Afternoon Folks!!
By Danny Welsh
Most domainers have all tried self-development and most failed to get
much traction.
Don't even get me started on so-called ideas for 'scaled
mini-development' or 'automated' development or 'outsourced
development'. The problems with these are too numerous to mention.
It's SO obvious for a guy like me to see, who was an
'outsider'
to this thing called domaining until 2 years ago.
When you look at the VALUE of a domain name at it’s HIGHEST possible value…It’s
NOT about the “website” you build on a domain property (and it never has been).
Domainers have tried WAY too hard to “fake” a business with smoke and
mirrors, CPA, CPM, CPC bunch of BS you do not find as part of the “money-making
plan” of a real CATEGORY.com business
run by a real CATEGORY leading end user corporation (or a start-up company with
plans and aspirations to use the domain as a launch pad to BECOME a real
category-leading business).
Exceptions like you see with an AmericanFlags.com, PalmSprings.com,
Bobbleheads.com or CreditCards.com etc where a great domain name was developed
into a great business through the sweat and persistence and passion of a
dedicated domain name owner operating as a domainer second and an entrepreneur
FIRST are the stuff legends are made of, aren’t they?
But why are these exceptions?
I’ve said it before and it bears saying as many times in as many ways as
is necessary to reach John Jones, CEO, with the message.
Because for the most part, the most
valuable domain names aren't
in the hands of a company dedicated to making that domain name alone a part
of a great business. They're 'parked' in rows of hundreds of BEAUTIFIL CARS sitting on the
showroom floor “for sale”, and no one
who’s interested can even get a test drive!
The internet of the future I believe will merge great companies that have great
ideas with domains owned by about 500 people currently. These marriages will provide Harvard Case
studies for a century or more in MBA classes.
Because the experience of many domain investors attempting to develop
their best quality properties themselves often looks MUCH different when a
Candy.com quality domain name ends up in the hands of a passionate end user
business capable of exploiting more of that domain's advantages than a domain
investor ever could.
Through focus, resources, relationships, existing products and
services, and so much more among intangibles…in 100% of the cases a Melville
Candy Company is a better steward of a Candy.com property than ANY domain name
owner.
Rick Schwartz has been saying this for years.
Some heard, most didn’t.
It’s not about SELLING a domain name.
It’s not about PARKING for pennies.
It’s not about DEVELOPING a website.
It’s about what’s the highest and best use
development of any given property in any given area.
And the “domainer” will NEVER add the other inputs
into the equation for the output to be the highest and best use of the domain
name without being a BUSINESS OWNER FIRST.
Sell, park, develop? That’s all? Shhh
What would you call it when the domain is of obvious value
such as JointVentures.com but unused with little income and has untapped
beneath the surface the potential for millions when paired with the right ideas
and monetization strategy SPECIFIC to that domain itself?
What about licensing like the Castellos with Acapulco.com?
Or direct sales of highly targeted advertising in the 7 figure per year with
great destination sites/businesses they sweat to build as END USERS like
PalmSprings.com? I don’t know those guys yet but I hope to meet them soon,
having devoured their writings when Rick asked me to immerse myself in your
all’s world. They provide GREAT value in the marketplace and the companies that
pay them to advertise on those sites get a BARGAIN.
What happens when a company leases a domain simply to use it
on their TV commercial and redirect to their own lead capture page because the
direct response % of Rings.com will out-pull BrandJewelry.com to grab a higher
number of eyeballs you can turn into customers?
[[ASIDE: If you own a chain of
retail jewelry stores that sell rings among other jewelry products, is that a
bet you’d be willing to make me? You can find my email address pretty easily.
We’ll split-test it and bet real money on the results. Your existing TV
commercial. ONE tiny change = more money in your pocket every damn time you run
that commercial. If you win the bet, you walk with the cash having tried
something DIFFERENT to increase SALES. If I win, we can talk about maybe
rolling your cash from the bet into a deal for the Rings.com domain.]]
What happens when you sell @baseball.com email addresses for
$10/year and then you make a success of it with 100,000 fans becoming
customers? Could you thereby create a market segment and a windfall that allows
you to use the SAME infrastructure and head-start also then in a JV to offer
email addresses for @rockies.com and @yankees.com to tens of millions of MLB
fans WITH the MLB’s blessing since they’ll be getting a cut for you to license
a dormant resource within THEIR domain names?
