Morning Folks!!
I look at a domain as growing fruit and myself as a farmer. With fruit you have to plant and have the patience to let it grow, to ripen, to sweeten. You have to nurture and tend to them. Keep an eye on things. If you pick it too soon it has little value. Wait too long and it may go bad and you miss your opportunity to have food.
It’s hard to believe that the first 10 years of this new millennium are coming to a close. My first domain sale occurred in 1999. So 10 years ago. So I decided to make a list of the domains I have sold and the prices I have sold them for. The one thing common to each of these sales is in every case the buying party contacted me first.
Unfortunately I promised not to reveal the buying party but I can tell you it was a domain I bought for either $70 or $100 in 1996 and sold for $225k last week.
1999 eScore.com $100,000 (Kaplan Education Services)
2002 eCruise.com $100,000 and stock options to xxxxxxx.com (NDA)
2003 Men.com $1.32M to Kevin Leto / Men.com LLC
2006 PartnerCash.com $110,000 to PartnerCash.de
2008 236.com (Can't publish price) To IAC
2008 iReport.com $750,000 To CNN
2008 Property.com $5M++ and full equity stake to Foreclosure.com
2008 RoomDividers.com $75,000
2009 Candy.com $3M plus 2% royalty from gross and other considerations to Melville Candy Co.
2009 Undisclosed domain. $224,000 bought for $100 in 1999.
Total over $10 million on 10 domain deals PLUS Equity stake in Property.com, 2% Royalty from Candy.com, and stock in xxxxxx.com. Plus other considerations, options and alike.
Plus I have sold a sprinkling of other domains at TRAFFIC to help market and create some excitement. Nothing I wanted to sell and maybe 4 or 5 total domains.
I sold TeenModels.com for about $75,000 which in my mind was a trade for a domain costing a bit more that helped to round out my portfolio. Kinkysex.com at about $80k. Trade by two simultaneous cash to cash transactions.
Each sale I make is a sale I can build on. You can build on. The industry can build on. Each sale any of us makes adds to the valuation process.
We each have our methods and variables. If it works for you, that is all that counts. Just never underestimate the power of a business on the corner of the busiest intersection in the world.
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
Sai
Wow, Congrats again, Rick!!
Btw, is the recession good for kings alone? j/k.
Sahar Sarid
Hi Rick, all,
I’ve been with you on this ride through most of those, I remember our talks prior to buying/selling some here. Candy.com, believing when others did not. I remember how you were ecstatic within the first 2-3 days of the trial period which was 30 days. I remember Property.com while the price was highest you have paid probably to this day, it was still a deal to go for. Others could have bought it, but no one had the foresight.
So for those who think luck is involved, you are absolutely right. Some of the deals above it is the right property, right client, but let’s not underestimate timing here. What Rick did right was build favorable dynamics and increase the odds that timing will give its final blessing, time and again.
Congrats on a GREAT RUN Rick, for more to come!
Cheers
Sahar
Altaf
Congrats! And thanks for being so candit & open. That’s your quality we admire the most,not the money you have. Great people great vitues.
Have a nice time and guide us in your way.
Danny Pryor
This is all very inspiring because, as a developer more than a domainer, I recognize I have jumped into the domain game a bit late. So I am utilizing the strengths I did develop since I transitioned from broadcasting to the online world. What is being carefully cultivated will, after a period of a few years, be worth $$$. This I know, and it’s a long-range plan. There are no quick-flips, as evidenced by your more successful sales!
Bruce Tedeschi
Good for you. You had the vision and believed back in the day. Paid off big for you. Good to see that you are young enough to enjoy it too…
Charley
Rick
Kinkysex.com still shows your whois details.
Rob Sequin
What other kind of asset can appreciate like that AND only cost $8 a year to own and maintain?
What a great business.
Interested
I asked this before a few weeks ago but never received an answer…did the candy.com guys pay you 3M up front or over several years? Did they pay you over 15 years or was it all at once?
David
Congrats again Rick.
randomo
You’ve sold fewer than 15 domains in all those years? Got you beat – I’ve sold almost 5,000. :-) Of course, the sum of all those sale prices wouldn’t nearly equal just _one_ of your better sales ….
Anyway, I look forward to joining you at TRAFFIC NYC again, to continue learning how to move from quantity to quality.
Jessica
I got fairmodels.com, anybody interested? lol.
Whenever disappointments set in, I shall remember your successes, Rick.
Hail, King Rick Schwartz! :)
This is a nice poem:
If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill,
Be a shrub in the valley—but be
The best little shrub at the side of the hill;
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.
We can’t all be captains,
We’ve got to be crew.
There’s something for all of us here;
There is big work to do, and there’s lesser to do
And the task we must do is the near.
If you can’t be a highway, then just be a trail,
If you can’t be the sun, be a star;
It isn’t the size that you win or you fail—
Be the best of whatever you are. – Anonymous.
Lesson:
We can’t all be Rick Schwartz. :p
Josh
Very nice, especially impressive when folks remember that you didn’t register 100,000 or 300,000 domains as some players did. You cast the net far shallower, but with higher quality. That makes your sales even more impressive. It’s nice to get large sales any time, but it’s especially nice to get them before the tax rates skyrocket.
The other side of the coin is, what sales have you been indirectly responsible for? I read eRealestate.com back in late 1999 and that planted the seed for me. I kept coming back and reading it again and again, your passion was contagious and planted a dream. I’ve had one seven figure sale, and a number of 6 figure sales, but if I’d never read eRealEstate.com, I never would have sold (or bought) a single domain. I’m sure there’s others too that had a seed planted by you. Something to think about.
Interested
Your silence answers my question – thanks!
Catherine Opekete
Congrats Rick
How do you do it?
I think you must have the Midas’ Touch
Well Done!
jp
@Rick? Were any of the buyers of your big sales someone you had solicited, or did they all come to you, or can you not say?
Nico
To”Rob Sequin” It’s not an asset if it no one wants to buy it and it does not pay for itself. Then is is a liability.
I am about 4K in names deep many I believe are the future fruit that Rick speaks of but I am also thinning the herd so to speak of the weak as paying fees on names that don’t produce is pointless.
Most Domainers have name they may never sell or even get their money back.
I have been fortunate enough already pay for my domain habit.
A few of my sales:
FreeOnlineGames.com $40K
FreeGameDownloads.com (Undisclosed) But let;s say I was very happy.
AnimeXXX.com $75K
LatinWomen $14K about 6 years ago.
(PenisSize.com, PenisSizes.comm PenisEnlargment.com) $110K package.
Name valuations have fluctuated as much as the stock market.
Now if I can sell a few thousand more…lol
Actually I have about 1000 adult names I’d like to sell off.
Nico
PS: BTW Rick Congrats! You give us all something to aspire to!