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$146,000 Gross Profit in 3 Months: Lucky Sale or Perfectly Researched? With Richard Dynas

Richard Dynas did his research and purchased a domain name for 40 percent of what he thought was a realistic retail sales price.

But after a couple of failed attempts to sell the domain name, he focused his energy on outbound marketing, and – with a little bit of luck – he found the “highest and best use case” business for his domain name.

By focusing on outbound marketing, Dynas maximized his return: a cool $146,000 on a $4,000 investment.

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About the Interviewee

Richard Dynas
Richard Dynas
Richard Dynas is a domain name investor.

Dynas has also held multiple management positions including service desk manager, IT services manager, customer service manager and call center manager. He is a graduate of Medaille College with a BA in business and managerial economics.

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https://www.domainsherpa.com/richard-dynas-hatred-flip/

MICHAEL CYGER: On today’s Profitable Flip show, after multiple failed attempts at selling hatred.com, Richard Dynas makes a massive sale and generates a $146,000 gross profit in less than 3 months. Stay tuned to hear all the details!

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MICHAEL CYGER: Hey, Sherpa Network! Thank you so much for joining me today. My name is Michael Cyger, and I’m the publisher of DomainSherpa.com, the website where you can learn how to become a successful domain name investor or entrepreneur directly from the experts. This is the DomainSherpa show called “Profitable Flips.” In this series I invite domain name investors to share all the details of how they but low and sold high, and in doing so reveals some of the mystery around domain name investing. Today I’m pleased to welcome investor, Richard Dynas. Welcome, Richard.

RICHARD DYNAS: Hi, Michael. Thanks for having me.

MICHAEL: My pleasure. So I first learned about your sale on DSAD.com. Shane Cultra had published a great interview with you, and it was very interesting to say the least. But then a blogger who covers mostly ICCAN policy issues jumped into the fray and posted publicly that Milo Yiannopoulos was quote, “Ripped off to the tune of a $138,000 in the Hatred.com sale.” The one that you made. Most people at Namepros.com, the discussion forum that’s frequented by most people in the industry, thought your sale was great. And there was a ton of support, so let’s focus on that. So the domain name you sold was Hatred.com. You sold it to Milo Yiannopoulos. Am I pronouncing his last name correctly?

RICHARD: I believe so. I’ve never actually spoke to him directly, but I think that’s what it is.

MICHAEL: All right, so you sold Hatred.com for $150,000 around June 20th, 2017. Is that correct? Or was it a little bit before that it?

RICHARD: It was May 28th, is when…

MICHAEL: Oh, May 28th. Awesome.

RICHARD: Yeah, I believe. That’s when the transaction started. It was…

MICHAEL: When did it actually…

RICHARD: It was two parts.

MICHAEL: When did it actually close?

RICHARD: I believe it was about two weeks later. So I think your date is when I got the rest of the payment, I think that was it.

MICHAEL: All right, so early June 2017 it closed.

RICHARD: Right.

MICHAEL: And on what date did you purchase the domain name and for how much?

RICHARD: I purchased it March 22nd for $4,000.

MICHAEL: Wow.

RICHARD: Yeah.

MICHAEL: So March 22nd, 2017. March to April to May to June, so less than three months basically.

RICHARD: Right.

MICHAEL: And a very sizable prophet, here.

RICHARD: Absolutely.

MICHAEL: Hundred and forty-six thousand dollars gross profit.

RICHARD: Yeah.

MICHAEL: All right. So let’s start at the beginning. You know, people are probably thinking like, “Hatred.com, it’s a terrible, negative type of word,” like… We’re gonna get into all that, and much more. But let’s take it right back to the beginning. How did you first discover the domain name Hatred.com was for sale?

RICHARD: Well I’m on namePros a lot, just looking at names. And I came up with an idea to go to the “Names Wanted” section, and post that I was looking for names, but I wanted to do it differently than everyone else. So I was pretty much upfront and said, “Look, I’m looking to purchase three-letter.coms, or single names, but I’m only buying them wholesale. Here’s my price range.” And then I started getting a lot of people rolling in with names. And Hatred…

MICHAEL: What kind of price range did you put down, just curiously?

RICHARD: I think that one was $25,000 or less.

MICHAEL: Wow, okay.

RICHARD: I wanted to pay $25,000 or less.

MICHAEL: Yep.

RICHARD: And Hatred was one of the names that rolled in. And I don’t know what it was about that name, but I just loved it. Loved it. It was one of many.

MICHAEL: So that’s an interesting way to try and acquire domain names from other investors, and maybe you’ll… And you’re not gonna pay retail, right? Well…

RICHARD: Right.

MICHAEL: …maybe some people have some retail expectations. But you know, it’s a wholesaler market. namePros is a place where resellers go, where investors go. Did you get some really great non-negative words that passed by you? You know, up to $25,000?

RICHARD: I did, you know, I got some decent names, but most of the people wanted retail for them, or…

MICHAEL: Oh, they did?

RICHARD: Yeah. Or they were names that I saw that have been recycled many times, you know?

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: And you know, when you’re on that site enough you see it on, you know, Flippa and everywhere else. And then it’s like, I didn’t want something that’d been recycled a thousand times. This one was fresh. Hatred was fresh to me.

MICHAEL: So you didn’t get like, you know, Rose.com, or any fantastic brandables?

RICHARD: No.

MICHAEL: No?

RICHARD: No, nothing like that.

MICHAEL: No?

RICHARD: No.

MICHAEL: Okay. So I’ve never posted like that on namePros, but that’s an interesting way to do it. I’ve known other people to do that. And so you know, it’s probably worth posting like that once or twice a year, just to see if people see it and have any inventory that they’re looking to move.

RICHARD: Yeah, I actually have it up right now, and I’ve gotten a few things that I might go ahead and purchase. The only problem with that is he came back to bite me, as we might get to later, with people saying I was trying to rip everybody off for new names.

MICHAEL: Yeah. All right, we’ll get to that. We’ll get to that. So the prior owner sent you Hatred.com, did they specify a price? Four thousand dollars?

RICHARD: Yeah, we wanted $12,000 for it.

MICHAEL: $12,000?

RICHARD: Yeah, yes.

MICHAEL: And so you looked at Hatred, it stuck out to you, you liked it.

RICHARD: Yes.

MICHAEL: Why did you like it?

RICHARD: Well I liked it because it was short. It actually meant something. So when I first saw the name I was looking to market it towards maybe people fighting hatred. And with the political climate as it is, hatred is a word that comes up a lot. If you Google it, you’re gonna see hatred all over the place so maybe two or three years ago I wouldn’t have been as interested, but right now the way everything was, hatred was perfect. I loved it.

MICHAEL: Because there’s so much talk about hatred, you thought that there was an opportunity for somebody who might wanna buy it to fight against hatred?

RICHARD: Yeah, either fight against hatred, or shield someone else from getting it. So gay and lesbian alliances. I actually had discussion, which we might get to, with some law firms and things like that that either wanted to shield someone else from getting it, which I also took a hit for, or for someone that wanted it to fight against hatred. Yes.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So most people, you know, think domains with a negative connotation are worthless. They don’t want them. In this case you’re saying, because there’s so much out there the trend is increasing, there might be a buyer out there who would wanna buy it for one of the reasons that you just mentioned. And so you know, when you’re thinking about buying a domain name at wholesale value, you have to think about like, “Can I sell it for retail value, and what is that retail value?” Because then that sort of dictates what you’re gonna negotiate the wholesale purchase price to, right?

RICHARD: Right, exactly.

MICHAEL: And so what was the retail price that you thought at that time you could get for Hatred.com.

RICHARD: I was thinking I could get $10,000 for it.

MICHAEL: Okay. And so…

RICHARD: That’s what I…

MICHAEL: What do you like to buy domains for if, let’s say you think you can get $10,000 retail for it?

RICHARD: Well I wanna double my money. That’s how I always feel. If I buy it, I wanna be able to double my money.

MICHAEL: So some people say 10 times, but usually those people are like, you know, buying stuff in in auctions for $30, and maybe they’re looking for $300. Or they buy it for $300, and looking for $3,000. And in your case, you’re looking to spend a decent amount but you wanna double your money.

