.online niche and my business background (1 Viewing)

Name Guy

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before I launch into the brokerage business I'm developing I'd like to share with anyone reading this, two businesses i started back in the 70's and 80's. While I founded, launched and yes "named" these businesses over 30 years ago they're still in business today. For the record I have no interest in either of these businesses today;

Credit Control Corporation is the first business I started in 1975; https://creditcontrol.net/ Credit Control Corporation currently has over 100 employees and does over 10M a year in what is referred to as "fee income" or revenue. And for those of you who don't have business experience, having 10M in revenue annually doesn't mean you're making money. However my educated guess is the young man who bought the business from me in the late eighties is probably making from 500K to a million a year in profit. The business is a regional debt collection company that collects mostly hospital and medical debt.

Before I move on to the next company I started, I'm only doing this because there were a few members of namepoos who questioned my every move and post, and one member in particular insinuated that I didn't know what I was doing when it comes to the domain/name industry just because I had "named" a couple of businesses in the past. Thus I hope to share enough verifiable information with anyone who cares, that I do know a little about what I'm doing.

The next major business I started in the mid 80's that's also still in business is AcSel Corporation seen here; http://www.acsel.org/ Like Credit Control Corp Acsel is still in business today and is a Medical Billing business that does a little over 3M in fee's for the hospital based physicians it bills for. My partner who is a good friend of mine to this day had a computer science degree from LSU and he wrote software/code that billed the insurance carriers and the patients. Just a quick story behind the name AcSel....when I started the business i originally named it "Accounts Receivable Management Corporation" and we called it ARMANCO for short. After we were in business for about five years we decided we needed to rebrand so we hired an ad agency to help us. After a couple of weeks of maybe two or three meetings we finally came up with the new name AcSel. we all agreed, and my partner wrote the ad agency a check for $2,000. The exercise we went through was OK, but with one problem....i was the one who came up with the name ;) ....no crap:)

Since then I've named well over a dozen businesses like InQuisitor Investigations, JudgmentScore®, Contact USA (this company turned into a colossal failure), where I lost over a million dollars. One business I still have today, and I run out of my house is National 1099, Inc. I generate about 18K a year from that small business that I started with my brother-in-law in 1987.

Again, I'm sharing this to show anyone who thinks I haven't a clue about the domain/name business that I may just have a little more than a clue.

Moving on....for the third time now I'm attempting to launch a domain brokerage that I believe has the real potential to rival something like a Sedo, an Epik, or someone like a dot Club. I still think the traditional business model where domainers buy names at auction, then list them at sites like Afternic, Sedo, Dan and Sav is seriously flawed. TQM or total quality management teaches there is ALWAYS a better way, and I intend to find that better way with a little help from my friends.

I'm going to stop right here and pick up again tomorrow. I've recently met a few people in this industry who believe I may be on to something, and I hope this exercise can be a learning experience for all of us. Later
 
Who said anything about being a successful business person has to do with owning good domains?

You can start great businesses with bad domains. It happens daily....not really related as far as I’m concerned.
 
theinvestor said:
Who said anything about being a successful business person has to do with owning good domains?

You can start great businesses with bad domains. It happens daily....not really related as far as I’m concerned.

You have your OPINION and I have mine, and you know what they say about opinions ;) I was just setting the stage for what you're about to learn about starting a new business. Stay tuned....you may just learn something.
 
MapleDots said:
Yup, even today a straight hand reg can yield a nice sale..
https://dn.ca/topic/448/hand-registration-to-five-figure-sale/

Frank...in my post i never ONCE said that it was the names of the businesses i started that made them successful. However according to my peers (not domainers) I had a knack for coming up with creative names for my businesses ie;

Credit Control - debt recovery
AcSel - medical billing
JudgmentScore® program similar to Credit Scoring
Contact USA - national call center
Domain Gourmet - domain marketplace
DollarDownDomains - domain name that I created/own

Moving on.....i created and registered the domain DollarDownDomains.com in order to sell mostly domains that I personally hand register, and I plan to share with others how I do it. On the NP message board, several members who think I'm bad for the domain industry asked how I plan to do this....as if to say Richard, you can't do that. To which my response is " just watch me".

Starting with the "Dollar Down" idea, a good friend of mine Macon Brock started "Dollar Tree" here in Virginia Beach about 30 years ago, and he grew it from a single store with just a few employees in 1985 to 15,000 stores and 193,000 employees today. Dollar Tree stock symbol DLTR is a 26 Billion dollar company today, and one of the most profitable businesses in the world selling goods (use to call it "crap") for a dollar.

Ironically Go Daddy doesn't consider "Dollar" a keyword, but it considers "down" a keyword valued at $1,906. As a domainer you may consider DollarDownDomains.com a "bad" name because it has 17 letters. Could I have come up with a better name? Maybe, but I'm not a B&M store front like Dollar Tree and I believe it's perfect for what I intend to do with it....remember "Beauty is in the Eyes of the Beholder"

Later I'll explain the dollar down concept, and how we make money with an end user just putting $1 down to buy a domain. Stay tuned.
 
Name Guy said:
"Beauty is in the Eyes of the Beholder"

I always thought that it was “Beauty is in the eye of the BEERholder”??? :)

On a side note, I enjoy reading your posts. They are informative, even though I do not agree with everything you say, it’s a good read.
 
Nafti said:
I always thought that it was “Beauty is in the eye of the BEERholder”??? :)

On a side note, I enjoy reading your posts. They are informative, even though I do not agree with everything you say, it’s a good read.
Thanks Nafti...you really got my attention with your "BEERholder" comment, and you might say it drove to drink ;) No, seriously to hand register MakeBeer.online followed by MakeWine.online. You may want to check both MakeBeer.com and MakeWine.com to see where those domains lead. Just for the record, GD values MakeBeer.com at $6,388 and MakeWine.com at $4,245. So why would I buy those two domains?

1. They were just $1 at GD
2. .online is the fastest growing nTLD on the market right now
3. the .com equivalents are valued hundreds of times more than their annual renewal
4. Both Beer and Wine lend themselves to being made at home
5. Learning to Make anything as good as beer or wine is a good thing
6. This is a case in my opinion where the extension .online is as good or better than .com
7. As an "outbound marketer" of domains this fits in my wheelhouse
8. The risk vs. reward factor is about as good as it gets imho

There are other reasons too, and right after I registered those two names I registered TasteBeer.online and TasteWhisky.online for reasons I can explain later if anyone cares to know.

Thanks again Nafti, and I think I'll poor me☺ a cold Heineken in a pewter mug I got while in Dublin 25 years ago. Cheers!
 
My .online portfolio just keeps growing....today I posted domains like this;

PsychologyToday.online
HomeBuilding.online
MakeBank.online
AppBank.online
LaserSurgery.online
TakeFive.online

Whats most interesting is that most of the .com equivalents that I'm registering are valued from $10,000 to $20,000. While these domains will be on attractive landing pages, it will be our "outbound" marketing that will drive sales. What's also interesting is that few "end users" even know the .online extension exists, and it's my intent to tell "end users" that .online is the latest and greatest "Go To" extension when the .com is no longer available. Just to give my friends here a feel for what I'm doing, go to LaserSurgery.com, and check out the site it goes to. It turns out it goes to a Laser Surgery center in Washington DC where I happen to be from. Basically I'll give them first right of refusal before I take it to other Laser Surgery groups throughout the country. I'll certainly be sharing with them GD's appraisal of $18,500 and a few other appraisals. I haven't determined my pricing yet, but I've been told not to sell them too cheap, and since the .com isn't available anyway I'll be testing the waters. I own some other medical domains like HeartSurgery.online, GeneralSurgery.online and LasikSurgery.online where just one surgery will pay for the domain. Feel free to ask any questions here, or you can email me personally. Finally, before anyone says to me "you can't do that" think again. They're now my personal intellectual property, and in most cases I can do anything with them I please, and that's not to say anyone else can do the same. Have a good evening friends.
 
