assume is happening because the new gTLDs…the new gTLDs are taking hold but slower than probably the average domain investors…domain professionals thought, but they’re still going the right direction. The growth is slower but it’s going the right direction so…and that’s why they’re releasing them or deleting them. So a brand new domain investor has an opportunity that perhaps he or she didn’t have…wouldn’t have had today if we were three or four years earlier than where we currently are.

Michael Cyger: No doubt, them releasing the domain newer investors have an opportunity that they didn’t have before because they’re not going to be paying premium, you know, registration costs. But…

Dave Evanson: Right.

Michael Cyger: …If Frank Schilling’s not getting …Frank Schilling’s organization isn’t getting inbound offers on them is that…does that make it a good investment potentially for newer investors?

Dave Evanson: Well, in, in, in…the [inaudible] the answer would be no but it’s very possible that he and others that are deleting are thinking that the payback is a few years out…it’s not right now. So somebody coming in could still get in whereas maybe they couldn’t have because the price would have been too high…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Dave Evanson: …If they weren’t deleted.

Michael Cyger: Right, and…but I would say that those who couldn’t get in before are end users and not investors.

Dave Evanson: This is true. It’s true.

Andrew Rosener: My perspective is that, you know, I think reality is kicking in. You’ve got a bunch of registries that were trying to be domain investors because they’re run by domain investors…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …And, you know, the economics just don’t make sense. There is no demand for these things, you know? Relatively speaking, like, yeah, sure, there are some great names.

Michael Cyger: Right.

Andrew Rosener: Hell, we just bought four .club names and that’s in [inaudible] auction, and that’s i.club, we bought 21.club, and two other two letters, and so obviously, I mean, I think that those are good domain names. They have a value. I think that i.club is certainly worth more than the nine thousand dollars we paid for it, but I probably have to wait five years, seven years, and if you’re holding hundreds of thousands of reserved names, you know, you’re paying…you’re paying ICANN a fee, you’re acting as a domain investor, you know, you have to remember, what is the utility of these domains? The only reason that these came to market is because, you know, the idea is that we’re running out of good .coms, or there’s a segment of the market that’s not willing to pay for a good .com, and so, you know, if you’re confused and believe that you know, holding millions of reserved, you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of reserved, you know, new gTLDs, and…and only allowing them to go to market at premium prices, equal to or greater than the equivalent .com, you know, the economics don’t make sense, right? Like, I mean, unless you…you’re looking super long-term…and that’s great as a registry but don’t be a domain investor, like, you’re you’re —-ing up the economics of the entire principle of this new gLTD program which was, bring cheap, affordable domains to the mom-and-pops of the world that can’t afford or don’t want to pay for a good .com, or even at the enterprise level, nobody’s naming…the next Oracle isn’t going to be named on a new gTLD, but Oracle might utilize one or many of these new gTLDs to do an ad campaign or to promote a new product or to, you know, just have…create some kind of communication, or utilize it in a way we don’t even know about yet.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: But these are not things that are meant to be held back and…and held in a portfolio to be released at super premium prices, with the exception of that, you know, one percent of the names that really are phenomenal, interesting, particularly useful names, you know, for one purpose or another, for a particular niche…

Michael Cyger: Right.

Andrew Rosener: …Which may be more prone to pay a premium for these types of names…

Michael Cyger: Yeah, I agree.

Andrew Rosener: When I see, like, dot, you know…you’re holding back .army domain names at a premium price. Like, “who is going to come and pay you a premium price”? And then on top of that, pay you a premium renewal price? Like…I don’t believe it, I don’t buy…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: I think that this is a reality check, and you know, this is just ultimately I think it’s a good thing because I think it’s ultimately going to preserve the health of the new gTLD program by just making these things available to people that, you know, would utilize them.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: Not, you know, thinking that they’re something that they’re not.

Shane Cultra: And I look…I look at it from a business standpoint. They only make money two ways: they sell it a premium price and they get renewal fees. Those are the two ways they’re going to make money. And they shop the first one…they’re going to try and get the premium pricing and it didn’t get what they wanted so now they’re moving to the their next model and that’s getting their renewal fees and to getting in as many hands as they can to try and get that churning of revenue. So, as a business person that’s exactly how I’d approach it too. I mean, their fear is…their fear, and I say fear is, letting some domain investor get in and snatch up all the good names early so they take them and they set them to the side or they reserve them or they make up a fake company or a real company and take them. From a business standpoint, to me, maybe I’m just naïve, but if ICANN doesn’t allow the company to have but a certain number of names…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: … But they form another company to buy all these names. It’s like the days of the bridge loan. I can…you have to put twenty percent down, but I’m going to give you a loan that covers the rest of the twenty percent so that you can meet your target…it’s double dipping, I never really understood that part.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, it does seem like a shell game, that, you know, they’re…they’re meeting the letter of the law but they’re not meeting the spirit of the law…

Shane Cultra: That doesn’t make any sense to me to allow them to form a company to give the names to…

Michael Cyger: But Shane, here’s the question. If, you know, all of these premium domains that are now being released….they’re going to be in the registration path. They’re actually not going to be thirty dollars or forty dollars regular registration with renewal. I…I…from what I understand they’re going to be premium price. So they’re going to be three hundred dollars the first year and then maybe a lower renewal.

Shane Cultra: So they switched the business model?

Michael Cyger: Right, they switched the business model. They didn’t go to the standard yet. They’re trying option two, which…I can’t fault them. If I was playing by these rules too I would try the same thing. Maybe somebody…some business will pay three hundred dollars the first year and three hundred dollars year after, or a hundred dollars….who knows? But is it an opportunity for individual investors, because registries are now looking at these domains? If I was looking at, say, .property or .properties, and I was looking at a bunch of names and I saw that they were registry renewed, registry reserved, maybe I’d go in and I’d buy ten of these domain names, ten really good ones, planning to hold them for ten years, but I get a…a discount price, I negotiate…is that possible to do? Have you seen investors doing that before?

Shane Cultra: I mean, I’m sure somebody could. I’m sure people with enough power, enough purchasing power can…can negotiate, but my…my opinion is this, okay, so now it’s not a thousand dollars, now it’s twenty dollars, but it’s three hundred dollars a year…it’s the same.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: Whether you call it a [inaudible] or a holding cost.

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, I mean, that’s my quip, man…don’t…this…this three hundred dollars a year, or two fifty a year, or a hundred a year…I don’t care if it’s fifty. It’s too much! It’s just stupid. It’s..it’s…well it’s not stupid as a business model right?

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: But in terms of…in terms of the spirit of the program and what it’s intended to do, and who it’s targeted at, I…I just don’t think that it’s the right model, but, you know, look, it’s not my business, I don’t know.

Shane Cultra: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, I’m…I’m playing sideline quarterback here.

Michael Cyger: Well exactly. And, you know, I don’t, whatever…if you’re a registry, you put your money in…

Andrew Rosener: I think the model is you sit back, you look, if you see…if you see…if you see really unique names coming that are being made available…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: Then, you know, that’s what this game is all about. Whether it’s a .com, a .net, a .org, a .club, a .co, a .xyz…

Michael Cyger: Yup.

Andrew Rosener: It doesn’t matter. You know, there’s…there’s unique and individual names. And I’ve always said this…I’m not a big fan of the program. I’m not a big fan of new gTLDs, but there are unique individual names which have intrinsic value which stand out, and you know, it’s no different than with a .com. Some people have that ability through training or just gut to identify those names and the same can be said with new gTLDs.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: And so, if you have an ability to identify…look, i.club, that was a good deal. Okay, I don’t know if there’s somebody willing to pay more than nine hundred and ninety nine thousand dollars that we just paid for it today….maybe not, nobody outbid us in the auction, but, that name is worth more…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …Than what we paid for it.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Andrew Rosener: So at some point we’ll capture that value.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, the main point I brought this up is that I wanted to address individual investors and see what the opportunity is. I’m not throwing all gTLDs under the bus. I’m not trying to, you know, drive the bus in that direction. There are unique assets that are valuable just like Drew said. You know, at NamesCon last year I kicked myself after I didn’t bid on i.ski. because I thought that that…

Andrew Rosener: Yeah.

Michael Cyger: …Was a great brand. I think Morgan Linton picked it up for twenty five hundred bucks.

Andrew Rosener: Yeah.

Michael Cyger: And I know that Monte Cahn is going to be driving NamesCon again this coming year, the auction, and there’s probably going to be some good opportunities to buy domains like i.club or i.ski in, you know…short names, great brands, using the gTLD the right way so those are the opportunities that you need to look for.

Andrew Rosener: Yeah.

Michael Cyger: Shane…

Andrew Rosener: I mean…

Michael Cyger: Yes?

Andrew Rosener: Every single day, I forget what the number is but there’s like a hundred thousand domain .coms expire every day, or is that forty thousand? I don’t know.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, a hundred thousand.

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, and so, you know, like, do we say every day, do we wake up and go, “a hundred thousand domain .coms expired? Whatever expires…you know, somebody owned it before, so just buy it. It doesn’t —-ing matter what it is, somebody owned it before. It must have value, just buy it.” You don’t say the same about the new gTLDs. I mean, like, just because it was reserved and it was reserved by the registry, like look…I’ve looked at a bunch of these registry lists…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …And let me tell you something, I mean, whoever made those lists doesn’t know their elbow from their asshole in terms of what might actually be a valuable domain name, because a very small fraction of them have any built in intrinsic value. So I think it’s…you can’t look at these things in generalities. You can’t just say, you know, Frank is letting two hundred and thirty thousand domains expire…

Shane Cultra: Exactly.

Andrew Rosener: We should be out there. Everybody should be buying them just because it was owned, and it was owned by Frank.

Michael Cyger: Right.

Andrew Rosener: Well, you know, it…there probably is some good names with intrinsic value in there and you need to go in and if you want to look through two hundred and thirty thousand names and figure out which ones you might want to try and pick off.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: Great! That’s a great idea. For sure, that’s been in the business model, you know, since 1995.

Michael Cyger: Exactly.

Andrew Rosener: Find and identify valuable domains and try to get them before the next guy does.

Michael Cyger: Exactly.

Andrew Rosener: For the best price.

Michael Cyger: Shane. Shane, last word?