RICHARD: Yeah. Honestly, I’m not interested in small-value domains. I’m just not. You know, I need something that’s gonna get me thousands of dollars.

MICHAEL: Yeah, okay. And you’re willing to put up thousands of dollars at-risk in order to do that.

RICHARD: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Okay, and so he started off at $12000, and you thought the retail value was around $10,000. How do you negotiate somebody down? What was your tactic?

RICHARD: Well it was really odd, because I was actually at my younger daughter’s basketball game, and I was on the phone doing it. And it was kind of getting annoying at the time, because my wife kept hitting me and telling me to stop. So…

MICHAEL: My wife does that too.

RICHARD: Yeah. So I started out, and I told him. I said, “Look I’m not gonna pay $12,000 for it.” I said, “My number’s around $4,000.” And he kept coming back and telling me, “Well I need this, and this, and this.” And I finally said, “You know, I’m in the middle of something right now. I’m gonna be home in a little bit. I can only spend $4,000 on it. If you don’t want it, I completely understand. No problem. Thank you, let’s move along.” He wrote back, he said, “Fine, I’ll take $4,000.”

MICHAEL: Gotcha.

RICHARD: So that was it. Took a couple hours, but we got there.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So you just told him, “Here’s my bottom line”?

RICHARD: Yes.

MICHAEL: “We can do a deal or not.” And so…

RICHARD: Correct.

MICHAEL: …you agreed to it. You know, given that this was that namePros, how did you transact to make sure that you were getting the domain and the money was being transferred properly?

RICHARD: Yeah, Escrow. We used Escrow so I can make sure.

There goes my dog and youngest daughter.

MICHAEL: I saw your daughter walk by. Very cute. Okay, so you used Escrow.com, you started a transaction. Who paid the fees?

RICHARD: I paid the fees.

MICHAEL: Okay. So you started the transaction, you wired the money in or paid by credit card, whichever the case. And then they transferred over the domain, and you released it. Done. So you own the domain name.

RICHARD: Correct.

MICHAEL: What’s the first thing you do when you buy a domain name like that? Like a $4,000 domain name?

RICHARD: I’m gonna be honest with you, I kinda sit on it and I forget about it for a while. I bought a few over the last month, that I kinda haven’t really done anything with. And then every once in a while it will pop into my head and I’ll start thinking about it. So I sat on it for a couple of weeks, and then I started thinking, “What do I wanna do with this right now?”

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: And that’s when I started hitting up Google. Google’s your friend.

MICHAEL: So you owned it, it was in your Whois information, but it…

RICHARD: Right.

MICHAEL: …didn’t even resolve? You don’t post it at a marketplace or put up a website…

RICHARD: Oh, yeah.

MICHAEL: …or anything.

RICHARD: Uniregistry. I’m sorry.

MICHAEL: You do?

RICHARD: Yeah, I did. I do have it there. Yeah.

MICHAEL: So the first thing you did was the Whois is updated. So if people know to look that up, then they can find it.

RICHARD: Yep.

MICHAEL: And then you setup a Uniregistry landing page, change the domain name servers to point to Uniregistry.

RICHARD: Yes.

MICHAEL: So if somebody types in Hatred.com, they can see it’s for sale.

RICHARD: Yeah, actually Hatred.com’s still in my name. I keep telling them to change it, and they haven’t changed it yet.

MICHAEL: Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me. You know, people just don’t understand technology.

RICHARD: Well that’s why I had people hit me up once in a while and tell me I’m lying still. Because it’s still in my name, it didn’t really sell, all these things. Right?

MICHAEL: Yeah, yeah. All right, so put it at Uniregistry. Do you use is just a landing page that says, “It’s for sale, make an offer”? Do you use…

RICHARD: Yes.

MICHAEL: …a buy-it-now page, or do you use a parking page?

RICHARD: No, I only have a buy-it-now on a few of my name’s. Mostly it’s gonna roll through a broker, and they’re gonna contact me and say someone’s interested.

MICHAEL: Yep.

RICHARD: And then we’ll go from there.

MICHAEL: Okay. And did you get any interest through that landing page at Uniregistry?

RICHARD: No.

MICHAEL: None.

RICHARD: None at all. None.

MICHAEL: Okay.

RICHARD: Nothing.

MICHAEL: So then one of the next things you is you… Was it before or after you did research on Google that you had used a broker?

RICHARD: It was before I did any research. I had a broker who tried to sell another name for me, who was unsuccessful. But I kinda like the guy.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: So I asked him if he was interested. He said, “Absolutely.” So I went I went through that broker.

MICHAEL: Okay. And so you went through the broker. He’d tried to do outbound marketing on it, I assume?

RICHARD: I assume he did.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: We’re not really speaking at the moment, so I have no idea. He’s one of the people that attacked me over this whole thing.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: So I’m not really sure what he did to be honest with you. I never got one single offer. I didn’t hear from him about it, and so I took it back.

MICHAEL: What was the agreement that you had between you and him? Was it a certain period of time to sell the domain name, and if he sold it he’d get a commission? Is that typical structure?

RICHARD: Yeah, it was just a handshake agreement this time. No, there was nothing signed. It was more like, “Hey, I’ll look for ya,” on both our parts. Nobody was looking for anything formal.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: Because I’d used him before.

MICHAEL: Right.

RICHARD: So after about 30 days I kinda got tired of waiting and decided to start doing it myself.

MICHAEL: Yeah. And you know, I do the exact same thing with some of my domain names. It’s just a handshake, or we chat over Skype, or we shoot an email. And it’s like, “Hey, do you wanna try and represent this name for me and sell it?”

RICHARD: Right, right.

MICHAEL: And you know, I specify the commission, but I don’t really specify how long. Because most of my domains are long-holds. Do you think it’s a good idea to specify the terms of that handshake agreement? You know, “You’ll get it for 60 days. If you don’t have any significant offers then, you know, we’ll talk about renewing the term or terminating.” What do you think.

RICHARD: I’m gonna be honest with you, I don’t like that. It’s my name, I only ask that I should be able to control when I wanna sell it.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: If I’m locked in with someone for 60 days and I think they’re doing a poor job or not doing anything, then I’m stuck with them for 60 days. You know? And if they can sell it quick, you know, they’re gonna get their 10 or 15%, I’ve got no problem with that. [inaudible 00:12:47]

MICHAEL: Yeah but deals sometimes takes some time, right? Like you need to…

RICHARD: Absolutely.

MICHAEL: …do a lot of outbound.

RICHARD: Yes.

MICHAEL: People are slow to respond.

RICHARD: Yes.

MICHAEL: You know, they may not look at it for another week or two because they’re on vacation, or family emergency, or what have you. So…

RICHARD: Right.

MICHAEL: …you know, how do you reconcile that, Richard?

RICHARD: Well I mean, that’s just part of the industry.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: So sometimes things move fast, sometimes things move slow. Now if I had a really good name, and I had a trusted broker that I knew that did a lot of business, that was well-known, absolutely. I would sign an agreement, “You’ve got 60 days. Ninety days,” whatever. But this guy was just somebody I met on namePros.

MICHAEL: Yep.

RICHARD: You know, I just didn’t think it was worth signing anything over.

MICHAEL: Sure, okay. And so you also tried to flip Hatred.com, plus a few other domain names. ColdSymptoms.com [SP], Tents.org [SP], Stamp.org. Perm.net for a listed $12,000 on May 26th on namePros, and you didn’t get any takers. Was that before or after the brokerage?

RICHARD: That was after the brokerage.

MICHAEL: Okay. And then why do you think you didn’t get any takers on namePros?

RICHARD: You know, I’m not really sure. That was really odd. And I’m gonna be completely honest with you, I was trying to buy a new truck. I wanted more money for a down payment, to lower my payments on it. So I was like, “I’m gonna flip these names real quick.”

MICHAEL: Sure.

RICHARD: Three of those names I’ve had forever. I bought them when I was newer. I didn’t know that they’d been marketed to death, like Tents and Stamp and all those. So I’ve had them forever. So I was like, “I’ll throw those in, just because I’m not doing anything with him anyway.”

MICHAEL: Right.

RICHARD: And I thought they would sweeten the deal and I’d get some action.

