Shane Kultra's Insights on Domain Flipping and Nurturing Business Growth

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Next on the uncomfortable podcast with
Jeffrey Gabriel, we have domainname Shane Kultra.
Come hear Shane's storiestouching on being a stock trader
, bartender, botanist, tvpersonality for a national TV
show, demeanor, marathon runner,a father and maybe, just maybe
even a domain broker.
Here, shane and I talk aboutmanaging employees, motivating

(00:20):
employees, selling domains,email deliverability, bad domain
investments, the state of thedomain industry, taking the big
leap to do your own thing, andwe both agreeing that the number
one secret to both of oursuccess is our support system at
home, starting with our wives,our families and then our
friends and our colleagues.
If you want to be a guest onthe uncomfortable podcast, have

(00:43):
an idea for an episode or havesome feedback, send us an email
to buzzbuzz at SODcom.
If you're listening on Spotify,apple, youtube or anywhere else
, please at the very least, giveus a like.
It helps our rankings immenselyand, as always, thanks for
listening.

(01:22):
Today on the uncomfortablepodcast, you have Shane Kultra,
better known as Domain Shane inthe domain investing world.
Shane is one of the founders ofDSAD that puts out a daily list
of domains at auction fromauction houses from around the
world.
He has put out a list everysingle day since 2009 and has
missed less than 10 in thatperiod.

(01:42):
Shane owned and ran a nurseryand garden center for 28 years
while he pursued his domaininvesting on the side.
Shane started running at 40years old and has run 35 plus
marathons, two iron man's, andis now pursuing 100 mile races.
We're definitely going to talkabout that.
Shane is the original.
Get uncomfortable.
I guess I'm the plagiarizer andas that has been his motto for

(02:05):
over 30 years and I can agree asmine as well, shane retired
from the nursery business in2023 and is now pursuing domain
investing, domain and brokerageand his other hobbies full time.
Welcome to the show, shane.
How are you doing today, hey?

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Jeff, great I'm glad you had me on.
I've been watching it and I washoping someday I'd have the
honor of coming on, so Iappreciate you bringing me here
today.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Yeah, I'm honored to have you here.
I put on my Red Sox hat becauseI want to forget about the NFL
season of 2023.
I'm a Patriots fan, so picturesand catchers for the Red Sox
report in two days, so I thoughtI'd put this on as some lucky
juju.
This is my lucky Red Sox hat.

(02:52):
I actually was wearing it.
It looks a little weathered.
I was wearing it when I soldsexcom, so I had some and a
little when I used to make acall.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
It looks like a multi-million dollar hat.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
I'd be like doodling on the insides and hoping for
the best you know when these arehappening.
So hopefully there's somepositive juju here.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, anyways, I have my lucky swag too.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
So there you go.
So you know, I like to startwith pretty much everybody on
the show and find out abouttheir business or their personal
lives and things like that.
So let's quickly go over youknow, you and the planting
business, and then how you founddomains, got in the domain
business and then how it kind ofbrought you here, and then we
can kind of start talking aboutthe industry and things like

(03:40):
that.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, I mean a lot of people in the industry know my
story but I can say quickly, Ididn't know what I wanted to do
out of high school.
You know my family has anursery business since 1865.
And I worked doing that throughhigh school and you know my
whole life that's how I earned.
Money is working for my daddoing that.
But for five generationseverybody's done something else

(04:04):
and then come back to it.
We all do it, we all hate it.
We go and go to college or goto war.
I was actually the firstgeneration not to go to war,
which I'm very thankful of, okay, but I definitely didn't want
to go back in the nurserybusiness, like I had unloaded
enough trucks and know how hardof work it was.
I wanted to do something quotebetter.
So I went to college Universityof Alabama, where my dad went

(04:25):
to school, and I ended up doingreally well at the USA Today.
You remember USA Today paper,that a stockpicking contest that
we did in a class and I thinkit was top 10 in the country and
my professor said, hey, you'repretty good with numbers and got
me a job at the board of tradeActually the Chicago options
exchange in Chicago.
So I left school and was atrader.

(04:46):
I moved up from runner to pitto kind of doing the whole thing
, until I was one of thosepeople in the pits with the hand
signals doing that and Ithought, okay, I'm going to do
this rest of my life.
And long story short, during aFederal Reserve meeting I held a
position that my backer so aguy gave me a million dollars.
I had to pay him 80% of theprofit.
I kept 20% of the profits and Ihad a couple rules.

(05:10):
So I weren't very many rules,but one of them was no big
trades during big meetings.
Well, I made a big trade duringa meeting and I did very well.
I think I remember making acouple hundred thousand.
But he walked out there andtook his money away from me and
said there's rules here.
I don't care if you make moneyor lose money, there's rules and
if you don't follow them, I'mtake, I can't have you.
As you know, I can't put mymoney in you.

(05:31):
So it was a big lesson to me,yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
What year was the start asking?

Speaker 2 (05:36):
I was in the early 90s, so this is in 1994.
Yeah, 1994.
And it was a lot of tears, youknow a grown man crying because
getting someone to back you wastook a long time to get.
I was being risky, you know.
It kind of set the stage of howI was going to act in life.

(05:56):
I wasn't scared of risk, I wasaggressive.
I loved money, I love action, Iloved buying and selling.
I love buying low, selling high.
I was doing 50 million dollarsin trades a week as a young 20
year old and so it kind of setup early that I love those kind
of things.
But fast forward, my dadnoticed I was kind of hurt and

(06:19):
said I have an idea.
Come to the nursery, yeah, hesaid, I'm thinking of leaving my
dad's nursery and forming myown thing in a college town, in
Champaign Urbana, and I didn'twant to go to the small one in
the family Like there's no wayI'm moving to the small town,
but Champaign Urbana seemed likea nice college town.

(06:42):
I love college towns.
There's youth and sports andall kinds of things.
So I had met my wife at thetime.
She wasn't opposed to it and wemoved here and my dad and I
started with like threeemployees.
I always I told the story amillion times I did more on a
Friday my last year than I didthe whole year in retail sales.
So we did more in one day thanwe did the entire year.

(07:04):
So we're doing five or sixmillion dollars of stuff we grow
ourselves and I had a greatlife.
That's a beautiful life Growingplants.
You know you're going to hearme tell all these analogies of
plants, but life is like plantsit's patience, it's growing,
it's trimming, it's culling outthe bad ones, it's just life is

(07:24):
all about growing plants and ittaught me so much about that.
And then you know not speakingtoo much, but it kind of led me
also to realize a business ownerputs all their money back in
the business.
Your best investment isyourself, and so when you make
money you don't go invest itreally in the stock market.
You take it and reinvest it inyour own company because you

(07:45):
know what you can do with thatmoney.
So that's well and good.
But what it turns out is, whenit's all said and done, all your
money is in your company, whichis a great company and a very
profitable company, but everybit of profits goes back into
expansion because we kind oftalked before the show.
You learn when you have a lot ofemployees and children that

(08:06):
it's not about you.
Your decisions affect everybody.
My goal didn't be.
My goal started to be a goodbusiness, but your goal.
Eventually you have 48employees and 48 families and 48
people with children.
I have to provide for them.
Every dime I have has to goback in there, because they want
to make more money, they wantmore opportunity, they want to

(08:29):
move up in their lives and theonly way to do that is for me to
create that.
They're not going to createthat.
They're going to be goodemployees and learn, but they're
not going to create thatopportunity.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, they have their own hopes and dreams and goals
of their own and they're workingwith you, like.
One of the things I thinkpeople forget when they have
employees who work for them isthat those people are working
for you voluntarily, they're notrequired to come to work
tomorrow and they're notrequired to do anything for you
and they can quit at any timethey want.
And so I try to remember thatsome days I'm mad and I make

(09:01):
mistakes and say things I didn'tmean or whatever, but like
going back to that is providinga place.
You're right, they're 40families, they're 80 kids if
they all have two kids and theirwives or husbands or other,
their own plans and their ownhobbies and their own vacations.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
And I agree, you're 100% right and they should want
more.
But the problem is they want totake a step up, but it's my job
to make the step.
It's my job to create the stepthat they can step up at and so
or step it up somewhere else.
If I don't do a good job,they're going to step up, but
they're going to go step up to acompetitor or to another
business.

(09:37):
So I would love to keep themaround.
So that became my responsibilityand, as you know, with 48, you
know there's hierarchies but youtalk to everybody different.
There's some people that a loudvoice inspires them.
There's other people were maybean arm around the shoulder.
There you have to talk to everysingle person differently to
inspire them and get them to go,and that becomes brutal.

(09:59):
So I have my wife I talked toaway.
My daughter I talked away andthen probably 22 other people I
interact with daily that I haveto remember how to interact with
them and as you become older,that becomes harder.
It really does.
As you become a middle-aged man, it's hard to talk to a 22 year
old woman in a way that drivesthem to become better.

(10:20):
So I acknowledge all that and Ibecame probably worse at my job
after 50, because it was such adiversity of employees and how,
and so you start stackingpeople in middle to talk to them
and people don't think aboutthat.
I think about that I thought itwas more difficult, maybe

(10:40):
because I had more people totalk to.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
I was managing at one point over 50 people at
Uniregistry and I feel like inthe beginning of it I think I
had a harder time, maybe becauseof the years of doing it, but
now that I'm getting older Ifind it easier to manage people
because I think I might have alittle less testosterone and

(11:06):
more understanding and patiencewith people than I did before,
and I think that comes to theage, but I think, talking to a
22 year old and relating to themwhether it's a guy or a girl, I
don't care I think that, yeah,you're right.
I'm 20 years removed from thatnow, so she's having challenges
I've never had when I was in my20s, or he had.
But I think, personally, havingthat patience is something I

(11:30):
have that I didn't have before.
Sometimes I write an email andI won't send it and I'll let it
sit overnight where, when I wasyounger, I'd be like fuck you
and I'd send it and you can'ttake it back.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
No, that's the rule.
On emails.
Yeah, there's nothing going outat night.
No text that's the other thingis all text.
We'll get copied and pasted andput on social media.
I can don't send anything.
I'm only on the phone justbecause of that.
But I agree with you, it's justeverybody that's.
The other thing is, motivatingpeople is so individual, Like

(12:04):
what motivates one person versusanother and again, I do become
better at that.
But I do have to learn thatJohn really likes his time off.
Like I can't motivate him withovertime and money and time and
a half.
Yeah, he actually refers he, he,that doesn't matter to him, he
would rather have the time off.
So, okay, well, I'm going tomanage his schedule and the
other person's.
Like I don't ever want to leave, I want to make as much money

(12:27):
as I can, so if I don't give himovertime they're pissed.
So, anyway, that's kind ofwhere I was and I, you know, I
think I did a really good joband I definitely grew.
Like you said, it just becameso, so diverse and so big and so
many responsibilities that Ipeople will say, on micromanage,
what I did is I laid out thehierarchy too flat.

(12:48):
I was so sick of 80s middlemanagement I hated how many
levels there were in the 80s andbusinesses that six people had
to report to each other that Iflattened it out and it became a
little too flat, so I had toomany people reporting to me once
I got really large.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
So you also end up with way too many chiefs and not
enough Indians right At thatpoint.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, and I had.
I think I had the opposite.
I had a lot of Indians and Iwas the chief of all of them and
I couldn't.
It was just too much yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:14):
And it's too overwhelming.
Yeah, and delegating is hardsometimes.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, but it's a good lesson.
I'm better and I'm a betterbusiness person and so you know.
Getting back to domains, when Italk to someone, no matter how
big their company, I kind ofunderstand what they're going
through.
It may have more zeros, it mayhave more employees, but
business is business, it's allthe same.
It's product, it's service,it's employees.

