Let's Embark On An Entrepreneurial Odyssey With Braden Pollock | Saw.com - Uncomfortable with Jeffrey Gabriel

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining us today on the Comfortable Podcast is
Braden Pollock.
Braden and I have known eachother for almost 15 years.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
And you know I've been to my fair share of shows
in my tenure, but I honestlycannot think of a single
conference.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
I've been at that.
He hasn't been and aftertalking to him, I think he's
been to probably over 50.
And when he's there, he'susually found on stage
participating and helping others, and you know what?
We need a lot more people likehim.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
He's one of those people that, when you look at
him, you think to yourself.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
He was probably born as a CEO wearing a suit or as an
investor, and you know what Iknew about his successful legal
related businesses and also alot about his other different
investments in the domainindustry and also, let's not
forget about having one of theworld's best domain portfolios.
But I never really knew hisstory, how he made his way and

(00:52):
his commitment to charity andhelping others.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
And today you get to hear it and with his success,
Braden has moved on to become anavid investor.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
We get to hear what Braden looks for in a company,
in a management team, what helikes to invest in businesses.
He has invested in wins, lossesand everything in between.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
So pull up a chair.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
This is a good one and have a listen.
And again thanks for listening.
We appreciate it.
Today on the Uncomfortablepodcast, we have Braden Pollock.
Braden is a well-known domaininvestor, angel investor and

(01:34):
serial entrepreneur.
Among his companies is legalbrand marketing, which provides
lead generation services tolawyers nationwide.
As an angel investor, he has anequity interest in several
dozen other companies, includingCatalyst, innovation Collective
, ibeauty Brands, the groomingnetworks, which include
straightraiserscom, beardcom,classicshavingcom and many
others, as well as bold metrics,data zoom, tastry, next Health,

(01:58):
osano Stiku and many others.
He also was a domain investoras well and has thousands or
tens of thousands of domains,and his focus is on
premiumonewordcom.
Braden's latest venture is thePollock fund, focused entirely
on investments and alternativeasset classes.
We're certainly going to talkabout that and he also serves on

(02:19):
several boards, including thenon-profit Internet Commerce
Association, and I also sawanother one called Benevolent.
Yeah, so he's also a staple atmost industry events around the
world.
I was looking at your website.
How many how many websites, Imean?
How many industry events do youthink you've attended?

(02:39):
I've seen a list on yourwebsites.
Had it been a hundred at this?

Speaker 2 (02:42):
point.
Yeah, I mean we're talkingabout 18 years probably, and I
go to all of them at this point.
I probably go to five or six ayear, and then, if you add the I
can't events even more so yeah,so that's I remember.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
I met you in the Bahamas in 2012.
We were both shirtless.
We were both shirtless on acamera.
How do you like that?

Speaker 2 (03:09):
And we were holding hands as well.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
We were.
Yeah, you do have nice hands,if I remember correctly.
So, braden, you know, obviouslyI've known you from around many
of the events in the industryand many other people do as well
, and from what I remember fromtalking to you, your story
really starts with legal brandmarketing.
But I'd like to hear a littlebit before that and how you
built that business up that yousold for a lot of money, and

(03:32):
then we can get into some ofyour newer endeavors in the show
and maybe talk some domainsafter.

Speaker 2 (03:38):
Okay.
Yeah, so legal brand marketingactually I still have, and we
just celebrated 20 years lastmonth I flew everybody out.
We went to a retreat in SanDiego and for three days.
I think that's pretty cool,Getting everybody together in
one place, what I did sell.

(04:00):
I think you're referring toSmart Start, which was yes, I'm
sorry.
My business.
I sold that some six, eightyears ago, something like that.
So how did I get my start?
So before before thosebusinesses, I've always been a
material entrepreneur.
I always had projects.
I mean, even in grade school Iwas doing stuff.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
No, so where did you grow up?
Los Angeles, in LA.
And when you're in grade school, you're mowing lawns or, you
like, selling shoes.
What were you doing?

Speaker 2 (04:31):
I was mowing lawns.
I go to door to door, just likehey, what are you done?
And I would.
I bring literally eraser capsand and job breakers to school
and sell them to my friends.
Why kids would want to buy aneraser cap, I have no idea, but
I sold them and then it turnedinto other things.

(04:54):
I started a vending businesswhen I was about 23, maybe.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
So you graduated college and then you thought
you're going to do like candymachines and I was started that.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, that was after I didn't finish college.
I went three years and then gotbored so I had this vending
business which is around.
Actually I ran it for years andthen I gave it to my dad and he
ran it for a long time until hepassed away, and then I took it
back, cleaned it up a bit andthen give it to my sister, and
so my sister and her husbandstill run it to this day.

(05:31):
Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, almost 30 years later.
So would you go and and emptythe machines and the bags of
quarters and the dollar billsand all those things and I did
that until I hired someone to doit for me.
Yeah, got it.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Wow, that was probably my first like business
business.
That wasn't just a project.
So I had a lot of projects,yeah, I did that for a while and
then I started a creditreporting agency and an
immigration services business.
I made pretty good money in theimmigration business, learned a

(06:09):
lot from that and and at thatpoint I had a big staff and then
after 9, 11, that kind of tooka nosedive.
So I parlayed the, the officeand the infrastructure and the
staff that had into this,building a website for DUI
lawyers, and that turned intoultimately turned into legal
brand marketing, which is allareas of law.

(06:30):
Now we're actually starting toget into non legal areas.
And then from legal brandmarketing sprung the interlock
business that that I mentionedand I printed a magazine.
I had a book distributionbusiness, did a bunch of stuff.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
So when you talk about interlocks, that is, when
someone gets a DUI or an OUIwhen they caught drinking and
driving, and then when they goto start their car they have to
blow into the tube to start thecar right and it's mandated by
whatever judge when you get yourDUI.
That person has to pay for itand they put in the car.

(07:12):
Yeah, so it depends on thestate.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
So either it's the court or it's the DMV that
requires it different laws indifferent states.
I had I had shops in six states.
I had 200 stores and and then Ihad because I had already been,
I was already in the domainspace.
At that point I boughtignitioninterlockcom and and

(07:37):
interlockcom, interlockscom,california, you name it.
I had several hundred domainnames and all pointing to the
very site I think I think I had.
I think I had seven sites.
I had one for each state andthen I had ignitioninterlockcom
built out and the ignitioninterlock was kind of a general

(08:00):
nationwide directory so thoseleads would go to other
providers.
And then when I ultimately soldthat company, I actually got
more for the company becausethey wanted ignitioninterlockcom
, because I tried not to includethat site in the portfolio.
I said well, that's part ofanother company and I said yeah,
no, no, no, no, that that'sincluded and I said well, no,
it's not because you're buyingthis company over here and those

(08:21):
domains are owned by you knowanother company.
And they're like, we're notplaying that game.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
So I didn't have a choice.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
I had to sell it off, but it helped me sell the
company.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
So when the you know in the ignitioninterlock
business you know some poorperson or somebody makes a
mistake and drinks too much,gets caught, has to get that put
in their car and then they getfound guilty and told they got
to put it in there, isn't it oneof those things that the DMVs
like here are some vendors andwouldn't?
I'm guessing, like when you gotinto it, most people just paid
the DMV to get on that list orpaid in some way to be on that

(08:58):
approval Because it's a massiveundertaking to become a
certified provider for thatstate.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
Some states is a sole provider.
I think Floor was sole provider.
There was only one approvedprovider, so there wasn't that
many.
You know there's maybe a half adozen providers and we were the
biggest and most well known,and so you know.
So we're marketing to thelawyers and we're marketing to

(09:26):
directly to people that got inDUI.
So we're doing all thismarketing anybody that would
recommend us.
So we just wanted to be top ofmind.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
I'm going to get a.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
DUI.
The next day they get mailsfrom us.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah, I got it and that makes sense.
I was thinking like, are youreally going to shop around for
one of those?
You just kind of stuck likegoing, you know just having to
get one.
You know it's like, okay, thatguy's closest to my house, I'm
stuck with it.
I guess I got to go pay the guythe thousand bucks or whatever
to put it in.
And yeah, well, it was amonthly, it was the least it was
about between $75 a month.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
But you know we even market to judges directly and
judges were not supposed to tellthe people what company to go
with.
They just have to go get anadmission interlock and the
clerk will give you a list ofproviders.
But sometimes the judge wouldsay go get a smart start, and
that was because we had goodtechnology and good reporting

(10:25):
and stuff like that the judgeswanted Okay.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
So how did that come across your desk, that that
opportunity came along and yougot yourself involved with this,
because it's a pretty obscurebusiness, same with really
credit reporting.
I mean, it's a part of life butyou just don't really think
about.
You know how big it is and justkind of stumbling into that.
I know you said you're doingthe DUI lawyer website right For
some reason.
Is that what got you into it?

