Squadhelp Founder Darpan Munjal shared some data that I found interesting and potentially helpful to my business. Darpan shared the sell through rate (STR) for a variety of “brandable” types of domain names listed for sale on Squadhelp. While the typical buyer on Squadhelp may differ from other platforms and from other domain name buyers in general, I think this information is useful:

Brandable domains use several different styles

Alliteration: LuluLemon, Animals: MailChimp
Blends: Groupon, Colors: BlueNile
Made Up: Vimeo, Misspelled: Houzz
Play on Words: Pawfection
This & That: Paper & Stich

We analyzed the STR by style and see some interesting correlations pic.twitter.com/jCYYuZhia2

— Darpan (@darpanmunjal) October 12, 2023

I haven’t always loved “brandable” types of domain names beyond empty-vessel one or two word .com domain names that could be used as unrelated brand names. Just one example of a generic but brandable 2 word .com off the top of my head is BaldEagle.com, which I thought could be used by an organization that helps Bald Eagles or it could be used by a brand called Bald Eagle. I sold it, and it is not being used related to its real meaning.

Earlier this week, Sedo announced the $700,000 sale of You.ai. As I mentioned, it is the largest publicly reported .ai domain name sale of all time. When I published my article, the buyer of the domain name was unknown. That is no longer the case.

If you visit You.ai, it shows the logo found on Dharmesh.ai. I reached out to Dharmesh Shah, Founder of HubSpot and creator of quite a few other projects, and he confirmed that he acquired the domain name. I asked if he could comment about the acquisition, and he shared this with me:

In August of this year, DomainGang reported that Door.com was likely acquired by Latch, Inc., the company operating on Latch.com. Theo noticed this as a result of a trademark filing in the USPTO. In fact, the domain name was acquired, and Latch was rebranded as Door.com, according to an article in The Verge.

In the DomainGang article, Theo wrote that “[T]he domain was brokered this year by brokerage powerhouse, Lumis. No information was released about the amount involved in this transaction.”

In July, Rick Schwartz announced that he reached a deal to sell the LUV.com domain name for seven figures. The announcement was made on Rick’s private Twitter/X account, and he shared the value of the deal. Using DomainTools’ Domain Monitor tool, I was able to see the domain name status changed as it was unlocked and pending transfer.

This week, Rick announced the deal closed and the domain name and funds changed hands. If you visit LUV.com right now, you can see it forwards to Matrimony.com.

Squadhelp CEO Darpan Munjal shared a series of tweets about the growth of the platform. Darpan shared that revenue last month was higher than any other month and 60% higher than the prior month. Like other growing companies, Squadhelp continues to reinvest proceeds into the platform and marketing of the platform:

We achieved record platform revenue last month since the launch of SH. Higher than any other month and 60% higher than just the previous month.

But there’s a bigger picture here 🧵

— Darpan (@darpanmunjal) September 26, 2023