(13:39):
And so I can, when I talk tosomebody about domains, if they
want to go into the businessside of it, I got you, Like I
get where you're coming from.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
Yeah, yeah, let's go back real quick.
I want to ask you a quickquestion about when you risked
this guy's million dollars andthen he fired you over it.
Do you think 20, you know, 30years later, right, you're in
his shoes and you had a kid withyou, gave a million dollars to,
and he did that, and it was you.

(14:08):
Do you think you would havefired yourself or do you think
what he did was harsh or overthe line?

Speaker 2 (14:13):
No, he's right.
I don't know about firingbecause I didn't really have any
warnings, but yeah, yeah, soit's not like if you do it again
, but I do feel like I shouldhave known that those were his
rules and was that the cardinalrule?
Like that's the one thing youdon't do at the time I didn't

(14:33):
know as the cardinal, but I doknow he was pretty set in his
way.
He was literally one of thefirst people to ever trade Black
Scholes model and options.
He opened the Chicago Stock orChicago Options Exchange.
He was a legend so it washonored to have his money.
I went to dinner at his housebut you know, I know I don't

(14:57):
doubt I it was.
It was dumb to do.
The funny thing is, to this daywhen I hold trades through the,
the Fed meetings, I still getnervous like I do it now.
I still trade during Fedmeetings and I all I can think
about is like this this cost me.
This cost me millions ofdollars before because that same
trading group.
The next year Nobody made undera million dollars like nobody

(15:21):
crushed it.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah and I was, but at the same time real, yeah, but
that's a real burnout job andyou just don't know where that
could have taken you.
You could have made millionshad a horrible healthy lifestyle
and on your third heart attackright now.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
Like you, just yeah, no, I had a definitely a
drinking problem, like everybodyelse in the pit.
We all had gambling problems.
It is, it's an, it's like afraternity with billions of
dollars.
Like yeah, it's the crazy.
And my wife's just said she wasalready at the time.
She was my girlfriend, she wasalready giving me Signs that

(15:54):
that's lifestyle was not gonnalast long, because I took a job
at a bar too, just for extramoney and to meet people.
I didn't even need it, but Iwould go.
This is how hard I I worked.
I would get to the office at 5am, trade till 2, close out my
books from 3 to 5 or lax.
I'd go to the bar at 6 and Iwork from 6 6 pm To 4 am At the

(16:18):
bar and then get up and do thatagain like days on end, one hour
asleep.
How can you do that?
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
It wasn't great extracurricular inhibitors,
maybe to keep you in here andthere.

Speaker 2 (16:31):
But the money was so good I won't bore the podcast,
but what the thing is.
I would work the back door ofthe this barn is most popular
bar in Chicago and the Lineevery night would wrap around
the whole building.
And so the line would go aroundthe building to this door and
everybody would knock on thedoor Can I come in?
And I started realizing I couldcharge them 20 to $50 to let

(16:54):
him in that door and avoid theline.
So I would make an extrathousand dollars a night cash by
letting people in that backdoor and so I kept the job like
I didn't really need the job.
But when it was so lucrativeand finally owners came up to me
to do that, I take.
Are you taking cash to letpeople in the back door?
And I said, yeah, and they'relike that's brilliant, split it

(17:16):
with me.
So they let me continue to dothat.
And then I split the money.
But every night my wife willtell you the story.
I'd come home exhausted and Iwould just lay all the cash out
on the counter, just All themoney, and when I would come
home from work my wife wouldhave it all, almost like ironed
and laid out, and I knew I had agood woman because she had that

(17:37):
money, perfectly managed,stacked, hidden.
She was my money manager andshe's been my money manager for
for 30 years, ever since.

Speaker 1 (17:46):
Wow.
So how did you end up?
So you did, you did the nurseryfor a long time and then, and
then you started.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
How did you find out about domains and that
opportunity, it seems yeah, so,yeah, so it sounds like it, but
a serial entrepreneur, serialentrepreneur, right.
So I've always been doingthings on the side as a as a
business owner.
You know that money goes backinto the business and you're
only gonna get a certain amountof salary.
So I always wanted to dosomething on the side and I'd

(18:13):
always.
The internet came around andyou know I've been on the
bullets and boards doingauctions since I'm not
exaggerating since 1984.
The old Modem would go on tothe, the phone would fit onto
the modem and there was abulletin boards and you would do
it.
You would do an auction like itwould say I have a Star Wars,
boba Fett, condition 9, hibitters, then 64, and then

(18:39):
somebody else would make a bidand I would just keep doing that
auction, a Visual auction, andwhoever one would mail me a
check and I would mail out thetoy and they would give me a
rating.
I did not since high schoolwith Star Wars toys and toys.
So the internet came around andso on the side, even in the 90s
, I started buying domain names,buying plant names, because I

(19:01):
figured maybe we're gonna sellplants on the the side.
So I bought.
You know, shilling was wayahead of me because he was
literally just going through theplant dictionary and
registering names, but namesthat he didn't get.
I would register those plantnames, like boxwood, calm, any
plant I saw in the nursery,anything related to the nursery
that I thought was an item Iwould buy.

(19:23):
So I did that on the side.
But my real moneymaker was thisstory that we just had about the
trading.
I Wrote a blog called WallStreet Fighter and everybody
wanted to hear my tradingstories.
They just wanted to hear what Idid, what I spent money on
working at the bar, the women,the alcohol.
They love those stories.
So I'm like I'm gonna blog thatbecause you know, these other

(19:45):
blogs are writing about thingsthat are, I think, boring.
So I wrote this blog and I builtit up to a million readers a
month and, wow, so it got boughtout by Lionsgate films and
break media for a good amount ofmoney and I realized, okay, I
can write a blog, I can, I knowhow to monetize the internet, so

(20:06):
I'm gonna buy more domains.
That's when I decided like thatwas in 2007, 2008.
That's when I realized, okay,now I have enough money to start
buying good domains and buyingand selling domains.
So I bought that money and Iput them into domains that
actually made me money.
So I've been doing it since the90s, never really made much
money, but when that Wall StreetFighter sale came through and I

(20:26):
got that big check, then I went, had the experience that we all
talk about, like not justjumping into domains.
I had the experience withdomains, but now I had a little
bankroll.
So that's when it all startedto me.

Speaker 1 (20:39):
And then what was the first domain other than that
blog that you sold for a profit,because I call that more of a
website?
The first big one wasBoxwoodcom I sold it to.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
I saw that it doesn't resonate.
But I sold it to a British or aUK based Computer company for
ten thousand dollars.
Yeah, that's a great name, goodbrand.

Speaker 1 (21:02):
It is a good name.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
I just hand-registered boxwoodai just
trying to bring it all backtogether.
I was like if I can sell itonce, I can do AI in my second
go around.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
But yeah, so that was a big one.
Yeah, that's a good one, andwhat was like your very first?
When you're like, holy shit,someone's offering me some money
for this.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
That's the first one that somebody actually paid five
figures.
The rest of them were Moreparking.
Like everybody else, right,like I wasn't as concerned with
you know, I wasn't concernedwith selling the domain as I was
trying to get to get revenue in.
Like I didn't.
I didn't think about the bigsale like at the time.
When I first got started.
I was thinking the big sale wasa name that was generating good

(21:47):
revenue.
I wasn't looking at it like wedo now.
I was looking at as an asset,that gen that yields, not as an
asset that multiplies the yield.
So Mm-hmm, that was a changefor me.
Once I started doing that a lotof people that know in 2000,
2000, 2007, I became the fournumber calm King, like I.

(22:09):
That's what I first startedwith.
As I said, new numbers areuniversal and I couldn't afford
three numbers at a time.
So I was buying every fournumber I could for $500 to
$1,000 and I just bought themand bought them, and bought them
and I flipped them a littleearly when they became 20,000.
But I did very, very well, Imean.

Speaker 1 (22:29):
So in like 2015,.
How did you do?
2014 is when the Chinese marketI was mostly out of it.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
I did.
I did well there because I hadsome portfolio but I had sold
before the big rush.
So I definitely Lost hundredsof thousands of dollars in
potential.
But but I had already moved onto other names that have done
fine for me.
So no.
I didn't kill it in the Chinese,I mean I did fine.
I think all of us did prettywell because of the four letter
comms, remember the four lettercomms if they didn't have a

(23:01):
vowel became just money.
So yeah, yeah, it was, it wasgood.
Um, but you know we also weredoing Six numbers.
Like we got a little crazyduring that period of time.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
Yeah, no, that's, and I did.
I'm famously on dot w s.
I tried doing and I still ownsome like two letter dot w s's
and you know I look at a lot ofthings is why not like, just
like the people did, the dot aifour years ago and spending that
amount of money To renew forfour years and some people,
thousands of domains thatweren't selling for three and

(23:37):
four years at 50 plus a pop?
Um, I did that with some othertlds that didn't quite work out
like.
I still don't understand whatdot cc hasn't become Crypto, but
it is what it is yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
So what are your feelings about dot w s?
Because I remember when youwere, when you were pushing it
and then a group of peoplebought some and I think I own.
I didn't invest in a lot ofdomains, but I think I own like
five or six of those right now.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
So and I'll have one for the rest of my life, because
I bought Christmas.
Dot w s had had a 99 yearrenewal.
Remember when they did those.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, have you sold any of those or have any action
on them?
I have sold.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
I have sold some two letters For two thousand a piece
.
I have them all priced at twogrand and I've sold two of them.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
Has it covered me?

Speaker 2 (24:24):
I highly doubt it, but I'm down to like five, two
letters and five, two numbers Umyeah, that's about right it is
what it is and you know.
You know where we went back.
We got here through risk.
We all came in here doingthings that people didn't think
had potential and I've never,ever told anybody to do what
I've done my entire time.

(24:46):
Anybody that knows me, thisindustry, I share everything.
It's only to show my journeyinto journal and you can follow
along if you want.
You can learn from my mistakes,you can learn from what I've
done.
Well, I just talk about itbecause I don't think I'm doing
anything to hide like there's.
There's nothing that I do thatI feel uncomfortable about doing
.
If I can't tell you about it, Ishouldn't have been doing it

(25:07):
right, like if it's somethingthat I can't put on Twitter,
that I shouldn't do it.
Now, personal, I get as far asit.
Personal is different, but I'mtalking about, like you know, if
I'm doing something that'sproprietary, I get all that part
of it, but I mean as far asjust our journey and what we're
doing is where I'm headed withthat.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
I agree.
Well, it leads me to a questionI wanted to ask you about.
Was with d sad, where you putthe list of auctions and then
you point out names that youlike On those lists on a daily
basis and as an investoryourself, why are you drawing
attention To names that youprobably want to bid on and that
it ends up costing you money inthe end, if you're?

Speaker 2 (25:44):
I've never felt I've never felt that I put anything
up there that wasn't going toget discovered.
Domain investors are way toosmart.
To nothing gets passed.
I I talk to these guys daily.
They have way more tools andthey're gonna find everything.
Nothing's getting through theseauctions that they're not gonna
see.
Mine is only a reminder to Mayand, yes, maybe there's some

(26:09):
newer investors.
I just feel like it's notcosting me that much.
I really don't think so,because the person that I'm
bidding at the final and goingbitter 17, 18, 17, 18, 17, 18.
Yeah that that person was gonnabe there, regardless of my list.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
They're.
That's how you feel.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
That's how I feel about it.
I I really don't.
I don't feel that I'm thatspecial.
I don't feel that my list ischanging.
I think it's getting someeyeballs on some names that they
wouldn't have seen.
I think I really and I'm notjust selling myself.
I think for the auction housesit does help.
It only takes one more bidderto run it up first.
So for that side, that is true.