MICHAEL: Totally.

RICHARD: Nothing.

MICHAEL: Nobody?

RICHARD: Nothing, yeah.

MICHAEL: You know, but it was worth a shot, right? Because you never know.

RICHARD: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

MICHAEL: And so the brokerage didn’t work. The selling via namePros didn’t work. So at that point you’re like, “I’m gonna have to like seize my own destiny here, and do some…

RICHARD: Yes.

MICHAEL: …outbound”?

RICHARD: Some.

MICHAEL: Have you done outbound marketing before?

RICHARD: No, nothing..

MICHAEL: First time?

RICHARD: No.

MICHAEL: Or close to it?

RICHARD: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, like if I know a company website I might hit up something. But I really didn’t know how. I guess I was a little scared of it.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: And then this time I kind of threw myself all the way in, and said, “You know what? I’m gonna try it and see what happens.”

MICHAEL: Yeah, why were you scared of it before do you think?

RICHARD: You know, I don’t know. I’m not much of a sales person, I don’t think. I’ve never been in sales, so I figured, “Well I got to leave that up to the pros, and people that have been doing this forever,” and all those kinds of things.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: You know, I’ve come to find out it’s really not that scary. It’s not that bad.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: If you have the right tools, it’s great.

MICHAEL: Yeah, good. So I’m gonna ask you about some of your tools that you used as well. So what was the first thing that you did when you went about selling it on your own?

RICHARD: So Google. Obviously I went to Google, first paged it. And that’s where I found my first contact who actually talked back to me, on the Southern Poverty Law firm. Because they fight all sorts of hatred. Like Stormfront, KKK, all those kinds of things.

MICHAEL: Yep.

RICHARD: And they were the first thing that popped up, so I hit them up first.

MICHAEL: So is your process to go in and collect all the data and then email? Or you typed “hatred” into Google, one of the first results was the Southern Poverty Law Firm, and so then you just email them directly? Like you just go in series.

RICHARD: Yeah. And since I was just starting out and trying to learn this, that was the first thing I did.

MICHAEL: Cool.

RICHARD: And after I talked to him, I changed my tactics a little bit.

MICHAEL: So what did you do with them? Did you call them up, did you send an email?

RICHARD: No, I sent an email.

MICHAEL: Okay. Who did you send it to, and how did you determine who to send it to?

RICHARD: So here’s the thing, so I also was Googling, “How to sell domain names.” And I can’t remember who posted it, it might’ve been somebody on namePros, about using an app called Clearbit through Google. In Clearbit you type in the company’s domain name, and it gives you email addresses for all the people in the company.

MICHAEL: Yep.

RICHARD: And you can pick and choose who you wanna it to. Obviously I’m not gonna send it to HR, they have nothing to do with it. So I’m picking vice presidents. I’m picking marketing. I’m picking internet I’m picking internet. I’m picking anything that somebody that might look at it decide they wanna buy it.
So that’s what I did, I used Clearbit.

MICHAEL: Did you send it to everybody on that…

RICHARD: No.

MICHAEL: …distribution, or one at a time to everybody?

RICHARD: Well I sent it to probably five different people on the list. There’s not a lot of people that come up for that one.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: But normally if I get a list of 50 people, I’m only sending it to the relevant people. I’m not sending it to everybody.

MICHAEL: So marketing,…

RICHARD: Because that’s insane.

MICHAEL: …maybe business development,…

RICHARD: Yeah.

MICHAEL: …maybe the CEO.

RICHARD: Right.

MICHAEL: And you’ll send individual emails to them?

RICHARD: Right. No, no, no, I send it all. I BCCed everybody.

MICHAEL: Okay. So you sent it to everybody and BCCed everybody?

RICHARD: Yes.

MICHAEL: Because you didn’t want them to see that it was going to the other person.

RICHARD: Correct.

MICHAEL: Okay.

RICHARD: Correct. Because sometimes I might email more than one company at once, and make them bid against each other.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: That’s what I do now.

MICHAEL: Gotcha.

RICHARD: But at that time it was just that one company.

MICHAEL: And what was the subject line of your email? Do you remember?

RICHARD: Yeah, I it was just “Hatred.com”, that’s all I put in there.

MICHAEL: Okay, and what is…

RICHARD: Because I wanted to grab their attention.

MICHAEL: Do you remember what the email looked like?

RICHARD: It was basically, I know, “I know you fight hatred”… I don’t have it up in front of me right now.

MICHAEL: Sure.

RICHARD: But it was basically, “I know you’re a company that fights hatred. I admire that.” You know, “I have a name that I think would fit perfectly for you.” You know, “I would hate to see it fall in the wrong hands of someone like Stormfront or KKK. I’d rather see,” you know, “put to good use than bad use.”

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: It was along those lines.

MICHAEL: Yep. And you sent it off, and did you get any response back?

RICHARD: I actually did. Within a couple hours I got a response back from someone saying, “Hey,” you know, “it’s a great name. What are you looking for?”

MICHAEL: Which person actually responded back? Do you remember their role?

RICHARD: Yeah, it was a marketing guy.

MICHAEL: Marketing, okay.

RICHARD: He might’ve been one of the partners of the firm also.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Okay, and so he responded back and said, “Great name.” And then did he ask you a question, “How much?”

RICHARD: Yes, he asked me how much. I wrote him back and I just picked a number out of the air. I said $25,000. I’d heard of the company before, I heard of the law firm. You know, it was somebody that I know probably makes some money. So I thought, “Why not?” You know, “Twenty-five thousand, let’s see if I can get 15 out of it.”

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: No.

MICHAEL: And what did he respond back with?

RICHARD: He wrote back about 10 minutes later and said, “No thank you, we’re not interested.”

MICHAEL: First of all, it must’ve deflated you, right? Like when you put yourself.

RICHARD: Yeah.

MICHAEL: At least for me, I’m an introvert. And when I put myself out there doing outbound marketing, I always feel terribly deflated when I get a negative response back. You know, “No, I’m not interested,” or whatever.

RICHARD: Totally, yeah. And I did, and I wrote him back right away, and I believe his name was Kevin, and I said, “Hey, Kevin.” You know, “No problem at all. Again, I wanna see this go to somebody that’s gonna do some good with it, so I’m willing to work with you here.” You know, “Is there a number you comfortable with? Let’s go ahead and start working from there.”

MICHAEL: Nice response.

RICHARD: Yeah. And he wrote back again immediately saying, “Yeah, unfortunately we’re just not interested.” Which was killing me, because at first they were interested and wanted to know a number. Now I’m almost throwing them a bone saying, “Come on dude, let’s work on a number.”

MICHAEL: You just want to get them to throw out a number, right?

RICHARD: Yeah. Yeah, wouldn’t even commit to anything. So that was the end of that. So I thanked him. You know, “Thank you very much. I appreciate your time,” and moved on.

MICHAEL: Right. Because you don’t wanna look desperate and say, “Hey, how about $10,000?” Or, “How about $15,000?”

RICHARD: Yeah.

MICHAEL: You don’t wanna throw out another number, because you’re thinking…

RICHARD: Yeah, exactly.

MICHAEL: Why not, Richard? Why wouldn’t you throw out another number?

RICHARD: Well because like you said, I didn’t want to seem completely desperate. If I’d told them, “Okay, I’m willing accept 15,” he might’ve come back and said, “Well I give you be $500 for it. You know, the lower I go, the lower he’s gonna go. So I did have a price in mind, I wasn’t done outbound yet.

MICHAEL: Yep.

RICHARD: So I was like, “I’m just gonna keep going I’m going. I’m gonna push forward with it. Why not?”

MICHAEL: Plus maybe they’ll think about it while you’re continuing to do outbound, and come back and say, “Well I’ve rethought about it and,” you know, “I could do $10,000, or $15,000, or whatever.”

RICHARD: Right. And that’s why I always think people. I mean I get a lot of noes now, because I’ve started doing this a lot more. And be like, “Hey, I appreciate it. Thank you very much. If you need anything, let me know.” And most times people will write back and go, “Yeah, no problem thanks.” You know? Wanna be friendly.

MICHAEL: All right, so tools-wise, you’re using Google. You’re using Clearbit to find people. And were you tracking the email opens, or not?

