For the first time I can recall, there was a .IO domain name in auction at Park.IO that I was interested enough in buying that I was willing to pay 4 figures to buy it. The auction ended on Sunday, and I was a loser, despite bidding more than $1,000 for the domain name.
I shared this on Twitter, as I think it is important to show people I am not solely interested in buying .com domain names:
Thought I was going to win my first .IO domain name in auction yesterday at @io_domains. I bid over $1k but lost. Maybe next time.
— Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) August 31, 2020
Likely because of the few domain names that sell every day on Park.io, someone was able to guess which domain name I wanted to buy. It was Notch.io, and the final sale price was $3,574. I like Notch.io because there are a ton of prospective buyers, and it’s the type of domain name that could be used by pretty much any kind of startup or brand.
In my less than expert opinion, the domain name could have been resold in the $5,000 – $15,000 range within a year or two. In my opinion, it would have been a slightly riskier investment than what I typically buy for four figures, but I was willing to give it a shot.
Ammar Kubba followed up to share that Notch.io appears to have been bought by an end user buyer. The domain name now forwards to MyNotch.co.uk, which is operated by a company called Notch. I would not be surprised to see the company change its url to Notch.io, but that remains to be seen.
Considering my valuation of the domain name, I think it was a pretty good price, and I am glad to see I lost out to an end user buyer. I also think bidding at Park.io was a good learning experience since the auction platform operates differently than other domain auction platforms.
It is a pretty good name, but I would not agree there are a ton of prospective buyers. There is potential buyers but they will not going to be beating the doors down.
In my view this is the type of name name where if you owned 20-30 similar you might sell 1-2 a year around $10,000.
Selling it for 10k in a year isn’t realistic in my view. If it were then domainers would be bidding it up to 7-8k.
It’s an unassuming keyword, but Crunchbase shows 9 of the 11 Notch brands are tech companies, and one of the non-tech groups owns the com. But I somewhat agree that any .io (or any name really) might not sell within 2 years unless outbound, in which case with outbound I think $5-15k is realistic in this timeframe. Had it been on my list, i’d bid $1-2k because I’m typically looking for 10x return in this buy range.
Crunchbase pretty much only lists tech companies, it will be like that for any term.
11 prospects is not many because it is unlikely any will even be interested in the .io, then if by chance they are you have to get them interested with a $10,000 price. The highest price for a .io in the last year is under 50k, 10k for this won’t be easy.
I think some are treating this as though it were the .com. If it were the .com I think you’d have a good chance of getting an enduser at 10k within a year.
snoopy, as an investor you wouldn’t drop 10k on the com? I would for sure!
For sure I would. But most enduser won’t offer even 10% of the wholesale value. It takes a lot of time to even get an offer at what you paid, and decades on average to score a sale at what most would consider “retail”.