Why don’t you protect those domains by also registering them in .com?

For example : PsychologyTodayOnline.com and so on..you might as well corner this market all to yourself.
 
Name Guy said:
6. This is a case in my opinion where the extension .online is as good or better than .com

What? There are some extensions that are good alternatives if you can't get the .com (ccTLDs for example) but I think the past and present markets have decided loud and clear that there hasn't been anything better than the .COM

I can't speak for the future though, so I reserve the right to be wrong but unless you have a crystal ball, that's a pretty bold statement
 
The word online is only used as a last resort when one cannot get the domain one wants. Adding the word online is an easy compromise but an extension called .online is totally moronic because it basically states the obvious.

All domains are already online...
 
theinvestor said:
Why don’t you protect those domains by also registering them in .com?

For example : PsychologyTodayOnline.com and so on..you might as well corner this market all to yourself.
Thanks, and I have in a few cases. However, having surveyed potential end users and peers when they learn that PsychologyToday.online is exactly the same as PsychologyTodayOnline.com they actually think .online is cooler. We've been brainwashed in this industry to think .com is the only way, but when you're able to talk with "end users" about alternatives you would be surprised. Let me give you an example; I just bought the domain BoxSeats.online, but I didn't buy the domain BoxSeatsOnline.com because it just felt too cumbersome and it really is when you consider BoxSeats has just "8" letters and BoxSeatsOnline has "14" letters. Something else I'll share, GD appraises BoxSeats.com @$5,680 and Nameworth appraises it @ $29,500. And if you go to BoxSeats.com you'll see that it's for sale by Roy Messer apparently a pretty big hitter in the high end Domain business...i think he's partnered with another heavy hitter Kate Buckley. Why do i mention this? Because I'm sure they're asking a whole lot of money for BoxSeats.com, and now they have a real competitor promoting a very similar product. I know it's a similar product regardless of what anyone says, and for a guy who Rob Monster says can sell ice to Eskimos, I might just be able sell BoxSeats.online at a Premium. Finally, a good friend of mine was telling me just yesterday that if he ever won the lottery the first thing he would buy is a "Box Seat" at Yankee Stadium. Maybe if he wins the lottery he'll buy BoxSeats.online from me for a mere million bucks ;)
 
Spex said:
What? There are some extensions that are good alternatives if you can't get the .com (ccTLDs for example) but I think the past and present markets have decided loud and clear that there hasn't been anything better than the .COM

I can't speak for the future though, so I reserve the right to be wrong but unless you have a crystal ball, that's a pretty bold statement
First, thanks for sharing your thoughts. In the context that I read .com, I think it stood for "communication", .org for "organization", and .net for "internet", but in the big scheme of things the "letters" right of the dot are meaningless, or as Mapledot says, superflous. Generally speaking if you have a business whereby you sell or transact business electronically, it's said to be "online". I really didn't pay much attention to the extension "online" until I saw where GD was selling it for $1. I then started doing some research and discovered .online, owned by Radix, is one the fastest growing new gTLD's. They have almost 2M "DUM" or domains under management of which I own 300. Like you I don't believe it will replace .com anytime soon, but I do think it's a great alternative for someone who is running or wants to start an "online" business. I think too, one of the reasons it's been growing so fast has a lot to do with Covid. I own domains like GunSafety.online and LearnFrench.online that are perfect names, not just in my opinion, but in the opinion of "non domainers". This is why I fall back on TQM ie. Total Quality Management that believes there's ALWAYS a better way.
 
Name Guy said:
First, thanks for sharing your thoughts. In the context that I read .com, I think it stood for "communication", .org for "organization", and .net for "internet", but in the big scheme of things the "letters" right of the dot are meaningless, or as Mapledot says, superflous. Generally speaking if you have a business whereby you sell or transact business electronically, it's said to be "online". I really didn't pay much attention to the extension "online" until I saw where GD was selling it for $1. I then started doing some research and discovered .online, owned by Radix, is one the fastest growing new gTLD's. They have almost 2M "DUM" or domains under management of which I own 300. Like you I don't believe it will replace .com anytime soon, but I do think it's a great alternative for someone who is running or wants to start an "online" business. I think too, one of the reasons it's been growing so fast has a lot to do with Covid. I own domains like GunSafety.online and LearnFrench.online that are perfect names, not just in my opinion, but in the opinion of "non domainers". This is why I fall back on TQM ie. Total Quality Management that believes there's ALWAYS a better way.

So it’s $1 for the first year and $63.67 CAD for the following year....sounds like a good deal.

Also, pretty sure .com is for commercial.
 
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Name Guy said:
...And if you go to BoxSeats.com you'll see that it's for sale by Roy Messer apparently a pretty big hitter in the high end Domain business...i think he's partnered with another heavy hitter Kate Buckley. Why do i mention this? Because I'm sure they're asking a whole lot of money for BoxSeats.com, and now they have a real competitor promoting a very similar product. I know it's a similar product regardless of what anyone says...

Using that logic, then boxseats.whatever (which there are well over 1,000) would be real competition to the .com, and I think that is ridiculous. Also, just because a nTLD is for sale for $1 at GD, it doesn't mean you should invest in it. There are a lot of ways to make money in the domain business, but this is not one I would follow.
 
I'd like to also point out that its well known that many of the free and $1 registrations are made to spammers & scammers using them like they're intended to be, disposable.
 
theinvestor said:
So it’s $1 for the first year and $63.67 CAD for the following year....sounds like a good deal.

Also, pretty sure .com is for commercial.
Actually it's 49.99 for the following year, and if you own as many as I do it's negotiable if you're selling a lot of domains on behalf of the registry. That said however, even $49.99 is really cheap if you're running a successful online business regardless of the extension. Just remember most everything in life is negotiable with the exception of my friends business DollarTree.com where he hasn't raised his prices in 30 years. Very few people understood the business model at Dollar Tree just like most domainers don't understand the business model of registry's that sell us their domains. I've made it my business to understand their business that's a big help to me. And thank you, I believe .com was the abbreviation for commercial.
 
aactive said:
Using that logic, then boxseats.whatever (which there are well over 1,000) would be real competition to the .com, and I think that is ridiculous. Also, just because a nTLD is for sale for $1 at GD, it doesn't mean you should invest in it. There are a lot of ways to make money in the domain business, but this is not one I would follow.

So BoxSeats.golf, BoxSeats.top, BoxSeats.wang or BoxSeats.icu are just as good as BoxSeats.online? or GunSafety.tennis, or Gunsafety.guru, or GunSafety.fun are just as good as GunSafety.online? What's ridiculous is comparing 99% of these other extensions to either BoxSeats.com or BoxSeats.online. BTW, you probably shouldn't follow me either since it appears I'm just wasting your time. I'm apologize.
 
rlm said:
I'd like to also point out that its well known that many of the free and $1 registrations are made to spammers & scammers using them like they're intended to be, disposable.

I know that too, but I might suggest you go to get.online to see how other business people are using the .online extension. Fortunately I've learned enough about the registry's business model to know which ones are mostly used for spam and which ones are not. I actually see where some of the registry's sell .coms for $1 as a promotional tool so .com can be used for scamming too.

However, since Verisign is behind the .com extension they have the sledge hammer to crack down on abusers.
 
Name Guy said:
Actually it's 49.99 for the following year, and if you own as many as I do it's negotiable if you're selling a lot of domains on behalf of the registry. That said however, even $49.99 is really cheap if you're running a successful online business regardless of the extension. Just remember most everything in life is negotiable with the exception of my friends business DollarTree.com where he hasn't raised his prices in 30 years. Very few people understood the business model at Dollar Tree just like most domainers don't understand the business model of registry's that sell us their domains. I've made it my business to understand their business that's a big help to me. And thank you, I believe .com was the abbreviation for commercial.

If I was spending $49.99 USD each year for every domain I own I would be homeless.
 

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