Shane Cultra: No, I mean, again, you got to look at every side of this business, from a business…from our side, they’re not dying, but I’m going to tell Buddy, “don’t buy them.” If you’re a young investor this isn’t the angle you go. If I go to Frank, I say, “great job, this is our next move.” If I’m this business owner I’m going to the number two and I’m going to try to get some revenue out of the renewal…the renewal fee. So, there’s nothing wrong with any of this. Nobody knows what we’re doing. This is new, this is brand new, this is a first time any of this has happened so there’s going to be a lot of moves that don’t mean anything in regards to the future. It’s…we just don’t know and the business owners don’t know.

Michael Cyger: Yup.

Shane Cultra: This is something new to them. Frank is a brilliant man, but this is new to him!

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: As brilliant as he is, he’s having to make…he’s having to pivot every day. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, exactly. Alright, thanks Sherpas. We’re going to move…start off with the segment called What’s New Sherpas where the Sherpas share one purchase or sale that they’ve made over the past few weeks, and we get to learn what they paid or received for the domain, why they thought it was a good deal, and how the negotiation progressed. I’m going to lead you through the questions but the other Sherpas will get to comment as well and put in their valuations. We’re going to go…start with Drew. Drew, what’s one domain name that you’ve personally bought or sold in the past couple of weeks? Tell us the domain and not the price yet.

Andrew Rosener: Okay, how about happiness.com?

Michael Cyger: Happiness.com?

Andrew Rosener: Yeah.

Michael Cyger: Wow.

Dave Evanson: Nice.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Dave, what do you think? You bought it or you sold it, Drew?

Andrew Rosener: Bought it.

Michael Cyger: Bought it. Dave, what do you think Drew paid for happiness.com?

Dave Evanson: I’m going to guess he paid less than what it’s worth. I’m getting pretty…pretty astute at this. I’m going to guess he paid fifteen thousand for it.

Michael Cyger: 15k. Shane, what do you think Drew paid for happiness.com?

Shane Cultra: I’m going to go way above that. I’m going to say sixty grand.

Michael Cyger: Sixty grand.

Shane Cultra: Beautiful.

Michael Cyger: That’s quite a disparity here.

Shane Cultra: Yeah, that’s a beautiful, beautiful name. That…that’s what we’re all searching for, man.

Michael Cyger: We are.

Andrew Rosener: We’re all looking for happiness, man. It’s all about happiness.

Shane Cultra: Yeah.

Michael Cyger: Hey, before I go back to Drew and ask him. Let me ask you, Dave, what do you think the retail value of happiness.com is?

Dave Evanson: Well, I think if it’s brokered by an outbound basis by a talented broker, and there are many, I could see…I could see two hundred thousand for it.

Michael Cyger: 200k. Shane, what do you think the retail…and you meant by broker…if it were brokered by a Broker of the Year? Just joking.

Dave Evanson: Two hundred and one thousand then. Shane, what do you think the retail value of happiness.com could be?

Shane Cultra: Yeah, it’s a quarter of a million. I think it’s a brilliant domain for a company.

Michael Cyger: Somewhere around there.

Shane Cultra: Yeah.

Michael Cyger: So we agree on the retail price…and Dave thought that Drew is like shrewd negotiator…bought it for fifteen…you Shane, think that he paid a little bit more, 60k in order to get it. Drew, what did you pay for happiness.com?

Andrew Rosener: Paid thirty five thousand.

Michael Cyger: Thirty five, right in the middle.

Dave Evanson: No, I’m closer by five thousand.

Michael Cyger: You’re like a math aficionado there. So, what do you think, how did they do on the retail value, Drew? Because you knew…you know the retail value before you buy it. Do you think they’re close at two hundred, two fifty?

Andrew Rosener: No, I, yeah, I do think they’re close. You know, I kind of…I always obviously set a price in my head before I buy it and so I was thinking two fifty is probably the lowest amount that I would ever even consider for it, and I’d probably be asking, like, three ninety nine and looking for a sale between two fifty and three fifty.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: But it’s an interesting name. It’s a very unique name. It has a lot of traffic.

Michael Cyger: So how did you come about buying it.

Andrew Rosener: So it actually…since I bought it, you know…at first I was actually…it’s one of those names that punches you in the face. Somebody emailed me and said, you know, basically that there was like a debt owed, and he basically was to sell this domain on behalf of the person who owed him money. It was a friend of his. In order to recover the money that was owed to him. And, you know, he said, you know, “I’m selling happiness.com”…this guy, he’s offered me a couple domains in the past and it was always a little tricky dealing with him but I was like great…happiness.com, that’s a great —-ing name, and I was like, “I’ll give you twenty five grand, and I didn’t hear from him for a couple days and I’m like, what’s going on? He’s like, “high offer is thirty two thousand,” and I was like, “I’ll give you thirty five. Close it right now within one hour.” And he was like, “okay, fine, done.” And so…so, and you know, and then I was like, after I…after he agreed, I was like, “oh man, he agreed at thirty five. Man, happiness, maybe it’s too long, maybe, you know, maybe that’s not as good as I thought it was. And then I was like, “—- it, I agreed I’m going to buy it,” so I bought it, and then, you know, since I got it, it’s like every single day I’m reading something, watching something, listening to something, and it’s like, just the word happiness, like just jumps out. It’s like every friggin day…I just, happiness, happiness, happiness, and it just…it’s great, and I…I actually, I’ve…I’m committing the ultimate sin, I’m kind of falling in love with the name since we bought it. And so I may actually revise my value estimate but…but I will say that when I bought it, that was my…I was very much in line with them. I said, two fifty to three fifty is where I’d expect it to sell.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Yeah, It’s funny how, you know, you buy a new car…or your friend or somebody you know buys a new car and suddenly…you’ve never heard of that car before and suddenly you see it on the road like all the time. That’s what, you know, it sounds like what is happening with happiness.com.

Andrew Rosener: Yup.

Shane Cultra: Or your worst fear and you say the name and they’re like, “nobody says that.” That’s the worst so and so, and you’re like…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: [inaudible]

Michael Cyger: Funny, we don’t discuss any of this before the show. I don’t even know what domains that they’re going to pick and of course the other Sherpas don’t know what the first Sherpa’s going to say ninety nine percent of the time. I just typed into estibot.com, happiness…two hundred and sixty one thousand Estibot value. Pretty much right on the money without you guys looking up anything. Yeah, of course they’re using a central .com as a comp which Media Options sold for two hundred and fifty thousand. Massive search volume.

Andrew Rosener: Wait…wait, why is that sale even…

Dave Evanson: Is that the same number of letters?

Michael Cyger: Is that not supposed to be public?

Andrew Rosener: No, that’s not supposed to be public.

Michael Cyger: Sorry.

Andrew Rosener: I wonder you publicized that.

Michael Cyger: It’s listed…sorry, bud.

Dave Evanson: It sounds like the same number of letters maybe.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Sorry, Drew.

Shane Cultra: Oops.

Michael Cyger: Massive search volume though. Three hundred and seven thousand people searched for happiness on…on search engines.

Shane Cultra: Everybody’s searching for happiness.

Michael Cyger: And you can help deliver it, Drew.

Shane Cultra: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, I mean…

Shane Cultra: My thirty six thousand dollar offer doesn’t look like it’s going to go though now. Let me scratch that out real quick.

Dave Evanson: So it sound like…

Andrew Rosener: I think I announced it…I think I announced it on DomainSherpa. Somebody must have…somebody grabbed that…the only place that this has ever been announced…my central .com sale, was on DomainSherpa and it looks like somebody grabbed that out of that.

Michael Cyger: Dude, you’ve got like a memory like a steel trap…how you recall, like, the only place I’ve ever mentioned that…yeah, that’s amazing, dude.

Shane Cultra: Yeah.

Michael Cyger: Alright, well congrats on that buy. I’m kicking myself for not being offered that one, but that’s awesome. Thanks, Drew. Shane, what’s one domain name that you’ve bought or sold in the past few weeks. Tell us the domain name and not the price yet.

Shane Cultra: Talk about a letdown…

Michael Cyger: Right.

Shane Cultra: …Going from that…

Michael Cyger: You know he’s been holding that one for a few weeks now.

Shane Cultra: I guess I’m not going to use my .army name. Let me see if I can find something else.

Andrew Rosener: No, Happiness, I literally got Happiness in our account a week ago. That was it, a week ago.

Shane Cultra: Man, I should have tried a little harder.

Michael Cyger: Seriously…you got a four letter?

Shane Cultra: Yeah, I’ve got a four letter here. So, but it will at least be one that Drew likes. So…so basically over the last, I don’t know, year, I’ve been doing a lot of four letter, all consonants, end in a C. It’s a portfolio I like to build. I want to have it to the side. It’s not moving up or down very quickly…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: …But it seems to be the four letters that I get end user approaches for, so I bought…I’ll pick one…I bought W.W.M.H.C., so William, Mary, whatever H, Charlie.

Michael Cyger: Oh, so it’s a four letter, right?

Shane Cultra: Four letter, yeah.

Michael Cyger: Okay, wmhc.com?

Shane Cultra: Yeah. Yeah, and again, these are the kind of name I’ve been buying lately…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: …Just to…

Michael Cyger: Hey Drew, what do you think Shane paid for wmhc.com?

Andrew Rosener: I mean, so, you know…you know I’ve always been a fan of three letters or four letters, or two letters for that matter that end in C just because of the, you know, corporation, company…it just, they tend to have more qualified end users. I think Shane probably paid like, I’m going…I’m going to say fifteen hundred, it’s…it’s a…fifteen hundred, twenty two hundred, in that range, but I’m going to say sixteen hundred.

Michael Cyger: Sixteen hundred, alright. Dave, what do you think Shane paid for wmhc.com?

Dave Evanson: I also am a great fan of three and four letter .coms, thanks to China. In fact, I was at my favorite Chinese restaurant for lunch today thinking about acronyms. I think, you know…I don’t know…I don’t know if Shane bought that name by itself or if he bought it…bought it as part of a portfolio.

Michael Cyger: By itself.

Dave Evanson: By itself? Okay, alright, I’ll go with eleven hundred. It’s worth a lot more.

Michael Cyger: Alright, Shane.