Speaker 2 (10:50):
That's.
That's what got me into it.
Yeah, because I was writingcontent for the website early on
and I was reading about allthis legislation that was coming
from various states.
But you can share a lot and Iso I was writing about it and I
thought well, this is probably agood industry to get into,
because all this legislation isbeing introduced to acquire it.

Speaker 1 (11:14):
So, after looking into it, you know, one thing led
to another and I started doingit, so got it and then, and then
you started doing it and itreally took off.
When did you say to yourself Ireally have something good going
on here.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
You know I well.
I mean I started in Californiaand it was doing well, and then
we expanded to Oregon and thenwe expanded to East Coast.
I just you know, keep openingmore and more shops as we saw
demand.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
So when you open a shop, are you calling like a
mechanic and you're like, hey,try this out, you can make an
extra X of dollars a month onthis guy and put it in and we'll
give you a piece of noise.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
Sometimes it was a lube and tune, Sometimes it was
a a tent shop, Sometimes it wasour own corporate store.
So it was kind of a variety.
It just depended on you knowthe area and what the demand was
.

Speaker 1 (12:07):
Yeah, and then did you just show up to check on
some of these locations and makesure they're doing what they're
supposed to do, or was it justkind of you know, we'll ship
them to you and the money comesin and everybody's happy, and
you get them back and they'rebroken or stuff like that?
I mean, how does that work?

Speaker 2 (12:23):
I never, I never, personally, I never checked on
them.
I mean I, I mean there was, Ihad a whole team, right.
So I mean at that point therewas, there was a whole whole
staff.
Yeah, you know, we had, we hada dedicated team just opening
shops.
So, personally, I never, Inever went to a shop.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
You never did.
That's funny.
You never had anywhere, likenever answered the phone after
you sent them a bunch ofmachines and like stoned from
you or anything like that.
I mean, I just feel likethere's a lot of things that go
wrong in this business, you know.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Yeah, I never.
I don't know.
I mean, I had a president ofthat company.
I never.
So when I, when I initiallybought the license to do it, I
hired somebody, I hired apresident of the company and I
was like you know go build ateam and Did so.
I mean, he checked in with me alot, but I wasn't involved in

(13:16):
any the day-to-day I.
Got you, I understand so I think, coming for 11 years, and never
and never was involved inday-to-day.
That's why I never went to.
I there was only.
There was only one shop that Ivisited, and that was because it
was in a building that I owned,so I'd go to that, okay, okay.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
So then you were probably more or less working on
the nationwide strategy of justtrying to expand to as many
stores as possible and andtrying to get it supplied to be
able to do that.
Right, say that again, like you, like you were, your daily work
on that Project or at thatcompany was really looking at
the bigger scheme of things andsaying how can we expand to 200

(13:58):
locations or 100 locations or 50locations?

Speaker 2 (14:01):
you know, step by step right the president company
that that was his job.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Okay, got it.
So then what did you do fromthere?
You sold that, and whathappened?

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Nothing.
I mean it's when I'm with mylife.
I mean I had, I had a number ofbusinesses.
I had a law firm at the time, Ihad my marketing company, I had
a domain portfolio, I had realestate, I was angel investing.
I mean I did a lot of thingsand so when it sold, I mean I
don't want to say it was justanother day, because you know.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
I got made a lot of money from that.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
It was a nice liquidity event, but you know, I
it was.
I went on with my life.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
I didn't, I didn't, yeah, I didn't actually do
anything I didn't.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
I didn't buy anything .
I didn't Spend money.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
I didn't know, actually that's not true.
I bought a house that I wasgonna buy, yeah, but I but it
was a fixer.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
So I worked on the house for a few years and then
told it but okay, so then.

Speaker 1 (15:02):
So then, legal brand marketing and smart start the
business were two totallydifferent entities.
Yeah, you pulled that off.
And then obviously you, you putmore energy or more or focus on
growing the lead business.
You said you're expanding itnow into different.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
I mean when I sold that I didn't put more energy in
in in the lead business becauseI wasn't putting any of these
into the interlocked business.

Speaker 1 (15:27):
Yeah, you know, so it wasn't, really wasn't an issue
the last 20, almost 20 yearsI've been involved in law firms
and you involved in it as muchas you were as the interlocked
business, or is that somethingyou're involved in a lot more?

Speaker 2 (15:43):
No, I was involved.
That a lot more.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Yeah, and so now that you know you've kind of cleared
the law firm from your plateand this from your plate.
What are you doing now?
Like what's a normal day foryou, because you're involved in
20 back then or now we're backthen, even now, like going to
you know it's like you know,kind of it's pretty close in
timing.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Well, no, this is you , I mean I sold it, the Law firm
I got, I don't know, maybe 12or 13 years ago, so that's been
a while, oh, wow, yeah, so I gotout of the law firm and then
and I sold the interlockedbusiness maybe eight years ago

(16:27):
okay and you know the the domainbusiness continued to grow.
I continue to get more and moreinvolved in in domains and buy
them.
You know that I had one point Ihad about 15,000 names Because
I was building out websites.

Speaker 1 (16:46):
For you doing that with Rob monster right for a
period of time.
Yeah, it was actually prior toRob.
It was with okay web sir andDeverech and yeah why are
Deverech?

Speaker 2 (16:56):
and then and then I was involved with with epic.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Okay, and then Luke also is.
I'm guessing, because I I'veonly met him in total passing,
but I see him on Facebook and healways writes about his Shaving
business and I'm guessingthat's what led you to the to
the beard, calm and othershaving business.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I invested in that, so I'm a35%.
Okay, so minority.
So he runs it and we've got awe.
That's a roll-up.
We.
We purchased a bunch of relatedbusinesses soap factory and,
and, and competing websites andsmall manufacturers and that's

(17:35):
where I think.

Speaker 1 (17:36):
And do you think that was a great investment?
No, no, I would think thatyou're getting people on like
for me.
Personally, I've been using thesame razor for 10 years and
buying the same shaving creamlike I'm happy with it.
I don't really.
I would think once I kind ofpick, I don't really change,
probably pre pre consistentbusiness.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
So they call that wet shaving, like safety razors and
straight razors, as opposed todry shakers shavers.
And it was really hot for awhile, beard oil and all that.
Yep and and it did well for fora while and, and you know
trends change and that one justwent in a different direction.
So so a lot of companies thatgot big.

(18:15):
You know, like you know, theHarry's of the world and those
like they dollar-shaped club.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
That got huge and it's sold for massive money.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Yeah, and then, and then fizzled.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
Yeah, I don't see the ads anymore, but that guy had
that one funny ad everybodywatched and then it kind of died
.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
So that's what made that company, but yeah yeah, you
know, and and Harry's and youknow, a lot of these companies
have just they sold out, but itjust that industry has changed
and so, unfortunately, thataffected us negatively but it's
still around we're still selling, we still have a factory and
still make us up.
Okay, it's not, it's notfantastic.

