This is the full transcript for Episode #341 of the Wild Business Growth podcast featuring Jeffrey Gabriel – World Record-Breaking Domain Name Broker, Saw.com. You can listen to the interview and learn more here. Please note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
Jeffrey Gabriel 0:00
What are the things I have to do right now to start making money?
Max Branstetter 0:20
Hi, welcome back to Wild Business Growth. This is your place to hear from a new entrepreneur every single Wednesday morning who’s turning Wild ideas into Wild growth. I’m your host, Max Branstetter, Founder & Podcast Producer at MaxPodcasting. That’s . I can do that without taking a breath. And today’s episode is episode 341, and today’s guest is Jeffrey Gabriel, the Founder & CEO of Saw.com Jeffrey, or Jeff, is a Guinness World Record holding domain broker responsible For over half a billion in domain name transactions, including the record setting sex.com transaction, the record setting poker.org transaction, and many, many, many more huge domain names in all sorts of categories. In this episode, we talked the sex, drugs and rock and roll of the domain name industry, fascinating behind the scenes of how domain names actually work and what the dot extensions actually mean, and even a trip to the Playboy Mansion. So get your bunny ears on. Hit is JG, enjoy the Sure. I Ooh, alrighty, we are here with Jeffrey Gabriel, Founder & CEO of saw.com and we’re going to talk about lots and lots of dot coms and dot orgs and dot whatevers, and even maybe you guys have some dot whatevers, but really, really fascinating side of the domain name business here, Jeffrey slash Jeff. Well, I might, I might throw some Jeff and Jeffreys at you. Thanks so much for joining. How you doing today? Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah, of course, of course. We’re going to start off hot. We’re just going to rip the band aid off because this story is too juicy to pass up. It’s not often you get to speak to a Guinness World Record holder in general, but in your particular case, you got the Guinness world record by being the people behind the sale of the domain name sex.com for $13 million so incredible, almost sounds like a headline the onion made up, and like you lived it. You just take us into your shoes and how that all came about?
Jeffrey Gabriel 2:44
Well, I mean, it was back in in 2009 and I had a client that was also a lawyer that would refer business to where I worked. I worked at a company called Sedo, which is a domain marketplace. And that lawyer said the company that owns a domain name is in bankruptcy, and we need somebody to sell the domain. And so there was some timing behind it. The domain had to sell in a certain amount of time. I was actually, it was around the Fourth of July. I think it was like the third of July, and I was in Las Vegas with my now, she’s my wife, but she wasn’t then, and my parents for the Fourth of July weekend, and I got the call saying, you know, we’ve awarded you and Seto the opportunity to sell sex.com and we had to have it sold by, I think was like October 15, or something of that nature. And so it began, and my job was to go out there and remember this 2009 It was right before, I think, the iPhone was released, or it just happened, right? I was calling into some of these adult related companies. The funny thing is, is they all say they’re in advertising, and when you call in, they’re usually have fake names or pseudonyms. They go by, I’ve been to, you know, the adult conferences, which was very eye opening to me being a small town guy from Massachusetts. And the funny thing was, is that trying to sell it, speaking to people, talking about the value, you know, back then, a lot more people typed in domain names that they wanted to visit. So sex.com in general, got an immense amount of traffic from India, which was surprising, and it got millions of visitors a day. You know, I would guess most domains, the the number of visitors per day has gone down because people are using, you know, Google, and they’ve put just search terms in the browsers with it, because more competition. But it got a serious amount of traffic. And the funny thing is, when selling it, I met with some of the bigger players and some of the bigger adult businesses. At the time, Playboy was almost in bankruptcy, or very close to it, they’re in trouble. And then talking to some of the more well known brands. They didn’t really change with the Internet. So I found myself speaking. Working with some of the biggest players in the space, and I think a lot of people don’t realize, but some of the larger porn sites, even to this day, are only owned by one or two different companies, and they own most of the business. I spoke to the heads of them. I actually received an offer of the of the 13 million in cash, but I actually got a better offer of 17, but it was paid off over three years, and the amount of money for the down payment wasn’t enough to pay off all the debtors that were owed in the bankruptcy. So the judge made the decision that cash was better, right? And even though that would have been really a better deal if, like you and I, owned it, the job of a judge in a bankruptcy is to clear up those that are owed money and move on. And so the deal ended up going through. You know, it was, it was a pretty remarkable and crazy experience. Let’s put it that way.
