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Rook Media Offering Cash Advance

Elliot Silver
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When Rook Media (this is a tracking link and not a paid/affiliate link) changed out its banner on my blog yesterday, I noticed it was advertising a special service offer to clients, and I thought it was interesting enough to call out in a blog post.

“DomainAdvance” is a new service from the company where clients can get a cash advance based on expected future earnings. I assume it works like this: Let’s say you earn $2,000 a month in parking and are looking to make a purchase but have your funds tied up elsewhere. Rook will give you a loan that will be paid off of future PPC earnings.

I am pretty sure it would be impossible to go to a regular bank and get cash with domain names as collateral, even if you’ve been a long time customer. There are options

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Mike Mann’s Phone.com Raises $2 Million in Funding

Elliot Silver
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2

Phone.com FundingI wanted to share a press release announcing that Phone.com received $2 million in funding from a company called ff Venture Capital and the New Jersey Economic Development Authority. Phone.com is a company that was founded by domain investor Mike Mann, and it was listed in the 2012 Inc. 500 among the fastest growing companies in the US.

The press release shared additional information about the company and how the funds will be used:

“The funding from ff Venture Capital and the NJEDA is an infusion of capital, which will be used to power customer acquisition and new technology development at Phone.com. Other investors in the company include San Diego-based hosting company TierraNet and serial entrepreneur Michael Mann. Phone.com was recently recognized by INC500 as one of the fastest growing telecom companies in the United States.”

I looked at ff Venture Capital’s list of investments, and it appears that three of its current investments operate on great exact match domain names, including

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Forbes: Mike Mann Intends to Raise $1 Million in Seed Funding for Cashless.com

Elliot Silver
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There are a few people in the domain industry that seem to get lots of good publicity, and Mike Mann is one of those people. This week, Forbes ran an article about Mann’s Cashless.com startup, and it’s well worth a read.

At the moment, the business has not yet launched, and the domain name is parked at Smartname. However, a major fundraising effort is under way, and Mann hopes to begin staffing the company soon.

According to the article, Mann “intends to raise $1 million in seed funding over the next three months” from friends and family. The company will launch in south Florida as a testing bed, and should it prove to be a hit, the expectation is that it will expand and further fund raising efforts will be made beyond friends and family.

Knowing Mann’s deep connections from within the domain industry, should Cashless.com be a big hit, there may be a lot of money flowing back into the domain space. Based on Mann’s track record, I wouldn’t bet against him. I don’t think the guy sleeps, and if he does, it’s next to his computer.

This will be a company to follow.

Thanks to TNT for originally sharing the article.

Dutch Boyd Puts Bellagio Poker Tournament Bracelet For Sale on Ebay

Elliot Silver
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5

Dutch Boyd is more well known for being a professional poker player, but he’s also a domain name investor who has been active on NamePros and DNForum. I saw that he recently put one of his poker tournament prizes up for sale on Ebay.

According to the listing:

“Up for sale is this Men’s Bellagio Gold Poker Tournament Bracelet. It’s 14k gold, made in Italy, weighs in at 83 grams and just over 2.6 troy oz. I won this bracelet from a Bellagio NL Holdem poker tournament in 2008. I don’t believe the Bellagio awards gold bracelets for their tournaments any more, so these aren’t being made again. It’s a nice looking bracelet, but I’ve never worn it. So I’m selling it to raise some Christmas cash.”

I know next to nothing about poker, but I think it would be cool to own a little piece of poker history. According to Wikipedia, Boyd’s “total live tournament winnings exceed $1,900,000.” There are plenty of domain investors who haven’t made that much money from their domain investments.

Anyway, if you are interested in buying Boyd’s  Bellagio poker tournament bracelet, the auction ends in a little less than two days. The high bid is $2,400 and there is not a reserve price on this auction.

Mike Mann Shares Results of A/B Price Testing

Elliot Silver
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DomainMarket.comYou’ve probably seen Buy Domains price its domain names to end with the numbers 88. Whether the domain name is $4,088 or $40,088, almost all of Buy Domains’ priced domain names have an 88 at the end. That was most likely the result of Mike Mann’s testing from when he owned the company.

Yesterday on Facebook, Mike shared some interesting results from A/B price testing on domain names listed for sale at Domain Market. With his permission, I have shared the information with you here:

Price Point # Sold Revenue Generated

  • $250 31 $7,750
  • $300 29 $8,700
  • $400 17 $6,800
  • $450 10 $4,500
  • $600 17 $10,200
  • $2050 3 $6,150

What this indicates to me is that the $600 price point generated the most revenue for the company, despite not being the level with the greatest number of sales. Obviously fewer sales are required with a higher price point compared to the lower price. Testing like this can help Mann’s company determine the optimal price point for his non-premium domain assets that sell every day.

One interesting thing to me is that there weren’t any tests for pricing between $600 – $2,050. Mike has that covered as he intends to do an A/B test between the $600-700 price range. Should the results be similar, he can continue to increase prices until the revenue number drops off.

Having a large portfolio allows Mike to do testing, and his knowledge sharing can help all of us. We should keep in mind that every domain name asset is unique and the potential sale price could be greater if it was priced after an inquiry rather than listed with a buy it now price, depending on the buyer.

It is interesting that Mike abandoned the 88 pricing and hasn’t adjusted to the popular 99 pricing either. I asked him, and he said, “I dont do 88 pricing because that was my TM for BuyDomains.com, dont want to copy we have tried other test prices but picked that array randomly and now have focus for more tests go for it.”

I wouldn’t be surprised to see continued testing, and hopefully Mike will share his results. If he doesn’t, I am sure it won’t be too difficult to find considering his company owns hundreds of thousands of domain names.

Voodoo Support Tickets Closed in Under an Hour

Elliot Silver
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9

I am almost always monitoring my business, whether it’s from my computer or my phone. When someone asks me a question, inquires about a domain name, or has an issue with one of my websites, I am very quick to respond.

It’s probably because of my own speedy response time that I expect the same from companies with whom I do business. Unfortunately, most companies try to respond to support tickets within a day or two rather than within a few minutes or hours.

I read something interesting on NamePros regarding the service time at Voodoo.com, and I thought it was interesting. According to Voodoo.com founder Donny Simonton, the “average time to close a ticket no matter when it’s received is 38 minutes over the past 30 days.”

I don’t know what types of issues Voodoo’s support team sees, but having an average response time of under an hour is fantastic. Not only that, but Donny said it’s the time it takes to close a ticket, as in resolve a customer’s issue, and not simply responding to support requests.

I have stopped doing business with some companies because of customer support issues, and I think it’s pretty cool to see a company that understands the needs of its domain investor clients. It’s not end of the world if a ticket takes a bit longer to resolve, but it’s great to see that there is some great customer support in this business.

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