Morning folks!!
I fight hard when I make a sale to make sure it is released publicly. It's important for my future sales, it's important for my portfolio and it is important for everyone. Just like Real Estate, that info is vital to the growth
But many domainers and companies actually HIDE behind NDA's, and it is time to stop! They pound their chest when it is convenient and HIDE behind an NDA when it is not. That's nonsense. There is no reason for MOST, and I can prove it right here, right now.
You can still give bulk info w/o violating an NDA & HELP EVERYONE! Help yourself. Help the industry. Help promote progress and what we all do! Suppressing sales data hurts everyone!!
"I sold 10 domains last year for a total $230k"
"We sold 220 domain names in April for a total of 2.93MM"
Stop hiding sales data when you don't have to! Time to DEMAND all info or give none at all!! There are NO EXCUSES unless you search for one and it won't be valid!
Now domainers must pressure companies to start releasing this information in BULK and stop with half-news which is no news!
Sorry, but this NDA nonsense has gone way too far for way too long. Stop swallowing partial information and then thinking you have the whole picture. It's misleading at best!
I am appealing to all companies in the domain industry that CAN do this, DO THIS! Help You, help us, help our futures.
There is a reason I have been posting for 23 years. We have generational assets that will outlive every single one of us. OUR JOB is to accelerate that period so we can take advantage of what we have in OUR LIFETIME!!! That is the main reason I have been doing this and I guess it pisses me off when those companies much larger than me with a much bigger megaphone to amplify domains and their power and value, DON'T! Frankly, it sickens me! Sorry, but it is how I feel.
The NDA NONSENSE is stunting our progress and our growth overall. Please rethink and report in bulk which can be done 99% of the time w/o any violation whatsoever. There is no valid reason not to.
Compare that to what some have done with the fake valuations and the destruction THAT is doing! It's DESTROYING values not increasing them!
SICKENING!
To those companies that do it the right way, I applaud you. To those that don't, you should be. I am appealing to you to change your policies without delay!
Rick Schwartz
John
Speaking of fake valuations in my humble opinion, it seems Estibot has not been able to make up it’s mind about this domain lately:
https://imgur.com/gallery/0LNonIJ
I basically agree with you; however, what you are saying is for when a domain has sold for a good price. When a domain has sold super cheap, as in far below what it is really reasonably and realistically worth, then I would argue it is a good idea to keep it under NDA and that publicizing it can only hurt, not help.
Also, I agree with Elliot about keeping purchases under NDA if you desire, at least as often as one feels the need, which he mentioned under his Mar 28 thread “Rick Schwartz Reveals Purchase Prices on Group of Domain Names” the other day. He has also explained his rationale behind that before and it makes perfect sense. I also related an account there of someone totally unexpectedly being able to find public info about some purchases of my own on DNJ which came up to haunt me during a negotiation to sell a domain. I most definitely had not wanted my prior purchase price to be public and felt completely that it only tended to harm, not help the cause.
Domains like yours that were purchased cheap compared to their worth many years ago are an entirely different animal, just like revealing you paid $.10 for a bitcoin years ago has no bearing on what anyone should be trying to buy it from you for now. So I completely agree with you overall, only with some qualifications such as these.
UFO
Estibot is a complete joke.
It undervalues everything.
It certainly can’t factor in authority.
I think they’re related to godaddy valuations as they’re just as useless.
John
Under valuing is the big problem with the biggest amount of harm to everyone, but it is also a hair-brained mindless double edged sword in this regard: i.e., I have seen Estibot give an overly expensive value to a domain which I would say is utterly worthless (and people agreed with me), thereby potentially misleading less savvy people to waste time and money on such domains too.
UFO
Out of curiosity I put a name in and it came up with an XX,XXX figure. I was offered 5x that a few weeks ago.
The thing is that domains are valued like bespoke art, there often isn’t substitutes and there’s a whole bunch of buyer issues like sunk costs.
Escrow dot com has an interesting pdf report on the sales values on domains that are crossing its platform… it is an interesting read and the values are a lot higher than most people think.
John
And now if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go offer $60k to the current holder of crypto.com. Surely they could not refuse that.
UFO
Average sales transaction price according to escrow com for the following letter lengths in 2018 was
2 to 3 char 200k
4 char 450k
5 char 350k
6 char 300k
Whiel crypto com is a good name, its a specialised market so its the content over the name which will make the offering valuable. Having said that the name has obvious intrinsic value, but its all in the buyers eyes. Ethereum com supposedly cleared for 10 million.
John
Crypto.com sold in July for $12 million, one of the highest reported of all time. Did you look at the link I posted?
UFO
Sorry, didn’t read the header just the content, I have way to much to read so I just scan. Is it worth 12m? Well its worthless unless it gets built into a useful site that develops traffic.