Max Branstetter 5:58
Yeah. I mean, there could be a movie about just that, right? There a movie, not for all ages, but yeah, what makes the I mean, regardless of what category you want to consider that domain name, and what made the difference from that domain name, like, like, why was that such a crazy high value in, like, record setting sale versus, like, many of the much smaller domain name transactions you see every day.
Jeffrey Gabriel 6:24
You know, I think when people ask me that in general, and that, and that goes, really, for any domain name, right? Are the things you look at is, the obvious is number one.com, is the best extension in the world. It’s the most popular, it’s the most widely known and trusted, right there is, and everything I’m going to say right now, there’s an exception to every rule, okay, but in 99.9% of the time, the.com is the most valuable, right? So that that’s obvious, the next thing you look at is the length, right? So when you say, Okay, well, it’s, it’s three letters, so yeah, it’s got to be short, but insurance is really long, but that’s really the shortest, shortest way you’re going to get insurance. So that’s short, right? So it’s relative, right? So then, at the time, adult was still paying really high, they call it RPMs, like, you know, revenue per 1000 visitors, right? So people were paying for porn at the time, advertisers are paying a lot. There was money in it. And, you know, sex obviously sells. And so at the time that industry, the extension, the length, right? And then another thing you look at is how universal it is in many languages or across the world, people know that word. If you look at other domains like I’ll give you an example of another name that I’ve been part of selling is yoga. That’s one of my favorites. So yon yoga.com, it’s four letters. It’s a.com it’s yoga in almost every language on the planet. And if you put the letter S at the end, yogas, that doesn’t make sense, you would have to put other adjectives in the beginning. So that’s kind of a perfect one as well. And that would command a really high price tag, right? So that, you know, would do it. And then the industry that it falls into, obviously affects, and then you have other factors as well, which I could get into if you if you’d like me to
Max Branstetter 8:08
on the flip side of that. I’m just curious, before we move on the Guinness World Record side of things, like, what happens when you set a record like that? Like, they give you like, a plaque, they give you a beer. Like, what does that look like?
Jeffrey Gabriel 8:21
Well, I mean, it was funny, because when we sold, when we sold the domain name, right? And remember, this isn’t a website sale, it’s a domain sale, right? So it’s just the domain, nothing else with
Max Branstetter 8:30
it, which, which is, in layman’s terms, is like the hosting or like the right to have that site, right? Yeah,
Jeffrey Gabriel 8:35
you’re just really buying a contract to be able to use the domain that you never technically own a domain name, right? So google.com, is the domain, right? But then what they show on it is the website. That’s what makes it a website, right? So it’s just the right to own that what happens when you pretty much make a record breaking thing is that the sale came out, it became public knowledge. And so then you would submit to the Guinness Book of World Records what has happened. And then they do, like an investigation, and then they come back and they say, Yes, you are approved, and you are in. Because I worked at Ceto, they actually got like a certificate, and I kind of got like a sub certificate, and then it was the number one domain sale. But what was funny is, if you look, I think right now, they have it as business.com and that kind of made me angry at the time, because it was only like a year or so later that it sold. It sold for like 18 or 19 million, but not because my record was beaten, but it was a website. I was like, that was a business sale that wasn’t a domain sale, but since I’ve sold it, I believe the highest reported public sale is voice.com which is like 25 million. So I’m happy to see that the values in my industry continue to grow. And I’m sure there’s some that went for more money than that.