Shane Cultra: Yeah, so on this one I paid seventeen twenty one.

Michael Cyger: Seventeen…

Shane Cultra: And I bought it on NameJet, but Drew’s exactly right, it’s fifteen hundred…although I got one for fourteen hundred last week…W.S.W.C. for fourteen hundred. But I sell them regularly at eight to twelve thousand dollars. I mean, pretty quickly, they seem…the C’s tend to sell compared to…and it can add more value on it.

Michael Cyger: And you get an inquiry on wmhc.com and they’re like “how much” and you respond back with, depending on the domain…

Shane Cultra: I would start with twelve thousand.

Michael Cyger: …Eight to twelve thousand dollars?

Shane Cultra: Yeah, I mean, if I picked it up recently, it just depends what I’m feeling. Sometimes I’ll quote twenty five, you know, I’ll start obviously very high, but lately I don’t really need to sell names, you know? I…we always talk about getting it to a point where… where you don’t have to sell names, and after seven or eight years in this business my…I have good revenue coming from my websites and enough sales that I…I price things a lot higher. So I don’t sell nearly as much as I used to but I don’t have to and I get a lot more money.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: So I have more income and my portfolio grows. My portfolio gets bigger every year and my income gets bigger every year and that’s…it took me seven years to get there but that’s something I’m pretty proud of.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: And it’s through names like this. You know, I sell…last week I, so, you know…Deejo, D.E.E.J.O., a twelve dollar purchase. I take the five thousand dollars and I put it into twenty more twelve dollar names and two four letter .coms.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: I’ll trade that any day. I’ll upgrade like that any day.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Dave Evanson: Quick…quick…quick question if I may.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Dave Evanson: So…so far what I’ve learned here is Drew likes to buy names and sell them for eight…a minimum of eight times what he paid for it. Good strategy. And… so Shane, did…this one ended in a C. It sounded like you buy…you like names that end in C. I’m wondering if you find that some of the buyers are end users and the C stands for company, or corporate, or perhaps China? C meaning China at the end? Or is that just completely…

Shane Cultra: It’s always been corporation. I’d say…I think every single one has been corporation.

Michael Cyger: Can you tell if they’re in the U.S. or another country?

Shane Cultra: All U.S. One…one French. So I don’t know, yeah, I don’t know if they’re using…yeah, I assume it was corporation. And…and that’s the other thing…I’m getting more European offers for a lot of my names, or…my portfolio wasn’t really geared towards it, but now that I’m at four letter .coms, I’m seeming to get more Europeans and they’re…they’re not the C’s. They’re letters that I wouldn’t think, because I don’t know German…you know, K and other things. I don’t know that quite as well. But yeah, my four letters I’ve sold have been mostly…mostly U.S. based.

Michael Cyger: Awesome.

Shane Cultra: Not large companies either…not huge…nothing…I’d love to have some giant company but they’ve pretty much taken care of their acronyms on the big companies.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, and do you find that you need to justify the…the around ten thousand dollar price tag to them or do they come to the justification on their own.

Shane Cultra: No, it’s not even discussed this is what it costs, you know? And I don’t get as much as I used to of “that name’s not worth this or that.” I used to seem to get a lot more of that three or four years ago but I’m also not asking four hundred, five hundred thousand, you know? The people that offer twelve dollars and I give a price back of ten thousand, yeah, I get that. But they were going to say…if I said a hundred and eighty dollars they’re going to tell me I’m crazy.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: So…

Michael Cyger: Exactly.

Shane Cultra: I don’t know, again, after a number of years it just doesn’t affect me anymore. Every time I get the “go to hell, screw yourself you squatter,” I mean, it doesn’t even both me anymore. I just start eating my Chex cereal again and get back to work, you know?

Michael Cyger: Exactly. Alright Dave…Dave, since you are a broker…you don’t have a buyer or a sell that we can talk about on the show, so we’re just going to move into the next section, but before I do that, I want to tell you about three of our sponsors for today’s show. And Shane, tip your hat down just a little bit there.

Shane Cultra: You wanted to see my bald spot?

Michael Cyger: Yeah, I wanted to see your bald spot. Thank you. Alright,

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Michael Cyger: Alright, we’re going to move on to the next segment of the show. In the Domain Portfolio Review, we take user submitted domain name portfolios and provide honest and constructive feedback to the owners so can either cut their losses, continue to hold the domain names, or figure out a sales strategy going forward. Today’s portfolio was submitted by Jose Rey. As part of Jose’s submission he made a generous donation to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to help us all find a cure for cancer. Jose’s list of twenty five domains starts with beergenie.com, something I think we all wish we had, and it ends with tagalize.com. He has some single word generics, some brandables, and even a domain hack. This segment we’re going to go Shane, then Dave, then Drew. Shane, let’s start with you. What do you like on Jose’s list and why?

Shane Cultra: Well, it’s…it’s brandables again. Last week we went through a whole show of brandables and I think this is another portfolio. My guess is he’s in pretty low so his…he only has to sell one or two of these names to…and again, this is what I’m assuming, to pay for all of these, so that’s a good strategy. It works for a lot of people. It’s something relatively new to me that…I’ve met a lot of new domainers that have two hundred of names like this and they sell four it pays for all two hundred because it costs them sixteen hundred dollars to renew it and they sell four of them for six thousand dollars. Can they make a living on it? No. But most domainers aren’t trying to make a living, they’re trying to earn some extra money, so…

Michael Cyger: Right.

Shane Cultra: The names that…I actually like Cannabic, and cannabis obviously is the word we’re looking for, and a play on that word…again, I don’t think it’s a ton…none of these are a ton of money to me. These are all names that I would ask twenty five hundred to five thousand for. Cannabic is one, it’s a play on cannabis, that I liked. I like Spiceful. I don’t know that anybody uses that word but it’s a good brand I would think.

Michael Cyger: So Cannabic is actually…so, Jose sent me a…the list broken up by different types and he said Cannabic was a one word dictionary. I’m like, “what”? And so, it’s actually, it’s actually a word.

Shane Cultra: You ever seen a one word dictionary? A dictionary is like this big.

Michael Cyger: I know, right?

Shane Cultra: [inaudible]

Michael Cyger: If you go to that unabridged dictionary that’s like this tall…

Shane Cultra: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Michael Cyger: It’s an adjective from the early 1800s to describe cannabis, so…

Shane Cultra: So if…if…if my great great grandmother comes back to life and wants to talk about it, she’ll know exactly what we’re talking about. Good to know.

Michael Cyger: She’s like, “that cannabic is sick.”

Shane Cultra: She’s coming back, exactly. [inaudible]

Michael Cyger: So you looked at that word and you’re like, “that’s a brandable.”

Shane Cultra: Brand…I looked at every one of these, I said, “that’s a brandable.” But on that one I did see cannabis right off the…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: The key is if you put a word on the wall and all…all four of us look at it and we all think the same thing, then that’s…that’s usually pretty decent brand.

Michael Cyger: Alright, cannabic.com, if it’s treated like a brandable, because it’s not in use today, what do you think the value on that domain is?

Shane Cultra: Twenty five hundred to five thousand. Five thousand, he’s lucky. Twenty five hundred he should take.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: That’s my opinion, but again, that’s everyone’s different approach. He can ask whatever he wants for it.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: The…what was the other one? You know, again, PetGenie looks like something I would see on TV, you know? You…it’s a twenty minute commercial of the Pet Genie that cleans up the —- and…or watches it while you go away for a week. Let PetGenie take care of your cat…

Michael Cyger: What would you ask for PetGenie?

Shane Cultra: I..I think, again, I’m in that twenty five hundred to five…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: …thousand, you know? That’s just where I’m at on these kinds of names. I don’t… it’s…BrandBucket is going to be a lot higher but they’re going to get their thirty percent, so, you know, I’m going to get my three or four thousand dollars and not pay a percentage through my own brander, so that’s how I would approach it.

Michael Cyger: Alright, so Cannabic you like as a brandable. PetGenie you could see on TV, right? And that’s important…we need to have some commercial brand appeal.

Shane Cultra: Appeal.

Michael Cyger: What…what’s another domain name that you like on Jose’s list?

Shane Cultra: You know, again I…not…you know, I don’t know if I love…I think Phasor could work, in that it’s going to be…it’s going to be a spelling problem, but that doesn’t seem to stop people. That’s something I’ve noticed over the past couple of months with some of these names that are selling as brands are one off or double letters, you know? Spelling wrong…but they…as long as they’re short they seem to still move. So a name like Phasor I think would sell. You’re going to have to spell it out when you say it in a commercial but it looks good. It’s a good looking name in my opinion. So that was another one that I probably…

Michael Cyger: So Phasor is a word in the abridged dictionary. It made it to the abridged…it’s a real word.

Shane Cultra: I’m sure Moodeo is too.

Michael Cyger: It’s a line used to represent a complex electrical quantity as a vector, like a phase…phasor, but yes, you would have to spell it. Does that influence how much you would ask for this domain name, Shane?

Shane Cultra: Yeah, it’s because if I had the regular phasor I would ask much, much more, but as far as, yeah…as far as…no, they’re all in the same price for me. There’s not one and maybe these guys will have a different opinion.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: I don’t look at all those and go, “oh, that one stands out to me. This one’s worth quite a bit more.” I think you take as much as you can get for it in all these names. They all are brandable, you know, names that I think would sell for under fifty dollars on —addy and maybe a sixty nine dollar bid at, or seventy nine, whatever it’s at at NameJet.

Michael Cyger: Alright.

Shane Cultra: And there’s a couple I don’t like. Can I tell you the ones that drives me…

Michael Cyger: Yeah, which ones don’t you like?

Shane Cultra: …I hate…
What would you drop if you owned this portfolio?

Shane Cultra: I hate gray names…it’s just the E.Y., A.Y. drives me crazy. It’s just, you can’t build…you can’t build a brand around…well I guess they say if you own both you could forward to the other one but I…Grayly, Greyly, he’s covered…he’s covered his angle.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: But that means he could easily get it. If he got one and got the other my guess is they’re both pretty cheap and he didn’t have any trouble getting either one.

Michael Cyger: But if you owned both would you actually drop them?

Shane Cultra: No, no, no, I wouldn’t drop them both. But I’d…if I’m building a brand, that…that’s not where I head…

Michael Cyger: Right.

Shane Cultra: …When it comes to that kind of stuff. I…but then again I just said I bought a name that’s spelled wrong, so hey, I’m double…I’m working both ends there, so…But when I’m building a brand I’m trying to make it as simple as I can for my…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: …For my customers. And that can be something stupid. You’ve heard me say a hundred times I have no problem naming something GreenTurtle, because I think GreenTurtle is memorable and I don’t care if I sell mops, you’re going to remember GreenTurtle mops as well as you are something else, but…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: The rest of them are…they’re…we’ve seen a lot worse names.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: At least they can be made into something. When you get some specific product, and that’s all you’re…you’re…you’re keyed in to just that product and that’s all you can sell until…you’re screwed, you’ve got such a limited amount of buyers.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: These are a little more open but you’re just not going to make a ton of money. But I think it’s a profit…a profitable business model. I think he’ll make money on the portfolio.

Michael Cyger: Alright, thanks Shane. Dave, let’s go to you. Dave, if I owned this portfolio, these twenty five domain names, and I emailed you, Dave, and I said, “what can you actively sell for me Dave,” what would be your response back?

Dave Evanson: I like…I like the genie names. I…I’m aware of a couple of sales, maybe three or four over the last eight or nine years with Genie in it that did pretty well. The keywords that go with them: beer, gift, pet…they’re all very good keywords so I think that they make sense. I would…I would…I would suggest that he hold onto Jazziness until Drew sells Happiness for half a million dollars and just replace the J with an H and the two Zs with two Ps and you’ve got, you know, a similar word.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. What do you think the retail value on Jazziness is?

Dave Evanson: Well, without…without the Happiness link, probably…probably five thousand dollars to perhaps a band…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Dave Evanson: Or somebody really into jazz.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Dave Evanson: You know, it’s like jazz is to Jazziness almost like happy is to Happiness, but not quite to that extent. But I…I think there’s…there’s a buyer for five thousand.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Alright, and what domain on this list, Dave, did you look at and you’re like, “that one’s just not going to move. He needs to drop that one”?

Dave Evanson: Well I think Shane hit…hit those right, I…I also have a big problem with the two Grays, Gray spelled both ways. So those would be the first ones I’d pick.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Alright, thanks, Dave. Drew, let’s go over to you. What do you like on Jose’s list and why?

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, so, I don’t love much, you know? I…I kind of feel like looking forward in the domain market the cream is going to rise to the top and there’s going to be an enormous pool underneath that of, you know, sort of second class domains, and that’s going to be a mix of .coms that are too long or too difficult to spell. That’s going to be a mix of new gTLDs, country codes, and just everything else. It’s just going to be a lot of noise out there, and so that is not a market that I as an investor want to play in because it’s just going to be…there’s too many options. How do you negotiate with somebody and say, “look, I want five thousand dollars for jazziness.com,” and they’re like, “well I’ll just buy JazzyLy, the jazzy.ly for the same five thousand dollars, and you’re like…well how do you argue against that, you know? It’s like, if you don’t have something that is irreplaceable then you have no leverage to negotiate, and so you’re going to get lucky with some but then it’s a numbers game and then you need to have, like, you know, a million names like…like, like huge domains. You need to be…if you’re going to make it a numbers game, you need to have volume to…to get your numbers. So, you know, quite frankly, more and more, I like these types of names less and less. But that being said, I mean, I still…I still buy some, although, I’ve, you know, I don’t necessarily love any of these to the extent that I would buy them, except GiftGenie. I agree with Dave, I like Genie names. People like magic. Magic speaks to people, people, you know, love things to happen magically without having to do anything.

Michael Cyger: But are you saying that like, new…newer investors, they can’t buy…that they shouldn’t invest in domains like this and they should be spending thirty five thousand dollars on domains like happiness.com?

Andrew Rosener: Absolutely. —— right. Yeah, you know…

Michael Cyger: Well, but they don’t have thirty five thousand dollars, so where do they start?

Andrew Rosener: I’ll tell you…no, of course…of course, but there are great names every day on Sedo, on NameJet. I mean, look, okay, let’s just…if I pop into my auctions that are ending today, you know, on NameJet…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …You know, you’ve got some great four letter .coms in there…

Michael Cyger: So you go for liquidity and the four letter .coms. What else?

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, you’ve got things like…

Michael Cyger: But those are going to sell for…those are going to sell for fifteen hundred bucks.

Andrew Rosener: Biorenewables.com for seventy dollars and it’s going to end in two hours at seventy bucks. Like, biorenewables.com, you’ve got three character .coms, like M30, you’ve got…I don’t know, it’s interesting names…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: You just got to be patient and wait, and there’s interesting names, good opportunities…but anyways, you know, directly talking about his names…

Michael Cyger: Alright, let me come back.

Andrew Rosener: …I like the Genie names, alright? Those are keepers…those are great names, hopefully he got them cheap, because, you know, again, it’s a numbers game so there might be…there might have been, you know, four really good sales of a name that had a Genie on it, right? So there’s BeerGenie, but there’s also CoolerGenie, AutoGenie, HatGenie, SunglassesGenie, you know? So there’s a bazillion options, right? So you might be the lucky one that gets the genie sale, maybe not. But if you own it for sixty bucks then, you know, you can…you can take that chance.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: There’s really nothing else on here I like.

Michael Cyger: Alright, let me ask you a couple…

Andrew Rosener: Cannabic, I guess if that actually does mean cannabis in some weird antiquated…

Shane Cultra: Gaelic language.

Andrew Rosener: Then I mean it certainly has value.

Michael Cyger: Would you buy it, if you saw it on NameJet? Would you buy cannabic.com? Because you invest in these types of domain names?

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, sure I would, but for like two hundred and fifty dollars or less.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Alright. Rhomb.us, Rhomb.us…there’s a hack on the list called Rhomb.us, you know the, it’ like a four sided…at an angle? Anyways, there’s two trademarks for the word rhombus. Does a domain hack become valuable because it has multiple companies that are using that domain name that have a trademark?

Andrew Rosener: Sure, I mean, you know, value implies demand, you know? I think it’s more like a lottery ticket, like, it might have value, those people might come knocking some day. I’ll take a perfect story here, okay…so, our friend Dave Evanson here sold, I’m not going to say a price, but he sold the domain name bhang.com for us. But it’s…it’s not bang like…like sexually implicit, Bhang, B.H.A.N.G., okay? So, Dave sold that for us and we also have the…we had…we had two buyers. So Dave ended up having a buyer who ended up paying more and they ended up getting the name. We had another buyer who was interested whose actually… corporation was actually called Bhang, and they missed the boat, they didn’t want to pay. Dave’s…Dave’s buyer paid. But we have another buyer…

Shane Cultra: Or is it the broker? That’s why, ladies and gentleman…this is why he is Broker of the Year.

Michael Cyger: Should we say any more? Right, back to the story…

Andrew Rosener: So, the other buyer who missed the boat on bhang.com, we offered them, “well, hey, you know, you can have the runner up prize. We’ve got bha.ng.” And we offered that to them for five thousand dollars which is, you know, a very, very small fraction of…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …What we got for the .com. And they were like, “we wouldn’t even pay you a dollar for that domain name,” you know? “We have zero interest in that domain name.”

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: So, you know, I…I…just because it’s a match, ninety nine point nine percent of the time the world doesn’t know what a domain hack is.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: Doesn’t care…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …Would be more confused…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …By owning it. Wouldn’t even know how to set up an email on it…

Michael Cyger: Yup.

Andrew Rosener: Would always just be putting .com on the end of it anyways…

Michael Cyger: Alright.

Andrew Rosener: So, you know…

Michael Cyger: Alright.

Andrew Rosener: I’m not going to say no…it’s worth keeping, but it’s a lottery ticket.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: It’s a one in thirty six million lottery ticket.

Michael Cyger: Yup. Drew, what do you think about Jazziness? Do you like that one as a brandable? Because…

Andrew Rosener: No.

Michael Cyger: No.

Andrew Rosener: I think, like, would I buy it? No.

Michael Cyger: Why wouldn’t you buy it? Give me one reason.

Andrew Rosener: Why? Because every single day I probably deal with three hundred people who are looking for a domain name, and not one of them has ever come looking for a domain like jazziness.com, you know? It’s just, like, “hey, you know, but I’m a startup and I’m starting a new company and, you know, and I’m looking for a domain that has to do with jazz or music or something cool,” you know, “and I’m like, “oh, how about jazziness.com”? They’re going to be like “yeah, you don’t know what the —- you’re talking about. I’m going to go talk to Sedo.” Right? So, you know, it’s just nobody would be like…nobody would hear jazziness.com and be like, “oh, yeah, sure, I’ll pay you twenty five hundred or five grand for that domain.”

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: No. No.

Michael Cyger: Alright, last question for you, Drew. There’s a one word dictionary word on here: foretell.com. To foretell means to predict the future so I…this is a concept that I try and drive into students in DNAcademy is that there are plenty of great words out there and then there are plenty of replacement words for that great word that, if you’re just looking at a dictionary definition, they make perfect sense, but may not necessarily have any value. Can we all agree that predict.com is a high value domain name?

Andrew Rosener: Predict?

Michael Cyger: Yeah, if you own predict.com.

Dave Evanson: Yeah, it is absolutely. Sure.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. What is that, like, five, six figures, somewhere? High five, low six, somewhere in there?

Dave Evanson: Six.

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, six figures.

Dave Evanson: Six.

Andrew Rosener: Predict…predictive technology, man.

Michael Cyger: Right.

Andrew Rosener: That’s…that’s one of the cornerstones of AI, right? I mean…

Michael Cyger: Right, but foretell.com, which is another word for predict…what’s the value of foretell.com?

Andrew Rosener: Four thousand to five thousand dollars.

Dave Evanson: Yeah, four figures probably, maybe five.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, maybe five? So you might be able to get ten thousand dollars, Dave, for foretell.com?

Dave Evanson: Maybe, but I think Drew’s right, it’s more like five but you could get ten.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Alright, so you know, it’s definitely a domain name that if you can buy low enough it’s worth keeping but you know, we need to understand that certain words are better. Certain words are used more than other types of words. Definitely one that he should keep, Drew?

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, no, no, no…it’s a one word .com. I mean, it’s worth keeping…doesn’t mean that it has tremendous value but you don’t let it expire. I mean, it’s going to cost you, you know, nine bucks a year to keep it, just keep it.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: Keep it. You know, if you can move it, move it, but you don’t let it expire.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: An offer comes in at, you know, a thousand dollars or more…there’s not going to be a lot of buyers lined up.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Estibot value on foretell.com is eighty one hundred dollars.

Andrew Rosener: It’s also just a problem with the spelling, man. I…I actually thought that that was typo…and saw that it was the word. I would have spelled that very differently. I would have just said F.O.R.T.E.L., one L.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: Or even eliminated the E after the R., you know? Just, I don’t know, it doesn’t look right.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, it’s the right spelling. What were you saying, Dave?

Dave Evanson: I’m just going to say that a perfect buyer might be a mind reader, a medium you know? If not, predict is much better for business purposes. It’s a lot more valuable name but somebody setting up a…a card reading or a mind reading business, five thousand dollars and that could be a very well spent amount of money for that name.

Andrew Rosener: Yup.

Michael Cyger: Well, and so, I just went to Trademark247 because I like to see how many trademarks are in commercial use. Companies wanted to pay a few hundred bucks to…to use that word all to themselves in a specific industrial class. There’s three trademarks. There’s alcoholic beverages, there’s consulting services, and then there’s like aerosol freshener something or other. That’s not bad, right? Like, that indicates that there are probably more companies using the word foretell in their business.

Shane Cultra: Sure, yeah, I mean, somebody’s going to use that. It’s a word we know. It’s a dictionary word.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Alright, Jose, thanks for submitting your portfolio and making a donation to cancer research. We hope this review has been helpful to you in your domain investing and figuring out your portfolio activities going forward. Before we jump into the domains going to auction soon I want to tell you about our three other sponsors of DomainSherpa.

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Michael Cyger: Alright, we’re going to move into the Marketplace List. This segment is sponsored by NameJet. We’ll be reviewing fifteen No Reserve or Reverse Met domain names heading to auction soon. If you like one of the names below, click through soon, because once they go to auction you lose your chance to put in a minimum bid and be a part of the auction or even just watch the results. Of course, they can always go to dsad.com because you guys cover most of the results there too. The links below go directly to NameJet. They’re not commissionable links…they just want to see what kind of traffic we’re sending them. The list starts with a 5N .com, 98918.com, and it ends with winebar.com. For transparency purposes I always ask if any of the domains below are owned or brokered by any of the Sherpas?

Andrew Rosener: Nope.

Dave Evanson: No.

Michael Cyger: I don’t think so.

Andrew Rosener: No, I don’t think so.

Michael Cyger: This segment we’re going to go Dave, then Drew, then Shane. Dave, let’s start with you this round. From an investment perspective, and…and from a newer investor perspective, what do you like on the NameJet list and why?

Dave Evanson: I really like FraudReports. Credit reports is a much broader category. Creditreports.com is huge and the business or credit scoring and credit reports is huge. Fraud is a multi, multi, I believe it’s trillions now. I know from back in the day there were…there was like a twenty billion credit card loan fraud, so you know, fraud reports would be a great business to start up to be done over the net, wouldn’t take a lot of investment I don’t think…there’s no drop shipping or shipping, no fee subscription, it’s a great one. I think it’s worth…it probably wouldn’t…I think it’s worth a lot more than it would sell for. You were asking for prices as well?

Michael Cyger: Well, yeah, so that’s the thing, right? We don’t know what the wholesale value…what it’s going to sell for on NameJet but if you had to put a retail price on it, what do you think the retail price would be?

Dave Evanson: I think a large bank or a large company that protects should be willing to pay twenty five thousand without blinking…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Dave Evanson: …Blinking an eye.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, and of course consumer reports made the something reports, like…it’s like a well known brand, something that…I think I’ve heard of Fraud Reports…

Dave Evanson: Yeah.

Michael Cyger: Only because consumer reports…

Dave Evanson: Yeah.

Michael Cyger: …Is such a big brand.

Dave Evanson: Yeah, it’s actually…I actually consulted for Consumer Reports for nine years.

Michael Cyger: Oh wow.

Dave Evanson: It’s a…yeah, Consumer Reports helping them bring their publication online. It’s now the largest subscription based on the net.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Dave Evanson: They went with consumerreports.org. but they do a lot of work in the fraud area. I like…I like a lot of these actually. I like LandInvesting, maybe that’s not the term that we know, but as an example, property is a term that used a lot more in say Australia and the U.K. than it is in the U.S. so land is probably a term used more so over here, and it’s actually a very good word. That might be, you know, ten, twelve thousand dollars. I likereader.net because reader.com would be so valuable, you know, I think a .net is usually worth somewhere around ten percent of a .com. Reader.net I think is probably worth around twenty, twenty five thousand.

Michael Cyger: And if I came to you with reader.net would you actually take that one on, Dave, or is that below your minimum threshold for representing a buyer?

Dave Evanson: Well, for me…for me I would actually not take it on, but we have thirty plus brokers and quite a few that would be very happy to take it on, quite a few good ones.

Michael Cyger: And are .nets still selling today?

Dave Evanson: The good ones are, you know? When…when there’s a strong case for the .com or the .coms sold even more than its worth, the .net is being used in such a way that it can mean network, as an example, or it can mean internet, I think it’s worth more. You know, they’re certainly not selling like .coms and they’re not growing like the new gTLD, Mike…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Dave Evanson: …But they’re selling.

Michael Cyger: So in a best case scenario reader.net could bring in 20, 25k?

Dave Evanson: I think so.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Alright.

Dave Evanson: I…I also like one other…winebar. It’s a nice one to…you know, I’m actually currently brokering wines.com and both wine.com and wines.com sold for seven figures. Now I’m brokering wines right now, wines.com. So, you know, we’re looking for seven figures. Winebar, well certainly not worth seven figures but it’s worth…it’ll sell for five figures depending upon what you want to do with it. You can get into the wine business.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, but what would you use…what would you use Winebar…if you owned a physical establishment you wouldn’t call it Winebar.

Dave Evanson: No, no, no.

Michael Cyger: Shane’s talked about that before.

Dave Evanson: No, I’m thinking more about ecommerce.

Michael Cyger: Gotcha.

Dave Evanson: A lot of money made on the internet selling wine.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Dave Evanson: Even though you can’t go into every single state.

Michael Cyger: Yup.

Dave Evanson: It’s still a lot of money.

Michael Cyger: Yup, definitely.

Dave Evanson: And I think that’s a pretty good name.

Michael Cyger: So winebar.com, you think retail could be five figures but is that high five figure, mid, low? Let’s throw a price on there.

Dave Evanson: Lower…maybe twenty, thirty, maybe.

Michael Cyger: 20 to 30k, somewhere in there. Retail. Okay. Thanks, Dave. Drew, let’s go over to you. What do you like on the NameJet list and why?

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, I think we kind of covered everything that I like.

Michael Cyger: Dave mentioned four. You like those four too?

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, so, well there’s a couple others. Yeah, Winebar, I think is probably my favorite. I agree it’s a twenty five thousand dollar domain, just because you’re limited to some, you know…you’ve got to hope it’s like a franchise, or maybe there’s a product called Winebar, but you have these, like, wine dispensers that are in, you know, high volume restaurants and bars.

Michael Cyger: Yup.

Andrew Rosener: For like the auto pour glass of wine, so, you know, it’s always the same pour.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: I don’t know, something like that.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: It would be…it would be something ecommerce like Dave said. I like reader.net also. I’ve said it before. I…I, you know, in a world where everyone’s getting, you know, at least paying attention, whether they like it or they don’t like it…a lot of people, a lot of attention is being focused on new gTLDs and I think that it’s silly to think a .net should just be forgotten about, right? Like, I…because of the amount of penetration and that has globally with consumers, like, you’re absolutely silly if you think that a .web is better, or a .co is better, or .club is better, you know? A .net is better all day, every day in most cases, not every case, but in most cases, where…where you’re…basically in every single case almost where you’re looking for an alternative to .com….where you’re not specifically targeting a specific gTLD for a specific purpose…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …You’re just looking for an alternative to the .com. You know, .net is…is nine point nine times out of ten a better option than any of the new gTLDs so I…I think really, really strong .nets are a good buy, but I think…

Michael Cyger: But it’s not as hip, Drew. It’s not as hip as, like, you know, I don’t know, reader dot.

Andrew Rosener: Look, man, I’ve said it before, when I was in the fish business, I learned there’s money to be made in the gutter, you know? You don’t have to be selling the best of the best or the hippest of the hip, you know? There’s a lot of money to be made selling the stuff that, you know…a niche…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …A little out of trend but still holds value.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: So, I’m not going to say you should be paying huge money for it, but that, you know, that’s a good name right there.

Michael Cyger: Alright, and…and, you know…

Andrew Rosener: And I like the other one…the other one I like it TruView. I haven’t checked to see if…well, actually there’s two. TruView is a good name. I think I could see that being a really strong brand. I think it suits a lot of different purposes, a lot of different categories, you know? I don’t like it because it doesn’t pass the radio test but True is spelled wrong, but there’s a lot of precedent for people spelling their company name with just T.R.U. instead of T.R.U.E.

Michael Cyger: Well, like, every single domain on BrandBucket doesn’t pass the radio test either. People are buying them, though.

Andrew Rosener: Yeah. Yeah.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: Well, again, remember, it’s a numbers game.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: It’s a numbers game. So, good for BrandBucket, not necessarily for a guy that owns the hundred thousand domains and gets excited because he sold one number on BrandBucket, right?

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Yeah. Alright.

Andrew Rosener: One good sale doesn’t maketh a good portfolio.

Michael Cyger: That is true. So you like Winebar, reader.net, TruView. Anything on the list that, like, struck you as, like, “that is not a good investment, I’ve made that mistake before”?

Andrew Rosener: Well, so, the other one I like is gozi.com, you know, for like…

Michael Cyger: Okay.

Andrew Rosener: …Obvious reasons. It’s a CVCV, pronounceable, you know? Great name.