(18:50):
You certainly.
Nothing compares to domains.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah, and I mean I when you were, when you were
building the sites.
It was kind of like whenLivestrong was big and there's a
big traffic, farms and it waslike eHow I remember you were
building, taking names andtrying to make automated
websites With content for peopleto do something other than
parking.
Yeah, it was all right, it wasout of development, you're right
.
So these, these, these, out ofdevelop sites were great until

(19:17):
until they weren't.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
You know they were right.
They're all ranking, they'redoing fantastic.
I sold some because peoplewould type in whatever that
their term was.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
You know, Tennessee ticket lawyer, Whatever and it
would come up number one right,and so I would.

Speaker 2 (19:33):
I would sell them the domain in the site that cost me
very little to put together andIntegrated, and all one day
they're all gone from Google.
And then I checked Yahoo andthey were still in Yahoo.
And then one day, I thinkyou're- gonna be out by six
months behind.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yeah, so do you think now, with AI, if you had the
same business plan and in thesame idea, do you think you
could pull it off, if you hadthe energy and the Want to do it
, to be able to have AI writeall the content?

Speaker 2 (20:03):
We're doing it actually and it does work.
But if you just have chat GPTwrite the article for you, then
it creates conclusions and doesstuff that makes it look like
it's AI written and and you'llget hammered by Google.
But if you go in, you can pullout that stuff and and tweak it

(20:23):
a little bit so it doesn't lookAI written and it's fine, and
Google is okay with AI writtencontent, by the way.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
It's if you look, you know at their developer terms.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
They allow it.
It just can't be shitty contentlike anything else.

Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, I mean I've, I've gone on it to see myself
how good is it at telling youlike what makes a domain
valuable and ask like basicindustry questions, and I think
it does a pretty good job.
I kind of find that chat GPT isrelatively long-winded in their
answers, get a little tooexcited about certain things,
you know, and I also look at itand say, okay, here's the
article, but then you need toput in another like half an hour

(21:03):
into it to optimize it and getit to where it needs To be, and
sometimes by the end of it yousay to yourself I could have
just wrote this faster, you know, because it does require a
decent amount of work.
But I'm guessing that you'retraining models to do much
better than just me sitting herefiddling with it.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
You know, over time yeah, so you fiddle it with a
crap an hour, but you can createautomation.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, I've created my own little bot that I've put in
a lot of different informationabout the industry.
I've put in sales, I put in alot of different data, you know.
So, yeah, I mean, I'm he's,he's pretty good, but again, his
answers are usually prettylong-winded.
And then also, when I try touse the data to maybe mine
different parts of data and getthings out, he always sometimes

(21:51):
comes to the conclusion oftelling me that he can do it,
but he can't do it based on therules of chat, gpt.
So it kind of gets frustratingafter you spend all this time
feeding it all these things andthen it doesn't give you what
you want back in the end.
You know well.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
I'm kind of a better bot.

Speaker 1 (22:08):
I know I need to build a better bot or I need to
lie to it.
That's what some of my friendssay you need to do.
You mean better, liar right toit.
So you are gonna resurrect it.
What was the name of thecompany a long time ago?
What were you calling it?
I remember when I was at CEDO,you guys were doing it.
What was it called the?
Which the the when you guys arebuilding the automated websites

(22:29):
back but it's called average.
That's what it was called.
I thought it was calledsomething else.
I don't know why.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
I don't think so I mean it was acquired by Epic,
and I don't know what Epiccalled it.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
So you, and then that's how you ended up on the
board of Epic because of thatacquisition, is that was?

Speaker 2 (22:46):
that because he was doing a roll up and I like what
he was building, and so Iinvested in the company.
Yeah, I put a bunch of dough inthat company which is gone now.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, I mean, I've met Rob a few times.
He's an eccentric person buthe's certainly a visionary and a
very intelligent man and Icould certainly see him if he
were to pull off all of thoseplans.
He had a lot of the makings ofsomething great.
You know, and I kind of look atthat and look at uniregistry in
some ways that Frank kind ofhad a really good hand dealt to

(23:21):
him as well, because he had theportfolio, he had the brokerage,
he had the registrar and he hadthe extensions and the back end
registry.
So he had the, you know, theroyal straight flush as well,
and it was kind of sad to see itkind of get broken up and sold
in different directions.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
You know I was surprised that happened to.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, but you know, I think I think the thing is is
that, yeah, it was, there weretimes that I was like we're, I
think we're going to pull thisoff.
You know, we had a CEO that wasall in at doing it and was
really excited about it and Ithink some of the things didn't
turn out the way that were thatwas planned.
And I think that, just like youknow, stuff happens, market

(24:03):
changes, you know things changein life and and it just doesn't
go that way, and sometimesgetting the money makes sense to
kind of change your mind, asyou know right.
I mean, you might have had bigplans for your company and
someone offers you the rightamount of money and it's time to
to walk away.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
You know, but those are part of my big plans.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
It could be it could have been part of Frank's too.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
I mean, I just need a lot of money and it's, they can
have it.

Speaker 1 (24:28):
Yeah, no, that's true .
Like that's one thing that I'mrealizing about you in this
interview is you don't get tooemotionally connected to any of
your investments or any of thecompanies that you're running,
is that?

Speaker 2 (24:39):
no, no, no no, no no, everything is, everything is
for my house is not in themarket, but you offer me enough
money.
You know I'm going to show youreal-time dog food.
Take care of my dogs and I'llnever come back.

Speaker 1 (24:50):
I hear you, I hear you.
No, I love them.
So from.
So we left off.
You know I would kind of bouncearound a little bit in your, in
your life as an investor and inthe industry a little bit.
And now I'm looking at let'sget closer to like today and I'm
looking at, you know, 20different companies or 10
different companies here, abunch that I rattled off and
others that you know we don'tneed to talk about today.

(25:11):
How many business cards do youhave?
Oh, do you have a business cardfor every one of those
companies you know?
And what do you think about?
I mean, if you have all thesecompanies you're invested in, do
you really know all theseproducts and you tried them all?
Do you understand them?
All you know is it?
Do you get that into it?
So I have zero business cards.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
I have a handful of companies that I own outright, A
handful of companies that I owna significant minority share,
Not the next oxymoron, but youknow, if you own 20, 30% of a
company you're a little bit moreinvolved.
Usually I'm a little Yep andthen as an angel investor, you

(25:54):
know I'm buying maybe 1% or 2%and I'm not involved at all and
usually I've tried the product,I've played with it.
It's often times software, butyou know but that goes for even
pre-investing in something right, they're always going to send
you a sample or give you accessto the thing to play with it.

(26:15):
Yeah, of course.
So I've invested in roughly 40companies.
Some have exited, a couple havefailed, so right now it's 30,
some odd.
Some are very small stakes andsome are significant stakes.

(26:36):
Some I'm on the board of, someI'm an advisor of, and then, of
course, I've got my own company.
So the you know if it's a boardmeeting.
I was in a board meetingyesterday for three hours.
I had an occasional boardmeetings Every month.
Hopefully, I get an update fromthat company.
So I read a lot of updates andI read a lot of pitch decks from

(27:00):
companies that are raisingmoney.
That's endless, Yep.
So, and I honestly don't spendas much time looking for new
companies to invest in.
I'm typically doing follow onrounds that the company's doing
well, because I have the rightto maintain it's called pro-rata
rights.
It's something I asked for whenI first get involved with the

(27:22):
company and pro-rata rightssimply means that I can continue
to invest to maintain thatequity percentage level.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
So okay, so they can't dilute you, or.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Well, I get diluted and that's why I have to put in
more money to maintain that yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
So let's say, I own 1% because I put in it's called
$100,000 when it was a $10million dollar valuation.
But then they're a $20 millionvaluation.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
I don't have 1% anymore, unless I contribute
more money, and let's just callit another 100 of that.
It's not math, is not thatsimple.
But let's call another 100,000to maintain that 1%.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
Okay, right.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Because the venture capitalist guys come around and
they want to take the wholeround sometimes, but I have the
right to put in no more thanwhat will keep my equity
percentage position, got it?
So we'll typically do those,maybe once or twice a year.
I'll do a new, I'll invest in anew company because of there's

(28:27):
extended circumstances whereit's a great deal and I have the
opportunity to get in.
But otherwise I'm focused onrunning my companies and one,
wordcoms, which I'm activelybuying.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
When you invest in a company, so it sounds like you
get in a little later than most.
I was going to talk to youabout how you put evaluation on
it's fair.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
No, I don't get in very early.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
So I'm getting very early.
So what do you do to a person?
Let's pretend I have an axethrowing business and I want to
open it up in different mallsacross America and I have a
whole business plan.
It looks cool and exciting.
This is something I can getbehind and I'm telling you my
projections are saying that inthree years we're going to be
doing $10 million a year inprofit.
And you're like I know realestate.

(29:15):
That's probably not going tohappen.
That's a lot of axe throwing,but I think three is probably
would be a win.
And how would you come to areasonable evaluation with these
entrepreneurs?
How do you do it?

Speaker 2 (29:27):
It's funny that you asked that question because just
this morning I was helping acompany with their pitch deck
and they had this slide calledfinancials.
It was blank and they said wewant to put in projections, so
we need help on how to put thosetogether.
And I said, as an investor, Inormally don't give much weight
to your projections, toprojections when it's

(29:47):
pre-product, because it's justplaying this guy.
I told them what do you mean?
I said well, what are you goingto?
You're just going to guess likeyou're going to have 2% market
share, right, and do that mathbased on the total addressable
market.
And it's total nonsense, it'snot based on anything.
It's what would be moresubstantial and be more
meaningful to you.
And I said, well, if you firstof all, you can't do it because

(30:09):
you're pre-product.
But if you had a product andyou said we're in, we've pitched
this many people, or indiscussions with this many
people, this many people, buyershave asked for a demo.
We're in contract with this manybuyers.
I said that shows somethingright.
And then, if you've had sales,we're in this many stores and
this is the sales, and they'vebeen, they've been growing over

(30:32):
the last 12 months, 12 months atthis pace.
So then you convert, you havesomething, you have a basis to
make projections upon, but rightnow you have no basis to make
any kind of projections.
You just make it up.
I said, and you will alwaysmake it up, in a way that's
extremely favorable.
Everybody thinks that they'regoing to do 100,000 this year

(30:54):
and in two years they're goingto be doing like 25 million.
And it just doesn't.
It usually doesn't work thatway, right?
No?

Speaker 1 (31:02):
So I just don't give it a lot of credence and then,
in reality, in the plan to getthere is never the plan in the
end.
When you look back at it, well,it just totally usually turns
to dust in some way, not in abad way, necessarily, it's just
you learn as you go and thingschange and you learn Well,
especially what.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
I'm looking at which is really early in the company
lifecycle right, I'm looking atC stage, and so a lot of it is
guesswork.
Now, if you're looking at an Around or a B round or a C round,
so these rounds that are eightyears later, right, you're
looking at a D round, I thinkcompanies have been around a
long time.
There's traction, there'sproduct market fit, they have

(31:41):
all of these things, they havehistorical data and so they can
say this is where we are and wesee an opportunity here and we
need X number of dollars to hirethe staff and do this marketing
, run these campaigns, launchthis product, et cetera, et
cetera.
And then it'll take us here andthis is our projection.
But it's not pining the skybecause it's based on all these
things I've been doing.

(32:02):
Right, but when you're gettingin a C round and it's like a
brand new product or just anidea and it's a pre-product.
Then I'm investing really inthe founder and what?

Speaker 1 (32:14):
I'm doing is what I was going to ask next.
And then, what do you look forin a founder and how much
they're investing?
I always feel like that'sreally.
The first question is how muchmoney have you put in yourself?
What are you putting in this?
Is this your only venture?
Is this everything to you, oris this just a side thing for
you?

Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, I mean, you do want it to be everything to them
.
You want them to be hungry.
You want to have a co-founderright, so if they burn out for
whatever reason, they decided togo, get married and moved to
Tahiti, anything can happen.
You want a co-founder that canhelp.
It's better because you don'treally want to put all your eggs
in one basket.
You'd rather there's two peoplethere.

(32:51):
I'm looking for somebody that'sgone through an accelerator,
because if it's just a dudethat's got an idea, even if he's
a good developer, then my god,okay, but you can develop the
thing.
But do you know how to raisemoney?
Do you know how to take it tomarket?
Do you have resources?
If you're not, from thatindustry, what do you have?
So I'm looking for somebodythat has gone through an

(33:14):
accelerator, that has trainingand that has someone that can
help them.
If somebody has done acrowdfunding, for example, I
don't invest in somebody that'scrowdfunding.
Why not?
Because what they've done isthey've raised $25, $100 from
hundreds of people and theycan't go back to that well for

(33:34):
more money, because that's notthe model.
Also, those people that investthat money can't help.
So when you have angelinvestors, angel investors have
different skill sets andtypically want to help and they
have resources and they help thecompany to push the board and

(33:55):
help them succeed, and then,when the company needs more
money, they can go back to thatgroup.
The people that are on theircap table go back to them for
more money, and so if your moneycame from crowdfunding, no
resources, no further investment, nothing that's done.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
So it's not like you raise money.
I mean, if all they need ismoney.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
They don't need any resources, they don't need to go
back and it's fine.
But if they don't have realinvestors behind them and
resources behind them, thenthat's not a company that I want
to get involved in, got it.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
And then to twist it around on you, let's say that an
entrepreneur has the hotproduct and you're like, wow,
this is going to be somethinglike this is going to be really
good, and you want to get in.
What do you tell thatentrepreneur?
What you bring to the table?

Speaker 2 (34:45):
I explain to them what my resources are, because I
try to be what's called smartmoney.
So dumb money is just a way tocheck.
Smart money is somebody thatcan actually help, oftentimes an
advisor, because I try to getinvolved with companies that I
understand, products that Iunderstand, so that I can be of

(35:06):
service, and so that's what wetalk about is what my resources
are, beyond just money, and howI can help them.

Speaker 1 (35:14):
Yeah, one of the things I've learned working with
some venture capital firms isthat when they invest in a
company, they have departmentsthat provide resources like
anything from helping with emailor recommend marketing
companies or provide themarketing themselves or do
anything legal advice, all kindsof different things to make
sure that it's almost like aconcierge service to help that

(35:36):
company be successful.
For sure, and I think that'swhat accelerators do right.
It's all of those things.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
And then when they bring in a VC, a VC is going to
have all kinds of resources aswell, including oh, you need
help with this particular smallniche thing in your business.
Call this CEO whose companydoes only that thing and he's
going to walk you through it.
Or let me put you on the phonewith this founder who had the
exact same issue a few years agoand this is how he solved it.

(36:05):
So those kinds of resources,just putting people together and
that's something that I can do,because I've been an investor
for so long that if I've got,I'm investing in 40 companies,
there's 40 founders I can reachout to Right and, of course,
there's more than that.
I know other founders.
I know people that have soldtheir companies and just you

(36:27):
know, etc.
Vcs and people that do haveknowledge in the startup world
that can help.
So it's not necessarily what Iknow, it's who I know as well.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
So when you invest in a company, when you're looking
at it and you put your money inyour hundred grand or million
bucks whatever it is in the backof your mind, is every single
one of them you saying toyourself I'm going to get an
exit of 10 times, 20 times outof this, 100 times out of this.
Is that really the ultimategoal?
Or when you invest in some ofthese smaller companies, like a
five or 10 person company,they're probably not going to

(37:01):
get a big exit, but maybethey'll pay you a good dividend
every year for perpetuity oruntil they retire, or something
like that.
No, how do you look?
No, you can't just pay adividend.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
Listen, if you're raising from an angel or raising
venture capital, you have tosell, Because that's the only
thing.
You have to get our money backout.
That is the path it is.
You build this company and sellit.
Either you sell to the publicright, you go public or you're
selling it to some other company.
But there has to be an exit sothat I can get my money back.

