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Cash is King: How I am Fortifying My Position

Earlier today on Twitter, Rick Schwartz posted something I agree with and want to amplify – cash is king right now:

Despite the high rate of inflation that is essentially devaluing currency, having cash on hand is critically important. I think many people are going to be facing tough times in the months ahead, and having cash in the bank is important.

I am in a fortunate spot, but I have been doing a few things to batten down the hatches and fortify my cash position:

Why It Pays Off to Keep an Unused Domain Name

Back in the day, I collected Kenner Starting Lineup figurines. There was a point, I recall, that some of them has some value. Even with the rising value of sports collectibles over the last couple of years, I don’t think Starting Lineup figurines grew much in value.  In fact, I gave several of my figurines to my son, who immediately ripped them out of their boxes and began playing with them. There was more value to me in seeing him have fun than there could ever be in the boxes.

In 1991, Hasbro acquired Kenner and has owned the Starting Lineup brand since that point in time. I don’t think the company has produced Starting Lineup figurines in many years though. According to NBA reporter Adrian Wojnarowski, Hasbro is bringing back Starting Lineup figurines:

Raising the Price After Passing on an Offer

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Earlier this week, I received an offer for one of my domain names via broker. The domain name was listed for sale with a BIN price, and the offer came in at a little more than 50% of the BIN price. Not only did I pass on the offer, but I opted to raise the BIN price.

When I buy an inventory-quality domain name and decide to list it for sale, I generally set a BIN price based on how I feel at that time. I don’t spend as much time as I should repricing this inventory. Once in a while, I may see a name or two and opt to reprice them, but in general, my pricing stays pretty consistent.

Would You Notify a Company of an Impersonator?

This morning I received an inbound offer for one of my domain names. The email address used was a person’s name @companyname.info. I did a Google search for the person and the company name, and there was a match. The person is a senior executive at the company in the email. The .info extension set off an alarm bell in my head though.

A Whois search at DomainTools shows the .info domain name was created less than a month ago. The company where this prospective buyer appears to work operates on the company .com domain name. The .info and .com domain names are registered at different domain registrars. The phone number that was left is not a valid number.

Dan Offering In-House Brokerage Service

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This morning, I received an email from Dan.com announcing its new in-house domain brokerage offering. Dan sellers can now utilize brokers when they receive an offer and prefer to have a third party broker the sale on their behalf. The brokerage offering is powered by GoDaddy’s broker services.

Here are the details that were shared with me this morning:

Axle Payments Rebrands as Denim with Denim.com

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Axle Payments, a company that has raised $165.2 million in funding according to Crunchbase, announced that it has rebranded itself as Denim. The company acquired the Denim.com domain name in advance of the rebranding. The news was announced on LinkedIn by Co-Founder and CEO Bharath Krishnamoorthy. TechCrunch published an article about the company’s latest fundraising round and rebrand.

In early July, I noticed and shared on Twitter that the Denim.com domain name appeared to have changed hands: