Afternoon Folks!!
This past week was a field of dreams. After a 2.5-year drought and selling no domains while Bitcoin, Crypto, NFTs and Apes ruled, their collapse has invigorated the domain industry.
2015 was my best year, booking $12.5 million in Domain earnings mostly via sales. This week was my best week ever! I booked just over $12 million in sales. No commissions. No brokers. No partners. (Sort of)
But to make a long and wonderful story a short and wonderful story, I got a call last Monday from Greg and Joe. The 2 cousins that bought candy.com from me in 2009 for $3 Million and I also got 5% of the company. Over the years I made some concessions to help with their growing pains and that got me more stock in the company.
3 years ago an investor came in and I was able to sell some of my shares for a bit over $1.7 Million. I held on to a little over 11 million shares because I wanted to go along for the ride. I truly believed in these 2 young men in my gut from the get-go.
Then last Monday I get a call from Greg and Joe. They were absolutely giddy. They could hardly contain themselves. The company that was Candy.com turned to GreenRabbit.com has been sold and I should expect about $6 million. They wanted to tell me for 2 months but had to remain mum. It was driving them crazy. I changed their lives and they changed my life.
They told me they had sold the company to Performance Food Service Listed #91 on the Fortune 500 list of top publicly traded companies!
The call lasted almost my entire trip from Daytona Beach to Orlando. I can't count how many times they used the phrase "Life-Changing" for them and their families and thanked me over and over again for believing in them consistently for all these years. And I did believe in them and I told them every chance I got over the years because it was the truth!!
Then on this past Friday they said final numbers worked out to $6.8 Million. An hour later I get another email. btw, there is also some dollars held in escrow for 90 days. When that is released, your number will be $7.1 Million.
So the full value I received from the sale of Candy.com is in excess of $11 Million!! This is my model sale and I have repeated it now several times with other domains and hopefully some future windfalls.
They used Candy.com as a booster rocket. They used the domain to elbow their way right into the center of the candy industry. They became a factor. And as they grew they expanded.
Enjoying that expansion they transformed into GreenRabbit.com. That allowed them to sell off Candy.com for millions more than they paid and use those funds to grow the company, even bigger without having to get outside financing.
Dot-com domains are taking center stage as the ultimate digital asset! The others are all one-dimensional. Domains are income-producing and multi-faceted. They serve as your:
World Headquarters
Your Brand
Your Location
Your Front Door
Your Cash Register
Your Information Portal
Your #1 Sales Tool
Domains provide Unlimited Expansion.
Great and memorable dotcom Domains are the doorway to all future business dreams. If you have a dream and a true burning desire, it MUST start with a High-Profile domain name or all of your efforts will always be diluted and minimized and eventually your dream will turn into a nightmare.
Build up your business via your high-profile dotcom domain and buy all the punks, apes and crypto that you want. Those punk and ape owners had a chance to diversify when things were hot, that window is now closed. They are one dimensional and not capable of expansion or producing income like a great domain can.
Dot-com domains are the largest, most successful franchise the world has ever known. The land that all business is built on today but startups and others have a BAD habit. They start with a crappy and cheap domain name with dumb extensions that nobody has ever heard of and their efforts are not amplified as they should, they are diminished and minimized. By the time they figure it out and are forced to upgrade, they are bleeding badly and losing talent. Game over!
My formula entails getting an end user or startup into a high profile domain so they can break through all the noise. 100 million businesses, jumping up and down yelling me, me, me.
So, I get them into a prime one or two-word meaningful dotcom name for as low as$1000/ month with annual increases. This gives them time and space to amplify their message in the right way, and get down the runway and have a successful takeoff. Not a crash.
I tried to explain to them that a good name is easy to remember. but a great name is hard to forget. What is the value of that? What is the difference between gaining one new customer a day and losing one new customer a day? 1 x 365 x 10 YEARS! One is growing their business while the other is going out of business. You don't need to be a Harvard grad to figure that out!
They have a choice they could lease another Mercedes-Benz for one of their overpaid execs, or they can lease a life-changing domain name that will supply them with Mercedes-Benz for the rest of their lives.
It’s a simple and successful formula that can be repeated over and over again in any industry. It’s been decades in the making, but the time has finally come.
This is my baseline sale. This is the sale that I point to when I make other deals. This is my model. And now this model is proven. It has come full circle.
But the story doesn’t even end there. Now, Greg and Joe have a great success under their belt. They will be able to parlay that success into an even bigger success in the future. They know the path. And we know the formula. They are still young hungry guys in their 30s and 40s and they’re not a one trick pony.
This will be our first success. It will not be our last success!!
I suggested that, perhaps Homemade.com will be there next natural venture. It’s in their lane. It’s something that they can jump on and have one hell of a steam engine behind them.
They have the success and ability to go to a venture capitalist, but they also have the cash to not need them! They don’t need a mommy and daddy to tell them what to do.
In the meantime, Greg and Joe and their families are going to come to Florida, and we’re going to have a yacht party. One that none of us will ever forget.
This brings my domain career earnings to over $75 Million from income earned on the traffic my domains produce and the sale of about 50 names out of my 6500 domain name portfolio. That does not include the $36 Million sale of Property.com. They are in their 3rd year of a 6 year lease/option. I saw the first rendition of the website just a few weeks ago. They hope to go live in the 1st quarter of 2024. They believe they have a game changer!