RICHARD: No, I still don’t do that. And I keep I keep forgetting. I keep forgetting to get a program to do it. Because every time I send something out I’m like, “Oh, I forgot again. I need to get something so I can track these emails.” So, yeah. No, I don’t.

MICHAEL: All right, and so you got that “no” back, meanwhile you’re still in Google, you’re still searching.

RICHARD: Yep.

MICHAEL: What’s your next process? Are you just continuing to go down the list?

RICHARD: Yeah, I was, you know. And Stormfront and KKK and people against biracial, lesbian, gay, all that kind of stuff comes up first. And I’m gonna be kinda honest with it. I just don’t have the stomach for it, and I wasn’t interested in it, so I bypassed those. And I was even sitting there going, “Man the KKK has probably got a lot of money put away. Stormfront probably has a lot of legal money put away, because they know that they’re gonna get in trouble.” I just couldn’t stomach the thought of them owning something like that.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: The digital…

MICHAEL: And I’m not even sure that in their mind, they even think that that’s hatred. They just think it’s like…I don’t even know what they think it is. But…

RICHARD: Yeah.

MICHAEL: …you know, clearly most people think it’s hatred. Society thinks it’s hatred.

RICHARD: Right.

MICHAEL: And so they’re fighting it with that word, “hatred.” But I’m not sure if they would even be interested in it.

RICHARD: Yeah, I don’t know. I just didn’t feel comfortable with it.

MICHAEL: Yeah, totally.

RICHARD: You know?

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: I do have some sort of ethics. You know, and then on the end of the second page, Milo showed up. W

MICHAEL: And who is Milo Yiannopoulos?

RICHARD: You know what? That’s really weird because I knew who he was, but I never thought about the name. And I mean I knew who he was just through tabloids and things like that. I never considered selling him a domain name.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: He used to work for Fritbrat [SP]? Brit? The [inaudible 00:22:59]…

MICHAEL: Breitbart.

RICHARD: [inaudible 00:22:59] can never remember the name of that. But yeah,…

MICHAEL: Breitbart.

RICHARD: …the website.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: Yeah, he was a editor or, you know, something like that, and he wrote stories. The guy is a media mastermind. He spews a lot of hate, which is very odd because he’s gay.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: And he plays on that. He has a lot of hate talk. He’s had events cancelled on him at the last second. I can think at Berkley it happened, and violence broke out. So he was very big in the News, he’s very big in like TMZ kind of circles.

MICHAEL: Yep.

RICHARD: So he was semi-famous.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: So his name showed up, and then I just saw attached to that he’s trying to make a comeback. He had made a statement last year about pedophiles that didn’t go over very well.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Just to clarify that, there was a video clip in which he said, “Sexual relationships between 13 year old boys and adult men and women can be perfectly consensual, and a positive experience for the boys.” And so…

RICHARD: Yeah.

MICHAEL: …he pretty much lost his job in the Alt-Right because of that.

RICHARD: Yeah, and he almost doomed himself.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: And he’s trying to make a comeback. So with that, I saw that he had just gotten $12 million in funding.

MICHAEL: Amazing. Like what journalist gets $12 million in funding? Like…

RICHARD: I don’t know. He had written a book, and Simon & Schuster pulled it on him at the last second. So he had this book he wanted launch, I saw it was gonna launch through Amazon. He had $12 million in funding. He was all about hatred, and immediately I was just like, “I’ve got to get this guy. This name is perfect for this guy.”

MICHAEL: What made you think that he was all about hatred? Like does he actually use that word? Were webpages tagged with “hatred”? Like what made…

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MICHAEL: What made you think that he was all about hatred? Like does he actually use that word? Were webpages tagged with “hatred”? Like what made…

RICHARD: Yeah.

MICHAEL: …you associate it with it?

RICHARD: So if you bring up “hatred”, his name comes up. I mean, he’s attached to it.

MICHAEL: Okay.

RICHARD: And he had this horrible website, it was like Milo-something. I mean it was horrendous.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: So I know right then. I was like, “If I could sell this guy, he understands the media, he understands internet, he uses it all the time. He’s gonna understand why I’m trying to sell him this name.”

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: And it’s gonna help his book sales, hopefully. So I went after Milo by…

MICHAEL: So again, did you use Clearbit to try and find his email address?

RICHARD: I did. And only three people came up, and he was one of them. Like his email address was in there. And I was like, “Oh, you gotta be kidding me.” So I was like, “This is perfect. It’s absolutely perfect.”

MICHAEL: What did you type in? Did you just type in his name, and it came up?

RICHARD: Well I typed in “hatred”, and it came up. Oh, for that. I typed in the…

MICHAEL: In Clearbit.

RICHARD: …Milo-Yiannopoulos.com, and those three names came up.

MICHAEL: Gotcha.

RICHARD: Which happened to be a CEO, and CFO, and himself.

MICHAEL: Wow. Okay.

RICHARD: Because he had just formed a new company.

MICHAEL: Yep. And so did you email all three of them? Or just my Milo? I emailed Milo.

RICHARD: Because I thought the name would be perfect for him especially, and I wanted him to see it. If it was a small company like that, I was afraid that if the other two saw it they’d might be like, “Well,” you know, “we don’t really need it or have the money.” I wanted him to see it because he was the real person behind all this.

MICHAEL: Yeah, him to see it, have the vision, and then, you know, tell subordinates that, “We’re gonna buy it potentially.”

RICHARD: Absolutely.

MICHAEL: That was your idea.

RICHARD: Yes.

MICHAEL: And so was it the same sort of email that you sent to the Southern Poverty Law firm, where you said Hatred.com is the subject, and then you said, “Hi, Milo. I’ve got this domain name, I think it fits your business. Are you interested?”

RICHARD: Well I can tell you exactly what it said if you like.

MICHAEL: Cool. Yeah, please do.

RICHARD: Perfect. So I said, “Milo, good morning. I own Hatred.com.” Well the subject is, “Hatred.com for sale, are you interested?”

MICHAEL: Okay.

RICHARD: I said, “Good morning, I own Hatred.com.” I said, “I personally have been thinking of ways to monetize the site. But honestly, I see it’s a perfect fit for you.” I said, “While doing some research on keywords, your name keeps popping up. Hatred.com could carry your brand for untold years, It’s perfect for you and any merchandising you can have. So if you’re interested in purchasing the name, I can make a big production out of this sale.” I said, “This sale would rank high as a six-figure sale.” I said, “Short brandable dictionary names are hard to get. Its digital real estate. Just like physical real estate, it’s all about location, and this is prime land.” I said, “When you decide you’re done with this site, it could be worth a hundredfold because your name has been attached to it. It’s a win-win for everybody. If you have any interest, shoot me an email and let’s go back and forth and agree on a price.” That was it.

MICHAEL: That was it. And then what happened?

RICHARD: Crickets. I heard nothing. Nothing. Nothing at all.

MICHAEL: Oh, and you’re like, “My gosh, why is it so hard? Why did I buy this domain name?”

RICHARD: Yeah, and I…

MICHAEL: Right? That must’ve gone through your mind.

RICHARD: It did. I was thinking it. But I’m gonna be honest, I hate to say it. At $4,000 it wasn’t killing me, it wasn’t breaking the bank. And I’m hesitant to say that, because I know there’s a lot of people out there that scrimp and save, and were buying the best that they can.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: For me personally, it just wasn’t that much of an investment. You know, if I start getting hitting five-figures, then it’s an investment.

MICHAEL: Yeah. yeah.

RICHARD: So it wasn’t that bad.

MICHAEL: So he finally did respond. How much time passed before he responded?

RICHARD: I think it was a week and a half or two weeks when I got a response.

MICHAEL: Okay, that’s a long time.

RICHARD: It was. It was.

MICHAEL: So in those two weeks, were you continuing to go down the Google list, and try and find other people that were interested in the domain name?

RICHARD: I was. I hit up some other law firms, some gay and lesbian alliances, things like that. I never heard back from any of them.

MICHAEL: None? No…

RICHARD: No.

MICHAEL: …responses back from anybody?

RICHARD: No.

MICHAEL: All right.

RICHARD: No.