(37:35):
But, if you open a restaurantand you just want to run this
restaurant the rest of your life, I'm never going to invest in a
restaurant.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
Never well because.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
I don't, I don't want , I don't want a job and I don't
want, I don't want, you know, amonthly distribution.
That's not, that's not my goal.
I want to get a multiple on myinvestment.
So take my money and in sevento ten years, sell your company
for a hundred times what I putin, and then we're good right,

(38:02):
that's okay, that's my goal, andthat's most investors goal.
Sometimes sometimes really islike if I get two X or three X,
get out of the next round.
They'll do that.
Supermodels.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Or they making enough money and they just say we're
gonna keep it private and notexit, and here's your money back
with a return and you're likefine, I'll take it, or that
doesn't usually happen, wellthat's, you know.

Speaker 2 (38:24):
Pe firms do that.
Pe firms will buy companiesright, and then yeah they try to
get economy to scale by buyingcompanies that are.
There's some, some what's theword?
You put them together and they,they work well together roll a
roll up or a roll up.

Speaker 1 (38:41):
Merger.

Speaker 2 (38:42):
Yeah, and then you know there's economies of scale
and putting together, yep, andso they'll do that, and then
they'll, they'll Take the, the,the, the distributions from that
company for a while and then,because of the roll up and the
kind of the scale, then thecompany will trade for a higher

(39:04):
multiple and they'll sell offthat, that large company that
they're pieced together, theroll up it's.
I mean, I solicit, there are.
There are investors that thatyou know want to buy a bar and
like get monthly distributionsand go hang out at the bar and
it's a lifestyle investment.
That's not what I want.
Yeah, right, yeah necessarilywant to be that kind of ball.

(39:25):
I want to be around for adviceand to help and sometimes as a
crunch period, there's a.
There's a company I gotinvolved in that had a shitty
investor that wanted out.
They got out.
Another investor came in whowas terrible.
I helped push that investor outand he came in.
He was lying about all kinds ofstuff, great.

(39:48):
And then you know, like the allthe the existing investors make
sure they were cool.
And we found a new feedinvestor and I work every day on
that business for a while.
But I got compensated.
I got what's called advisoryshares, so I got more equity in
that company for working in.
Obviously didn't take any cash,I put more cash in as a matter
of fact, and it was a roughpatch and it was just kind of

(40:11):
touch and go and the companysurvived.
And you know, the lastvaluation was like $200 million,
just over 200 million, and Iwas in it an 8 million valuation
.

Speaker 1 (40:22):
So that's you know, so that's a that's a pretty good
or.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
I mean, it's all on paper, right, um, and you know
we'll see what happens, but Igot a.
I got a nice size chunk of thatcompany.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
And that's that's a great position to be in, and
these are the deals you dream of, right, and this is why you're
doing it.
Yeah, well either 10 theproject and work out this one's,
you know, the pearl right orone of the better ones, yeah,
yeah, yeah, I mean if it pays.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
If it pays, if it right, because right now it's
just on paper.
But if it's a 200 millionvaluation and some company comes
along and buys them for $650million and I got an 8 million
right, it's going to be a great,great payday for me.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
Yeah, it's a windfall .
Do you think you'll dosomething that day?
You think you'll celebrate thatone in more than buying a house
?
Um?

Speaker 2 (41:10):
Maybe it's possible.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Yeah, yeah, I have a question.
I've asked some investorsbefore.
Like you in the past, would youever invest in a competitor Of
a company that you've investedin?

Speaker 2 (41:23):
um.
I have investing in feathers.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
Yeah, so you've invested on both sides of the
aisle and and if you're sittingin the board, do you ever get
involved in the board?
You're on both sides, or moreinvolved, or is it more.
Just like.
This looks like a cool company.
That looks like like two carrental places.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
That look like yeah, I think there are synergies.
That was the word I was tryingto come up with a minute ago.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
Um, Okay, there are synergies.
I mean look.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
I I get involved with competitors and work with them,
because sometimes First of allyou can't.
You know, no man's an island.
You know we need to worktogether in the industry and and
it's it's our benefit.
So it's easier to work with andagainst a competitor.
And Whenever I approach acompetitor to work with them and

(42:09):
they don't have anything to dowith me I find those companies
don't last, because there's acertain mindset to when you
don't want to work with anybodyelse because you think you're
better and it just doesn't work.
Um, I agree with legal brandmarketing you know, we, we work
with all of our competitors andalways have, and, um, some of
those competitors I've ended upbuying out.

(42:29):
Some of those competitors haveoffered to buy my company.
Um, and I mean it's just, it'slike you know why?
Why wouldn't?
If you want to grow, whywouldn't you start by talking to
your competitors?
If you want to sell, why, whenyou start by talking to your
competitors, right and yeah,having a relationship with them
is better.
I have employees that used towork for competitors that

(42:49):
eventually left and they want tokeep doing what they're doing
and they call me.

Speaker 1 (42:53):
Yeah, and I, I do too , so I know I definitely I hear
you Um look at, look at thedomains.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yeah, that makes the main space all the people that
work in domain companies.
They go from one to anotherright.
No, nobody is this like theRoche Motel once you're in,
nobody leaves the domain space.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
They don't.
It's like the mouth.
You know we don't, we don'tleave um.
Have you ever invested in acompany and you realize that the
domain name that they're usingis just dog shit and have you
told them?
You know, obviously that's yourspecialty and that you want to
help them pick a new name or abetter domain or an upgraded
version of it?
Have you, have you ever hadthat conversation with the

(43:30):
founder and how was it received?

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Um almost every time Really okay.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
And how does that conversation go Um?

Speaker 2 (43:42):
You know, typically they already know who I am and
what my background is, and so,yeah, I I can't think of a time
where they haven't taken that,that comment or that
conversation seriously.
I think they've all used me.
They don't necessarily want tospend the money, or and
sometimes I say you know likewe're, we're b2b and this

(44:02):
upgrades not that significant.
It's not worth the, the, thecost and it's just yeah case
sometimes.
But um, you mentioned, catalystis on my investments and they
were catalyst dot Fit orsomething.
There were some somealternative extension and um,

(44:27):
and then along the way I wasable to.
I.
I saw catalyst dot co anauction.
I picked it up for a few grandand I was like look what.
I got like great, I'll take it,and I just he just reimbursed me
and um, and then the companywas doing very, very well and
and they had plenty of cash andI said it's time to go up to
catalystcom.
He's like you think we can getit I'm like well, we're gonna

(44:48):
try and I got it.
Um, you know, like everythinghas its price.
Um, I actually got a prettygood price on it.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
Um, did you see a lift in the business after you
got the dot-com?
Do you think it mattered, orwas it more of like a confidence
play in a I mean, I think itjust.
I'm sure it helped the traffic.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
Um, I don't know.
I mean, I never got involvedwith the With the metrics and
the you know conversions on thetraffic?
I never asked.
I mean, they were just sothrilled.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
The CEO was just beside himself, so thrilled that
I was able to get it because ithad been years of no no, it
stopped fit FIT.
You know that kind of thingexplain yeah yeah, explaining
yourself at a bar when you'retrying to close a deal, how does
someone can email you orsomething and you have to keep
saying it is a good thing?