(26:48):
But I'm not buying that manydomains, right?
I'm buying domains that we'reprobably gonna get there anyway.
I was concentrating on thehigher end names.
I wasn't going throughcloseouts.
So when I just I show acloseout, that I think is good,
it's really not costing meanything.
I'm starting to do morecloseouts, so it's probably
costing me a little now, but Ijust yeah, I'm just not worried

(27:09):
about it.
Like I, I'm going through thelist, I'm doing it anyway.
Why not write out a list?
Why not chronicle what I'mlooking at every single day
anyway and Making a little moneydoing that?
That's kind of I've looked atyeah, I don't disagree.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
I mean so like today, speech bubble was one of your
top ones, right, and I feel likean investor who sees that it
would have been on their radaranyway, because my tools tell me
that that term is searched 33000 times a month on google.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yeah, so that is.

Speaker 1 (27:40):
Every invested radar.
But at the bottom of the listor in the middle of the list is
like a random three word calm,and it doesn't have a lot of
search.
But you can see that it's aterm that might be up and coming
, but it's going to take alittle bit of work To find it
and I think that you might bringthose to the top.
And uh, and what people knowabout those that, compared to

(28:01):
the other 5000 that look exactlythe same, that's exactly the
same.
But you're saying look at this,and then I would spend the time
, and then that's when itprobably could cost you.

Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, it's probably more in the lower end names that
, like the closeout ones that Iput out there, um and I.
I do think I've built up enoughreputation so I don't.
There are some paid listings onthere, right, there's some
people that ask me to um putnames on the list, but they're
all paid listings because allEverybody up there pays me to

(28:34):
list.
There's name jet.
I work with name jet.
I work with dyna.
I work with d D and w e.
I work with all those companiesto provide visibility to their
company.
So I say that right up front.
I always make that very clear.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
I saw it on your, I saw it on the on the side.
It tells you I.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
I want people to know that like, but at the same time
I can, I have freedom, putanything I want.
They're not telling me to putany one name.
They're at, you know they're,it's just for visibility.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah, but I mean, if you were making all bad picks
and it was all trash like,You're not going to read it or
it's pointless.
You know they're looking at theclicks and things.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yeah, we track everything.
We, we track every name.
Uh, to see who like it helps mebuild a better list, right, so
I can see what names get clickedon the most and that lets me
know what names people arelooking for.
Like, if I put like a dot net,just making it up, if I put on a
net and it's the number oneclicked one, I'm like, well,

(29:31):
people are looking for more dotnets than I assumed.
So I can learn from the clickson what which one people are
going through.
So it's been great for me tolearn more about the names to go
through every day and I haveJosh and Travis helping me now
write the list because it's itdoes take me a couple hours.
People like Josh and Travis,they don't put out the, the

(29:52):
words and the words are stupid alot of times.
My comments Generally make nosense and I'm having fun.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
I don't know the value, but to me that's just how
I've always.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
That's how I've always done it.
I've always.
That's just me and so I'll doit the way I want and I enjoy
doing it and um, but it doestake Over an hour, hour and a
half, two hours, depending onthe thing every single day and I
have a life.
I was already working 60 hoursat the nursery doing my own
domain thing for 10 hours.
I do lots of activity, so myweek was 80 hundred hours.

(30:22):
Every for 28 straight years Igot up at 4 30 and went to bed
at 9 30, with no tv or stoppingin between between kids and
family.
I, I did that for 28 years.
Nobody could keep up me forthose 28 years.

Speaker 1 (30:38):
You're a machine.
It was a bit much Once Iretired.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
I look back and like I don't know how I did it, I
once I stopped.
I don't know if I could do itthat.
But you know again, we talkedbefore um Working.
You know, putting in the timeis not the problem.
Like 40 hours a week isvacation, now 40 hours a week,
over seven days or my goodness,I can do anything.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
But it sounds like you're channeling that energy
now into running.
Right, I've always ran, I'vealways.

Speaker 2 (31:07):
I've always run 50 miles a week.
I just did it at 4 30, now Ican do it at 6 30, like.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
That's when I ran this morning and go for a yeah,
that's a difference.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
Is now I get eight hour sleep.
I didn't have and I'm notexaggerating this, I didn't have
30 minutes of REM sleep.
That means dream sleep.
For 20 years for 20 years Inever had a dream.
I did not remember a dream.
For 20 years I never had adream and I'm not exaggerating,
ask my wife never had a dream.
Once I Retired and startedsleeping.

(31:38):
I have these vivid dreams.
I've never had those before.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
No, I mean I had them is it.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
I never drink.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
Yeah, I mean, I didn't say never, but it's uh-uh
.
I just because when I drink, Iuse a lot of dreams.
Yeah, when I drink, I don't getyou're not getting your REM
sleep.
Yeah, yeah, exactly I.
Yeah, I dialed it back a bitand now I'm getting very vivid,
memorable dreams again.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yeah, I get them now.
Now I have to wake up anddecipher what's real and what's
not.
Like I literally have to sit upand think, okay, what, what is
true and what isn't, because thedreams are so real.
But before that, I'm sure I hadthem, but I could, I never,
nothing.
I never remembered them and mylatency.
You know the time betweenGetting in bed and going to

(32:22):
sleep Never over two minutes.
It was under two minutes.
I was asleep.
That's how that's annoying.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
That'd make me angry if you're next to me, because it
takes me a while.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
My wife would.
Just that's the running joke.
She's like I was like she'll gobrush her teeth and I'll say
I'll wait up for you.
And she just laughed becauseshe knows, by the time my teeth
are brushed I'm out like I'mdone, but that's great.
That's my life.
Everybody's got their own liferight Like I enjoyed it there's.
I have no problems with it, but, uh, hard working is something
that, uh, I feel verycomfortable with.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
So you're gonna do something, or you're training to
do something that I physicallythink you would probably have to
push me, uh, across the lineand one of your nurseries,
wheelbarrels, is training for a100 mile marathon and I mean I I
was at the gym today on the, onthe treadmill doing a very
brisk walk, slash jog, and I didlike two miles and that was at,

(33:18):
you know, the steepest it couldgo and that was enough for me.
And then I could probably runyou know two or three miles and
probably collapse and then beyou know cramps all over for the
next few days.
So how do you even get past theyou know all right 26 mile,
26.2 mile marathon?
Now I'm gonna multiply thattimes four.
How do you even get to thatlevel of even Fathoming it and

(33:43):
then attempting it and trainingfor it and not hurting yourself
horribly well that?

Speaker 2 (33:48):
that, um, that kind of leads us to our uncomfortable
right.
That's why I ownuncomfortablecom, which I will
forward for this show, so we canall see it Um there we go.
Yeah, it's all aboutunderstanding.
You have to teach your body tobe uncomfortable, right?
So our body is very protectionEverything it protects us.

(34:09):
If we get tired, it puts lacticacid in our legs so we slow
down.
If we can't catch our breath,we pass out, so we start
naturally breathing.
It's made to protect yourfeelings.
Your emotions are all toprotect you.
So the only way to get pastthat is to slowly introduce it
to things, to teach it thatyou're gonna be okay.

(34:30):
So that's the process oftraining.
Your process of training is notjust straight cardiovascular
health and shape that's part ofit but it's teaching your mind
and your body that I'm gonnahurt a little bit but please let
me go on because I'll be okay.
Like it's just gonna be alittle pain, I'm not gonna die.
So introducing that day by day,year by year, will teach your

(34:54):
body.
That's when it can getdangerous, because of the point
where it won't stop you anymore.
Like you will die because itdoesn't stop you at any.
You'll get to a point where itdoesn't stop you for anything.
You literally can run yourselfinto dangerous situations of
overheating and things like that.
But anyway, so that's the manin all this is Aaron Wilkin.
So DSAD is Domain Shane and theAccidental Domainer His name is

(35:19):
Aaron Wilkin.
He had a blog called theAccidental Domainer and we
combined them.
But, he wanted to travel.
He didn't wanna write every day, he had things to do and he is
an ultra marathoner.
He doesn't do small little ones.
He's done all the best races.
He's done Leadville 100.
He's done Moab 240.

(35:41):
He did a 240 mile run this pastyear.
He did Mount Blanc 100 miler,New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
No way.
The Moab is 240 miles nonstop.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
Yes, and he did it, he completed it.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
And is that terrain?
I'm guessing in a condition Allover?

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Hilly.
So there's tons of elevation,so that one has.
He'll correct me, but I thinkit's 30 or 40,000 feet of
elevation gain and obviously thesame coming down.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
The one I wanna do is 17,000.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Pardon me.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
Do you have to do like a pit stop to change your
shoes halfway through or like,oh, there's a lot of pit stop.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
It's four days, Of course, yeah you have to change
clothes, you have to changeshoes, you have to eat.
I mean, yeah, you're constantlytrying to stay alive.
Yeah, I mean he'll tell a storyof passing out in a parked car
that he found because he thoughthe was gonna die, and then he
got some rest and got back going.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
I got to meet him for the first time.
I got to meet him for the firsttime at the ITA.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
One of my favorite people in the whole world.
Yeah, great domain investor.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
He seems like a gentleman.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
He's great, we hiked.
That's the thing is.
He's taught me a lot about thisand he always told me one day
you're gonna not wanna run sofast, you should try Ultras,
because Ultras are more aboutwalking the hills and pacing
yourself.
It's kind of like life At somepoint you're not gonna be able
to sprint everything and you'regonna have to take things a
little slower and do things alittle different.

(37:10):
And that's kind of where I'm at.
I broke three hours in themarathon two years ago.
You know, six, four years inpace for a 53 year old is good,
but I can't go any faster.
I can't go any faster, Likethat's as fast as I'm gonna go.
So what do I do?
I've already done Ironman.
I did Ironman.
My first triathlon was anIronman because I was like those

(37:32):
guys can do it, I can do it.
And then I did it and my wife.
I came home and my wife saidthat's pretty good for someone
that didn't train hard enough.
And I was like damn, it's on.
So I did another one to see ifI could do better.
And I did.
But then I thought the samething Like how fast can I go?
I can't go much faster.
So anyway, we have a place inLeadville, Colorado.

(37:54):
That's great training.
It's a home of Leadville 100.
I'm going to in the mornings,put in the hours, and then the
weekends, put in the hours andthen work during the day.
So that's what I love aboutdomain investing.
I think all of us do right.
All of us love that.
We can work the hours we need.
And it's really not consistent.

(38:15):
You know what I mean.
The emails aren't just flowingevery five minutes forever.
You can answer emails.
When you answer emails, you cantalk to customers when you need
to.
When you have a meeting, youcan set those in advance.
You don't have to take instantmeetings, so you can plan and be
flexible.
Many jobs cannot do that.
It can be from anywhere, so Ican live here.
Now I can go to North Carolinaone month, Nobody knows, nobody
cares.

(38:35):
As long as behind me is a Zoomand I can have good internet
connection, I can do it.
So that's what I love aboutdomain is an opportunity of a
lifetime to be able to do that.
So I wanna do everything buthelp Mrs Havasham pick out a
blood good maple that died lastyear on.
Sunday morning I saw the firstSaturday in my yard in 28 years.

