Morning Folks!!

Reading this post, I learned a few things about my JointVentures.com partner Danny Welsh that even *I* didn’t know about. A $2,000 cash offer to buy one of MY real estate domain names in 2010? LOL. You can wish in one hand and…well, I’ll let Danny tell the sad, sorry story that started with his misguided desire to be a CASH BUYER of one of my properties and ended with the reality of him as my INCOME PARTNER with a long-term plan aligned with my own vision that’s making money for us both. You mean it wasn't love at first sight Danny? Tell me it ain't so. ;-)

Rick Schwartz

By Danny Welsh

'A passionate,
energetic, HUNGRY guy or gal is looking at your uncooked Steak.com right now
and wondering if you’d let them have half…if he/she cooked it to mouthwatering
perfection FOR YOU.'

I first stumbled across RicksBlog.com November of 2010. I
found it the same way many “end users” found their way here. I wanted to buy
one of Rick’s real estate related domain names for use in one of my own
businesses. I typed it in and saw it
wasn’t being “used”.

I did my due diligence on the domain owner through the
public databases and followed the yellow brick road and landed here and found a
self-promotional blog from this brash, cursing, big-mouthed guy sitting like a
troll atop a mountain of treasure he was Hoarding.com all to himself.

Sorry, Rick! ;-)

(that WAS my first
impression of you, and I’m sure it was
many people’s impression before you won them over)

I think I had in
mind that I might offer this blowhard as much as $2,000 since the guy “wasn’t
using the domain” with all those crappy links on a one page website…and I was
sure that would be plenty when “domains only cost 8 bucks” (my thinking
then).

Little did I know how highly Rick Schwartz valued the best
generic .com domain names…how many years he’d patiently been making one annual
bet after another on the future he saw through a crystal ball…or how asleep at
the wheel so much of the business world had been JUST LIKE ME.

Suffice to say…Little did I know then how highly *I* would
come to value the best domain names now as 2013 gets into full swing just a
shade over two years later as Rick’s junior partner with JointVentures.com.

But my email to ask about that domain’s price never
happened.

I read that first blog post of Rick’s and I was hooked.

My first impression that this guy was a greedy troll changed
in minutes to a feeling that I was hearing direct from one of the most
visionary business thinkers I might ever have the fortune to meet or interact
with…and he’s talking direct to me and saying he’s looking for partners! I left
a comment that’s pretty relevant to what I was thinking at that moment…and what
I’m still thinking at THIS moment.

Check it out:

http://www.ricksblog.com/2010/11/the-future-of-domains-is-in-strategic-alliances.html

Some people have asked when I got the idea for what we’re
still just in the baby stages of creating with JointVentures.com. It's hard to
say exactly, but I can tell you when I
started thinking about the things that would later knock together in my mind
and make it my mission to get Rick Schwartz on board with the ideas I had…FIRST.

It was the day I read that “strategic alliances” post by
Rick.

I continued reading this blog, finding some pretty powerful
gems of business wisdom, but you wouldn’t find me engaging in any conversation
or “comments”. Then a little over a year ago, I read this post:

http://www.ricksblog.com/2011/12/mission-accomplished.html
I saw that Rick wanted to create strategic alliances and joint ventures, and
that’s where he was going to put his focus.
I saw him claim that he’d get a piece of 100 companies by bringing to the table
ONLY a great domain name upon which a great business can be built.

Shortly
thereafter I came across Rick’s WorkSmarter.com, and it just clicked in my
head: “I can sell that concept better
than he can”, I thought to myself.

Sorry, Rick! ;-)

And yet even though secretly I thought this guy I’d never
met or talked to initially came across as a DICK and a know-it-all to those
that don’t do their due diligence below the surface, I realized that without a
doubt in my mind, no matter how many rough edges his BLUNT approach to business
had…I realized ”He’s GOING to succeed in that vision.”

Then I started thinking what it might be worth to him…and to
me…if I could help make that vision crystallize faster. If I could bring the fruits to harvest more quickly then maybe he’d
share with me?

A year later, I’d made over a dozen attempts to personally
connect with Rick Schwartz.

Email. Phone. Mail. Christmas
Cards. You name it.

No real luck, and
in fact no response at all.
[[Aside: Rick told me recently that when
he closed out a post office box there was mail from me in it…never opened….TIMING
is everything in some things, is it not?]]

I wasn’t making it my #1 goal to reach him or anything. I
was already successful with some business stuff. But I have a habit of
connecting with smart, successful, influential people no matter what it takes
or how long it takes…and adding value to those contacts to turn them into
personal connections…a habit that has made my relationships with other people
the #1 most valuable asset I have as an entrepreneur.

And in all humility I will say that I’m one persistent guy,
passionate about accomplishing more in business than most people allow
themselves to dream is possible.

Persistence, relationships, hunger and passion are 4
of
the key components missing from a great domain name like Steak.com
‘heating up’ to become a great business, are they not?

Not all the components, but quite a few.