If someone thinks that somehow pre-JointVentures.com the
options to monetize a great domain name were “to sell” or “to park” or “to
develop” and now are also “to lease” or whatever, that’s baloney.
Not a single person reading this in 2013 will live long
enough to see ALL the creative and lucrative options to monetize a great domain
name. Even “domain leasing”, which people are trying to say is somehow
revolutionary is NOT. It’s evolutionary, and many domain owners have been doing
it for years.
THIS is the year, however, that Rick Schwartz and I have
teamed up to show the model to Corporate America with enough wind at the back
and empirical examples to show ANYONE doing their due diligence on domains to
know WITHOUT DOUBT that if money was no object and your business is in
“category” then CATEGORY.com is the game you want to play online in the 21st
century going forward.
*shakes head*
Sell, park, develop…or lease?
Which one of those simplistic monetization models is Rick’s
deal for Candy.com?
Rick told me this was risky…that some people who are domainers would
read this and think we’re belittling them, and many domainers try to hide the
facts to business owners about what they paid for that great domain name as an
investment you want to buy as a real tool.
If we can help the early .com domain name investor “SEE IT” that it is
perfectly OK not to have the resources or knowledge to develop even one great
domain name into a great business, then that’s a WIN. If we can help the
ambitious business owner who already has a good business and is looking for an
EDGE to make it a GREAT business “SEE IT” that it is perfectly OK not to have
realized 20 years ago that the asset you want today was once available for
$100, then that’s a WIN.
WIN-WIN joint ventures that put a great domain name in the hands of a
business that is or wants to become GREAT is what we are all about with
JointVentures.com—through WHATEVER creative joint venture deal that got the
parties together, whether it be lease, license, equity share, cash with
royalties, or other.
My role in what’s coming down the pike is to make it IMPOSSIBLE for the
end user entrepreneur in ANY business category to ignore the fact that
CATEGORY.com is available, and present a UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY for a limited time
to ONE COMPANY to grab that strategic advantage…before their competitor wises
up first and takes a test drive on the Ferrari available only for lease instead
of buying the skateboard in the window.
RIGHT NOW there is an entrepreneur business owner seeking to
use and own a CATEGORY.com that’s no longer for sale for cash alone AT ANY
PRICE, and he’s researching and reading the Candy.com story -- and many like
it-- for the first time in 2013…
RIGHT NOW there is an entrepreneur who is in an entirely
different business than anyone reading this except maybe his competition…and
he’s doing his due diligence on branded domains online vs generics online,
doing his due diligence on .whatever vs .com, talking to people he trusts,
getting in his marketing team’s face and demanding answers for how to increase
SALES...
RIGHT NOW he has followed the yellow brick road of research
and been ATTRACTED from the world wide ocean of commerce somewhere on the globe
and he ends up RIGHT HERE.
JointVentures.com, a river.
Then RicksBlog.com, the pond.
And once he realizes the IRREFUTABLE TRUTH of what Rick
Schwartz already knew in 1995 that guy will write an affordable check every
month for 10 years if need be to get that kind of growth advantage that is not
offered for sale, but lease only to a qualified company that may buy later with
ongoing royalties to the previous domain owner.
That business owner will hand the a great domain name off to
his marketing team and his web development team with a high-level plan to
increase sales of the products and services they already have using little more
than the notes he made while reading JointVentures.com and an existing
infrastructure that is fully capable of MAGNIFYING and MULTIPLYING every
benefit of a great domain name once it’s paired with a GREAT business instead
of lying unused or underutlized…
That guy will say “GET IT DONE”. And that CEO will succeed
to grow his company like gangbusters, in multiples of millions and will likely
never read this blog again.
All while so many “domainers” squander the same advantages
that guy has on ONE domain and they have dozens just as good and they’re
parking for pennies to monetize the trickle of traffic coming in without any
effort or trying to build a website in a category niche to sell products where
they don’t already have a business or infrastructure.
The best domain names are not just about websites and never have been.
Think highest and best use.
Think real business.
Think “I don’t have to do everything myself” because the
other guy is there…and he needs me to profit more than he is now, just like I
need him too.
Think WIN-WIN.
Think Joint Ventures and never look back.
Danny Welsh
JointVentures.com
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