(39:00):
I'd never I'd worked everySaturday.
If I didn't work it, I was outrunning a race or doing
something with friends.
It was never at home.
I sat at my home or saw mydaughter.
Like you know, with kids,you're an Uber, you play every.
I've watched every sport that ayoung woman could ever
participate in.
I traveled to see that.
So if you give up your time onthe weekends to go away from

(39:23):
your business, it's for somebodyelse and it is.
You're absolutely right, andthat's it's not for me.
That's how it is.
So when I sat here the firstretired Saturday, I looked I
literally cried a little bitLike it was amazing, like a
beautiful Saturday, to work inmy yard.
A cobbler's son has no shoes.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
I'd never worked in my yard on a Saturday in decades
, so- but it was kind of likethe changing of the chapter in
your life, right, that's theemotion kind of behind it, it's
yeah, and then you know youbrought up.
So for the record and peoplelistening, shane and I have
known each other for a long time.
I actually saw you rupture yourAchilles one time playing

(40:04):
soccer.

Speaker 2 (40:04):
No, yeah, it was actually.
I tore my hamstring the onlytime I've ever taken up running
for that long.
It was brutal yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
It was the worst thing you've ever had.
Yeah, you heard his hamstring.
Yeah, and we were playing soccerat one of the at the Domain
Fest in Las Vegas at some indoorplace it was just a group of us
decided to play a soccer gameand he heard himself.
And we've always been friendlythrough the years but we've
never really done a saletogether and had a lot of
conversations.
And then with the ICA event wetalked for like a half hour or

(40:35):
40 minutes about running andabout the business and about all
kinds of things, and then wedecided to have for you to come
on the show.
You messaged me and say, hey,can I come on?
Sure, and it was funny becauseat the ICA event people said to
me like, oh, you're doing, howdid they put it?

(40:56):
Someone said you're doing apodcast similar to the one Shane
does, and I was like, what areyou talking about?
He's like, oh well, his iscalled, or his blog is called,
uncomfortable.
I was like I didn't even knowthat and I actually didn't know.
Like I didn't say, oh, I'm justgonna copy him, but like if I
knew that I wouldn't have doneit.
And it's like we're in the samesmall industry but we're also.
Some people are in bubbles andI've been more on the brokerage

(41:20):
side in my life, in my business,than domain investing.
And I'll be honest, like Ihaven't really read your blog.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
very often I mean I think yeah, that's not what you
do.
What'd you say?
It's not really what you do.
It's not like you're goinglooking for closed out domains.
That's not your thing.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
No, it's not my specialty and I know Josh.
He's a great guy.
I think his story is greatbeing a firefighter and a domain
investor and he was telling mehow to be like picking names off
the list in the firehousewaiting for a fire and being a
domainer and it's a really coolstory that he has.
And Uncomfortable for me was Ihad, in some people's eyes, one

(42:01):
of the most perfect jobs in theworld working as in a cool
startup on an island, gettingcompensated a lot of money,
being part of a great team andgreat people and going to the
beach on the weekends and doingthose things and I decided I
needed more of a challenge andit was time to go.
And when I resigned I calledFrank and talked to him about it

(42:26):
and when I hung up the phone Ilooked at my wife and I said
what the fuck did I just do?
And there was crying involvedand there was emotions involved.
But I knew that it was time togo on and kind of do my own
thing and spread my own wingsand get out there and put myself
it's corny as it is in anuncomfortable situation to make
myself grow.
And I did it when I joinedUnirregistry because I had my

(42:48):
own business before that and theopportunity came and that was
leaving a good paying job and agood opportunity and success to
put myself again out of mycomfort zone.
And I think if you're gonnagrow or wanna accomplish
anything, you gotta do it.
And if I never wanted to dothat, I could still be a broker

(43:09):
working at CEDO and there'snothing wrong with that either
but I would still just be doingwhat they're doing when I was
doing there first, or sellingmortgages when I got out of
college, and again, that's agreat living.
But I wanted more and I wantedto challenge myself more.
And then this as a podcast.
I do get nervous before some ofthe episodes and I was nervous

(43:33):
before I launched it and I wasworried about how people were
gonna perceive it and if theyenjoy listening to it.
Or am I gonna check the views,like after we post this one, and
there's two and it's yours andmine.
But then it's like you do it andyou're like that wasn't so bad,
let's try something else, andyou keep going.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
And for our kids like .
But part of the thing that Ialways tell everybody is, in
order to make theseuncomfortable decisions, we
always have a base of somebodythat loves us, right Like I know
that if I failed when I retired, it was the hardest thing I've
ever done, but I know that mywife would be there for me.
I know that, my daughter, thatno matter if I fail miserably or

(44:14):
we didn't have enough money ordidn't go well, that I had a
base of people that love me.
And I know that sounds corny,but that's true.
To make, to really get better,you have to have this base of
people that care about you,because you have a place to fall
and that so you can go getuncomfortable, knowing that it
could go horribly wrong and itcould be a terrible decision or

(44:36):
you could push, like in racing,you could push yourself too far,
but you're gonna come home andyou're gonna be fine Like you're
gonna still have people therethat are still rooting for you.
And that was always a good basefor me to allow me to become
more uncomfortable and to makeharder decisions.
And then teaching my daughter Ican't tell her to do something
and not do it myself.

(44:56):
Like she's scared to death togo give a speech.
I can't tell her that she hasto do it.
And then, at the same time, I'mnot doing things like that
right.
So by having a kid and tryingto teach them, it shows you
you're telling them all thesethings you should be doing right
that you should be.
So I'm right there with you,Like those are the moments that
make us better, and that'salways been my mantra and that's

(45:19):
that it's proven.
Now, like I was listening toHuberman Labs, it is proven that
those uncomfortable decisionsthat build a part of your brain
that makes decision making, thedecision making part of your
brain grows, and it's not madewhen you make decisions that
aren't uncomfortable, that youwant to.
It's only made during the hardtimes.

(45:42):
That's why David Goggins is whohe is, Because he's always doing
he's an animal, but it's aproven fact and it's
scientifically proven that youget better by making doing
things that you don't wanna do.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
I want an alarm clock that's him yelling at me in the
morning to get going.
I think that was yeah, burn thevotes.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
No, it's he has been motivating Like he's not.
I know he mentally is astroubled as a human being like
he's got demons, there's nodoubt about it.
But at the same time he's notwrong, like we are capable of
way more than we think we are,and but I do think it comes down
.
I'm really big about building abase of friends and people that

(46:24):
care about me.
I mean, I don't mind sayingthat.
Adam Strong said that Isometimes take things too hard
and he's not wrong.
But what he doesn't know is Ionly take it hard from the
people that I care about.
Right, if some random strangersays something on the internet
or that doesn't bother me at all.
But if somebody I care aboutsays something, yeah it bothers
me and I probably take it toohard.

(46:45):
But that's because that base isalso the base that's driven me.
My friends around me that rootme on, that catch me if I fall
that's really really important.
People with that kind of base dogreat things.
They think it's a lonermentality.
Loners don't go real far Atsome point.

(47:06):
You can only go so far byyourself.
It kind of goes back to ourtalk before.
Your brokerage can only be sogood with just you.
Your company can only be sogood with just you.
It takes this giant group ofpeople to really do amazing
things.
One person gotta do a ton ofthings.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah and I agree and I think, first and foremost,
you're absolutely right.
My wife has been 100%supportive making the decision
to go to Cayman.
She didn't even come with me oreven ever stepped foot on that
island and she's like all right,I'm moving with you when you
move, supporting, leavingconsistent income or not knowing

(47:46):
and giving up a business tojoin Frank.
He could have canned me twomonths in and moved back and I
had not, like we had nothing andthen starting the business, we
had a beautiful house in Cayman.
Our kids were in school there,like things were going well.
One of my kids was not both,but like things.
We had friends, like everythingwas the way that people dream

(48:07):
and I said I don't want thisanymore.
I packed up the whole house.
We moved in with friends.
She supported that.
The business was failing.
During COVID and the beginningsof it I was writing checks to
make the company stay alive.
She's supportive of that, 100%,listening to me talk about
those things and then, at thesame time, on the flip side,

(48:29):
right Is, I have friends thatare totally supportive of me,
that are outside of the business, that I talk to on a regular
basis, that are cheering for mewhen I tell them that good
things are happening in my lifeand they're like oh shit, what's
going on?
Are you okay?
And then I also have some ofthe best friends that are made

(48:50):
by being in this industry, andthe funniest part is that some
of those people are competitorsof mine, right?
And one that just texted me isAlan Dunn.
My cell phone is off.
He just texted me and said isyour phone working?
Cause?
Obviously he's trying to callme, right?
And Alan Dunn owns the namecorp.
He's a broker.
And then you said you know what?
I want to go on the podcast,but I'm going to get into domain

(49:11):
brokerage.
We don't have to talk about it.
But, like you know, we'rebecoming closer friends and it's
like I'm fine with it.
You know, I'm fine with youtalking about what you're going
to go and do and there's plentyof opportunity for all of us.
And you know, and I also thinkI also think it goes with saying
in any business, and what I'velearned over the years is yeah,

(49:35):
you can't do it yourself.
And when I joined Frank, he saidsomething to me that was
interesting.
He said you're having a problemdelegating the work and it's
almost like you're Hercules onone side of the ship with one
giant ore and everybody else ison the other and you're trying
to pull and they're doing thesame amount of work and you're
doing the same amount of work asthey are, and you need to give

(49:57):
people more work and more,delegate more things to them and
rely on those people to do andcarry out those things.
And with SOTAR-COM and mybusiness last year, my goal was
to.
Since I launched this businesswas not just to build a
brokerage but to build kind ofanother platform similar to a

(50:18):
domain name sales, because I waspart of that design and I had a
feeling that it would vanishand I realized that I can't do
it all by myself.
And obviously I've hired otherbrokers at this point, some of
them are better than me at doingbrokerage because I've been
running this business andmanaging for the last four years
.
I still make sales, but I'm notpumping the phone all day like

(50:41):
they are and I'm not as sharp asI used to be.
But I realized that I needed notjust help on the sales side but
also on the tech side and thatyou can't get there on your own
and, just like with theUniregistry, frank was the face
of the company, but behind Frankwas 120 other people working to

(51:05):
a common goal and it's like,yeah, and there you go.
So you're right, you need.
I need people to help meemotionally, I need people to
help me in business.
And then I also need peoplelike the way I look at my
friends.
I got a friend who's like afinancial planner.
I've got a friend who's anaccountant and it's not by

(51:26):
design.
I got a friend who's a directorin like middle management at a
large company.

Speaker 2 (51:31):
And I've got other random friends in totally
different industries but it'salmost like they're my board of
advisors and, depending on likethe situation I might find
myself and other than justtalking about life like a
business issue, like talking tothem helps me work it out from a
different perspective, yourpeers and your friends tend to

(51:52):
be people that you admire, right, you don't find people that
you're always having to pick upLike it's a you're gonna be
times that they need your helpas well, but when it comes to
intelligence and ethics and allthat stuff, you generally tend
to hang out with people that areequals or even aspire to be,
and so.
I'm in the same boat as you.
I live on a university town, somy friends are all doctors, but

(52:16):
some are medical doctors andsome are PhD doctors, but
they're all of that level.
I mean, my best friends arealmost all medical doctors,
because men my age that arerunning and doing things and
driven tend to be driven in life, right.
So they tend to be inprofessions that take being
driven and that's it's great,because they're fascinated by my

(52:38):
stories of domains and ourconferences.
Right when we had our crazyconferences, I'd come home and
tell them those stories andthey'd be like that is amazing,
because they don't get to dothat kind of stuff.
And then at the same time, I'lltalk to the tech people and
they're fascinated by plants.
Like I have a houseplant, canyou tell me how to help?
Like they're fascinated by thepatience that I have with
growing flowers.

