People don’t seem to understand that domain investing is a business, and domain investors run their businesses to make money. In the last handful of days, I was asked if I would be willing to ‘let [a domain name] go’ for offers that were not even close to what I paid to buy them.
In both instances, the prospective buyers were hopeful startup founders. Both of these offers, if you can call them that, involved two different one word .com domain names that have substantial liquid value.
If you or someone you know is looking for a job in the domain name business, Donuts posted a job opening for a Business Development Manager position. Donuts owns and operates just shy of 250 domain name extensions, including .Live, .Lawyer, .Fitness, and many more. The job listing can be viewed on LinkedIn.
There is no domain industry experience required for this sales-focused position, but I presume some level of domain name knowledge would be helpful. A great deal of the job emphasis is on helping partners sell the company’s domain names. Here’s an excerpt about the candidate Donuts is seeking to hire:
I have a small percentage of my domain names resolving to pay per click landing pages at Uniregistry. When I checked in on my PPC earnings this afternoon, it showed zero revenue was earned since October 1. The traffic figures seemed to be consistent, so there is an issue with revenue reporting.
Late last night, The Verge published an article reporting that “Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new name,” and it could be done in similar fashion to how Google created a parent brand in Alphabet. The article stated that the rebrand is being undertaken “to reflect its focus on building the metaverse.”
Exclusive: Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new name https://t.co/0NuPhWQsc5 pic.twitter.com/htkzkRBCGI
— The Verge (@verge) October 20, 2021
I speculated / guessed that perhaps Facebook was the private buyer behind the $149,000 purchase of the Meta.so domain name and if this is the case, perhaps the company could rebrand as Metaso or something along those lines.
According to data from Betalist, as shared by Marc Köhlbrugge on Twitter, .com usage amongst early stage startups has been on the decline. The data that was shared shows .com usage was 78% ten years ago and it has declined to 56% most recently:
📉 .com usage amongst early stage startups has declined from 78% to 56% in the last 10 years
source: @betalist pic.twitter.com/XXpwvRJP0G
— marckohlbrugge.eth (@marckohlbrugge) October 10, 2021
In subsequent tweets in the thread above, Marc shared some other interesting domain name related data from Betalist that you can have a look at as well.
Ned OMeara shared a post on LinkedIn, and he gave me permission to share it here because the message is important. Domain registrants, and particularly domain investors, need to create a plan to protect their business assets for when they die.
Ned shared a story about a client of his who purchased one of his three letter .com domain names many years ago. When he recently noticed it was sold in an expiry auction, he learned that his client had died. It seemed apparent that renewal notices sent to his client’s email address went unseen, and the domain name was not renewed by the client’s next of kin:
