Andrew Rosener: “Best Week of the Year in Sales”

Elliot Silver
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The past two weeks have been busier than I expected in terms of domain name sales. I sold a handful of inventory-quality domain names through a variety of channels. I closed deals via DAN, GoDaddy, and direct negotiations via Embrace.com. There were no home run sales, but I was happy closing 5 figures in deals considering current economic conditions impacting businesses throughout the world. Again, these were middle of the road, replaceable domain names that I was happy to move, with the majority being BIN-priced inventory.

Frankly, when I returned from Costa Rica at the end of February, I thought sales would be pretty dead through the Spring and perhaps into the early Summer. Even GoDaddy warned about softer sales at the higher end of the aftermarket in its Investor Day presentation (page 75). For me, that has rung true, but the lower end sales continue to help fuel my business.

This past Friday, Andrew Rosener from Media Options commented about his company’s sales, and he said it was the strongest week of the year for him:

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Escrow.com Q1-2020 Domain Investment Index Report

Elliot Silver
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Outside of GoDaddy, Escrow.com probably has the best vantage point of the domain name aftermarket of any company in the domain name business. Escrow.com processes millions of dollars worth of transactions closed by domain investors and other domain name registrants each quarter. Its quarterly reports are able to offer a high level overview of domain name sales and the current state of the aftermarket, particularly at the higher level that aren’t closed on platforms such as GoDaddy and DAN.com.

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LMX.com Launched After LXME Rebrand

Elliot Silver
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Giuseppe Graziano is the founder of LXME, which is billed as the “Liquid Domains Market Exchange.” LXME has become known for its extensive quarterly market reports focused on the short, liquid domain name market. Yesterday afternoon, Giuseppe announced that LXME was being rebranded as LMX using the LMX.com domain name, which seems like a better matching brand name for the marketplace and platform.

Giuseppe told me the “purpose of LMX is to create a safe environment in which investors are able to trade liquid domains quickly, efficiently and at low fees.” Buyers are able to list one word .com domain names for sale as well as short acronym and numeric domain names on the platform. The platform is currently invitation-only, although sellers with qualifying domain names may apply to create an account. One feature of the platform is creating alerts to be notified when specific types of domain names are listed for sale on LMX.

I asked Giuseppe why he opted to rebrand from a 4 letter branded domain name to a similar, but shorter 3 letter branded domain name. “When we asked our customers what they liked most about our platform, one of the most common responses was that the inventory was limited to top notch domains [pun intended]. We felt that rebranding to LMX.com underlines the quality of the inventory on the platform,” he told me. With the focus on short, liquid domain names, having an even better domain name makes sense.

For those who are curious, the LMX.com domain name was acquired in private earlier this year. The domain name had been owned by James Booth, although Giuseppe and James declined to share the acquisition price for LMX.com.

ICANN Withholds Consent on .Org Change of Control

Elliot Silver
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Late last night, ICANN announced that its Board of Directors “made the decision to reject the proposed change of control and entity conversion request that Public Interest Registry (PIR) submitted to ICANN.” A private entity company called Ethos Capital had a deal in place to acquire .org registry operator Public Interest Registry from the Internet Society. The news was shared on Twitter at around 10:30pm Eastern:

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Facebook Job Opening: Manager, Domains & DNS Resources

Elliot Silver
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I saw a Facebook job listing on LinkedIn that might be appealing to someone with domain name management experience. Facebook is looking to hire a Manager, Domains & DNS Resources. The job is well suited for someone with domain industry experience and expertise.

Here’s an excerpt from the job listing with information about what the position entails:

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Hexonet Co-Founder Joins CentralNic

Elliot Silver
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In July of 2019, Hexonet was acquired by CentralNic in a deal that was reportedly worth “up to €10m.” At the time the deal was completed, Hexonet Co-Founder Robbie Birkner announced that he would be leaving the company and the domain industry following the conclusion of the deal.

This morning, CentralNic and Hexonet announced that Robbie would be returning in a larger role within CentralNic, as the Head of Reseller Division. Here’s some of what Hexonet shared about Robbie’s return to the domain industry:

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