We're approaching year 20 of Rick's long-stated famous 20
year plan and you probably know by now that he's publicly claimed that by
that year --2015 to be exact—the vast majority of his income will come from
domain leasing and domain partnership joint ventures, with only the quantity
and not the quality domain names left in his portfolio being
undeveloped/parked.
If you follow RicksBlog.com regularly,
you now know that this guy “Danny Welsh” is the guy Rick is trusting with an
exclusive deal on a large part of his choicest portfolio of names to create and
implement the plans to help make that transformation from a passive portfolio
to an active one.
Plans to transition from unexploited
assets to ones that maximize every advantage of premium domain names turned
into real destination businesses.
Plans to transition from depending on aggregate 'machine-driven'
monetization companies to partnering with warm-blooded human beings passionate
about a business/niche.

Plans to transition from having an important puzzle piece in any 21st
century business that the domain owner exchanges for cash alone in a sale, to a future where the domain owner exchanges
control of their most valuable Internet property for a piece of the company
acquiring it, monthly guaranteed income, AND cash.

Will Rick's trust in me be a good bet? Will the plans for JointVentures.com he and I have developed together
fly or fail? Will you also making the same bet by letting Rick and I and
the team we're building list and market to represent a few of your best
properties as an active deal-hunting broker?
Maybe it will be a good bet for Rick and for you all, and maybe your community
of domain investors will revisit this post in a decade and laugh at the balls
of the 'outsider' who came here talking about domain leasing, domain
joint ventures, blah blah blah…and failed utterly.
Which is the smarter bet?

Time and deals will
tell.

Rick Schwartz has predicted a lot of what I'm trying to 'speed
up' for years and that's on the record for the record-- leasing, joint
ventures, being a part of a great domain name forever ala Candy.com style
deals.

Since he has ASKED ME to come
here and ask permission of some of his closest friends and past customers to do
business with them as well, and he's
not only backing me as a partner in representing other domain owners but “he's
also a client' like that old Hair Club For Men commercial you may remember,
this series of posts has been about doing just that.

Knowing those things, and knowing Rick's track record for making great bets
on the future...maybe that's all you wanted or needed to know about me
before listing with JointVentures.com and giving Rick and I a chance to make
some money together with you, at no risk or up-front cost to you.

For that I thank you just as I thank the first 100 or so clients that
are giving us that chance in 2013 to do for them the kind of deals Rick is
known for doing for himself.

If not, no big deal.

If we’ve lit a fire under some of these folks like Rick to try
something DIFFERENT, even if it’s not doing business with JointVentures.com…I’m
fine with that.

All I know is that if every one of those among “the 500” who own the
best .com generic domain names in the world believes in their intrinsic value
as much as Rick does, puts a future price on their holdings and sticks to their
guns, whether we play on the same team or not, we cannot lose.

And if those folks do as Rick is doing and give a growth-oriented
company a chance to operate a million-dollar domain name in an affordable
monthly lease or risk-free joint venture…they just might be DAMNED SURPRISED at
how much potential profit is left LOCKED UP in a 2^nd Tier domain
name like JointVentures.com getting only a few hundred type-in visitors per
year and earning almost NOTHING UNTIL it is paired with a business plan and a
team that will execute it.

For damned sure no one is surprised at how much value is locked up in a 1^st-tier
Candy.com value domain name when it’s parked. What you’ll see more and more of
this year is nothing new. Just how things will and MUST unfold, and who gets
paid for predicting the future better, the guy with the uncooked steak or the
guy hungering for the opportunity to cook and eat some of it.

Selling a top-tier domain name in the next 3 years for cash
only is going to be like trying to cook a 60 second steak from a beef cow that
took YEARS to be grain-fed and well-treated to create the highest value steak
imaginable. It’s selling yourself WAY short, steakmeisters!

AND it’s selling your steak buyer short, if you’re promising
him an instant mouthwatering steak in 60 seconds or less.

Can’t be done! Sorry, it’s what we see and there ain’t no
changing that. Patience is the virtue here, for those among the 500. I believe
what Rick Schwartz believes: You’ve already arrived. You own the restaurant.
Accept it and quit doubting yourself. Let the qualified and passionate General
Manager come along and operate the business THEY WERE ALREADY GOING TO OPERATE,
paying you a percentage for letting them do it in YOUR superior restaurant
location.

I’ll leave you today how I greeted you:

A passionate,
energetic, HUNGRY guy or gal is looking at your uncooked Steak.com right now
and wondering if you’d let them have half…if he/she cooked it to mouthwatering
perfection FOR YOU.

But these waves of
end users increasingly coming are not stupid.

They’ll eat your lunch, domainers…IF you LET THEM.

Let them buy that generic category-defining top-tier .com
social or commercial domain name they want and I don’t care HOW BIG THE CASH
OUTLAY IS for a straight sale in 2013-2015…it WILL prove to be short sighted.

Insist on exchanging that domain name for having a seat at
that business’s table forever and you are no longer a domain speculator; but
you’re now an investor in a potentially great business.

For a one-time investment you already made.

Danny Welsh
JointVentures.com