(52:59):
So it's just been this yeah,like you said, it's like this
beautiful thing.
And I think the best leadersacknowledge all the things that
you've said.
Right, it doesn't always, youdon't always get straight there,
but the best leaders it is.
They are the face and they haveto be a leader and they have to
step forward.
But leading is also creatingthose opportunities we had

(53:20):
talked about this earliercreating the opportunities for
those around you.
Your job as a leader is tocreate opportunities for those
that you work with, and so it'snot about you.
Again I say this it's likechildren, it's not about you,
and I don't mean to say thatemployees are children, but you
are their leader.
Leaders provide for them,leaders guide them, leaders

(53:43):
support them and leaders givethem opportunity.
And opportunity is all that.
Anybody can ask People.
Humans only want two things tostay busy and opportunity.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
That's really all they want.
They want to step in.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
People think people are lazy.
That's bullshit.
Everybody wants to be busy.
It may be busy in somethingthat you don't want them to be
busy in but in general they dowant to be an employee loves to
have things to do and organizedthings to do.
They don't want to just sayhere's a book, go do something.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
No, they want a little bit of guidance and they
want.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
So that's leadership and not everybody's meant to be
a leader.
I look at somebody that's notdoing a good job and I just said
they're just not a leader.
And there's nothing wrong withthat.
We're not all born leaders, butCOVID, for me, taught me that I
was a leader.
Like when COVID came and thetrouble came, I just felt
amazing, Like I felt I'm gonnaget our company through this.
I felt that it was like nothingI've ever experienced.

(54:40):
I was so happy to have that.
And in my wife I go why am I soexcited about COVID?
She's like this is a chance foryou to be a leader.
This is a chance for you to dothings and get people through
this, and that's leaders lovethose kinds of opportunities.
Here's the downside when it wasall over, you just come down
Like once I had a great COVIDbecause our sales were double.

(55:01):
You know, everybody wasgardening, Everybody was doing
everything that I had to offerthey wanted.
But when it was over.
It's kinda the band stoppedplaying, Then we're back to
normal, Then we're everythingand it's just not as exciting.
So I struggled almostemotionally, which is you can't
tell anybody that Causeeverybody else was like I

(55:22):
finally get to fucking go outSorry my language, but I finally
get to go eat and I get to mybusiness was I was dying, I was
I, financially, was gettingkilled and I'm the opposite.
I was like I was making so muchmoney.
I'm actually coming down fromthat.
So it was a very difficult time.
But to roll that back into whatyou said yeah, I mean that's.
You have to learn to be aleader, you have to learn to be

(55:45):
a manager.
You have to.
It's just part of growing upand becoming better at what you
do is.
Frank wasn't wrong, he you were.
You were probably doing exactlywhat he said.
I've done the same thing.
My father told me that over andover, but I don't always listen
to him because he was my father.
It's hard to have your fatheras your boss.
That's very difficult situation.

Speaker 1 (56:06):
Yeah, I agree, you know 100 percent, so.
So let's talk about what yourfuture plans are, and getting
yourself a little moreuncomfortable is you're going to
be launching your own domainbrokerage in the very near
future.
What are you going to call it?

Speaker 2 (56:20):
Well, I don't know what I, you know I.
I don't know, I know here let'sput it this way I know I want
to do domain brokerage.
I know, um, I do enjoy outboundsales like I.
It's almost I hate to put itthis way, but it's almost like a
game.
You have this, you know it'snobody.
Nobody's looking for your email, right, you have a domain name

(56:43):
and the people that you'retrying to reach aren't Looking
for your domain at that time,like you're trying to Quote,
convince them, or you're tryingto reach out people that it
could work out with well and Ithink that's exciting, like I.
I do like it's a, it's a talent,it.
I wasn't very good at it, I'mprobably still not very good at
it, but I do like that prospectof matching Great companies with

(57:06):
domains that can multiply theefforts that they have and
that's that's a tough job.
That's a tough job and it can'tbe spammy.
Spam is a huge problem, butessentially that outbound is.
I really, I really enjoy thatpart of it and I love the
negotiation part.
I love and I said this to drewon on domain sherpa quite often

(57:28):
and I love selling expensivedomain names, but I love the
businesses that can that areable to afford them and how
they're going to utilize them,like that's what I think.
That's.
I love that story.
I love that.
That's what at the podcast thatI was doing when I was doing
uncomfortable it was talking topeople that were building
businesses because I want toknow how you can afford a

(57:49):
million dollar domain.
What have you done and whathave you created and what are
your, what are your skill setsand what are your thought
process of being able to form acompany that can afford a
million dollar domain.
And once you've bought thatdomain, how are you going to
make that million dollars payoff?
Because it's not just going tobe a little thing.
You stick at the top of yourwebsite, right, it's got.
It's more to it than that.

(58:10):
So I love that conversation andI want to have more of those
conversations.
I want to talk to serialentrepreneurs that come back and
say, shane, that worked outgreat, I'm looking for something
in the Skateboard.
You know, I want I want that tohappen, because I know serial
entrepreneurs, once they'vefigured out domain names,
they're addicted.

(58:30):
They want to come back and domore things with domain names
because they know the effect ithas.
So that's my future.
That's what I want to build myown portfolio up and continue to
grow and add more domains.
Now that can spend a littlemore time hunting Um, I'd like
to do that.
And then I want to be in thedomain business, plain and
simple, whatever that entails.
I want to be in that business.

(58:51):
I want to.
That's what I want to do for aliving is I want to buy and sell
domain names, utilize domainnames, everything about that.
I want to be part of it.
So that's kind of that's kindof my future.
What that holds, I'm not quitesure.
Um, you know, I've tried outsome things.
Some have worked, some haven't,and I'll just keep building on
that.
But I know that if I do work, Ido want to work with a team and

(59:14):
I want to work with a team thatis a team just like we talked
about before.
Um, if I'm not the leader Iwant, I want the leader to be
someone that makes everybodybetter, right, that's that's
what we're looking for.
I'm too old To have anythingbut right.
I'm too old to do anything butsomething I really love and
enjoy and that doesn't meanevery second, that doesn't mean

(59:36):
every minute's going to beenjoyable.
Uncomfortable, as we said, hasto be part of it.
Yeah, um, but in general I'm 50, going to be 55 years old, I
want to go out in these last 20years and have a hell of a time,
make some money, do greatthings with great people.
That's plain and simple.
If I was going to put it in anutshell, what's your emu?

Speaker 1 (59:59):
planning on using?
Pardon me, what's the RM areyou planning on using?

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
I think I think pretty much everybody does the
same thing, right, I thinkeverybody pretty much uses like
an Apollo based For emails.
They use, uh, sales linkedin,sales navigator is kind of a
contact point and a searchingpoint.
And then, as far as the notes,everybody uses a little bit of
different um, you know how theykeep their notes in there, um,

(01:00:28):
but yeah, I think I thinkeverybody uses the same thing.
I know everybody likes topretend that they have something
special, um, but everybodypretty much uses the same two or
three people to find a source,contacts, uh, and then some
people I'm a big builder of whenI say proprietary tools, having
tech build stuff that theypretty much uses the information

(01:00:50):
we get from everybody else andfeeds it into a way that we can
use it where we're comfortable,right, like that's what.
That's what we do.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Yeah, and I mean we use um as a company.
We do use Apollo.
We find the um being able tofind contacts and, if you want
to put them into like an emailcampaign, apollo is good for
that.
It's it's a confusing websitewith so many bells and whistles
and things.
It's it's like it's just somuch going on on and it's it's
sometimes hard to navigate.
But as a crm, we use um likeclosecom, because we like that

(01:01:23):
one, because you can create asmany custom fields as you want.
You can create and track all ofthe, the leads that you're
working on, so you could exportthe leads from Apollo in there
or you could take, you know,opportunities out of sales
navigator and then it integrateswith.

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
Zappier.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
And then you know what?
Do you know what zappier is?
I don't think.

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
I've seen it, but I've never used it.
No, I'm not familiar with it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
So with zappier you can um it.
So instead of you payingsomeone for apis, you go on
zappier and you can search, likewhatever services you need, and
zappier connects to close andthen you can have it.
Do you know different things?

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
so, like one of the things like it's like a plug-in
for apis, it's like a plug-in,yeah, and so like close has is
is on zappier and then, like,one of the products we use is
like ip stack.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
So then when someone inquires to our website on a
lead they inquire, we got the ipaddress, then zappier hits ip
stack and then it tells us wherethe person's located and puts
it in the In the lead, in thecrl.
That, or, if you want, likedifferent data sets.
Or if somebody unsubscribesfrom an email, it updates, it
removes the email address, like,and it does all different

(01:02:36):
things.
So, as a, as a, when I startedthe business where I was used to
this robust system ofuniregistry domain himself that
we built over seven years, I hadnothing.
Yeah right, and so I used.
You knew what you wanted to do.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
You just didn't know how to get there.

Speaker 1 (01:02:55):
Well, I have.
I don't know how to write aline of code, no, but you know
what?

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
you wanted it to do, you just had no way.
Yeah, creating no way.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
But I also didn't have any time Because I needed
to get something going and getit going fast, because I needed
to start getting going with thebusiness.
So then zappier allowed me Todo kind of like backyard
mechanic work, you know, to makemy system, paint my numbers in
your short term.
And, and as you get bigger, youstart to replace zappier in

(01:03:25):
different areas.
Because you can get expensive,because you buy credits every
month, right.
But like if I were to startanother domain brokerage or any
sales platform and I didn't wantto spend a lot in development,
I would use clothes, set up myfields and then use zappier to
help enrich that's the word theyuse enrich the data in some way
, and then you can.
You can do different.
You know fun stuff with it.

(01:03:47):
Um, yeah, sales navigator is notbad.
I find.
Um, I find what the unfortunatething these days with linkedin
is a lot of people areautomating their communications
in linkedin and now a lot of theexperience on linkedin for me
is I just get a lot of trashPeople messaging me constantly
about Stuff and you're like, I'mnot.

(01:04:08):
I try to respond to everybodyand check it and you're right,
I'm not interested, and theyjust keep writing to you like,
and you know it's automated andit's just like dude, like,
please, like, respect, you know,and what they're doing is
they're ruining linkedin becauseOther people that we want to
contact Um are going to stopresponding To everybody.

(01:04:28):
Right, it's not going to be auseful tool.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
Yeah, you get you just get thrown in the mass spam
, so you look just like spamyeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
Yeah, just trash, and then we're just not worth it.
Right, and and you know the,the more that time goes on, when
you're trying to do anAcquisition for somebody, you
know the who is has been reallyprivatized over the last you
know, eight or ten years.
So the who is history isstarting to fade out.
It's not as accurate as it usedto be, but if you do find that
nugget and you figure out thatthis is the owner, possible

(01:04:57):
owner, of the domain name onlinkedin and you find them, you
know the odds of them answering.
It seems to be getting a littleless as time's going on and I I
have a sense that when Istarted using linkedin back in
2002, if I messaged you onlinkedin, I would usually I
think it was like a 90 responserate of people like how are you?