MICHAEL: So two weeks later from the date that you sent the email, Milo responds. And what does he say?

RICHARD: He said that we’re very keen on the name. He said, “Thanks for reaching out to us.” So this is from Alex Macris, he’s the CEO. He’s the one that actually wrote me back.

MICHAEL: Oh, okay.

RICHARD: He said, “Richard, thanks for reaching out to us. I’m the CEO of Milo Inc., Milo’s new business venture. And when he asked me to get in touch with you, because we have a keen value in acquiring Hatred.com. What is your asking price?”

MICHAEL: Okay, and how did you respond to that?

RICHARD: So I wrote back and told them that my asking price is $250,000, and pretty much the same thing.

MICHAEL: [whistles]

RICHARD: Yeah. So I said, “This name is perfect for you. It’s your brand, it’s what you do.” I said, “It’s absolutely perfect.” I said, “It’s a match.” And then…

MICHAEL: Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Like…

RICHARD: Yes.

MICHAEL: …weren’t you afraid that the exact same thing that happened with Southern Poverty Law firm, that your shot for $25,000 and it was much too high for their budget. Like maybe if you would’ve shot for $10,000, they might have like come back at $8,000. And you could’ve had a deal and doubled your money. But you shot for $250,000. Like how…

RICHARD: Yeah. I did because I saw that he had just had $12 million in funding. I knew his book was getting ready to release. And I knew his website was horrible. So I was using all that to my advantage, and I thought, “Why not?” All he can do is say, “Absolutely not. We’re not paying that much. Are you crazy?” So I thought, “Why not? I’m gonna give it a shot.”

MICHAEL: Yeah. So this is one of the concepts I teach in DNAcademt. That the highest and best used cases is gonna get you the biggest payout for an investment, right? Like if I own a piece of land next to my ferry terminal here on Bainbridge Island, and I put a parking lot there, I’m only gonna maximize my income by the number of spots that I have and how many people are filling it up.

RICHARD: Right.

MICHAEL: But if I put a five-story building and sell condos there, I’m gonna be able to sell those with a water view, easy access for, you know, a $1 million a piece. Million and a half. Who knows, right? So you have to look at who has the budget, what’s the highest and best use case. And Southern Poverty Law firm wasn’t the highest and best use case.

RICHARD: Oh, no. No.

MICHAEL: Milo was, right?

RICHARD: Correct. Yes.

MICHAEL: So it makes you wonder, out of the other domain names that we own, are we being lazy and not going to find the highest and best use cases. And maybe, you know, the highest and best use case hasn’t come around yet, right? Milo didn’t get his $12 million until a certain date.

RICHARD: That’s absolutely true.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: Yes.

MICHAEL: So $250,000, you throw it out there. You nervous quoting that much?

RICHARD: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I am. I’m really nervous. I’m wondering what’s gonna come back. Either he’s gonna come back and say, “You’re out of your mind. Goodbye.”

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: “Stop trying to rip me off or try to play me, because I’m worth money.” You know, in that case I would’ve had to explain to him why it was worth that much, because I don’t feel like I was ripping them off. Or he’s gonna come back and say, “Absolutely, let’s do it. Here’s your check.”

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: So…

MICHAEL: Yeah, and you know, any transaction needs two willing parties. So if two people are willing to make that transaction,everybody’s [inaudible 00:31:59]. Everybody’s making their own decisions.

RICHARD: Absolutely.

MICHAEL: And so in this case, how long did it take him to respond back to your $250,000 quoted asking price?

RICHARD: Yeah, it was pretty quick. Within an hour.

MICHAEL: Wow.

RICHARD: At this point here, it was a conversation at this point.

MICHAEL: Okay, via email.

RICHARD: Right. And that’s another reason I knew that things were really moving along. Because Milo was answering me, his CEO was answering me. It was happening…

MICHAEL: Oh, everybody was on the distribution?

RICHARD: Right. Right, it was happening, and it was happening within, you know, half hour, 15 minutes. I mean these emails were going back and forth. So I knew they were interested.

MICHAEL: So you were just like not leaving your computer?

RICHARD: No.

MICHAEL: You’re just hanging out there.

RICHARD: Yeah, right.

MICHAEL: Just like, “Refresh, refresh, refresh.”

RICHARD: Yes.

MICHAEL: Seeing if they’re like responding.

RICHARD: Yeah.

MICHAEL: So how did they respond back to your offer?

RICHARD: So Milo wrote back immediately and said, “We’re keen on the name. Do you…

MICHAEL: They like to use that word “keen.”

RICHARD: “We’re keen on the name.” Which as soon as I read that line I was like, “You gotta be kidding me. We’re doing this.”

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: He said, “$250,000 is not in our budget right now. But do you want my CFO, and get the deal done? I’m backing out now.” And I knew right then it was done. It was a done deal, we just had to find the number that was right.

MICHAEL: Yeah, nice. And so what happened next?

RICHARD: So I wrote back, and I told them, “I’ve had other people that I know you’re gonna have to go through board decision. I understand that.” And I said, “The quicker we do the name, the more money that I get upfront.” Okay, this is what I said, “If we do it right now, it’s $200,000. If you’re gonna make me wait 30 days, then the price can go down. I don’t really care. If you’re gonna make me wait to go to the board decisions on all those kinds of things, whatever.”

MICHAEL: The price would go up or down?

RICHARD: Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah, I did that backwards. “But if you’re gonna pay me now, it’s $150,000 right now.”

MICHAEL: Ah, gotcha.

RICHARD: “If you’re gonna make me wait 30 days, I want $50,000 down.”

MICHAEL: Yep.

RICHARD: “A hundred and fifty within the 30 days.”

MICHAEL: Gotcha. That makes sense.

RICHARD: Sorry, I had that backwards. Yeah.

MICHAEL: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So $50,000 would lock it in, but then the price goes up? And then…

RICHARD: Right.

MICHAEL: …you know, they could’ve negotiated that. They could’ve said, “That’s ridiculous. I’ll give you $10,000 more,” you know?

RICHARD: Right.

MICHAEL: Or whatever. But how did they respond?

RICHARD: So they responded, “We’ll give you $150,000. We’ll give you 25 today, 125 within 30 days.” And I couldn’t type fast enough, “I agree to that.” So I was like, “Yep. we agree. No problem.”

MICHAEL: Awesome. And so what was the next step then? Did you do an agreement that actually said that? Did you go to Escrow? What was the next step?

RICHARD: Yeah, so they didn’t really seem very interested in Escrow. They sent me an agreement back with it all written out. They had written it out.

MICHAEL: So they wrote out basically a purchase sale agreement?

RICHARD: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I signed it. I sent it back to it. They sent me back a signed copy with $25,000 wired to my account within hours.

MICHAEL: Wow. How did they get a wire over there in hours? Like whenever I’m…

RICHARD: I don’t know.

MICHAEL: Like whenever I’m trying to get a wire, “Oh, the sending party just missed the 2:00 deadline. It’s not gonna go until tomorrow.”

RICHARD: I couldn’t believe, because I’d been telling my wife at the time what was happening, and she’s a very skeptical person, So her answer was, “Yeah, right. Sure.” So when it went through, I brought her the phone and I showed her [inaudible 00:35:12]. Like, “Look, here on the phone $25,000.” She’s like, “You’re never gonna get the rest of it.” And I looked at her and I said, “I don’t care if I get the rest of it. This is $21,000 more than I paid for it, Jen.”

MICHAEL: Right.

RICHARD: “We made a $21,000 profit, even if I don’t get the rest.” But he wouldn’t do that because he has a signed agreement with me, I have a copy of it. I would just totally destroy him in the news. You know, “Hey, Milo backs out on deal,” whatever. He’s not gonna do it. He’s [inaudible 00:35:38] he’s gonna do it.

MICHAEL: So what if…

RICHARD: She still didn’t believe it.

MICHAEL: So one of the things I always worry about with a signed agreement and not Escrow, is that if they’re not in the United States, then I really have no recourse, right? Like I can’t go to another country and do something. Was the entity in the United States?

RICHARD: Yeah, some. But there’s one person in Colorado, and then Milo and his CEO are in California.

MICHAEL: Okay, so…

RICHARD: Everything’s in the U.S.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So they were U.S. based. So you have some recourse if… And so…

RICHARD: Yeah.

MICHAEL: So they sent you the agreement, they sent you the money. Did you transfer the domain name then, or did you wait until you got the balance before transferring the domain name?

RICHARD: I transfered the domain name right away.

MICHAEL: You did?

RICHARD: Yeah, I went into…

MICHAEL: So that’s pretty trusting, right?

RICHARD: Yes, yeah. Yep, I don’t know if I normally would do that, but the way the conversations are going, and the rapport we had, and I’d already received way more than I paid for it.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: I didn’t mind doing it. Because they [inaudible 00:36:28]…

MICHAEL: It’s like worst-case scenario, they don’t pay the rest. “I need to take him to court.”

RICHARD: Right, yeah.

MICHAEL: But I’ve made my money back.

RICHARD: Yes, absolutely.

MICHAEL: And a nice profit.

RICHARD: Yes, I did. Yeah, yeah.

MICHAEL: All right. And so did they pay you on time, within 30 days the remainder of the balance?

RICHARD: Yeah, they paid me within two weeks…

MICHAEL: Nice. Yeah, and…

RICHARD: …the rest.

MICHAEL: …you know, during the pre-interview, you showed me the payments that came in. So in the closing…

RICHARD: Yep.

MICHAEL: …that came in. So yeah, I verified that. And I believe it was on DNJournal’s Ron Jackson.

RICHARD: Yep.

MICHAEL: Ron Jackson’s site as well.

RICHARD: Yes.

MICHAEL: And Ron always verifies the sale.

RICHARD: Yes.

MICHAEL: So you know, for all the people saying, “I don’t believe it, because it’s still in Richard’s name.” Which you know, there’s another ongoing issue in the domain name industry right now, that I’m not gonna go into it. And you know, sometimes these domain names stay in the prior Whois owner’s name. Like I’m not making any excuses for anybody, but it’s just the way it is. I bought a domain name from somebody, pushed it over…I’m sorry, no. It was pushed to my account at Uniregistry. I transferred it to GoDaddy I think. And then it still had all the Whois information from Uniregistry, even though like my account says every single time, “Change it to my my public Whois information.”

RICHARD : Yep.

MICHAEL: Anyways, so all right. So we talked about Hatred.com being a negative connotation, a difficult word to sell. The broker you used couldn’t sell it. You offered it on namePros, it couldn’t sell.

RICHARD: Yeah.

MICHAEL: Is Hatred.com the kind of name that is likely to never sell, unless you do outbound marketing and find the perfect buyer like you did?

RICHARD: I think so. I don’t know that many people are looking for that name. I also thought about bands, you know. I looked up a bunch of bands named Hatured [SP] or some connotation of hatred. And they’re all small. They wouldn’t have the budget to do that. So I think that is definitely the kind of name that you have to go out and market. I don’t think many people are looking to buy that name.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Was this a lucky sale, Richard?

RICHARD: Absolutely, 100% pure luck. It was lucky that that guy got funding at that time. That he showed up in Google. That I would’ve never thought about him in a million years. I mean it was absolutely just dumb luck that everything happened at once.

MICHAEL: And I’ll take luck any day.

RICHARD: Yes.

MICHAEL: So what’d you do with the profits of the sale? Did you splurge and buy yourself anything.

RICHARD: No. Well I bought the truck that I wanted.

MICHAEL: Nice.

RICHARD: Yeah, so…

MICHAEL: Big one?

RICHARD: Yeah, I use it to pull my camper. I have a big old diesel. So I always wanted it. So I went ahead and got that. But that’s the only money I splurged. The rest of the money, I paid off every bill owned. I recently got laid off from my job. So I just paid all our bills off.

MICHAEL: That’s awesome.

RICHARD: We got some money left. I have it sitting aside to buy some more names. But I don’t wanna blow the money right now, because I’m still trying to go back. Actually, I really haven’t been trying to go back to work. I need to, according to my wife. So I’ve been selling domain names, but she doesn’t consider that a job. So I need to go back to work.

MICHAEL: Oh, we need to talk to your wife. We should bring her on the show.

RICHARD: Yeah.

MICHAEL: So you said you have a little bit leftover, what kinds of names are you looking to reinvest in? You know, we talked about some of the domains that you offered with Hatred, when you offered it on namePros.com. You bought them earlier in your career.

RICHARD: Right.

MICHAEL: Obviously the domains we buy over time changes. Sometimes we upgrade the value of domains that we’re buying. What kinds of names are you looking for nowadays?

RICHARD: Well I’m gonna be honest with you, from reading your articles and watching your videos and a couple other people, I’ve realized to narrow it down to dictionary names, three letters. I’d buy some four-letter domain names, it just depends on what they are. I still go on GoDaddy Auctions and buy some things once in awhile. I just bought a few the other day that I think are really cool. Male donors, male donor, email donor, and female donors, I’m gonna start hitting on, you know, sperm donor banks and egg donor banks. Things like that if I think that it’s interesting. It has to be interesting to me.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: You know, I go ahead and buy it. But mostly I’m looking for three-letter and dictionary names.

MICHAEL: Nice. All right. Do you want people on namePros to reach out to you, if they have this kind of names and they’re looking for wholesale…

RICHARD: Absolutely. Absolutely.

MICHAEL: …to retail levels?

RICHARD: Absolutely. I’m always looking.

MICHAEL: Awesome.

RICHARD: If I don’t answer it, you know…you get a lot of people though that try to sell you the MOBIs and all those kinds of things. And I’m not interested. Dot com is the only thing I’m buying. That’s it.

MICHAEL: You’re not a whale, and you don’t want the .mobis.

RICHARD: No.

MICHAEL: So on namePros your moniker is Ugly Dork?

RICHARD: Yeah, yeah.

MICHAEL: What is the deal with that, Richard? You’re not ugly and you don’t seem like a dork to me.

RICHARD: Well years, and years, and years ago…I’ve been in the computer industry and the tech industry for a long time. So back in the 90s, I was at work one day and just [inaudible 00:41:24] around. And I had watched a “Simpsons” episode the night before. Well one of the girls says, “You’re a big, ugly, smelly dork.” And I went, “Ugly dork, that’s really cool. I wonder if anybody has that name?” That’s back in ’96, ’97 I think I bought that name. Of course nobody owned it back then.

MICHAEL: Right.

RICHARD: And so I registered it, and I’ve just had it ever since. So I just kinda use it. I don’t know, I just Ugly Dork. It means nothing anybody else, I just like it.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Well one of my favorite interviews, up until today of course Richard, was Noah Kagan when he bought Sumo.com for $1 and a half million. And he of course uses the domain name OkDork.com, which I think is hilarious.

RICHARD: Yeah. I also have my wife and my name, RichandJen.com [SP]. I bought that years ago too. I won’t give that up. So they have to mean something to me. If they mean something to me I buy them.

MICHAEL: Yeah. One person on namePros posted, and I’ll quote it, “You’ve made one big sale, now all of a sudden you think you’re a big shot.”

RICHARD: Yeah, yep.

MICHAEL: Was this your biggest sale, Richard?

RICHARD: Absolutely, yeah. It was definitely my biggest sale. My next biggest to that has been five figures. I’ve done a few five-figure sales. But this is definitely my biggest sale.

MICHAEL: Nice. Well if you’ve done some five-figure sales and you’ve done a six-figure sale, like the only thing you have left is a seven-figure sale.

RICHARD: Well that’s weird. Because I told my wife, I said, “Within the next 10 years I’m gonna become a millionaire, and I’m gonna sell a billion dollar domain name.” And she thinks I’m crazy, but I’m serious, I want to.

MICHAEL: She thought you were crazy with Hatred.com. She probably thought you were crazy with your $10,000 or 5-figure domain names before that as well.

RICHARD: She doesn’t know anything about domains. She doesn’t even know I owned Hatred.com. She knows nothing about it.

MICHAEL: Oh, yeah. I sometimes bring up domain names with my family around the dinner table, and ask them what they think. You know, if I learn about a domain name that sold on a show, I’ll ask them what they think it’s worth. And I’m amazed. Like my wife has got very exact valuations. I don’t know why I call anybody else in the industry, I just need like to like text my wife and ask her what she thinks a domain name is worth.

