A couple of days ago on Facebook, THE Domain Conference announced that Garry Chernoff and Nat Cohen are going to be inducted into the Domain Industry Hall of Fame:
Nat and Garry are
Current Domain Aftermarket and Sale Trends
Many people are interested in knowing about current aftermarket and sale trends in the domain name business. This information helps me with acquisitions and sales, and it can be helpful in making planning decisions.
I operate and maintain a relatively small portfolio of around 500 domain names, so I am not really able to answer this on a macro level, aside from what I see reported publicly. I reached out to a somewhat diverse group of people who I know are active in the business to ask what they are seeing in the domain business. Their thoughts are below.
One thing to note is that a few people mentioned that they would respond and I didn’t hear back yet. If/when they respond, I will be adding them to this article, so it might behove you to come back again in a little while.
I welcome you to share your thoughts on what you are seeing in the domain name aftermarket as well:
Check Out the Name.com “Crib”
I want to share a funny video that was shared by Name.com. If you’re looking for a job in the domain space and are considering working at Name.com, the Name.com “crib” video might help seal the deal.
If you are in the Denver area or want to move there, here are some of the Name.com job opportunities that are available right now. First, you should watch the video:
Mike Mann: Estibot “dramatically deflates the value of a domain”
I think Mike Mann is one of the most successful domain investors, and he has certainly sold more domain names than just about anyone. For those who don’t know about Mike’s background, you should check out Paul Sloan’s Cnet article for more information about him and his domain industry background.
On Facebook this morning, Mike publicly shared an interesting comment about Estibot, the automated domain name appraisal tool:
Donuts Prepares for More Acquisitions & Investments
In a press release distributed on Tuesday, Donuts announced that it had made an investment in GeoFrenzy, a company that is in the geofencing business. To me, the most interesting aspect of the press release was when the company stated it would continue making strategic investments:
“The first of several anticipated investments of this kind, Donuts is leveraging its capital and registry expertise to identify and invest in emerging technologies that promote new uses for domain names, leverage the domain name system (DNS), or otherwise are complementary to Donuts’ interests.”
I don’t totally understand how GeoFrenzy aligns with Donuts’ business, but I can imagine other types of strategic investments and acquisitions the company could make in the near future. There are quite a few companies that operate businesses that have overlaps with Donuts or offer technology and services that Donuts could use in conjunction with its portfolio of domain extensions.
I reached out to the company to ask what types of strategic investments the company is considering, and Tim Favia, Vice President of Corporate Development at Donuts shared some thoughts about it with me:
Jen Sale and Adam Strong Launch Evergreen
Domain industry veterans Adam Strong and Jen Sale are working together on their new domain consulting and brokerage company, Evergreen. I first learned about Evergreen at NamesCon, and the company was officially launched this week.
Evergreen’s focus will be on the naming space. According to Jen, “we provide services that help companies discover new names for their startup or new products/services. We create, acquire, monitor and protect these naming assets over the lifetime of the brand.”
Although the company plans to be active in the domain brokerage space, Jen told me they plan to do much more beyond brokering domain names. “We might easily be pigeon-holed as a brokerage firm, but we’re more of a