(01:05:19):
You know like there was always,but now I feel like it's
starting.
You know it's, it's going downand and I don't know if
linkedin's doing enough to blockAutomated folks and people from
areas of, like I don't know,certain types.

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
I'm starting sequences in linkedin like
that's not something that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
I.

Speaker 2 (01:05:38):
I, I didn't use linkedin Because I didn't.
In the nursery business mystuff was local and regional.
I just didn't need those kindof contacts like it wasn't
something that I needed.
Um, that's my awards are likemy 1976 basketball awards when I
was seven, like Nobody cares Um, but I'm starting to get

(01:05:59):
sequences like, hey, would youlike a virtual cup of coffee?
And then I go and then anotherone comes.
So that automation.
That never happened like that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
Yeah, so that's what I'm talking about, just
happening more and more and more, and we've actually tried it as
a business and I was like thisis ridiculous, let's just stop.

Speaker 2 (01:06:14):
you know, like I don't yeah, I know nobody wants
that.
I mean that the honest truthabout all email Is it spam,
right, like outbound in ourindustry is Officially spam.
Nobody asked for the email ofthem you trying to sell a domain
.
So you have to remember thatwhen you're reaching out to
people, whether it's linkedin oremail, officially, by
definition us contacting you isspam.

(01:06:37):
Now we can say, hey, we're,it's a business thing, but it
was Unwanted.
They didn't ask for us tocontact us, they had no interest
going in.
So you kind of have to keep thatin mind and be professional and
under you know when youapproach someone that it's an
earnest and and no is as good ananswer as yes, right, so at
least they respond.
And but I always in my linkedinI put my personal details.

(01:06:59):
There's a picture of my family,my dog, so that if you get
something for me, I'm hopingthey at least look at me.
Go.
This seems like a normal person.
Like seems like I could callthis guy any day and get him on
the phone.
Like this is not a normallooking guy.
That you would expect.
So I try and really personalizeand make it make everybody feel
, whether they've gotten anemail from me or Any kind of

(01:07:20):
contact, that this guy's onlyreaching me because he has
something that he thinks I coulduse.
So I'll give him the time.
So that's the hopes, likethat's a goal.
I'm new to this.
I have tons to learn.
I am not a professional atdomain brokerage, but I feel
like I'm a professional when itcomes to understanding
businesses and into likeunderstanding the value.
So I'll get better at what I do.

(01:07:41):
One thing I do think that'scatching everybody off guard Is
is email.
We again we talked about we hada nice little discussion before
but Email google's not messingaround with spam anymore.
Like everything has to beperfect or they're not letting
things through.
Like email is getting knockedhard.
Everything has to match up andit's good from a domain owner.

(01:08:01):
Nobody's gonna spoof you.
Right now.
If you spoof it, it's notgetting through, but if you spam
you, buzzwords are gone, likeall those words that people are
using writers done.
You can't write like thatanymore.
It won't make it through spam.
So you got to.
You got to cut to the point orthe chase right now.
You got to.
You got to keep it pretty cleanon how you write.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
Yeah and I mean you're right.
But what's amazing is if Iopened up my email right now,
there's going to be in my otherfolder or promotions folder, a
ton of emails, right, and I getprobably 50 or 60 these a day.
And then I also get constantlyare the fake docu signs and the
fake.
The fake emails from my input,from my my employees, saying I

(01:08:46):
want to update my bank Detailsfor payroll.
I get those all the time.
Yeah, I mean it's a lot of fraudthat's happening, you know, and
, and also gets through.

Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
They're they're gonna be one step ahead of everything
.
Like that's the thing is.
You know, when I look at thethings it get through, the first
thing I look through is I lookat the email to see how it got
through.
Like what did they do?
What can I use from those guysThat'll help me get through?
Like that's what I?
That's the first thing that Igo.
Why are he getting through?
And I can't get a nice emailthrough?

(01:09:18):
So I try and look and see whatthey did to make it pass all the
spam tests that I have going on.
So in some cases I kind of Likegetting some of them so I can
learn from what are they doing.

Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
Um, yeah, and I was.
I've heard from somebody thatI've heard that one of the moves
that someone who's a who's likea scammer Would buy a name an
auction.
That was a developed site andthat site had a good reputation
of sending emails to theircustomers and so they'll pound
that until it gets blocked andthen it closes and they trash
that name and buy another.

(01:09:52):
Buy a bunch and just 100 bygood reputation domains.

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
Yeah, that's, it is domain reputation and that's why
it's difficult to start a newcompany with a new domain.
You have to warm up the emaillike you've got to give it
months and months and months ofwarm up oh yeah, that's why they
have warm up services.
I mean, that's why they do it?
Because in order to get anemail in a domain, it has to
show activity and you can'tstart it off by emailing

(01:10:18):
customers.

Speaker 1 (01:10:19):
Yeah, but I also think you know what I think is,
when your email gets through,then the odds of them responding
and then them responding, andthen at meeting, like whatever
their plans are, you have noidea what's going on on the
other side and then them givingyou the opportunity for a phone
call, or them not giving you theopportunity for a phone call
and just saying how much youknow and then not responding,

(01:10:42):
and or you know saying they'renot interested.
Um, I mean, I think it's.
It's really like you're justdragging.
You know you're dragging yournet around the ocean and I also
found that we've been in asituation I've personally been
in a situation and others in mycompany have been in a situation
where some of these massivecompanies say Either the domain

(01:11:02):
isn't for sale or they're notinterested in buying it, and
we've gotten the domain by goingto somebody else and we've sold
the domain to somebody else inthe company where other times
We've continued to pursue it andthen got an email back from the
lawyer saying you better stopso.

(01:11:23):
You know, it's like it's hardfrom our point of view too,
because sometimes there's mixedsignals, you know, and then I
also think Go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
Well, I was gonna say I've had domains where I'll
I'll email it.
I'll email and say it's not forsale and then I'll get an email
from a totally different personthat says hey, I heard from so
and so that you were looking atthe domain.
What were you thinking ofoffering?
I'm thinking, hold on, are twopeople in the company, like

(01:11:52):
somebody's got to make thisdecision?
And then when I ask the price,it's Multiple, six figures.
And then another domain or twomonths later buys it for a tenth
of that from that company.
Like yeah like.
It's like a big company.
Everybody you know who's gotwho's making that call to sell
that domain.
It's it's hard getting theright person that can actually

(01:12:15):
Make the official call.

Speaker 1 (01:12:17):
Yeah, timing is sometimes the essence of life,
right?
And um, yeah, you know, one ofthe one of the things that I
find is is that, you know, weoffer our services and we've
emailed companies about buyingdomains and and it's, you know,
radio silence, no response, noresponse, no response.
And I've had it where we'resaying, hey, you should buy this
name, it would be a great fitfor your company, right?

(01:12:39):
Radio silence, call in, nobodyanswers, nobody gets back to us.
We give up after a period oftime and I've been referred to
somebody at that same companywho says they want to buy this
name.
Would you like to represent usto go and acquire it?
And I know that I've.
We've emailed them a bunch oftimes, we've called them a bunch

(01:12:59):
of times and they're actinglike this is a new thing and
they've never considered buyingthis and it's just.
It's just weird how the timingand sometimes they just, for
some reason, they didn'tacknowledge your emails, even
though we're spending A lot oftime and energy making sure our
deliverability rates are goodand things like that.

Speaker 2 (01:13:17):
So you know it's just sometimes luck, luck at the
draw is is that's how it works,right, you know, even.
You know, even when you have adomain or you buy a domain and
then all of a sudden, you soldit and the person that that sold
it because it hadn't had anoffer in five years, then all of
a sudden, you buy the name andsell it and they're like and I,
that's just how life is, likeyou, just there's no there's

(01:13:40):
nothing you can do about thatstuff.
You have to do what you cancontrol and keep working after
it.
And but you know, in ourindustry we only get paid when
we sell domains or buy domainsor take actions Like that's the
only thing.
All the rest of the workdoesn't get paid.
Like you're not getting asalary.
There's not, it's it'scommission and you have to earn
it and you're, I'm hoping, andit and I found that it all evens

(01:14:01):
out right, you're going to getthose sales that you barely did
any work and it falls into yourlap, and then there's going to
be other ones where you workyour ass off and really nothing
comes of it.
So you just have to hope thatoverall, when it's all said and
done, that it's worth your timeand and it usually is right,
like most of us have done verywell over the years Um, but, but
in any individual case, if youtry and say that it happened as

(01:14:23):
of x or y, hmm, maybe, maybe itdid sometimes it's just.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:29):
I mean, I think that I think the x and y is that you
create a process and a formulaand you stick with it, and you
consistently stick with it andwork hard at it every day, and
that there will be some level ofconsistency.
But you got to realize you getto kiss a lot of frogs, um,
before one turns into, you know,a sale, and you're right, some
of the sales don't require asmuch effort, um, and others, you

(01:14:52):
know, blow up and and you'veworked harder on that and have
been had better sales calls thanyou ever have, and and for
whatever reason, somethingchanges that is out of your
control.
You know we sell names thatsome of the sales people started
working on two years ago, threeyears ago, that that worked for
me right now, you know, and orfour years ago, and that they

(01:15:13):
are now.
The company is now in aposition to buy it.
Or you know they said what'sthe price?
Okay, that's good, but we gotto talk about it.
They keep delaying, delaying,delaying, and then they call and
say, okay, I want to buy this.
Other situations the deals blowup or they don't have the money
to buy, or whatever happens,you know.
And then I just had a gentlemancall me from a name that I sold,

(01:15:34):
I think, like five or six yearsago.
That said hey, jeff, how youbeen?
I'm like great, how are youNice, talk to you.
He's like oh, I moved to a newopportunity and we want to buy
this.
Can you help us?
Oh, absolutely.
You know what are your feelings, what do you think it's going
to cost?
And I quickly give him like arundown as to what I think it
might cost and who I think theowner is and what I think is
happening with it and why Ithink the name is worth what

(01:15:55):
it's worth.
And he's like okay, you know,send me an agreement, let's get
cooking.
And I did.
And so you know it's a weirdbusiness.
You know, and I think a lot ofit for me is a lot is referrals
now from for me personally andfor a lot of the sales people as
well that you know you can liveoff of those and do well.
But then, obviously, newbusiness comes in.

(01:16:17):
We pay a lot of money in googleads and have sellers that point
their names of those too.
That kind of create that.
You know that consistency.
But there's also again thatprocess and um, that you got to
stick with in sales, you know,and yeah, you've been doing a
long time.

Speaker 2 (01:16:35):
It takes.
Nobody wants to hear thatsomething takes years and years
to be successful, but that's thereality, and especially in
domain investing you just ittakes a long time, um, to build
a base and that referral you gotWas based on years of
experience and years ofrelationships and those will
multiply.
For you know you, just you'veyou've gotten a point where they

(01:16:58):
keep calling you or they tell afriend hey, jeff is the one who
got it, why don't you give hima call?
And that just takes a long timeto do that.
It's it's in the beginning.
For a new person like myself,it's pretty hungry.
Like you, you go, you could goa year without having much
income because you just don'thave a lot of domains under
management.
You get, you know it's.
It's hard.

(01:17:18):
It's a hard go in the beginning, but once you get going, then
you get going and you're fine.

Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
I think you, I think you Going out there and and
launching your own brokerage,though I think you know the
hardest part, and that's thedomain industry.
Yeah already right andunderstanding Valuation, being
able to explain it to people.
Being able to explain theescrow process we know, explain
transfers.
Being able to overcomeobjections about domains aren't

(01:17:46):
useful anymore.
Being able to back them up withlegitimate stories.
You know when I first launchedthis business, my biggest
problem was when I told a storyabout a success I had, I always
had to talk about anothercompany.
You know what I mean.
I couldn't talk about my ownbecause I didn't sell shit yet,
right?
But you know you as yourself,as a lone wolf doing it, you can

(01:18:09):
and, being someone who's been awriter in the industry for
years and being a contributor toit, what you say has weight and
and easily can be backed up.
Right, and I think you alreadyhave that.
And when I used to hire Brandnew salespeople, I would say, if
you immerse yourself in thematerial and you use all of the

(01:18:29):
resources we give you and learnfrom those around you, in six
months Um, in six months you can, you be good enough to put
yourself in situations thatyou'll probably get yourself in
some trouble and put yourself insome weirds, like it makes some
big mistakes, which is great,and then in 12 months you'll be
relatively dangerous.
You know, and that's when you'rereally going to start to have

(01:18:51):
like a pipeline that's buildingand potential repeat customers,
and then also People that youspoke to this month month one
that are finally come back withthat funding or they're going to
come back with a new offer.
Or they're going to call youand say can you help me acquire
something else?
And that's going to multiply insnowball and snowball and
snowball and then over the years, some of this snowball you

(01:19:14):
don't even realize you haveanymore, because these are
people that might have vanishedfrom your life years ago.
Or it's a friend who calls youand says I told so and so About
you.
He needs you and now you're inwith them.
You know, and I think I thinkyou'll do fine.
You know and getting going, andand it really doesn't take much
For you to get a full Day'swork out of it, especially you

(01:19:38):
can supplement with your owninventory of great names when
you're yeah, that's a greatthing, is I?

Speaker 2 (01:19:44):
I?
It's funny as much as I talk Igenerally don't share any of my
sales or my purchases.
I kind of.
But I mean, like you know, I'mdoing fine, like I'll, I'll make
over a quarter million dollarsin profit in 2024 is my goal in
my own inventory of profit now Itry and rule that by domains.
But I can live on that like I'mfine, like I hope so.

Speaker 1 (01:20:08):
That's not.
That's not gonna be a problem.

Speaker 2 (01:20:11):
I think you know buying and selling.
I do say this you know, takinga percentage of a domain and
selling it Is great, but what'sreally great is buying and
selling your own domain, whereyou get to keep it all like.
That's really nice, especiallywhen you have six figure domains
and and you know I I do enjoythat part too.
It's and it you know it's.
It's good negotiating your ownwhen you, when you have to turn

(01:20:33):
to the owner and all you have todo is talk to yourself Whether
the owner is gonna get veryemotional for you as well when
it becomes.

Speaker 1 (01:20:39):
Yeah, but I'm not.
I'm in love with nothing.
That's the thing is.
I wouldn't sell my daughter ormy wife.

Speaker 2 (01:20:46):
But other than that, like I don't, I've never worn a
jersey Of a player in my life Iwould never put another.
Yeah, but just that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:20:55):
Now I will say Michael Jordan.
No, that's true, that's true,michael Jordan.

Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
No, that's true, that's a very ironic.
Michael Jordan has been like.
When I was in, I lived in NorthCarolina.
Michael Jordan went to NorthCarolina.
We had them move away.
I was so disappointed.
I moved to Chicago.
Michael Jordan gets drafted, soI watched all through grade
school or junior high MichaelJordan.
Then I moved to Chicago and Igo to all his games in 86, 87,

(01:21:23):
88, 89.
I live all the way through the90s.
I go to Alabama.
What does it do?
He becomes a Birmingham baronand goes to play baseball right
down the road from me.

Speaker 1 (01:21:33):
So I will say that oh , yeah, absolutely.
So I will say this man.

Speaker 2 (01:21:39):
I have seen Michael Jordan More than any human other
than my family.
I mean, I've seen him thousandsof times, so I will take all
that back.
You're right, there is oneperson that like it's just like
I grew up with him, like I justhe's always been there.
No matter where I've lived,michael Jordan has been there.
But other than that, like I'm Iwouldn't say I'd sell my, my

(01:22:02):
dog, but you know what I meanLike I mind domain name I'm not
in love with any of that.
They are domain names.
I'll sell it.
I'll sell anything.
I sell my car, no problem.
If a guy comes on the streetand gives me enough for my
Bronco, I'll sell it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:15):
You got a good man, it's just, I think, in its
industry, though, I find that,um, there's not many people that
are that can do both be greatat domain investing and and a
good domain broker forthemselves.
Right, there's usually peopleare really good at, you know
building a nice, I think, drew.

Speaker 2 (01:22:34):
You know I'm good friends with drew.
I really think the world ofdrew and and we all we all have
different personalities but Ilove it like um.
I mean, he's just a kind of guy.
I have a lot of friends thatare just like him, that are
aggressive and go-getters, buthe's done a good job of having
his own portfolio and otherpeople's names.

(01:22:54):
And he is, I agree, um, andhe's in the same boat.
As I said before, like you know, it's, it's.
I love selling other people'snames.
I love premium assets orpremium assets, I don't care if
they're mine or yours, but I'drather they be mine, I'd rather
they be mine.
So yeah, so you know he's veryrealistic and so I appreciate
that and so it is kind of mybusiness model is you have to

(01:23:17):
have, you have to respect yourclients like you have to respect
their names, and you can't pushyour names in front of them.
You have to, you have toobjectively somehow figure out
what's best for your client andyou can't Say my name is best.
It may be, but fortunately, ifyour quality is good enough, you
have, you're not, you're notputting junk in front of them,

(01:23:40):
right, like if I put a greatfour letter or something and I'm
not gonna have anything, but ifyou have some two letters and
one word, it's like that's alittle different.
He has good stuff to.

Speaker 1 (01:23:50):
I think the thing is is that if I had this happen
when we were buying our house,yeah we had a great realtor, a
nice woman.
Uh, we were looking at my housein Florida.
She goes I have an opportunityfor you, but I need to tell you
up front there's a catch.
And I was like okay, let's go.
You know, does it come with atimeshare I got to buy?

(01:24:10):
Or like what's the?
You know what's this ridiculouscatch?
She goes the owner of the houseis a good friend of mine and
she's my neighbor and I'm likeso what?
And she's like well, you'regonna live next to me and it's a
good friend of mine.
So you know, I'm letting youknow ahead of time that there is
a relationship between myselfand the owner of this house and

(01:24:32):
the house was required to by law.
But she disclosed it and I feelthat, even though we're not
required by law that if therewas a name that I felt Someone
who hired me To help them find aname was one of mine that I
thought they could benefit from,I would say I don't usually do
this but, based on what you said, this is a domain that I own,

(01:24:54):
or my company owns, or my wifeowns, and I think it fits, and
this is the price that I wantfor it.
If you don't like it, I'm nevergoing to talk about it again.
Yeah that's it right, and aslong as you do that, I think
it's fine.
Yeah, but if you're, I justwouldn't put it.
Five more, they don't knowabout geez, you know, but I

(01:25:16):
think on homes.

Speaker 2 (01:25:17):
I've never understood how they can represent the buy
and the sell side like it's.
That's tough, like when, when areal estate agent has a home
and they're they're representingthe seller and the buyer,
there's a huge conflict ofinterest in getting to the best
price.

Speaker 1 (01:25:37):
I think the thing is a lot of realtors, a lot of
realtors I've met In the lastfew years.
There's some great realtorsthat I've met and have worked
with, but in other cases Someare just saying, okay, what do
you want to offer?
And they just put it on theoffer sheet and just email it
like there isn't the yeah, thenegotiating going on as much as
it used to be and, like you know, I think, yeah, the market has

(01:26:02):
been so hot that there's no likeif you really wanted to put the
screws to somebody, you can't,because then they just haven't.
Another five families come inand buy the house and you're out
so but like around here, youcan still negotiate and it's
hard.

Speaker 2 (01:26:16):
My realtor can't give me the.
They can't even tell me like ifI want to offer they a normal
realtor, if it's just the buyside, they would say I think you
know, I think we could go inand do this, but they can't do
that because they know what theother side is.
So they can't really sayanything.
They really get.

Speaker 1 (01:26:33):
That's when they're useless.
There's no point in having.

Speaker 2 (01:26:36):
So if I have yeah, if I have somebody on the sell
side, I get a lawyer for the buyside.
That's what I do yeah it.
I just I can't have it as thesame side and they want both
sides because they commission onboth.
But so I found that that's athat's a conflict of interest,
because I can't.
They can't help me at all.
On the buy side they can showme houses, but we have Zillow.

(01:26:57):
We have so many tools now Idon't need to drive around with
Maggie in her four door and haveher.
It doesn't have to happen like.
I can virtually look at most ofthe houses and we'll go do a
walkthrough After I've chosenthrough.
Before I had to go through 10houses.
I don't have to go through 10.
Maggie can just show me thelast house that I I'm interested
in.

Speaker 1 (01:27:16):
But yeah, it is interesting and these are all.

Speaker 2 (01:27:19):
These are all the things that that we're getting
better at and in the ethicalchoices.
That's all part of what we doright and some are better at it
than others.
But you know there's peoplethat I, you know respect, you
know yourself, everybody.
We don't always get to all talk, but we all know who each other
are, we all been.
If you've been doing it thislong, you have to be doing

(01:27:40):
something right.
Right like people they've beendoing it for decades can't be
completely Corrupt and immoral.

Speaker 1 (01:27:48):
There's they tend to yeah, I agree, I think.
No, I agree, and I and I'vedone co brokerage deals with
drew.
Drew actually grew up about 40minutes from where I grew up and
I know A couple of his friendsthat he grew up with, like in
similar circles to people, sothat's kind of strange that you
know.
I know a guy that used to be inthe fish business with drew, so

(01:28:09):
you know him and I, him and Ihave had some calls, but we're
negotiating with each other andin teasing each other and making
fun of each other and havingsome laughs, and I like him a
lot.
I think he's a great guy, Ithink he's an extremely talented
salesperson and, you're right,he's one of those people that
can be the investor and can bethe broker.

(01:28:31):
Me, on the other hand, I've satand I've read lists like yours
and I'm bored to tears and Ican't stand sitting there and
doing it every morning andsitting in an auction and making
those bids every day and thenwaiting for them to end or
hemming and hawing.
Or should I make another bid?
And if I were to go and becomeserious about it, I would
probably automate it a bit more,where I would put in the most
the highest bid, and if I win, Iwin, if I don't, I don't, and

(01:28:53):
just you'll use an API all theall day.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):
That hike that we took in Vegas.
You know there was a hikeduring the conference and I'm
walking with Mike Ambrose, whois one of the founders of Dot
XYZ him and Daniel Nagari andMike is is generally just one
hike.
I can see how nice he is.
You know I'm with Aaron Wilkin,mike Ambrose and Stephen
Kennedy Literally three of thenicest guys in all the industry.

Speaker 1 (01:29:16):
They're all three great guys.
They're all brilliant.

