- Welcome to The Journey.
Today we're talking about why you should invest in Domains.
- Well, hey.
I'm Sam.
This is Joe, from GoDaddy.
So Joe, tell us a little bit about yourself.
- I've been with GoDaddy for over 10 years
in the aftermarket,
and what we do there is we help people
to invest in Domains every day.
- So like many of you watching.
I know I've heard of many Domains
being sold for millions of dollars,
and I've always wondered what does it take to get into it?
I know there's some people that just do this full time.
So Joe, is this a possibility?
- Yeah, I think anybody can get started
in investing in Domain names.
So you can start, you know, no matter where you are,
if you want to start with a small investment
or a large investment, there's opportunity for anyone.
- Oh, so it's like buying and selling properties
like a real estate agent?
- Yeah, kind of more like an investor.
So if you're investing in real estate,
you look for stuff that might be
a little bit under the market value.
You know, people come in all the time,
they'll buy a foreclosure,
or they go and they say,
this is an up and coming neighborhood,
I really want to get a property there
because they know in a few years from now
it's gonna be more valuable.
Same thing with Domain names.
People look for undervalued assets in the Domain world
and they say, man, this is a great opportunity
for me to jump in and buy this name
because they know for the person over here,
who sells these, all the time,
this is going to be really valuable.
If they have a car website and they see this name,
those do a lot for their business
and help them sell more cars.
I'm gonna buy this cause I know for that person
it's worth X amount more than I have
to pay for it for their business.
- All right, now Joe, this sounds phenomenal.
But how do I get started?
- Well, the first thing you should do is really think about
what your business plan would be.
So like any business and any opportunity
you wanna think things through first.
Think about if you want, you know,
to invest a little bit of money
or a lot of money and how you want to do that.
Some people, they invest mainly in short term opportunities.
So what they'll do is they'll go to
an expired Domain name market where you know,
names are more or less wholesale
and they expire out of people's accounts.
They can pick them up and then they'll buy those
and sell them for, you know,
several hundred dollars or $1,000 more
than they pick them up for and try and do that quickly.
Other people--
- So they're short sale but the short term
is like flipping homes?
- Yeah. More or less, you're flipping Domain names,
so you are buying this name, you know, it's undervalued.
You know, if you got to the right person's hands,
it will be worth more money and you buy it.
And there's a smaller margin profit.
With other people,
they buy names that are more valuable
and they hold those for a longer period of time.
So you might buy a name like,
you know Homes.com and you might have to spend,
you know a $1 million for that.
But you know that to the right real estate agent
or a company like Zillow that that's their focus,
that a name like Homes.com will be well over
a $1 million for their bottom line.
So if you, you know think about it upfront.
What kinda business plan do you want to go with?
Do you wanna be, you know, a short term?
Do you wanna go longterm?
What types of names do you wanna invest in?
You know, you should really do your research up front
and try and figure that out and then it'll give you a good,
you know, path what to take next.
- Quick question for you Joe.
You said research.
So where do you go to learn about
this is gonna be a good Domain that I should get,
this is gonna be booming in this certain industry?
Any particular resources?
- Yeah, I think there's a couple things that you should do.
First thing is, start with the market that you already know.
So if you already are doing another job
and you know you're in the construction business
and you build houses all the time
and you know that there's a new material that's coming out
that's gonna be great for the environment
and it's gonna help save people money on
their home building costs.
Maybe you think about well you know
what kinda Domain names would
go around selling something like that?
In the future. Cause I know that industry
and I know it's going to grow.
You also can look at other names itself.
So there are sites like namebio.com,
that'll tell you what keyword names are selling so
it could be homes, it could be cars, it could be flooring.
You can look for that specific keyword
and it'll tell you what name is sold in that area.
And it'll also tell you the dates
so you can see if you know,
last one, is this over 10 years ago or are they selling now?
And it'll give you a good idea of what the market is like.
And then there's blogs,
there's people that do this all the time for a living
and a lot of them are open to share their knowledge.
So you can go to a place like Domaining.com.
And that's an aggregator and it'll grab a lot of
the top blogs in the industry and you can learn from others.
You really want to take it slow
and learn as much as you can before you invest any money.