Career earnings are important to me and I compare my earning to that of the top golfers in the world. (Watch out Tiger, I am gunning for you) That is my benchmark. And they actually have to show up, travel, practice hard, play and win. So I would be in the top 10 and my career is just starting! Here is a list of my sales from May 2019. Need to update the last 4.5 years.
I get offers on Properties.com consistently. But $1 million offers won't move my needle at all. It's nice but laughable! My job is to be patient and wait for the next Greg and Joe. About 50,000 folks TYPE IN Properties.com on their browser bar. Many domain investors agree that Properties.com is my single most valuable domain. It's my most sought after name. But the right suitor has yet to emerge.
The geniuses at Harvard, MIT, Yale and all the rest have never figured out just how valuable that is. Are they looking for homes? Are they looking for Office space? Are they looking to buy office buildings? CEOs, sales and marketing managers, realtors in general etc. are simply clueless when it comes to understanding the importance and potency of that TYPE-IN traffic. It's transformational. They work harder not smarter and that is pretty dumb! Leads come in from all over the world and especially the most active regions and they have no interest? They have no understanding? They can't figure out how to make $$$$???
Imagine, I bought domains on opposite sides of the spectrum. Penny Candy via Candy.com and multimillion dollar properties via Properties.com. You would’ve thought that the one involving multimillion dollar properties would’ve sold first. It just shows you the lack of street smarts and sales ability and marketing and understanding the future, how poor the CEOs really are. I give them a big fat F!! These two young men made you all look like fools. Congratulations!
They were able to parlay Penny candy into many millions but sophisticated and experienced CEO's can't figure out how to make many millions work for them? BRAIN DEAD is the first thing that comes to mind. Insulted? I am Just starting!
Type-in traffic is up to 100x more potent than Google search traffic. It's a never ending flow of the most targeted and qualified leads and customers. Do you know that Mr. CEO?? You have had 30 YEARSv to figure it out!
Candy.com was selling penny candies via the type ins and became a very valuable entity. Imagine selling skyscrapers on Properties.com??? What is the value of that visitor Mr Harvard Business School grad? Think about that!! Unless you are Brain Dead and don't have that ability?
Insulted?? You should be! Time to wake up! I won't be voted Miss Congeniality but what I say is valid so get over my brashness and your ego and think hard! Business is Business!! Dumb is dumb! Want some more? I will make CEO's CRY! "Calling out 30 Years of Shortsighted, Cheap, and Idiot CEOs that Hurt or Destroyed their Companies!"
Over the years I have transformed from a successful domain investor into an Angel Investor. I hold the keys. to the next generation of great companies. My job is to find the right and bright partners with a burning desire to succeed and a work ethic that matches! Not some dumb ass CEO with a 5-year-gig that's always looking for their next 5-year-gig. I want to work with FOUNDERS that care!! That doesn't work 9-5. Don't know the difference? I do!
So it all boils down to this: Do you want an average and easily forgettable domain name or do you want a memorable and life-changing domain name? A Harvard degree is not required to get the right common sense answer. But a Harvard degree does not guarantee common sense!
You can read the more of the story on DNJournal.com.
Rick Schwartz
Rick Cashes Out: Gets $7.1 Million Candy.com Bonus 14 Years After the Sale! | DN Egg
[…] Afternoon Folks!! This past week was a field of dreams. After a 2.5-year drought and selling no domains while Bitcoin, Crypto, NFTs and Apes ruled, their collapse has invigorated the domain industry. 2015 was my best year, booking $12.5 million in Domain earnings mostly via sales. This week was… Read Full Article… […]
gene
Many congratulations to you, Rick!
Francois
What a great and inspirational story, thanks for sharing. Enjoy the deserved success, I am very happy for you Rick.
J.R.
Congrats to The Domain King.
Candy.com serves as a model for selling a domain for cash & equity. This is on some The Founder level of case study.
Yet, the majority of startup founders keep getting it wrong on non-dotCom.
Green Rabbit team got it right and all sides got paid.
Kudos!!
Green Jobs
Congrats Rick!
Jose
Much more authentic
Congratulations Rick!
Craig Douglas
Congratulations Rick, that’s an inspirational story!
Zappy Zapolin
Rick,
Your patience as a seller is legendary, it borders on that of a Zen Monk!
Peace. Zappy
Jay
Thank You for everything you,ve done for us all. without you there would be no Domain Industry. you are the #1 source in Domain Names.
Mika
Congratulations. What an awesome surprise this must have been. Thanks for sharing the details so passionately, I’m actually excited for you!
Andy Booth
That is awesome Rick, happy for you. Patience pays and is a virtue few have. Congratulations!
Michael Anthony Castello
Great story Rick. Patience is a virtue.
BullS
You are the GOAT in the domain industry!!
Eric Borgos
Thanks for sharing your story. Very inspirational.
domain guy
I think you were right all along. Some major candy company hershey, mars etc should have bought candy.com over a decade ago…
Rick Schwartz
There were negotiations with them.
But Hershey was stuck on a very low number
Marcelo
Thank you for sharing this amazing and inspirational history!!
Danny Welsh
Congrats to Rick, Greg and Joe!