New readers to the blog: Welcome! Please read What is this Blog About. It explains how I am an experienced ccTLD domainer, but completely new to .com domain investing. You may also like to read about My Domain Investing Journey So Far.
$1.3 Million Dollars for Men.com!
In 2008, one of the first things that attracted me to the possibilities of Domain Investing, were the amazing sales of domain names for over $1 million dollars. Usually these sales were for the very best keywords out there, names like Men.com and Loans.com.
These stories of million dollar domain sales are pretty exciting. But they are like lottery wins – rare.
I remember around this time reading an article, which is about the infamous Kevin Ham with his amazing story and domain successes. I believe I also read this article around the same time about Frank Schilling.
The industry titans who sell domains for millions have usually been working in the domain industry for many years. As with any success, it takes a lot of perseverance, sweat and tears.
When you hear that a domain name sold for $1 million, for some reason the mind starts to think that any domain name must have a high value. So you go out and register anything you can, thinking that you will get a nice pay day. But of course that just isn’t the case.
Domain names don’t work on a sliding scale where you get to cash any domain name in for money – you need a buyer who really wants it.
Rick Schwartz, the Domain King talks about Need, Want and Desire. The reason he was able to sell Men.com for $1.3 million is because that domain name was the best in that category. There was no better alternative domain name, which increased need, want and desire to the million dollar level.
A domain name only has value because somebody desires it. If the domain is not desirable, no sale. The key is to learn what makes a domain name desirable.
These million dollar sales were for domain names that the buyers, usually businesses, thought were desirable, and would make them their money back. The fact that people do pay into the millions for domain names, shows their value.
My First .com Domain Purchases Were Worthless
As I talked about in My Domain Investing Journey, I bought a few .com domains about 10 years ago. I think I registered HotWaterHeatPumps.com. A stunning 4 word domain – not!
After no one bought my few domains, I gave up. I thought “Oh this doesn’t work”. It took me many, many years to come back to the possibility of reselling domains. It was really the Domain Sherpa show that did this in 2011.
In Domain Sherpa’s earliest interviews, they interviewed the Domainers with the big stories, the million dollar sales and purchases. Even if those are hard to repeat for newer investors, they are still great stories.
But what Domain Sherpa did after interviewing all whole bunch of people with the big domain successes, was interview domain investors with smaller successes. Stories of ‘average’ people, with full time jobs who made good money buying and selling domains, just on a smaller scale.
Domain Sherpa launched a new segment for these smaller sales which were called Profitable Flips. These shows really got me inspired! Here were everyday people who were having success with domains. By publishing these ‘average’ stories, Domain Sherpa opened up the possibility in my mind of actually being able to make money buying and selling ‘lesser’ domains.
So I started opening my mind back up to the possibility of Domain Investing. I was always good at spelling, and for some reason I was drawn to the concept of hunting to find a bargain, to later sell it at a profit.
You Can Buy and Sell Domains Profitably
The reason for this article is to encourage new domainers. Million dollar domain name sales are generally made by those who bought domains 5 – 10 years ago or longer. That is just not achievable for a new domainer. If something looks too hard, people give up.
But every day hundreds of domain names sell for “reasonable prices”, by average investors. The profits can be quite large if you buy a domain right. But you need to learn, research, test, test again, and get some sales under your belt.
Becoming a profitable domain name investor on a small scale is definitely achievable if you have the patience to study and learn.
I wanted to write this post to document the smaller domain sales, so that new domain investors can be inspired. I want to show that everyday people can have success with domains. You don’t need to sell a domain name for a million dollars to be successful.
Inspiring Profitable Flips – Ranked By Lowest Buy Price
These inspiring domain name sales are pulled from the Profitable Flips segment of Domain Sherpa Shows. You can actually watch a video interview with the person who sold each domain name. There you can learn all about how they bought, and how they sold the domain.
I have ranked them by the lowest buy price. You don’t need to spend a lot of money to find a good domain name to invest in, you just need to hunt hard!
| DOMAIN | BUY | SELL | PROFIT | SELLER | SHOW |
| MaxHolmes.com NEW | 12 | 1,900 | 1,888 | Matt Holmes | Private |
| CBDRemedy.com | 27 | 10,000 | 9,973 | Marty Pelletier | Watch |
| SmartMonday.com | 69 | 14,488 | 14,419 | Logan Flatt | Watch |
| Prop.bet | 111 | 6,500 | 6,389 | Jon Arsenault | Watch |
| In-Sight.com | 217 | 15,500 | 15,283 | George Adu | Watch |
| TopOffers.com | 550 | 10,000 | 9,450 | David Kelly | Watch |
| Karpool.com NEW | 627 | 6,500 | 5,873 | Mike Cyger | Source |
| Strahovka.com | 711 | 62,000 | 61,289 | Rod Atkinson | Watch |
| Give.io | 800 | 15,800 | 15,000 | Joshua Schoen | Watch |
| ItalianWeddings.com | 1,000 | 9,000 | 8,000 | Chris Reams | Watch |
| PirateShip.com | 1,500 | 20,000 | 18,500 | Daniel Levi | Watch |
| BreakBread.com | 2,033 | 22,000 | 19,967 | Drew Rosener | Watch |
| BuyShares.com | 2,244 | 15,900 | 13,656 | Kevin Macphers | Watch |
| eSoft.com | 3,000 | 30,000 | 27,000 | Joshua Reason | Watch |
| Hatred.com | 4,000 | 150,000 | 146,000 | Richard Dynas | Watch |
| Tigra.com | 5,500 | 28,500 | 23,000 | Chris Reams | Watch |
| Statement.com | 9,000 | 140,000 | 131,000 | Braden Pollock | Watch |
I keep going back to these domain flips for inspiration, as I start my .com investing journey. I hope you find inspiration in these flips too! Thanks to Domain Sherpa for conducting all these inspiring interviews!
Add Your Own Profitable Flip Here!
If you know of any other publicly listed domain name flips, with an initial purchase under $1,000? Please let me know and I will add them to this list.
If you have any personal domain flips (and you have screenshots or other verification) please let me know and I can add your flip to the table, and link to you.
Criteria: Flips with a profit of at least $1000, and an initial purchase price less than $1,000.
The lower the price point, the better, to help inspire others with a small amount of capital to invest!
Comment below or tweet me @NZDomainer
NZ Domainer 