Michael Cyger: G.O.Z.I. .com.

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Any time you can pick up an easily pronounceable four letter .com…I don’t care if it’s a CVCV, a CVVC…if it’s easily pronounceable…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …Just good price, buy it. Great, great investments.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: What do I not like? You know, I think all of the names on here are fairly, reasonably, you know, okay to own. I think if there’s one to get rid of it’s UnifyApp, unifyapp.com. Like, what…what are you going to do with UnifyApp? There are companies that have been sort of using…they can’t get the .com, they say app. But that trend is also kind of behind us. They say getunified.com, or hellounify.com, or unify…

Michael Cyger: GoUnify.

Andrew Rosener: Or GoUnify, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s kind of more the trend now, and so if you’re competing against five, you know, alternatives of GoUnify, you know, GetUnify, .unify, UnifyOnline, whatever, and now you’ve got Google will come out with the .app and you’ll have unify.app, right? And I just think there’s too much, and again, there’s too much noise, and why do you want to play in a room where you’re competing against other people for such low…for such low, you know, it’s a race to the bottom. It’s like, “who’s going to be the cheapest one”? You’ve got like, six alternatives to UnifyApp and, you know, the highest price is twenty five hundred dollars, and the lowest price is probably some guy willing to take a hundred dollars, you know? Why do you want to try and compete there?

Michael Cyger: Because .app is going to come out. There’s a ton of software companies, repositories on GetHub, users who use unify as their brand software name, whatever. And so eventually with the Google hype they’re going to buy unify.app because they’re creating apps for an app economy, and they’re going to want this as a defensive registration because people are still typing in unifyapp.com.

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, but you know what? Here’s the thing. So, somebody types in unifyapp.com and they don’t find UnifyApp which is, like, whatever it might be…coffee delivery, you know?

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: And so, they’re like, “oh, I can’t find my coffee on unifyapp.com.” They just —-ing go to Google and they Google it and they find you, you know? Like, it’s…it’s not, you know? It’s…if your business isn’t… you’re not operating online, then, you know, that…that’s sort of, you know, I…I think the only critical element of that equation is email security. I think that there’s an argument to be made for, well, if you’re getting emails sent to unifyapp.com as opposed to unify.app or gotunify.com or whatever the hell it might be, you know, then, okay, but, you know, again. I don’t even know that .app is the best alternative, you know, in a world where trend is dot. Unify.com, getunify.com, gounify.com, you know, whatever it might be….HelloUnify, you know?

Shane Cultra: unify.io.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, it’s just, yeah, man…it’s, again, it’s like, I…I’m not even —-ting on this particular domain. It’s just like…

Michael Cyger: Right, we’re talking about, you know, we’re talking about this domain but we’re talking about a practice, you know? A tactic that people need to understand.

Andrew Rosener: It could be Omego app. It could be Amazon app. It can be some of the greatest keywords on earth, and I’m not saying none of them are worth something…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …But it’s not worth spending your time on that niche of, oh, anything ending with app, somebody’s going to buy. Well yeah, you buy a hundred thousand of them, you sell five, and I hope that pays your renewal bill…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …You know? There’s just too many other alternatives for these people. And if they’re going with a —-ty domain name to begin with they obviously don’t have a budget, right?

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: So, you’re just competing for very, very few dollars.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, totally. Alright, thanks, Drew. Shane, let me go over to you and start with this question. Neither Dave nor Drew have mentioned floridapools.com. I think every single pool in Florida or the neighbor has a pool. Is that a good brand for a company to have, and, is it a good investment opportunity?

Shane Cultra: Yeah, I…I call those my marketing names. When…when people…like, if there’s a…you know…everybody has a pool and you’re driving by and the guy’s name is like Maraschino and Sons Pool Company, they’re not going to be able to put that up on a company billboard, on the side of their trucks, or anywhere that anybody’s going to remember it. But if they put Florida Pools on the side of their truck absolutely people are going to remember that name. That’s where those names are very handy. Are they going to pay a ton for it? Probably not, it’s not a game changer. But as far as a marketing strategy, I…when I give talks to people when I’m helping them build, we do that all the time. You pick your product, pick what you’re selling, and people will remember that. That’s all you’re trying to do and Florida Pools is perfect for that. It’s even better than Florida Pool…pools…Florida Pool is no good…you want…you want plural, and so if I’m a pool company I’m spending ten grand on that because I’m…I’m going to sell a couple extra pools because of that versus Maraschino and Sons dot whatever, biz, that’s on the side of a…a truck. So I like that. I’ll think you’ll get it cheap. I feel like it’s been up for sale at like NameJet for three years straight though. I…I do the list every day and I know I’ve seen Florida Pools a bunch so…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: …But yeah, I’d buy it. I’d buy it for, you know, I’d probably even…get a grand into it and feel comfortable that I could…I’m not going to make a fortune off of it…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: …But I could…I could go to a pool company and say, you know, “you’ve got a —-ty web address. Let’s put this on the side of your truck. All you’ve got to do is put one piece of vinyl and I guarantee you’ll sell another pool or, you know, let me take your leads and then give me some of that money and I’ll use Florida Pools. So, yeah, I…I check that one…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: We didn’t talk about the numeric, the 98918. Whether you like them or not it’s going to sell for over twenty five hundred dollars, so if that’s your game, I…I’m, you know, not playing that as much anymore. There’s too many other opportunities right now, but I do have that checked because it’s going to be one that…on this whole list it’s going to sell for one of the top amounts.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: Gozi, you know, it’s got the most bids of all the names we’re looking at…CVCV. It’s a great investment. I will say I don’t sell them as well. I was really into it for five or six years and Francois, the .com had as many as anybody and we bought them and sold them, him and I, but they…they didn’t get as many offers as you think for some reason. I’m not sure why. I thought people would be all over them but they sell. Man, they’ve got great liquidity. Man, if you need to get some money and you throw a CVCV at any domain investor and they’re going to give you something for it immediately, so…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: You know, I think liquidity is good. I had Winebar of course. That’s another one that I really liked. And I don’t like LandInvesting. I hate I.N.G. verbs. I feel like it’s something we do as we’re talking. I mean, Land Investing is a group that we get together and we talk about our investing of land. I don’t see that on a sign that I’m going to remember. If I’m driving at fifty mile an hour and I see something for sale, and I see Land Investing, I’m going to struggle with that I think. I mean, it’s not terrible. But the I.N.G., the present tense verb or doing verb, I…I just don’t like nearly as much. I do think…and I’m probably going to go to the grave with him…I do think reader.net is a good opportunity to buy. But Drew and I seem to be the only ones saying it and nobody else is buying. But I do think .net, compared to .web…I do think .net is value, I really do. It’s just, you’re not selling enough to make it any value so I don’t have the patience to hand onto it but if I’m a business I would definitely go .net. I mean, people remember. Every email…I get an email list at the nursery. I can’t believe how many spcglobal.net endings on emails. If they think that’s good enough for millions of people to give out as an email address then somebody’s thinking .net is worthwhile. But I know when everybody gives it to me it’s .net…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: …They make sure because .net is, you know, it’s not quite…but people know .net. Every person knows .net.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: And .web is going to take a lot longer than all these other ones will. So if I take a…if I have to spend a hundred dollars I go .net all day. LongIslandWebDesign, I can’t believe Drew said that one is okay. I’d have to print it bigger because I wear glasses. It’s already across my page, it’s so — long.

Michael Cyger: So it’s too long?

Shane Cultra: Too long. There’s got to be…I mean, there’s got to be something else you can find shorter than that. Come on. I didn’t even look to see if it’s got a bid but my guess is it doesn’t have a bid and won’t, so, just a guess. Oh, you said it has a bid in Met Reserve, right?

Michael Cyger: It could be No Reserves and I just picked it.

Shane Cultra: Oh. Yeah.

Michael Cyger: Okay.

Shane Cultra: Okay, well I don’t think it sells.

Michael Cyger: So…so that’s my question. That’s why I put it on the list. That one and SanfranciscoProperties. These are long domain names. Are companies actually going to…and they’re keyword domain names, sort of fallen out of favor a little bit, but the question to you guys was, like, if you weren’t going to say these domain names were worth investing in, why are they not investing…investable?

Shane Cultra: Yeah, I couldn’t tell somebody to put that…yeah, I mean, you’re going to have to redesign your sign around your logo…your website name because it’s so long. Yeah, no.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: And then your alternative is if you’re selling it to get sfproperties.com. and there’s other alternatives…

Michael Cyger: Right.

Shane Cultra: …To that. So, I didn’t like that at all. I do like TruView. I see a lot of…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: …Just like Drew said, of value. Is it worth a ton of money? No. Would I want to own the U…or E, yeah, you probably want to own that too.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: But those are all the ones I like, and…

Michael Cyger: Cool

Shane Cultra: Yeah. The apps, same thing…people…this app thing drives me crazy. Apps are apps. When I search for an app I go on the app store. When I…or I’ll go to a review site on different apps. I’m not…I don’t go to their website. I can’t tell you the last time I went to an app’s website to learn more about the app. I just go on the frickin Apple app and I read through it and I read the reviews and I look at other people. That’s how I look for apps but maybe other people…maybe I’m just an old man so I do it a little different.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, I do think you do do it a little different.

Dave Evanson: If he’s an old man I’m already dead.

Shane Cultra: He doesn’t even know what an app is.

Michael Cyger: Hey, in Dave’s defense, I just saw an infographic yesterday…and in my defense…and fifty percent, forty nine percent of all people with a smartphone do not install any apps per month.

Shane Cultra: None?

Michael Cyger: None. Zero. And, you know, if I had to think of the last time I…I installed an app on my iPhone, yeah.

Andrew Rosener: I don’t install any apps.

Shane Cultra: No, I hate apps.

Michael Cyger: Oh, Snapchat…because I want to be cool with my daughter.

Shane Cultra: You have Pandora.

Andrew Rosener: I got, wow man, I got communication…my communications…Snapchat…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: Messenger…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: Yeah, I don’t have any…I don’t have any…the, you know…

Andrew Rosener: I want to just throw out a comment about the FloridaPools because I actually think that’s a —- domain.

Michael Cyger: Let’s do it.