Speaker 2 (01:29:18):
They're all so smart Like I was an honor to walk and
hike for four hours, and I can'tthink of a better business
meeting than four hours up amountain, right Like you just
talking, looking ahead, youdon't have to worry about eye
contact, like I don't alwaysmake great eye contact and so
this is a perfect situationwhere I need to watch my feet
anyway.
So, talking to those guys, and Iwill say there's something

(01:29:39):
about having Stephen Kennedysell six names on the four hour
hike Like you can hear his emailpring selling and Mike is 11.
You know Mike has half amillion or more names and
Stephen has I don't know 100,000or something, but but there is
something about cash flow ofhaving those guys sell six names
during that process that you'relike man, I would love to have

(01:30:02):
that.
But I also know how hard theyworked and how, like Stephen
started with one or two namesand built that all over since I
started.
He was in high school when Istarted.
So I respect the hell out ofall those guys because I know
they didn't all start with that.
They all started with nothingand built that through rolling
it and investing and learningtheir skill set, and I

(01:30:25):
appreciate that model too.
So I that's why, when you ask mewhat I want to do, I appreciate
all the models of making moneyin domain investing and I'll
probably explore all of them aspart of what I do.
I just want to sell domainnames.
That's what it comes down tomine yours, whatever it is.
I love domain names, I love thebusiness, but I also like

(01:30:47):
crypto and blockchain, like Iunderstand that that part of
technology too.
That technology is veryimportant and there's a lot of
opportunity there, so Iincorporate that.
I also, you know, understandthe value, like you said, of the
tools, and you know, at DSAD welook like a simple, boring
website, but Travis on the backend has so many tools and links

(01:31:10):
and he's built all these things,custom coding, so that we can
do things quicker and faster.
That's a very important part ofall we do.
Every domain investor who's asanything, has APIs and tools
built out for them to make theirday more managed, quicker and
more efficient, and that's.

Speaker 1 (01:31:27):
Well, yeah, I can do it all manually.
You lose your mind day afterday after day, and by the time
it's time to evaluate the names.
You're already tired and inover, you know.
And then there's also thosethat have the bots, that are
just pretty much doing all thebidding as well, right?
So yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:31:42):
Well, and that's what the API is.
You go ahead and put all yourinformation up ahead of time and
your bot slowly puts it to bed.
So you know it's.
That's what APIs are all about.
You should, like, if you're inthe domain business, you really
have to have a bot doing yourwork.
We joke about Yanni's bot, like,always being honest, but we all
know I can tell the hugedomain's bot, I can tell

(01:32:04):
Steven's bot, I can telleverybody's bot Like, and I also
know like what the ranges are.
Like, the average, the averageacquisition for me is $380.
Like, I know that's what it isand then I talk to other people
and that's about it.
By the time you do your closeouts and then your larger price
names, when you average it, Ican tell the people listening to

(01:32:25):
this if you participate dailyon the expired auctions and you
get all kinds of names, you'regoing to average $380 to $420 a
domain if you're at all ranges.
So that's what you expect Ifyou're going to put a thousand
names.
You want to add a thousandnames this year.
Expect to spend $400,000 ifyou're going to be in that game.

Speaker 1 (01:32:47):
So I mean that's not a sign.
Yeah, and that's a biginvestment and that's a lot of
choices, you know, and then youget to carry it.
I'm going to hand register.

Speaker 2 (01:32:54):
If you're going to hand register, you're not going
to have as good a quality ofnames.
You have to be a mix of.
You know, certain type of namesthat sell and that's that is
all over the board.
And they're more expensiveevery day, right, like names
that were for $50 go for $500.
It's just, it's a differentballgame.
I mean, I paid about Winterline, w-i-n-t-e-r-l-i-n-e.

(01:33:16):
That name would have cost me acouple hundred dollars.
Just, it's a cool brand.
It was about it was a thousanddollars.
It cost me a thousand dollarsto add Winterline.
I just picked it up at Namejet.
So you know, those are the.
What do you?

Speaker 1 (01:33:32):
like about Winter?
What do you like aboutWinterline so much?

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
Winterline is just a good.
I like to buy names that aretoo known, easy to spell, words
that make a good brand.
It's a good, brandable typename.
It'll sell for $8,900 orsomething and it's it's and it
exudes like outdoors andclothing and it could be

(01:33:55):
technology.
Those are the just the kind ofnames that I like to add, those
kind of brands.
Now am I going to reach out andoutbound that to somebody?
No, that's going to be adecision where somebody's coming
up with a, with a naming to dothat.
There's no companies name thatLike.
I'm not going on the crunchbase and finding Winterline.
That's what we all do whenwe're looking for it.

(01:34:15):
We look for existing, but ifyou go and there's a crunch
based list of 30 people thathave the name and a dot com,
you're not spending a thousanddollars to get that name.
It's not going to be a thousanddollars to name.
So it's all relative when itcomes down to it.
So, and then you have peoplelike Ike, who've been doing
things like that for, or Joshsorry, josh Eisenhower that we

(01:34:38):
talked about.
You know he's up to whatever 10or 15,000 names.
When he was buying those, whenthey were $100 and $50, and now
he's killing it.
You know now he's selling lotsof those names.
So it's all relative.
You can still make a lot ofmoney entering it.
It just costs more money toenter.
So that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (01:34:57):
Yeah, and I know another investor that sold his
portfolio to GoDaddy.
I'll keep his name confidentialbut he said the majority of his
portfolio he bought in GoDaddycloseouts and he said it was
funny to sell a lot of it backto GoDaddy and a good laugh
about that.
You know they could have keptthem all for themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:35:15):
It's an appreciating asset right.
That's what it is.
Yeah, Domains are anappreciating asset and so far we
have proven that 100%, that dotcoms that are solid quote
however you determine that havebeen appreciating and definitely
in the auction.
There's no doubt about that.

Speaker 1 (01:35:33):
Absolutely, absolutely, all right.
Well, how can people get aholdof you?
I know they can go to dsadcom,but how else can they get ahold
of you?

Speaker 2 (01:35:41):
if they have any questions, I just have an easy.
I have domains.
Well, twitter is a good one.
I just have my name.
It's at ShaneCultura, I havepretty present there and then
you're welcome to email me.
I always I get plenty of emaildomain Shane at Gmail.
I keep it in a nice easy Gmail.
For all that, I opened up myDMs on Twitter.
I don't know if I should haveor not, but I got 100 DMs

(01:36:05):
yesterday just people askingabout names.
And I will say this a personasked me about a name that he
had and I said it's not a goodname, it's a matter of fact,
it's a trademarked name.
And I said you just can't havetrademarks.
And he said well, what aboutthis?
And it had an offer fromGoDaddy for $1,000.

(01:36:26):
And I go oh well, I woulddefinitely not counter too much.
You're playing with fire, it'sa trademark, I highly don't
recommend it.
He said, well, okay, let'spretend it's not a trademark,
what would you do?
And I'm like well, I'm thatquality, I'd probably come back
at 2,500.
He's like let me think about it, I'm not exaggerating.
30 seconds later he goes.
I just got this email.

(01:36:47):
It's 10 minutes after.
They're offering $4,000.
I'm like how, what's the span?
He goes 10 minutes and I saidthis is trademarked.
But it is a big trademark.
So I said, all right, this isfire.
Like I would say just take itnormally.
This is not how domains work.
You shouldn't do it at all.
But just put $10,000 in andjust go and three seconds later,

(01:37:11):
taken, we accepted it's morethan we want to pay $10,000.
So in the course of like eightminute DM that I never would
have owned for a name that Ithought was horrible and
unethical when it comes tosquatting, he sold for $10,000.

Speaker 1 (01:37:26):
And I'll bet you, if you track that name, I'll bet
you in the next week or so,you're going to see a marketing
campaign with that on itsomewhere, or there's going to
be something on it.
This one is so bad.

Speaker 2 (01:37:37):
I cannot imagine.
I'll tell you after the show.
There's no way.
It's a protection name, there'sno doubt about it.
Oh yeah, yeah, but there's noway.
There's no way, there's sometiming like that.

Speaker 1 (01:37:48):
They know they could.
They know they could file andwin right.
Yeah, they could have just sentthe cease and desist and
probably could have gotten thename, but I think them getting
it quickly was more importantthan getting it the other way.
The you know I always felt, andtalking to John Berryhill, that
like between three and fivegrand is the magic number
because that's what it costs tofile.

(01:38:08):
But, there's no, it's 100%chance of a win if you sell it
to them for three or five grand,right and the end, and they
don't have to wait two months toget the name and it's just done
.

Speaker 2 (01:38:19):
It's just easier for them yet.

Speaker 1 (01:38:22):
But yeah, so making that out makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:38:24):
It's not.
You know, I told him he goes.
Oh, I should do this for a lotof names.
I go don't take this money andenjoy the luck of the draw, but
this is not a business model.

Speaker 1 (01:38:34):
Take the money if you want to no, it's not a business
model.

Speaker 2 (01:38:37):
Yeah, so but the DM.

Speaker 1 (01:38:38):
It did make it more interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:38:40):
Pardon me.

Speaker 1 (01:38:41):
Is he in the United?

Speaker 2 (01:38:42):
States.
I don't know, he didn't have aU or a Z instead of an S kind of
thing, so I didn't.
I don't know because it wasduring the day, but I do, yeah,
yeah, and his English was fine,so I'm not quite sure, but the
DMs did get.
They did get a littleoverwhelming, but I do like
talking domains to a point Likeit gets to be a little bit much

(01:39:03):
with all the offers.
But every once in a whilesomething will come through
where you'll be able to have aninteresting conversation and
learn more and make you knowpeople don't forget when you
help them, right?
I mean, that'll kind of tiethis all up when you, if you do
everything you do just to makemoney, life's gonna not be too
good.
So if you help somebody and youcan take five minutes of your

(01:39:24):
day, you can't do it foreverybody, but but I do feel
like just answering that email,that guy that made $10,000, he
won't forget me, like he will.
Maybe he becomes a big company.

Speaker 1 (01:39:34):
Part of the story now , yeah, yeah, so hopefully the
life changing amount of moneyfor him.

Speaker 2 (01:39:38):
Yeah, yeah so I, that was worth it for me.
So all those other 99 DMs, thatkind of sucked.
We're good now, like it made it.
It made it worth it so that'swhy I appreciate being on here
and you giving me a voice anddrew on Domain Sherpa.
Let me be on that.
I truly enjoy that.
I love, I love talking aboutdomains and being part of it,
and I think we're all reallyfortunate that the houses that

(01:40:01):
we have or the little thingsthat we have, they've been
purchased through domains.
That's crazy.
Who I mean?
That's.
It's just amazing.
When you tell somebody that thethings I have are made from
selling domains, only we trulyunderstand what, what that is
and how crazy that is.

Speaker 1 (01:40:15):
So it is, and I'm lucky Like I.
All of my wealth, all of thethings I have, are really from
from domains.
I'm gonna be doing this for 14years now, so the money I had
before was a lot less than whatI have now, so I would say the
percentage is a much smaller and, yeah, I'm definitely grateful
for what this is.

Speaker 2 (01:40:34):
Yeah, yeah, I think it's great.

Speaker 1 (01:40:37):
Yeah, All right, Shane.
Well, hey, thanks for having.
Thanks for coming on.
I appreciate it.
It's been a lot of fun.
We've covered a lot of material.
I can't believe it's been anhour and 40 minutes.

Speaker 2 (01:40:48):
I know I tend to run long, Sorry about that.
Everybody you can, you can.

Speaker 1 (01:40:52):
That's okay, no, that's great, you know, and
we'll definitely have you onagain.
And you know, I think it'll befun to potentially have some
others on at the same time.
Brooke wanted to come on.
We were joking.
Yeah, I love Brooke.
She's like my Robin Quivers Dadsome more balance to the
conversation.
So maybe she'll come on andwe'll have you on again in the

(01:41:13):
near future.
So thanks again and until nexttime.

Speaker 2 (01:41:17):
All right, thanks again.

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