Speaker 2 (45:34):
There's a, there's another company I'm involved in
and that needs the upgrade andI've been trying for years To
get it.
Uh, as a matter of fact, Ifollowed up just this morning,
quince then away, and they justdon't want to though.
Um, but I, I've done, I've donea bunch acquisitions for, for
these companies I'm involved inbecause I can, and you know I'm

(45:54):
not gonna charge for my servicesand just do it because it helps
.

Speaker 1 (45:57):
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, I mean, that's part ofbeing part of the team, right?
That's one of the values thatyou bring.
So let me ask you this yeah,you invest in a company.
They've raised, you know, a fewmillion dollars.
Uh, they have a prototype.
You know they have a run rate.
And then how much?
If you're you're having theconversation about a catalystcom
with ak and what would be youwould suggest to that company,

(46:21):
like, what percentage of thatcash should they spend within
reason on the domain?
Like what do you think it getsunreasonable and what do you
think is a fair amount thatIsn't reckless and that makes
sense for the business?

Speaker 2 (46:31):
I think I think up to 10 of the raise.
I think it's well beyond that.
It really comes down to Um.
What's the company is it?
Is it um?
You know, d to C?
Right?
If it's D to C, you need apretty strong name, right?
They're?

Speaker 1 (46:48):
gonna be out there.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
Yeah, media like they need a good memorable name
that's not gonna get screwed upwith, the dash or an alternative
extension or multi word, yeah,whatever, um, so you know, I, I
would recommend, like pushingthe budget for a very strong
name on launch for something asD to C.

(47:09):
If they're only an amazon seller, it's not quite as important.
If they're B2B, they can be onan AI or an IO or or some
alternative extension.
Um, because especially in thetech space, right, if they're in
a tech space, then then youknow, you've got kind of a savvy
um client base.

(47:29):
Um but you know, if you don'thave a tech savvy client base,
then you just need to be on dotcom.
Right, I mean dot com is alwaysgoing to be the best bet, but
just depending on your market,you can go with something that's
not quite as good potentially.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
But of course it's going to raise the price of the
dot com.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
Right, or you may, or it'll get cobbled up by a
company that's never going tosell it.

Speaker 1 (47:55):
Yes, I mean that happens, or you, if you're at
that stage, maybe you make aname change.
I mean, it's that happens tooright, well look.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
I have to go do something, you know my marketing
company's legal brand marketing, which you know I I picked
before I understood domains 20years ago and uh, roughly and um
, you know I didn't.
At one point we talked aboutupgrading to lbmcom, which is

(48:20):
well we always call it lbm,because that's what everybody
does.
Yeah, long three words, right,and do you?
Yeah and um?
Our logo is lbm and I couldhave bought.
Lbmcom is brought to be anumber of times and um, I think
it was brought to me was about30 grand, which today would be a
good price.
But then I was like you know,30 or maybe it's 35 grand.

(48:46):
I thought it's not going toimprove business.
It's just not Right becausewe're not out there getting
people to remember our namenecessarily.
Um, and I decided against it,even though I was.
I was steeped in the domainworld to that point I decided it
wasn't worth money because Iwasn't going to get any more
money for my company when I soldit, which happens.

(49:07):
Yeah, but whoever buys it's justgoing to roll it up into their
larger company and they're notgoing to care about the name.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
Got it.
Um, what do you think?
What do you think are thetraits that you look for when
you say I look at the managementteam when you make a decision.
What are the traits that youlook for in a CEO or co-founders
, Like?
What are certain very specifictraits that you really pay
attention to?

Speaker 2 (49:34):
Uh well, they certainly have to understand the
industry.
Right that to be knowledge,yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
I don't want.

Speaker 2 (49:40):
Well, I mean, look, look, there are myself include
like I will start a businesswhere I'm like here's a good
idea, I'm gonna go hire somepeople and I'm not gonna do it
myself, but I'm, you know, stuffI have no business getting
involved in, I get involved in,but, um, I don't want somebody
that just hasn't like I got thisidea to do this thing.
I'm like great Good luck to you, right, because I'm like, yeah,

(50:01):
you to try to execute on thisidea and you don't even have
knowledge of that, that thing,like you just get.
I know I have the idea I couldtake my money and go, you know,
go launch that, that idea.
And oh, and 100 of it, why am Igonna buy percent of it?
Because you have the idea?
No, I, if you are in that worldand you have this idea, because

(50:26):
You've discovered, you know, agap in the marketplace and you
have these resources and youcould put these things together.
That makes sense.
Okay, well, that makes sense.
I agree with that industryknowledge and and hustle Right
Like can they do it?
Um, if it's software, obviously, I'm looking for somebody

(50:48):
that's that's a developer asopposed to somebody.
That that Is well.
I haven't.
I haven't invested people thatare not developers but they've
been in that world Right.
They've been the director ofsales for the last seven years
at this company and and theyhave all the developers and have
everybody lined up and theyknow how to sell it Right
because they've been doing itfor a long time and they're

(51:09):
going to just build a bettermousetrap and go sell it and
that and that's it Right.
So so some sort of ideas thatwere domain, but some sort of
domain knowledge.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
And then what about like just normal character
traits, that just somebody whodoesn't give up, and they're a
hustler and they believe in theproduct.
And that's Really it, becauseyou know we're investing
founders, there's lots of ideas.

Speaker 2 (51:33):
I mean, is there anything that's that's really
that new?
It happens right.
I mean, there's pharmaceuticalsand there's new inventions, and
but most of the time it's notBrand new.
Usually it's a.
It's a thing that alreadyexists out in the world, and the
question is can this person doit better?

Speaker 1 (51:54):
Yeah, and then do you actually want to meet them in
person and like maybe go have asome dinner and drinks with them
, or are you beyond that?
You look at the paper, youmight talk to them on a zoom,
listen to their presentation,ask some questions and you're
out the door with it.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
I mean, we're having a perfectly good conversation
right now.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
We're not, you know, in person, right like you don't
need to be no, I agree, no, Imean, but this isn't an
interview for me to you know.
If you're to invest inside ourcalm.
This is for me to invest inlegal brand marketing, right, no
I?

Speaker 2 (52:21):
um, like, if they're, if they're in LA, um, you know,
I'll meet him for coffee.
And sometimes they're close byand go like, hey, I'm gonna be
in LA in a couple of weeks.
I'm not in in rural Alabama.
People come through LA, it'snot that hard.
So, yes, I, I will get to gopeople if they're making a trip
out here, but usually not.

(52:43):
Usually I'm reading the deck,I'm like I'm the person and
they're in Montreal or wherethey're, wherever.

Speaker 1 (52:51):
Yeah, I got it.
I got it.
So let's change the subject alittle bit and let's talk a
little bit about domains, unlessthere's anything else you wanna
add to what we were justtalking about.
Okay, how do you think the restof this year is gonna go with
domain sales in general?
Do you think it's gonna remainrelatively robust, or do you
think we're gonna go through acold winter soon?
What do you think's gonnahappen?

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Things have definitely picked up this year.
I had a decent year last yearand then, after the first
January, inquiries startedcoming in.
I've got, I think, five dealsin negotiation right now.
As a matter of fact, I think Imight close one there tomorrow,

(53:37):
I might close two there tomorrow, and I've had a good start to
the year and some good salesthis year.
So when you see sales and yousee inquiries pick up the big
names, the six and seven figurenames, as you well know, they
take a while oftentimes, and soa bunch of those conversations

(53:59):
are happening.
Some are already at, we'reagreed at the price and there's
other terms that we'renegotiating.
So I'm not counting my chickens, but some of them look pretty
good.
The question is, are we gonnacontinue seeing?
Are rates gonna continue todrop?