- Now my day-to-day, I'm in social media marketing.
So Joe, you get a Domain name.
How are you going to market it?
Like for instance,
I'm thinking about Twitter, Facebook,
there are certain handles.
So what do you suggest
a person do when it comes to social media?
- Well, I think with social media that's a good tie in.
You know, there's a lot of similarities.
With social media handles,
you want something that's easy for people to remember
so they can find you. Right?
And it's the same thing with a short and brandable domain.
Those are typically more valuable.
So if you have a brand
and you have that presence,
that's just going to add more value
to the overall Domain name that you own.
So if you had you know, @cars.
As a great handle you had cars.com
and you were to sell that Domain name
as an added value might want to throw in those handles.
Hey, you can have this business
and that's going to add that whole brand
so somebody can buy a package
and that's, you know, it goes back to your business plan.
That's the area you know,
you should focus on that.
You know, what would this do
to somebody who's in social marketing?
How would this help them?
How would this Domain name help them?
How would the handles help them?
And how can I package that up to say, Hey,
this is going to be a great benefit for your bottom line.
- All right, Joe, I wish I knew all this ahead of the curve.
Like when the internet was just becoming a thing.
I would've just grabbed McDonald's.com or target.com
I'd have been probably not doing this now
and rich and retired.
But Joe, is there any way that we can be ahead of
the trends and know what Domain names we should really grab?
- Yeah, that's a great question.
There's always new trends
and that's one of the things
that keeps Domain investing exciting.
Right? There's always new things that are being invented
or new things that people are talking about.
And being in social media
it's great because you're oftentimes
at the forefront of that, right?
You can see when new ideas are coming out
and that's why I brought it back before your industry.
If you know the industry really well,
you can see what new things are coming
in your industry and keep an eye on that
and get ahead of the curve.
So there's always trends to watch out for,
cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, things like that.
A couple of years ago,
this year it's, it's been, you know,
anything that's related to cannabis or CBD,
things like that have been really popular.
So there's always new trends that come out.
And if you can kind of watch what people are looking at,
what they're buying, what's exciting.
One thing that you always see
is there's always a new diet every year, right?
- That's true.
- Paleo, Atkins, like over the years they've changed.
So you keep an eye on what's popular with people
and keep an eye on things like social media that are new.
So you can find out, Oh, where's this going?
Maybe I should invest in some names that are gonna be
in you know, in demand in another year.
- And on the same topic of social media,
there's certain platforms like Twitter.
Twitter is great for keeping up with
what's, you know currently trending.
So you can set certain notifications
just to, you know, be notified even Google.
So this is good info.
- Yeah. There are Domain investors that I know
one of my friends a actually keeps an eye on what's trending
politically with different keywords.
And then he'll see that on Twitter
and he'll jump in and buy that Domain name
and he sold it to some of the political candidates
or other people that have PACs things like that.
So you can keep an eye on what's trending on Twitter
and then go and register the name.
People do that very often.
- And are there any other, as the expert here,
are there any other tips that we should know,
to you know, make sure that we're making a smooth entry into
this new opportunity?
- Yeah, one thing that I tell people, is start slow.
That's one of the biggest mistakes I see.
This can get really exciting, really fast.
People start going out,
they're registering a lot of Domain names
And then next year, the bill comes to renew those names.
So if you've got a hundred names
or you picked up a thousand names
and it's a $10 renewal, that can add up quick.
So start slow and try and focus again on
your business plan, the marketing niche that you know
and start with a few names and try and sell those
before you actually build your portfolio out.
If you have five names and you try and sell those,
you'll learn, you know what's working, what's not working.
And next year if you still have those five names,
it's $50 to renew, rather than, you know--
- A thousand names
- You have a giant bill and that really will eat
into your investing budget pretty quick.
So start slow, make sure you build your portfolio smart.
And keep in mind what the carrying costs are.
- And like Joe mentioned earlier,
if you know you're gonna do it for the quick flip,
the short term or the long term,
kinda think about the money that you have
to put in for each of those.
- Right.
- Well that's a wrap.
Thank you Joe, for joining us.
You just learned why you should invest in Domain names.
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