Max Branstetter 9:50
Recently, you said the famous idiom. I don’t even know if it’s an idiom, but sex sells. That should actually be the name of the movie. Yeah. Said movie that. Talked about for the sale this. So, yeah,
Jeffrey Gabriel 10:01
that’s, there’s a book about, actually, about sex.com, in general. I’m not in it. It actually goes up to the point that I kind of come into it.
Max Branstetter 10:08
You’re like, the grim reaper of it. No, I’m
Jeffrey Gabriel 10:10
just kidding. Oh yeah, yeah. I kind of ended it.
Max Branstetter 10:16
Let’s get to another three letter word, saw. Saw.com, S, A, W, dot, C, O, M, which is six letters in a.if you think about it, but your business now, lots of success with domain names, and the broking of it, the buying and selling of it, and I have so many questions here. It’s such a fascinating topic. But let’s rewind a bit. I always thought domain names is like a really unique and potentially lucrative area to get into, whether it’s you know, you’re buying and doing yourself, or you’re using a broker like you. How did you personally find like a match here of, Hey, we should get into this domain, breaking domain broking business
Jeffrey Gabriel 10:57
before the market meltdown of 2009 I actually got my start selling loans. And then I was working for an HR staffing company that would sell, kind of like a monster.com service. And I was doing quite well there as a salesperson. I think it was like maybe number two or three out of 200 sales people selling that service. And then when the employment market crashed, and the market crashed. In general, our business losses funding. It used to be called job Fox out of Washington, DC, and I was out on the street, and I lost my position, and I was applying to a lot of companies that I tried to sell to in the Boston area. And Seto gave me a shot. And the funny thing was, is the pay that they offered me was actually the salary was less than what I was making on unemployment. And I just said, I don’t even, I don’t even care. I need commission. I’ll do commission. And then, you know, I lived in Worcester. The job was in Boston. I was driving about an hour and a half each way to get out there, and I said to myself, I can’t, I can’t let this fail. I can’t give up on it, and I got to give it everything I got. And I did. I got there, started selling names. Really gave it everything I had. Within the first year, became number one. I only I started in May, and I was number one by the end of the year. And then the next year, I broke all their records, and I sold sex.com I left there, started my own business with a colleague of mine, and did that for about a year. And one of my customers, that used to be mine, from Seto, owned a portfolio of about 365,000 I’ll say it again, 365,000 domain names. And he said, you know, why don’t you come and sell for me and build me a team of people here in the Caymans, and you can bring your book of business with you, and you can really focus on on selling my names. And I said, Sure, you know, I told my wife, so, you know, I can always start another domain brokerage. This is really an opportunity. So we packed up, moved down there. I lived there for seven years, built I was number four. The company grew to 120 but on the sales side, we got up to 50 sales people and some support staff. And when I left there, we did, I’d say about 480 million or four 90 million in sales. As a team, I managed and helped build and put together. And, yeah. I mean, that was quite an experience. And then the owner of that company sold it all to godaddy shortly after I left. So yeah, that was a wild experience.
Max Branstetter 13:33
It was due to the the Danica Patrick commercials, wasn’t it? That was back in that era. Oh, yeah.
Jeffrey Gabriel 13:41
But what’s funny about the about that story with Danica, I’ve actually met Bob Parsons a few times, who is the founder of GoDaddy, who now is the founder of pxg, the golf clubs. But before that, do you know what company he founded?