RICHARD: Yeah, she doesn’t know anything. My in-laws, oh my god. They were like, “What?” Like their faces just went blank. They don’t know anything about it. They just couldn’t believe it someone would pay that much money for a name.

MICHAEL: Well you know, my face did the exact same thing. We just did a vacation to Grand Canyon Monument Valley and Sedona. And in one of the places we went to, Antelope Valley, where water will come through this, you know, sort of rock formation and form with the light coming in these beautiful spires that go up, and you’re walking through. And you know, that the Native Americans that were taking us through giving us the tour, were saying that, “The first $1,000,000 picture was taken right here, looking right this way, at this time of day.” And I’m like, “A million bucks for a photograph?”

RICHARD: Yeah, that’s amazing.

MICHAEL: And then he’s like, “Yeah. And then somebody else came back and shot it, and it was a $5,000,000 photograph.

RICHARD: Wow.

MICHAEL: So you know, for the people that are amazed domain names sell for this, they probably don’t know that photographs sell for more. That artwork sells for more. That cars, you know… Yeah.

So how many domain names do you own today, Richard? Roughly?

RICHARD: I have about 120.

MICHAEL: That’s a very reasonable amount.

RICHARD: Yeah, I’m kinda picky on what I buy. Most of them, I don’t think they’re worth much now. Like I have some six-number domains I kind of bought over the years, that I’m holding on to, hoping to that opens up eventually. And you know, things like that. Things that may not be worth of ton. I do have a few that I think worth a bunch of money that I’m marketing right now.

MICHAEL: Yeah. Like what?

RICHARD: Well actually, I’m talking to Pinehurst right now. Pinehurst, North Carolina. Elm, North Carolina. And that’s the name of one of their hotels, and I know that because I used to work at that hotel when I was in college, and played a lot golf down there. So I’m working on that right now, I’m talking to them. Actually I’ve been talking to them today. Coldsymptoms.com I’m still trying to sell, and that’s coming up. And I’m actually putting that in the “Wall Street Journal” with Kevin, he’s working on that with me. And I got a couple more things going.

MICHAEL: How are you putting it in the “Wall Street Journal”? What kind of marketing is that?

RICHARD: Well so there’s this guy that I met through Facebook, that does this. He puts on these a bit like property.com. You know, all sorts of names that he puts in the “Wall Street Journal.” So he does it, I just kinda bought into it and I put them in there.

MICHAEL: Wow. And so when does that go in? I wanna learn more about that, and whether it’s successful.

RICHARD: He’s trying to coinside it with the domain name…I think there’s something coming up in New York City?

MICHAEL: Yeah, there’s an event coming up in August, NameSummit.

RICHARD: Yeah, so he’s gonna coincide it with that.

MICHAEL: Interesting.

RICHARD: Because I think they’re also gonna be advertising in there, so he wants to put it in with theirs.

MICHAEL: And which Kevin is this.

RICHARD: Kevin…I’d have to go back and look. I don’t have it up on my screen right now.

MICHAEL: Okay. Yeah, I would love to see if advertising to, you know, business professionals primarily in the United States would draw interest.

RICHARD: And that’s what I’m also curious…it’s a gamble, because I’m paying to do it. But I don’t know…I mean it wasn’t a lot. It wasn’t a huge sum. So I’m wondering what it’s gonna bring me. I’m trying to look it up right now.

MICHAEL: Cool…

RICHARD: So we’ll see. I don’t know what it’s gonna do.

MICHAEL: All right. Well definitely keep me posted on that, Richard.

So considering all the domain name purchases and sales that you’ve made to date in your career, do you think you’re in the black or the red?

RICHARD: I’m definitely in the black.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: Definitely. Yeah, I…

MICHAEL: Especially with that lastest sale.

RICHARD: Yeah, well that definitely helped. I mean even before that, I was in the black. I’ve only really had one name that I bought that just completely tanked. And I actually sold it back to the guy that I bought it from at a loss.

MICHAEL: What name was that I’m wondering?

RICHARD: Chris.net.

MICHAEL: Chris? C-H-R-I-S.net?

RICHARD: Yes, yes.

MICHAEL: It doesn’t sound like a bad domain name, right?

RICHARD: Well…

MICHAEL: Like it’s got to be one of the most popular names in the world.

RICHARD: Yep.

MICHAEL: Some Christopher wants Chris, they can’t get the .com because it’s worth millions. And yeah, they’ll take the .net.

RICHARD: Yeah, I tried. I bought it, it was when I was fairly new. I paid $20,000 for it.

MICHAEL: Wow.

RICHARD: Yeah. Yeah, I didn’t know any better.

MICHAEL: Well you know, .nets used to be more popular…

RICHARD: Yep.

MICHAEL: …back then.

RICHARD: I marketed it, and marketed, and marketed. I did Twitter, I did Google, I did everything I could possibly do. I couldn’t get a bite on it. Nobody wanted the name. Nobody. So I sold it back to the guy at a pretty decent loss. He gave me some other names back. We kinda did a trade and a buyback, and I I lost money on it.

MICHAEL: Bummer. Do you ever think back, like, “If I would’ve just waited,” you know, “if I would’ve just paid ten years of renewals at $8 a year, $10 a year, maybe somebody would’ve come along at $30,000”?

RICHARD: Yeah, yes. I thought about that a lot. You know, it’s a little bit late now. But…

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: …it is what it is.

MICHAEL: Just wondering if you would’ve like changed your mind. You know, if you could go back and redo it, if you would.

RICHARD: Yeah, if I could go back and redo it, I would’ve just kept it.

MICHAEL: Yeah, yeah.

RICHARD: Kept it and let it sit there and, you know. I was all in a hurry, and I just wanted to get rid of it.

MICHAEL: Yeah, totally.

RICHARD: It was burning a hole in my pocket just sitting there.

MICHAEL: Hey, if somebody wants to view your portfolio and potentially make you an offer, is there any place they can go and look at your portfolio?

RICHARD: Everything I have is on Uniregistry, I don’t really have a domain. I keep flirting with building a site and building it out, and I just haven’t done it yet.

MICHAEL: Yeah. So you just wait for people to type in the domain name, go to Uniregistry landing page, and make an offer.

RICHARD: Yeah, that’s pretty much what I do. And I do get some. People aren’t usually willing to pay what I want, when I wanna get out of the name.

MICHAEL: Yep.

RICHARD: And I find that it’s mostly Chinese investors who are trying to lowball people.

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: But that’s the way it happens. Somebody will pay but I want some day.

MICHAEL: Yeah, exactly. When offers come in at Uniregistry, do you manage them yourself? Or have you assigned leads to Uniregistry staff? I’m curious.

RICHARD: The staff usually gets it.

MICHAEL: They do?

RICHARD: Yeah, because I feel they’re better at it, I’d rather pay them the 10 or 15%. They do it for a living, they know what to say, they know how to reach back out. I have no problem with that.They can do it.

MICHAEL: And do they reach out to you and ask you what you’re asking price is at that time? Or do you somehow set them in their system?

RICHARD: No, they’ll write to me and ask me what I want.

MICHAEL: Okay.

RICHARD: They’ll ask me…

MICHAEL: And you like that because sometimes domains appreciate or depreciate in value, and then you can tell them what you think it’s worth at the time.

RICHARD: Yeah, and I also like to see who’s asking. Because if it’s somebody with a fake address and a fake name, you can tell right away. And I’m just like, “Whatever. Just tell them this.”

MICHAEL: Yeah.

RICHARD: You know? And if it’s somebody that really means business, you can tell also. And that way you can Google them, see who they are. Do they have money, do they not have money. Are they, you know, just some guy randomly looking to buy a name.

MICHAEL: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. If someone wants to contact you to discuss anything, what’s the best way for them to reach you directly?

RICHARD: My email, [email protected]

MICHAEL: Okay, Richard@Richard D-Y-N-A-S.com.

RICHARD: That’s it, yep.

MICHAEL: Awesome. If you’re watching this show and you have questions for Richard, please post them in the comments below this video on DomainSherpa. And I’ll ask him to come back and answer as many as he can. If you…

RICHARD: Absolutely.