Depending on how deep the pockets are of the buyer, it would have been better just to spend a 100k on a decent name and build a crypo currency (Which are just electronic tokens with previous history attached) for 1m. Heck, you can get the original source code for free.
John
PS: There was also an occasion where I thought it would help both my cause and “the” cause, so I publicized one at DNJ too. I would always do that if I felt it would help the whole cause.
UFO
I think we are better off promoting Escrow dot coms sales by letter length and then any name that sells for over 100k.
Anyway, real buyers are just that, there’s plenty of tire kickers because its a specialised industry. Most people don’t even know you can buy and sell domain names.
Sellers of names are also to blame by not putting floor prices on their domains so everyone knows their absolute minimum expectation (Advertising that resets expectations). Too many domainers want the thrill of someone offering to buy their name even if its obviously going to be very high.
I still cannot understand how the market has not realised that good names are shorter in supply than prime commercial real estate. Like I bought an excellent name for under $50k that I’d prefer to have over a paid for 10 year lease in prime territory (Like Mayfair in London) that would be worth millions. Heck, a one time outlay to slash overheads by at least 10% in perpetuity.
UFO
There is something to be said though about buying a name for X amount as an individual and then dropping that name into a corporate entity at an ‘arms length’ valuation and having the funds credited to your directors drawings account.
In these sorts of situations you really don’t want the original sale price documented on the internet.
I am still surprised that great .com’s are not sort more and the amounts paid far higher. The real money though has to be when an established entity wants to upgrade to the .com as start ups won’t pay big money as they’re cash flow constrained.
This is what new domain name extensions don’t seem to get, basically its start ups that want their names, and when they’re successful they’ll migrate to the .com which means their extension is upper bounded value wise and continually collapsing in on itself.
Mark Thorpe
Domain NDA’s (Non-Disclosure Agreement) definitely hurt the domain Industry.
Some domainers that use NDA’s, complain when someone else uses a NDA!? Really??!!
Jay
VacationRentals . com is a long domain name and fetched $35M because the buyer did not want their competitor to own it plus it means something. there is $ in domains. so if you have quality domains start raising your prices and only accept unreasonable offers :) P.S. Dump Your GTLDS
Aggro
LOL
VacationRentals.com today is worth(much)less than the purported $35MM
(likely fake sale or manufactured ‘sale’ which was never verified)
AirBnB destroyed its business.
Vacationrentals is a dead man walking
Look at the meager listings on Vacationrentals for ‘NYC, Manhattan’. LOL
Everyone just goes straight to AirBnB!
Unfortunately on the internet because of the winner-take-all & network effect, you had better be the (AirBnB) Top Dog/800lb Gorilla…or go home…
o yah – i’m right, you’re wrong
UFO
Novel ideas will always beat good domains.
However there are lots of businesses that can benefit from good domains.
Its all a step ladder to greater success.
NDAs are Fake Sales
NDAs are more like “fake sales” which clowns claim to have made to feed their ego.
We all know the real state of things these days. The ones who are more likely to fall for the NDA stories are the newbies who will end up getting fleeced by the clowns.
A real Clown-eat-Clown world.
Jose
I think we can hide the domain sale that we have bought between $ 50 and $ 150 because it goes into what you name the domains, Pigeon Shit, do not know if you publish them?
Now you are right that the vast majority Domainer does not disclose their domain sales and as you write would be better for subsequent sales which can have better results.
The next premium domain sale will be announced on Twitter.
Happy Day. Jose.
Jose
think we can hide the domain sale that we have bought between $ 50 and $ 150 because it goes into what you name the domains, Pigeon Shit, do not know if you publish them?
Now you are right that the vast majority domainer does not disclose their domain sales and as you write would be better for subsequent sales which can have better results.
The next premium domain sale will be announced on Twitter.
Happy Day. Jose
Miss Nahdi
Maybe they are afraid of tax officials knocking at their doors?
Bill Hartzer
It would help if there were a specific site where we could report domain sales data. If I sell 50 domains in a month, even if they’re for $100 each, then I’d still report them if there was a reliable site to do that.
Robert McLean
Are you, Rick Schwartz, part of the group of domainers, along with Michael Berkens, that have taken steps to black ball me within the domaining community?
Jermaine
Rick, have you ever been approached by a domain broker who represents a client that wants to remain anonymous? If so, would you sell the domain to them, without knowing who it is, even if it’s for $7-figures?
Rick Schwartz
I don’t care who it is, I care how much it is.
Premium Domains
Great post Rick.. I feel the same and recently been told by Sedo that all domains I’ve sold via their platform that the buyers paid extra to be anonymous and so I have to keep the buyer and price private?! I didn’t get any agreement to sign and I need to publish my sales as they’re the largest sales in the .ie (Ireland) space! Any advice or hear of this shite before?
Cheers,
Alan
PremiumDomains.ie