Max Branstetter 13:58
I totally I looked it up some point, but I totally blanked. I think
Jeffrey Gabriel 14:03
it was Lotus. It was Lotus Notes that then became into it. So he created that, sold that, then started GoDaddy. And he said they spent the last, like their last budget, on the GoDaddy girl at the Super Bowl. And if it didn’t work, they’re gonna shut the business down. Oh my god. And it worked. There was like, one final Hail Mary gasp of breath, and then that brought GoDaddy out of the ashes and helped bring it. They made a lot of great moves as well. I mean, he had to give him credit. Wasn’t just some girl in a courtroom shaking her chest, but like, but yeah. So GoDaddy ended up purchasing what’s called the registrar his domain portfolio and some other assets that we built over over the years. And then I decided it was time, because my I always had the entrepreneurial itch, and I think one of the things that really draws me to domain names and why I really love what I’m selling and the product I’m selling is a lot of the times I get to talk to the entrepreneur who’s so excited about. The new product, or I get to talk to a product owner who is launching a new product under a business, or it’s just a new service, or something that’s that’s really exciting, and a lot of times they’re so tight lipped and worried about telling me about it, I don’t know what it’s going to be about. And then you see it. You might see it on TV. You might see it downtown New York, you know, in the in Times Square. One of our clients sent me a picture of we got them finally.com and they had it posted in Times Square, and sent a picture of it there in Times Square to say, hey, we’re up like, no shit. So that’s like, that’s really exciting to hear that. And then also trying to make the deals work and helping them find it, because we’ve helped name some of these products when the one they wanted wasn’t available. So, you know, it’s, it’s a, it’s a great business.
Max Branstetter 15:47
What’s, what’s,
Max Branstetter 15:49
I don’t even know what I just said, what’s, what’s, that just slipped out. I don’t even know what that was, what was the biggest, uh, adjustment you had to make knowing that, like, this is my own business. I’m not part of like, some large organization anymore. What was like the first big entrepreneurial growing pain that you went through grew through,
Jeffrey Gabriel 16:12
you know, I think one of the things is, is that as as the company grew, right? So when I got to the Cayman Islands, we had a small office with a very tight knit group, and then by the time we left, we even had, like, HR, right? It was real. It was like a real business. Now, this isn’t just like a bunch of guys floating around in the ocean going to drink out of Tiki out of coconuts here, right? This is a real business with, like, real departments and things happening. And, you know, a real deal business. And you know, we had a lawyer, a marketing team, like we had all this support staff, you know. And you as someone who’s working at this company, don’t really maybe give all the credit you can to those departments. And when you start your own business, all those departments, are you right? And you don’t even know how to send an I mean, you gotta, you don’t even have fucking email. You have nothing, zero, right? So I went from, you know, building this company, which had some stuff already going, had some developers, but I got in there, and it’s like, you know, he was the domain investor, with the with the ideas, myself and the other sales guys, and I’ve always asked the sales guys and other people that helped me, like, what, what? What are you thinking? What are you seeing on the front line? And then we were putting that together, really turning it into that machine that turned out all those sales. Now it’s like, I’m just sitting here, and it’s my dog and myself, and I’m like, What the fuck do I do now? And you have all these plans, but it’s like, okay, how do we get to there? And it’s a big it’s a big jump, and that was tough, right? And it was hard and, and the other thing is, you know, you don’t have the money, and the expenses are there, and the money’s not coming in, and you got to think about that. So what I did was, I, I’m always been someone who’s lived conservatively in my lifestyle, and I wrote a check and gave myself my own company, a loan for 100 grand. You know, it wasn’t like, it was an easy like, Haha, if 100 gone another 100, like, it wasn’t like that. It was like, I’m betting on myself. I am seeing if I can make this work. And then I said to myself, Okay, what are the things I have to do right now to start making money, right? And so it’s like, okay, I need at least a shitty website. Obviously, I need a domain I already had. Saw.com I bought that years before because it was a really good deal. There’s no nothing behind it. One of my friends says it’s sweet ass web names, it’s not
Max Branstetter 18:38
That’s what I thought everybody knew that. Yeah, exactly,
Jeffrey Gabriel 18:40
you know. So we had the domain. I had to get a website going, you know, I had to get other technology rolling. So I had to talk to people, I had to hire some folks. I had to get, you know, this kind of going, and then different processes rolling and, and I really just made that, that set of goals, and I went for it, but it was hard adjusting to not having anyone in marketing and doing that, and it seems like it’s this unachievable mountain to climb, and it’s and it can be lonely as well, going from all of this bustling activity to you and your office in silence, you know, and you look behind you and it’s, it’s you, right? And I think you gotta be really ready for that. It’s almost like the guy who acts like he’s so cool and he ditches his girlfriend and he’s single now, but then, like, now what, you’re all alone, and you’re home alone at night and the kids are gone and, like, whatever, like you’re, you know, you’re, it’s not as cool as you maybe you might have thought it was so but now it’s time to get to it. So, you know, I think that was, that was a big adjustment for me.
