For the last few years, I have found domain investing to be a bit less fun than before. Business has been quite good for the last several years, so it’s not the money issue that has made it less exciting. I haven’t really been able to pinpoint the issue until I was chatting with a friend this morning.

I came to the realization that my usage of buy it now (BIN) pricing on 90+% of my portfolio is making this business less fun. I have nearly all of my inventory listed on Dan.com and GoDaddy with BIN prices. After having the best sales year last year and the first half of the year on fire, I removed the Make Offer functionality on almost all of my Dan.com listings under $10k. People can either buy the domain name for the list price or purchase it via payment plan.

Navigator.com has been acquired by Google. The Whois record for Navigator.com became public for the first time since 2018, and the registrant is now Google LLC. The acquisition was first reported by Jamie Zoch on Sunday morning:

Google LLC acquires ultra premium generic domain name Navigator․com from its past domain owners according to whois records. The domain was under privacy at GoDaddy and has since transferred to corporate registrar MarkMonitor displaying Google. pic.twitter.com/OM7dIkRh7M

— JamiΞ Zoch (@DotWeekly) October 24, 2021

In response to my article yesterday, a couple of people suggested asking for equity from wanna-be startup entrepreneurs who can’t afford to pay for a domain name. I like the idea of having equity serve as upside in a deal, but in practice, it is more challenging than simply asking for and getting the equity.

There are many considerations I make before even considering whether or not to ask a startup for equity in the company. Most importantly, I have to believe in the vision of the founder and team. There are plenty of successful startups that I think suck, but if I can’t see how the company would achieve a valuation that would give me enough upside, I am not going to offer a special deal to sell a domain name.

Dan.com announced a partnership with Media Options that will allow Dan sellers to work with Media Options to negotiate a deal on their behalf. The news was sent to Dan.com customers this morning, and a press release with details about the partnership was published this morning.

Sellers on Dan.com can now hand off their domain name sales negotiation to Media Options within their Dan.com transaction window. I looked at my account, and the enable button is available for me to click allowing Media Options to take over the negotiation. I can see this being beneficial to me on a high leverage negotiation or when I do not have the time to fully engage with a buyer.