(54:20):
The economy's okay, credit isat all time high, or debt rather
.
So that bubble's gonna bursteventually and then we'll shit
hit the fan.
Probably to some degree it will.
But you know, domains havealways kind of weathered that

(54:43):
storm and if the latter half ofthe year sales drop off because
budget's tightened, it'llprobably pick up again next year
.
I'm in this for a long call.
I don't need to sell a domainto eat tonight.
So I'm fortunate enough to beable to buy and hold, and that's

(55:05):
my strategy.
If somebody comes along andoffers me twice what I paid for
a domain, that's ridiculous.
The rest of the world would bephenomenal.
Imagine if you bought a houseand somebody I'll pay twice what
you paid for your house.
It's like you won the lottery,but in the main world, like
you're not offering me eight, 10, 20 times what I paid, forget

(55:25):
it.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
Yeah, but also you're also covering a lot of the
other names.
You spent a lot of money onthat.
You are never gonna sell andyou thought were great and
haven't gotten the nibbles thatyou've wanted to over the years,
so that's been kind of dead.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
I dabble in all different areas of domain
investing, but my primary focus,90% of what I do, is in
onewordcoms and to sale andnever sell them is a little bit
different.
I see those as the most liquid.
They don't turn as fast butit's not like there's only one

(56:00):
buyer out there.
So I've got iconiccom, forexample.
Just picking one wordcom,iconiccom is never gonna go to,
obviously not gonna go tobusiness, and it will always
have value.
And if I have not sold it in 10years and I want the liquidity,
I can wholesale it.
And I can probably wholesale itfor two or three times or four

(56:24):
times what I paid for it.
And if it's a year later I canprobably after about it.
I could probably sell it for 10or 20% above what I paid, right
Just because it's been a year.
So those are liquid because Ican always sell them on the
wholesale market, and so that'svery different than a big
portfolio of the average like 25to $3,500 name that there's one

(56:49):
buyer out there.
You have enough of them, you'llsell enough to make money
because you're getting a hundredX on them but, like you said,
most of them, or many of them,will never sell, but it's.
But this still pencils out.
And my portfolio is different,much smaller portfolio, all of
which have value, all of which Icould sell.
I'm turning down the offersthat are twice what I paid

(57:14):
because it's not enough, right?
So that's a difference.
So mine's much more creativeright Than all the small name
portfolio Small name.

Speaker 1 (57:26):
And like an iconiccom .
There is not just domaininvestors, but there's also
people that are like you, whobuy really cool names like that
for hundreds of thousands ofdollars and they're like
actually don't have an idea forit.
I just thought the name wascool and then I'm like I'm just
gonna put it over here for someday that I might need it or a
business that I invest in wantsit.
So I'm just gonna keep it overthere and they'll pay $200,000,

(57:47):
which is amazing, yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
And I've sold some names like that Mark.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
Cuban.
Everybody knows Mark Cuban,it's wild.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
He buys names and he's like this is a great name.
Well, maybe I'll use thissomeday.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Great.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
I'm happy, absolutely .

Speaker 1 (58:06):
You know, in our business we saw the fourth
quarter was a little bit on theslower side from what it was
from years before.
It seemed that a lot of peoplekind of went on vacation earlier
for Christmas, because I alwaysfound myself like working on a
deal on Christmas Eve or havingto work on something on like the
day or two after trying to getit through before the end of the

(58:27):
year, and it just wasn't thatkind of action that a lot of the
years in the past it had been,and I was a little concerned
that going into the new yearthat would carry over and it
didn't.
In January did seem to be kindof a noticeable uptick in
interest and offers andopportunities.
And then in January was apretty good month.

(58:49):
It wasn't one for the historybooks, but then February this
February has been pretty good.
I mean, we've sold quite a fewnames and we have a lot of
things cooking and brewing.
You know you're absolutelyright, so that's good.
I mean, I think, talking toother people in the industry,
they've said very similar thingsto you.
And the other thing that I'venoticed is in times when I've

(59:12):
been doing this since you know,2010, and we've gone through
times where it wasn't good inthe economy, or war or other
things like pandemics and yeah,things slow way down.
But it always seemed likedomains to me were robust, and
they always have.
When other areas of the markethave really not done well,
domains would go down, but thenit would, for some reason, you

(59:33):
know, the demand would come backup.
Now the VC funding is way downcompared to two, three years ago
and I thought that that wasgoing to have a major effect on
opportunities for us and I feltlike it kind of did.
But now it's going.
It's not like it was in 2020 and2021, but it's still a lot more

(59:55):
robust.
When I'm seeing that VCinvestment is down like 60% or
70% from the year before, that'salarming to me, you know, and I
don't know if Bitcoin's helpingthat.
I don't think it is, becauseI'm not talking to a lot of
people that are investing inBitcoin or not investing, but
investing in crypto related orblockchain related companies,

(01:00:16):
like I was a number of years ago, and I'm not talking to a lot
of blockchain startups, like Iwas, that are looking to buy
cool names either.
So that doesn't seem to bepropping up the market either.
You know, at least on my sideof the business.
So when crypto is up, domainsales are up.
And because when it's up, I getoffers in crypto.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
I have a six figure sale right now pending and we're
$15,000 apart.
We're very, very close and it'sa crypto sale and when crypto
is up.
Last year same thing I hadcrypto sales.
These guys are not in a bunchof value in their crypto

(01:01:02):
portfolio and they want todiversify and they understand
digital assets.
So that happens.
As far as VC funding, what'sinteresting is that funding
might be down, but the VC'sstill have the money.
So when the stock market goesdown, people take their

(01:01:23):
investment dollars out of themarket and they put them in
funds.
So the VC's they're sitting ona ton of dry powder and it has
to get deployed, because if theydon't deploy it, they have to
give it back.
Well, I don't give it backbecause they want to earn their
management fee, so they give itback.
They don't earn money, so it'scounter to what they're doing.

(01:01:45):
So what they do is they sit onit and they just hammer the
founders for better deals, andso we saw a lot of VC running
dry up.
But then it came around Becausethe money was there and then it
got deployed.
When it got deployed, then itgot deployed.

(01:02:08):
Maybe these startups didn't doas much, or they?
got as much but they didn't getthe valuation that they wanted.
That's usually what happened.
It just everybody took ahaircut and then they can use it
for whatever they need, forsometimes domains and whatever
else.
It just was a little bit of alag, which is why in Q4, myself

(01:02:31):
included I had one sale I wasgoing to close at the end of the
deal and it got pushed and itstill hasn't happened, and
another that did close right ina deal.
I didn't get paid until afterthe first.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
But otherwise it was a ghost town in Q4.
Yeah, it was slower.
I mean, I don't know if I'dcall it a ghost town, but yeah,
it definitely wasn't what itused to be.
So yeah, so are you headed toPuerto Rico?

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
No, no.
I'm going to Argentina for awedding.
That's a few days afterwardsand I was going to try to go to
Puerto Rico first and thenArgentina, and it's just too
much.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
That's a lot of traveling.

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
I've been traveling a lot.
I've been to something likenine countries in the last six
months and it's a lot plus a lotof domestic stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Yeah, I'm sure Did you go home, and have you been
staying at home since the ICA orhave you traveled other places
since I'm trying to think?
No, I think I've been home.
You've been home.
Are you going to go to theNordic domain days?
I think that's like in May?
Yeah, you're going to go to.

Speaker 2 (01:03:44):
Yeah, I'm supposed to speak Are you?

Speaker 1 (01:03:47):
Do you think it's worth it?
Do you think it's a good show?

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
I like the show.
It's very registry operatorfocused and I talked to Lars
last year about adding aninvestor track because there's
plenty of people that would behappy to go to that conference.

(01:04:10):
But when it's all registrystuff all of us don't care, so
we don't go.
But all he needs to do is add afew speakers and then it will
bring the investor side.
We'll see if that happens.

