Domain Investors: How to make an easy 7% ROI on your money

Renew your names..  Verisign will be hitting you in the wallet for a 7% price increase on your .com registrations shortly.  So dig deep and pony up now. This is the easiest 7% you will ever make..  doing something you will have to do in the future anyway.  As a quick sidebar:  I know there is a generally accepted industry practice of 'just in time renewals' ..  the majority renew their names as they come due.  I would encourage all domainers reading this to advance renew your names by at least 1.5 years to allow for probate should you get hit by a bus.  You've worked so hard to build your business.  Now is the time to be respectful of all you've sacrificed by protecting that investment with advance renewals of your name inventory. This year you get an extra 7% for your foresight.

Comments

[Omar]

Hey Frank,

I love the blog! Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.

We are in a period of a very low cost of capital. Private equity firms are spending billions on buying companies. When will some of this capital move into the domain channel?

[Frank]

That is a very good question.. I think the answer is "when it's clear that those Equity firms can generate significant Alpha for shareholders by jumping into the space". Right now people are selling the Irvine ranches of the world and the smart money is in there cleaning up. Next phase will be when 100 name verticals start selling for tens of millions.. Buy it by the acre, sell by the foot.

[Omar]

Frank - it's like you are teaching a class and we're the students :-)

What do you think are the chances that we have a "domain name bubble" in which valuations get irrational?

[Frank]

Very flattered but alot of the folks visiting could teach us all a thing or two. and I hope they will. We're a long way from a bubble. Here's an example fruitgiftbasket.com is still in today's auction at $26,250.00 - a week ago I was worried I overpaid for fruit.net at $28,500 (yes, I know its a .net) but against the backdrop of today's auction for the basket , the net looks cheap.