MICHAEL: …found educational benefit from the show, learned something new, or were just simply inspired by what Richard did and how he did it, please just take a few seconds to post a comment below this video and thank him. I’m gonna be the first do so. Richard Dynas, thanks for coming on the DomainSherpa show, sharing all the details of your profitable flip sale. And thanks for being a domain sherpa for others.

RICHARD: Awesome, Michael. Thank you so much, it was an honor to be here, I love to show.

MICHAEL: Thanks, Richard. Thank you all for watching. We’ll see you next time.

RICHARD: Bye.

Watch the full video at:
https://www.domainsherpa.com/richard-dynas-hatred-flip/

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38 Responses to “$146,000 Gross Profit in 3 Months: Lucky Sale or Perfectly Researched? With Richard Dynas”

  1. ABA says:

    and see if it is online today? nope…

    Come on!

  2. This was such an awesome video. He called it “luck” I’d say he played his cards perfect ! Great sale dude !

  3. Mike says:

    Hello,
    Me again, I just worked it out. The reason it goes to Amazon is because it is the page for the new owner of the domain name – Milo Yiannopoulos – latest book for sale, called Dangerous.

    At least it answers all the doubters that the sale really was legitimate.

    1. Dave says:

      @Mike No it does not. For all you know it is an affiliate link just forwarded to amazon.
      Whoever the name is registered to is in fact the owner of record.Do your who is.
      Too many bogus sales passing as real. As soon as a sale is done it is reported as sold before anybody verify s it actually closed. We have tested many times,been in touch with Estibot,Godaddy,DnJournal and acouple others, the verification of these sales is easy for a scammer to manipulate.Private sales are even more difficult to verify. You must be new.
      Don’t believe all the hype you will go bankrupt.

  4. Mike says:

    Hello All,
    I don’t normally get involved with these kind of debates but as I enjoyed the interview, I thought I would type in the domain name and to my surprise it redirects to Amazon.com.

    Not at all what I expected.

  5. Dave says:

    This appears to be a bogus sale. It is still registered in Richard’s name. I reached out to him about this and his response was I do not share information with someone I do not know.
    I then mentioned this video and gave him some identifying information about me so he could confirm I am legit.
    He has not responded.
    I wonder if being a broker as Richard is if this was bogus to draw attention to his brokerage?
    Perhaps there should be more proof of facts before you put this out there.
    Maybe you can get an explanation from Richard and post it here.

    1. jose says:

      The plot thickens again…

    2. Richard says:

      I can assure you that this sale has been verified by multiple people in the business including Michael. I have emailed Milo’s people numerous times informing them to change the info.
      As far as you are concerned, why is it my responsibility to give you information? I dont know you, you are some random person sending me emails. I owe you no explanations but since you publicly posted it I responded.

      1. Dave says:

        I would be concerned about information going around the domain industry that looks like a deal you were representing is bogus.

        As a domain broker this does not look good for you.

        But hey, why should I care.I would never use your services because of it.

        Best of Luck to ya

  6. Paolo says:

    Congrats for the sale Richard.

    One thing that it’s still a mistery to me is if I type in google:
    hatred or “hatred” I can find mainly videogames related results and absolutely none of those 2 prospects contacted by Richard.

    I’ve tried to do the same with an US IP and the result is different but I still not see those 2 prospects in the first 5 Google pages.

    I did the same again with an US IP located from Alabama (where Souther Poverty Law Center is) and still no useful results…

    Am I missing something?

  7. Noor Manji says:

    Great Show !!! Richard, i think you made your own luck with this sale, perfect timing also. Perfect example of “keep on keeping on” …. many congrats, you deserved it.
    thank you Mike for bringing this show to everyone….much to learn.

    cheers.

    Noor

  8. MICHAEL DOONER says:

    Great Show. …Very Entertaining.

  9. THCNames says:

    Richard sold the domain to the perfect buyer. Why does everyone have such “hatred” for this sale? :)

  10. jose says:

    one of the best interviews i watched recently. great story and Dynas seems to be a very nice down to earth guy, with no bragging needs and assuming everything like it is: a very lucky deal but that had all the effort placed in the first place. well done.

    only issue/question I have. when they counter with $150k why not pushing this further and say “this is kind of low of what I was expecting, why don’t we agree on $200k?” and then see how they react.

    i find it important not to sell ourselves too fast.

    1. Logan says:

      The buyers did not counter with $150,000. Richard was the one who proposed $150,000 NOW or $200,000 LATER.

      1. jose says:

        i had to listen again to that part and read the transcript.
        but i am missing something here. how he got from asking $250k and then ask $150k NOW plus without any counter offer from the buyer? and in the middle he said also $200k now…

  11. Eric Bryant says:

    Richard and Michael thanks for an inspiring interview. Like, YES! the little guys like me CAN DO IT!!! And thanks for your attitude, Richard, and transparency. This was a very motivating interview for me.

    I do have a question about your use of ClearBit–what’s the minimum monthly pricing level package to get the data you need? $500/month seems way out there…

    Thanks!

    Eric

    1. Logan says:

      ClearBit is free to use.

  12. Saro says:

    Cool interview! Great initiative Richard to reach Milo, even if it’s partly luck, you put the odds in your favor by doing the work. Thanks for the clearbit mention , going to check it out.

    @Richard: One thing I’m curious though if you can answer, when they came back saying the $250k was too much, how long did you wait until you countered?

    @Michael, maybe would be interesting to do a second interview with Richard regarding one of the 5 figure sales that Richard mentioned he’s had.

  13. Theo says:

    Big money..!
    But, buying $10 and selling $400 is a better deal than buying $4000 and selling $146000 ..!
    Great interview.

    1. Logan says:

      That depends on what your expenses are like. :)

  14. Keenan Hladich says:

    Hi Michael. A really great motivating interview with Richard. thanks for sharing

  15. tldboss says:

    Thanks Richard and Michael for a great show.

    Informative and inspiring, ups (massive sale) downs (losing money in .net investment)

    Congrats again on a great sale.

  16. Robert says:

    Can you please interview the seller of hatred.com that missed out on a big payday? Live and learn…

    1. Logan says:

      He didn’t miss out on a big payday at all. He never would have gotten the sale. The sale only happened because of Richard Dynas sending that one email to Milo. It was not luck that made this sale happen — it was Richard Dynas taking action, taking a risk, and communicating with a “high and best use” prospective buyer. Richard made sh*t happen and got it done, even if he himself chalks it up to luck, in which case he would be wrong.

  17. Andy McBean says:

    Great interview. Well done Richard :)

  18. Albert says:

    Without a doubt one of the best Sherpa (and other blogs) Interviews ever.

    Richard actually shares how a domain name broker failed, and how he took things into his own hands.

    The better part of the interview is that he gives a play by play of what happened, how it happened, and reads the email that ultimately worked.

    Congrats. to Richard on his sale and to Michael for landing the interview and asking the right questions.

  19. Great job Richard… Congratulations. Good packaging. Thanks for sharing. Big help

  20. Ryan Scott says:

    Fantastic interview as always. Thanks Richard for opening up to the very inquisitive Michael Cyger. You are always pushing for the details which we all love to hear, and pull out the humor in the anxiety and disappointment we all go through on almost every deal. Great interview.

  21. Michael K says:

    Wow, great sale. Thanks for sharing the details.

  22. Todd says:

    Milo also owns Dangerous.com which is the name of his book and the url he is using to promote it..he has $ to burn…very wealthy fellow..

  23. Mike C says:

    Wow! Congratulations Richard! And thanks Mike. Great inspiring show.

  24. Omar Rocwa says:

    Great interview…one of your best!

  25. MM says:

    Pure luck however as the saying goes, harder you work ..

    1. Logan says:

      “Pure luck?” Hardly, he took action and made the opportunity happen. This is what happens to people who proactively make opportunities happen.

  26. Jessica says:

    Awesome interview! Congrats Richard and thanks Michael!!

  27. ezee says:

    Well done Richard ,all the best for the future, excellent show Michael

  28. yuli says:

    perfectly researched. not a fan of milo.am a fan or richard!

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