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
I sent Rob Watson, who works with me last year.
He went and Dan Adamson, who Iused to work with at Uniregistry
, he was there as well.
They were there last year.
I think they went the yearbefore as well and they thought
it was a great, really good showon the domain side, but it was
small and I think that theyprobably didn't go to the ICA
event, but the way they talkedabout it sounded similar to ICA,
where there wasn't a ton ofpeople, but the people there

(01:04:48):
were of good quality and reallyfocused on, serious about what
they're doing and led to goodconversation, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
Yeah, it's just not investor focused, but there's no
reason why it couldn't be.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
Yeah, and then, if anyone's listened, I did a
review of the ICA and I had agreat show and Braden is on the
board of the ICA and my questionfor you is will the ICA?
The ICA is going to do the sameshow again in January next year
, but are you going to add asecond show, or is that
something that is still beingdiscussed or is not an option

(01:05:22):
Still?

Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
being discussed.

Speaker 1 (01:05:24):
I'm pushing for it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
I would really like, yeah, we'll see.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
Do you think, if they're going to do it, it would
be in the US or in Vegas orsomewhere else?

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
No, it'll probably be .
It'll probably be in the US.
I mean, I'm talking about EastCoast, miami, new York, yeah,
like that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:47):
Yeah, just to mix it up and it'll be.

Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
It'll be, you know, more expensive.
It'll be a 12 or $1,500 ticket,that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
So it'll be much smaller group.
Yeah, miami, yeah If it.
I always felt that and I wouldGo ahead if it happens when we.

Speaker 2 (01:06:06):
It's just a discussion.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
Yeah, if it happens.
Yeah, of course I mean we couldtalk about having one a week.
You know it's just a discussion,but I mean the way that I've
always thought about it is isthat we have a community of
people that are coming from Asia, obviously, in Europe and
everywhere else on the planet,and I would think about putting
a map up and looking at how manydirect flights are coming from

(01:06:28):
the places that most of theDemanders are from, and I'm
guessing would be LA, las Vegas,if you're doing the United
States, la, las Vegas, atlantaand, and potentially like
LaGuardia or one of those likeJFK or LaGuardia, or you look at
Washington DC, I think likethose five and maybe Chicago,

(01:06:53):
like those six places wouldprobably be when you get the
most direct flights or theeasiest connection to a flight,
and I would think that it wouldhave the best, the cheapest
flights to Get the most peoplethere.
But when you talk about Like,for example, austin is hard to
get to for a lot of people, it'schallenging, right, because
there's not many direct flightsand so even if you're living in

(01:07:14):
in New Jersey or something, youstill probably got to fly to
Dallas or somewhere else andthen connect or something like
that.
So, and that's why, like I wentto the one I think you were
there a long time ago I went tothe conference in Valencia, yeah
, and I was the yeah, I was theemcee toast for yeah seven years

(01:07:34):
or something you know and Iloved it more.
I thought he was such a nice guy.
God breathed the soul.
What a wonderful man he was.
And you know I loved going tothat show but it was like so
challenging for me to get there.
It was just the overnightflight and then you had to land
and they had to get a train oryou had a flight of Valencia and
it was just a really, you knowit was tough to get to as an

(01:07:54):
American, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
About that for years, but it was cheaper and easier
for him because he lived thereWell yeah, the gold to pack the
seats, you know, and he isbeautiful place, but I look I
get it.
It's easier and cheaper for you, but we've been for years.
Let's go somewhere else andyeah.
I think what did?

(01:08:17):
We go into Madrid or some otherplace in Spain, I think, and
then from there we do with theHague and we did, we did a bunch
of other cities, right, yeah,I'm not surrounded and I thought
that was great.
And then change the name fromfrom demeaning Spain to
demeaning Europe.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
Yeah.
Is there a deck on?
Is that no longer?
I don't even yeah, so.

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
So, Rolf and I actually sat down with soren and
Convinced him to buy it.
Okay, so so it got rolled upinto names con.
Okay, when go, daddy owned itand so it was names con Europe,
and which is great for a deepmark, because he had cancer at

(01:09:04):
that point.
Yeah, and so so we did a dealand and took over, but but I
think since Kobe they haven'tdone anything.

Speaker 1 (01:09:15):
Yeah well, that was just a mess for everybody, yeah,
so All right.
Well, I think that's enough fortoday.
We're over an hour, so usuallytry to keep these at about an
hour, and if somebody would likeyou to look at maybe a deck or
Invest in some year orpotentially make an offer on
some of your names or just talkto you, what's the easiest way
to get a hold of you?
Twitter?

Speaker 2 (01:09:36):
I'm on Twitter.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
I'm on all socials, on all socials, twitter.
What's your handle on Twitter?
Brady Pollock?
There you go.

Speaker 2 (01:09:47):
That's an easy one Braden dot ETH.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
Braden dot ETH.
And yeah, there you go.
You have two hands.
Oh yeah, you've changed it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
There you go, that's right.
My name is Braden and legalbrand marketingcom.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
There you go, all right.
Well, hey, thanks for your time.
This is a great conversation.
I really enjoyed it and I hopepeople listening get a better
understanding of what goes intoinvesting in companies, what the
expectations are those peoplewho do invest.
And you know, like that kind ofpoint of view, because I think
I Think a lot of people justthink it's you know, they look
at it and they put the money inand that the expectations, yeah,

(01:10:21):
I might get paid out orwhatever and they don't really
necessarily understand theprocess and what really goes
into this and it's it's really alot and it and it takes a
special person, you know, tokeep up with it and and to do it
.
So thanks for for enlighteningus on that and coming here.

Speaker 2 (01:10:34):
You know about the sell-through rate right I have.
I have a very good portfolioand my sell-through rate is
About 1.6%.

Speaker 1 (01:10:43):
So yeah, and then with domains, it's about the
same.

Speaker 2 (01:10:49):
Yeah, so you know, and a good portfolio looking at
2% sell-through rate.
So you know, if you, if you buy10 domains right, it's gonna
take you years to sell one.
And in angel investing, you know70% of those businesses are
gonna go out of businessentirely and I lose all my money

(01:11:10):
, right, and then some willreturn and someone get my money
back.
So I'll make a little bit of areturn on my investment and
maybe one in a hundred will be athousand next Makeup for all
the others.
So you kind of have to look atthose percentages.
Know what you're getting ininto.
Because I see people that buy adomain name, I'm like, oh great
, I'm gonna sell this five timeswhat I paid for it.

(01:11:31):
Well, yeah maybe, but it couldtake you a hundred years to do
that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:36):
Yeah, and I think I think from like a domain broker
standpoint, a lot of the timeswhen we work with somebody that
owns One name, and it's even areally good one, and they expect
to get, you know, a milliondollars, two million dollars,
you don't know how the market orthe companies that you're gonna
approach in that industry aregoing to react to the name.
Sometimes, the moment you bringit to market, people like, oh
my god, it's finally for sale.

(01:11:57):
We've wanted this name for tenyears, how much?
And they like find a way.
And you know you have anothercompany saying we, you know, we
want it, or whatever.
And other times you're pushingit, you sign that agreement and
you think, alright, as a broker,there's gonna be a line around
the corner that wants this, andthen it's crickets, you know.
And then sometimes those peoplethat own the name are like what
, what the fuck?
You know, why aren't?
Why aren't I getting a ton ofoffers?

(01:12:18):
Why isn't there?
Yeah, right, could be the price, or it's just total, just not
interested, like some.
Some industries are strangelike that and you know, you know
, they're no bad.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
Bad names are just bad prices, right.

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
So I see a lot of bad names.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
It could be this not worth ten bucks a year, right?
I mean, yeah, that's possibletoo, right.
But there is a price, yeah, foreverything, and and so I have
seen names where it's afantastic name but two million
dollars.
It's just not worth it, right.
But if it was, it isn't fivethousand dollars.
It would sell tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
Yeah, so you're gonna find that absolute max in the
market and get it if you'rewilling to take that at that
time, and that's it.
Yeah, all right.
Well, good, that's a great wayto end it and I appreciate it.
Thank you, he's ran me on, allright.

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