Shane Cultra: That’s what it’s for.

Andrew Rosener: Well, so…so, nobody…if so…so, my first company, actually was…we…we literally started because we built a piece of software for a pool service companies and our client was the largest pool company…pool servicing company in Long Island, and, you know, if I told this guy, you know, “look, Steve, you should buy newyorkpools.com,” he would have been like, “what the —- am I going to do with New York Pools? I’m not going to service some guy in Buffalo’s pool.” Right? And so, if this is Florida Pools, like, you’ve got some guy that does a bazillion areas in Miami and probably makes eight figures a year. Florida Pools doesn’t do him a —— thing. Like, he doesn’t want to serve the guy in Tallahassee or the guy in Orlando, like, doesn’t do him any good, you know?

Shane Cultra: But his van’s not in Tallahassee…

Andrew Rosener: It has…it has some value as a marketing tool but very, very little. And I don’t think…

Michael Cyger: So you don’t think it’s worth ten thousand dollars.

Andrew Rosener: …And just knowing that particular industy…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: I just don’t see those people paying. I don’t…

Shane Cultra: What did he go with that was so much better?

Andrew Rosener: I don’t actually remember what he went with.

Shane Cultra: But if you remembered…

Andrew Rosener: We barely…we…nobody even really used the internet at that time. That was like before dot…that…that was like, yeah, a long time ago.

Michael Cyger: So what do you think floridapools.com’s retail value is if you don’t think it’s worth 10k?

Andrew Rosener: 2k, two five, something like that. But…so, I think that, like, that’s the value, but I think it’s a tough sell. It’s a tough thing. So you pick up the yellow pages and you call a hundred Florida pool companies…

Shane Cultra: Okay, I’m ending the discussion because he said “pick up the yellow pages.”

Andrew Rosener: No, but yeah, you call a hundred Florida pool companies and you’ll find somebody who will pay you twenty five hundred dollars but, like, you know, is that worth calling a hundred pool companies?

Michael Cyger: Dude…

Andrew Rosener: Not for me.

Michael Cyger: Half a year ago you’re like, “when I got into this business, I’d make a hundred phone calls a day just to get one maybe so I could close them.”

Andrew Rosener: Well, okay, so yeah, that’s true.

Michael Cyger: So you’re buying domains like Happiness now and you’re not hustling.

Andrew Rosener: So, yes, so, okay…so to the right guy. But you’ve got to remember, like, we’re talking about a domain that’s going to sell on NameJet, okay? It’s not going to sell for nine dollars.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: If you were hand registered or bought for sixty nine dollars…you buy FloridaPools for sixty nine dollars, yes, you can make money.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: And if you put in the work you’ll make that two hundred seventy thousand dollars, but you’re not going to get it for that. You’re going to end up paying…some buddy is going to end up having some allusion that this is a good domain and you’re probably going to pay somewhere between five hundred and fifteen hundred dollars for this domain on NameJet.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: And, then, you know, if you’re not that guy, now you’re going to try to put in that work to make five hundred dollars or a thousand dollars and you’ve put at risk…because it’s not just about the upside…you’ve put at risk five hundred to fifteen hundred,so…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: You’re upside is almost equal to your downside. To me that’s a push?

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: You know, why bother?

Michael Cyger: Exactly. Yeah, even if you bought it for a thousand and you sell it for two thousand. We’re in the game to make higher margins than just that thousand.

Andrew Rosener: It’s a numbers game.

Michael Cyger: That’s a lot of money at risk.

Andrew Rosener: You’ve got to be making…you’ve got to be making multiples because you’re only going to sell a certain number of the domains you own.

Michael Cyger: Right.

Andrew Rosener: Especially if you’re dealing in lower level domain like this.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Yup. Alright, we’re going to find out what it sells for and then whoever buys that…come back and tell me what you sold it for later on.

Shane Cultra: Ouch.

Andrew Rosener: Wait, look. I hope somebody proves me wrong. I hope somebody, you know, hits a grand slam on it and, you know…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …That’s just my take on it, my two cents.

Michael Cyger: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Shane Cultra: I’m thinking I’m buying it now just for the fun of it. That would make for a good show.

Michael Cyger: I know, usually I’m worried about prices and bids on these domains going too high. Drew just brought it down. Now I might have a shot at it.

Shane Cultra: I wasn’t really interested in buying it but now I…I love challenges. I’m just…I’m going to take a week off of the nursery and just call every —— long name pool manufacturer and try and convince them.

Michael Cyger: Alright, we’re at the end of today’s show. I’d like to give my Sherpas an opportunity to share anything that they want about names they’re brokering, selling, deals they’re offering, opportunities they’re looking for, anyone they want to give a shout-out to. Let’s start with you, Drew.

Andrew Rosener: We have got some absolutely bonkers domain names for sale right now. I think truly my number one favorite domain that we have ever had under brokerage: galaxy.com. I…I just think that that is, like…could be the next Amazon. I mean, obviously you’ve got the Samsung Galaxy. A little bit of history: galaxy.com used to be…galaxy.com was the first search engine on the web, period…before Google existed, before GoTo or anybody else, there was Galaxy. It was the first semantics search, you know, it was kind of a closed wall, a closed garden, but it was…it was the first sort of semantics search on the web. So, very, very excited to broker galaxy.com. I…I…I just love the name.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: We’ve also got…we’ve got heart.com, we’ve got jl.com, we’ve got ct.com, single.com, we’ve got stockphotos.com, priced to sell I might add. We’ve got omen, O.M.E.N. .com, another great name…lease.com. Another really fun name that we are brokering is dingdong.com. Dingdong.com. I just…I…I get a kick out of it. Dingdong.com…

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: …Like, it gets a lot of love. It gets a lot of love.

Michael Cyger: What about…

Andrew Rosener: So anyways…

Michael Cyger: What about reaching out to John Yow, a past Sherpa, about buying stockphotos.com since he owns stockphoto.com?

Andrew Rosener: Yeah, I think…I think we will.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Andrew Rosener: We will. Yeah.

Michael Cyger: Alright. You’ve got a heck of a lot of good domains there, Drew. Clearly the dust didn’t settle on you in Germany.

Andrew Rosener: Come check us out on mediaoptions.com and see what we’ve got for sale. We’ve got a lot of new inventory for sale.

Michael Cyger: Alright, awesome. Thanks, Drew. Dave, anything going on? Anyone you want to give a shout-out to? Domains…brokerage?

Dave Evanson: We’ve got a long list of fantastic names as well. First I want to mention though…they weren’t with me at the conference, but five brokers at Sedo who I consider to be very…very much top brokers I would say over there…some people may know some of them…Albert Shimmel, Negar (I hope I said that right, if I didn’t, I’m sorry, Negar), Brian Sheety, Frank Tillmans, and Mark Stepian. I work closely with these folks and they’re really top…top talent in the buying and selling all kinds of great names. Three names that I’m working on, I’m pretty excited about…one I announced today, and it’s domainname.com.

Michael Cyger: Wow.

Dave Evanson: Domainname.com.

Michael Cyger: Domainname.com.

Dave Evanson: Yeah, so, that one I’m pretty excited about. I think it’s a category defining premium domain name that someone in the business, you know, a key player, or someone who wants to get into the business gets right away. You know, we’re looking for two and a half million, but it just started today.

Michael Cyger: Wow.

Dave Evanson: I also like call.com.

Michael Cyger: Oh, yeah.

Dave Evanson: Give me a call. And, motel.com. I forget, we talked earlier about the…the domain conference last weekend in Florida. Our CEO, Tia Slates, was there with one of our keynotes, and I can honestly say…I thought it was great. I can honestly say that after this keynote you get on a plane and go back to Germany for another conference but several people came up to me and really thought that his comments were informative. I think actually, Michael, you were one of them.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Tobias did give a great keynote.

Dave Evanson: Yeah, informative, clear, and quite sincere.

Michael Cyger: Yeah. Definitely.

Dave Evanson: It was a good…it was a good…good session. It was a good conference and a great keynote.

Michael Cyger: Yup. Alright, thanks, Dave. Drew, before we get to Shane, I’m going to like send you another mug because every time you open that metal jar thing it’s like clinkety clink clink, ding dong.

Dave Evanson: How’s this one?

Michael Cyger: No, Dave! Where’s your Sherpa mug?

Dave Evanson: I actually have it at the office. I’m on the road today.

Michael Cyger: Alright, I’ll have to send you another one for your home. Alright, Shane, let’s go to you, bud. Anything you want to mention, promote, give a shout-out to?

Shane Cultra: So yeah, now that we’re a little more organized we’re going to work with…you guys say…I’ve finally gotten everything with NameJet straight, and Drew’s done this before, but we’re going to do a DSAD themed auction.

Michael Cyger: Right.

Shane Cultra: And that’s…now we’re really looking for people to submit names. You were nice enough to announce it on DNAcademy. And I will say, don’t send five hundred names.

Michael Cyger: I told them to just send a handful! Three!

Shane Cultra: Yeah, it was…it was pretty rough, the emails that I got. You know, what it…what…what the opportunity is…is on NameJet, is not everybody has enough names to sell on NameJet and not everybody want…can set up an account, and we’re going to go ahead and let five, six, seven people put some names up. Two, three names that they can get an opportunity to sell on NameJet, get up for auction, and learn how to use a system and eventually they can work with NameJet and do it themselves. But we’re going to come up with an auction…put some of our names, some names from various people. I’m trying to put a good auction together that’s fairly small, fifty, sixty names. We’ll promote it, help it sell, hopefully have a hundred percent sell through rate. And, you know, they’re not going to be the quality of these two gentlemen sitting right next to me, but they’re going to be good names that I think will…people could buy and I think make money with. I’m not going to pick any names that are complete junk. But I have been sold…I can only envision what Monty must go through when he is getting names for his huge auctions that he…it’s…it’s brutal. I hope that people who…you know, again, there’s some good names in there but let’s try to find a couple names that will sell on NameJet.

Michael Cyger: So let’s narrow it down. You want less than five domains per person.

Shane Cultra: Right.

Michael Cyger: They have to be investment quality domains. So domains that people have gotten for real cheap, they just want to move. So if they get enough bid on, it could actually get into an auction, you know, a competitive auction type scenario and sell for more. So what kinds of names would those be, Shane?

Shane Cultra: Well they can be a…a good five letter .com. It is a brandable. Those are selling just fine.

Michael Cyger: Yup.

Shane Cultra: They can be a one off verb. The I.N.G. name, they’re still going to sell. It can be a good one. Four letter .coms, those are always welcome. Those are good liquid names.

Michael Cyger: Yup.

Shane Cultra: If you have a name and it’s still got a V and an I in it, it’ll still go for two hundred and fifty, three hundred dollars. And maybe they didn’t have the opportunity to use NameJet to liquidate that name, but they only had some of the other ones. So, yeah, we’re still looking for names like that, and of course we’ll use better names, and…and…any…if you have a better name that you just don’t feel like setting up the whole NameJet account because NameJet doesn’t want to set up one good name, just send it our way. We’re not…we’re not making hardly anything. This isn’t a profitable venture for us. This is just to get our brand out there and for us to put up some names and maybe offer some other people an opportunity. I can put my names up by myself.

Michael Cyger: Yup.

Shane Cultra: I don’t have to do this.

Michael Cyger: Yeah.

Shane Cultra: But let’s let some other people put up two of three names and get an opportunity to everybody wins. NameJet…but they only win if you give a name that sells. They don’t make any money if you don’t sell the name and nobody…we don’t want to waste each other’s time. But I think it could be a little fun. It’s good for our brand. Travis and Josh and Aaron, they put in a lot of hard work doing a really good job. I enjoy working with them. So it’s something we came up with…let’s put a branded auction. Media Option’s done a great job…

Andrew Rosener: Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Something you came up with. I have to…I have to…

Shane Cultra: No, no, no, no, no.

Andrew Rosener: We were the ones…

Michael Cyger: Drew came up with the idea.

Andrew Rosener: We were the first ones ever to get third party names…

Shane Cultra: Yes.

Andrew Rosener: …Aand list them though our contract with NameJet.

Shane Cultra: That is not…

Andrew Rosener: NameJet opened up, pulled their pants down, and allowed anyone who wanted to walk up and shove it in to do so. And now there’s a lot of branded auctions on NameJet, but we were the first ones to do that.

Shane Cultra: But before…but before you there were no…before us there were no private names on NameJet, so…

Andrew Rosener: No, we were allowing private names. Clients were sending us names, and we were listing clients’ names on NameJet.

Shane Cultra: No, no. Yeah, but back in the day…

Andrew Rosener: We’ve been doing that for twenty four years.

Michael Cyger: Alright, alright.

Shane Cultra: Yeah.

Michael Cyger: So he’s going to keep talking about his promotion. Are you going to give him some names, Drew? Do you want to put Happiness in there? Because I want to bid on that.

Shane Cultra: Yes, he’s going to put FloridaPools in.

Dave Evanson: He could also put Happiness app in there.

Michael Cyger: Happiness app. Yeah.

Shane Cultra: Come on. Throw…throw…throw us a bone, Drew. Pick one of your big boy names that…

Michael Cyger: Yeah, Drew. Come on.

Shane Cultra: We’re…we’re just…we’re picking up crumbs here is what we’re doing. A little DSAD team. You know, just looking out for the little guy.

Michael Cyger: And where do people send in the domains? Do they have to go to dsad.com and then go to the contact…

Shane Cultra: Up at the top there is the —-tiest submit button you will ever see. There is, in fact, we were going to make it better but it’s so bad I think you’re going to see it. No offense to…to Travis but he’s like, “I can make something real quick.” I looked at it, I go, “that is the ugliest button I have ever seen.” But yeah, you can just hit submit.

Michael Cyger: Alright.

Shane Cultra: And then it’s got a nice form.

Michael Cyger: Alright, great.

Shane Cultra: And again, you…you have to be able to sell the names. I can’t believe how many people just bought it yesterday thinking they’re going to be able to transfer it somewhere, so…

Michael Cyger: Right.

Shane Cultra: …Read the bottom of it…what it takes to sell a name on NameJet.

Michael Cyger: Alright, great.

Shane Cultra: Yup.

Michael Cyger: Alright, if you received benefit from today’s show please post a comment below and thank today’s Sherpas. They love to see your comments just like I do. Thanks to Jose Rey for submitting his portfolio and making a generation donation to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Thanks to NameJet for submitting their portfolio and sponsoring that section of the DomainSherpa Review. And thanks again to our Sherpas, Andrew Rosener, Dave Evanson, and Shane Cultra, for sharing their experience and insights with us. We’ll see you all next time.

Watch the full video at:
https://www.domainsherpa.com/Review-20160926/

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16 Responses to “DomainSherpa Review – Sept 26: Happiness.com, WMHC.com, Winebar.com…”

  1. JR says:

    Ha!

    I Though FloridaPools.com sounded familiar…..

    ( 201% )
    DomainSherpa Review – Sept 28: DGT.com, NoPrisoners.com, FloridaPools.com

    Enjoy,
    JR

  2. John says:

    Michael and all the Sherpas thanks for another great review. Like Michael said it was nice having Drew back he was missed. Congratulations on your new baby Drew… I bet he brings you and your wife great Happiness. It’s always a highlight of my Monday to watch the DomainSherpa’s review. Thank you all for sharing your time, resources and humor with the domain community. Some Killer domains in your hands.

    Best of Luck,

    John

  3. YamadaMedia says:

    Didn’t listen to the whole show but I agree with what Andrew Rosener said here.

    “My perspective is that, you know, I think reality is kicking in. You’ve got a bunch of registries that were trying to be domain investors because they’re run by domain investors…”

    The reality is that doesn’t make sense for so many reasons. The registry perspective must be, or should be, different than an investors perspective.

    “And, you know, the economics just don’t make sense. There is no demand for these things”

    Yup, even some of the extensions many thought would be popular have done extremely poorly. These new Gs will cease to exists in a few years.

    Even if the public is aware they do NOT trust new extensions.

    https://whodoyou.trust/news–events/news/2015/april/consumers-express-security-concerns-with-new-internet/

    https://whodoyou.trust/news–events/news/2016/trust-in-the-new-internet-survey-2016-discussion-paper/trust-in-the-new-internet-survey-2016-discussion-paper/

  4. Good show Sherpas. I like to see you hitting the 90 minute mark! Thanks for taking the time to bring value as usual.

  5. Saro says:

    Really great show guys, alot of funny moments!

    By the way WineBar would be an absolutely awesome name for a hip wine chilling spot… I know it would definitely fit the trend in some areas here in Montreal at least.
    (TheWineBar.com is a decently developed site).

    I agree with Drew that brandable names are a difficult business to truly make alot of money unless you own alot of them. The good part is, many are available to be found for reg fee or fairly cheap and when you sell one, it pays for so many other registrations as the ROI is often x100 or x200. Plus if you develop an “instinct” to spot name of potential while being your own harsh critic, you can find many names that others just glance over. That harshness also has to be even more present come renewal time too though too haha.

    Thanks Michael as always, it’s fun to watch Sherpa shows and always looking forward for the next one!

    Maybe one day, I don’t know if this is possible, to do a LIVE show online where the viewers/fans can send in questions live to the show to ask the Sherpas on the spot regarding the topic being discussed at that moment. :)

  6. Jon Yau says:

    Great show, guys. LOVE the banter :)

    Some amazing domains being brokered by Drew and Dave.

  7. Eric Jenkins says:

    Great show guys….Thanks

  8. albert says:

    Congratulations to Drew on the Baby and of course Happiness.com

    What a great name for almost anything, dating, baby products, and other such industries.

    WOW!!!

  9. Andy McBean says:

    Thanks for another great review guys. Really appreciate the time and effort you all out in. Congrats on the wee one Drew :)

  10. Noor Manji says:

    I remember Drew mentioning he bought essential for xxK, and the fact that the opportunity was there for anyone to grab, but he acted on it before anybody else did. Much to learn from all your shows, cant thank all you guys enough. Said it before, Drew and Shane have been giving the best advice over the years. Why all the bleeps Mike, raw talk is a lot more fun.
    Good luck with the auction Shane.

    Noor

  11. Nick says:

    Fantastic Show!

  12. brand says:

    Always enjoy the Sherpa show. Good to see Andrew Rosener again.
    Thanks to Michael Cyger for continuing to do the show, your hard work is appreciated.

  13. JD says:

    Drew, congrats on your new baby! Although baby Michael does sound great, baby Lou is awesome too! :-)

    Shane, always quick with the wit and enjoyable to watch.

    Dave, nice to see you on the show. I haven’t seen you on DS for years. Your insights are valuable as always. Congratulations on your broker of the year award!

    Michael, well done as always. I look forward to my Monday morning commute because of what you do.

    1. Mitch says:

      Same! I look forward to my Monday commute, thanks to Domain Sherpa. The portfolio review show always leaves me with a smile on my face.

      I’ve been meaning to leave a thank you for ages now!!

      So thanks Michael for continuing to produce new shows. Your energy is always inspiring. And thanks to Shane, Drew and the sherpa gang for your insights, wisdom and humour.

  14. Michael says:

    Like Cyger said, it is my understanding that they’ll still be premium priced. So this change is just about reach, not about business model.

    If they try to sell Whatever.xyz for $10k through North Sound they might have a 0.5% change of selling it, but if they give it back to the registry and make it available through their registrar partners at the same price, they might have a 1% chance of selling it.

    Add in the fact that they can stop paying $0.25 to ICANN per domain and it is a no-brainer. They didn’t do this from the start because they didn’t have enough registrar partners at launch to make it effective as I understand it.

    It’s not like they’re going from the boutique model as Frank likes to say to a wholesale model. They’re just making a move to increase distribution. This is not “proof” that holding a portfolio of new gTLDs doesn’t make sense, even at $0.25 renewals. And they aren’t walking away from playing domainer unfortunately. Just selling through a bigger channel.

    I still think they’re making a mistake with this model, and I think new gTLDs that are premium priced are bad investments for domainers (except for the top 1% of names). Just saying I don’t think this latest news says anything at all about the success or failure of the program.

  15. Drew and I had a disagreement a long time ago but he is a very smart guy and I enjoy listening to his opinions.
    Shane ,thanks for Seabolt D

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