Max Branstetter 19:46
So now you’re your new girlfriend, your your wife. Saw you mentioned that now the team’s up to like 25 people. Like, yeah, you know, you’ve come a long way. Like you. Clearly gotten through, like, the early, early days of figuring out, like, oh, we need to get emails set up. We need to, you know, a shitty website. As you said, what’s been helpful in, you know, building out the business enough that, like, you can support a team of, you know, multiple dozens of people and and growing like
Jeffrey Gabriel 20:18
that. Sometimes when I’m paying out all this money, I’m thinking to myself, Where the hell is all this money coming from? But it’s still coming in, right? Because you don’t really like it’s almost like it’s not money. And if you’re handing people cash, what you’re paying out, you’d be like, holy shit. You know, I’ll tell you something, that when I started the business, I called people that I worked with over the years that I knew had a great work ethic aligned with my personality in the way that I like to manage, and can take very direct and honest feedback, and are willing to maybe not have the most polished product or polished experience internally and allow me to make mistakes, whether It’s you know, the email is not working, or this email campaign went out and it, it’s all wrong, or, you know, Jeff’s doing the marketing, and he’s never done any marketing, and it looks like shit, you know, and in like they’re, they’re okay with that, but they know, I know the product. I’m willing to stand by it. I’m willing to stand by them and go get it, and if you can get a couple people to join you that are like that and are willing to do that and are willing to work hard with you, I think you’re in a good place. But I think at the same time along that path of getting there, there’s a lot of distractions. I mean, you open your laptop every day, there could be 50 emails that are all people offering you other services. There are customers saying, maybe you guys should do this, you know, I’d like your product so much more if you did that. And it’s like, yeah, but you look at it and you get to say to yourself, Okay, well, that could take three weeks of dev time, and it’s four guys that I’m paying every month. So that’s like, you know, that’s a lot of money to do this, and it’s a nice to have. So you get to figure out what would be nice to have, and what’s going to make me money, and what is the goals that I’m trying to meet, and do not let anything get in your way, right? And like, you gotta, you really gotta focus on whatever it is you’re trying to achieve. And I think that that’s really gotten where we are. I remember I have this friend who’s a really successful entrepreneur. He never went to college. He said, I said to him, I’m thinking of leaving uniregistry and starting my own business, but I’m so worried about failing. And he said, What the fuck are you worried about? I’m like, Well, what if I fail? And he goes, I think I failed four times today, and I wasn’t even out of bed yet. He goes, you get to realize, if you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you’re going to fall on your face every single day repeatedly. And he’s like, who cares This is? And then it’s like, in your mind, you think, before you do it, what if I fail? But it’s like, well, when are you going to fail, and how many times you going to fail, and can you fail gracefully and move on. And now it’s like, almost like, water off a duck. I don’t even if it’s broken and it’s fails, it’s like, okay, what fail? Okay, let’s fix that, you know? And I’m not like telling someone, let’s get it fixed. Let’s get out there and figure it out. Right? And sometimes it fails, and then other times it bombs. If it bombs, like, Okay, we’ll move on, and then you got to keep going and adjust and learn, right? So that’s how I see it. How do you
Max Branstetter 23:31
keep that mindset as a business owner of like, not letting stuff get to you that much?
Jeffrey Gabriel 23:37
I’ll be honest. You know, if you can keep a secret just between the two of us. I think that you know it does, and I think that people who say it doesn’t get to them are lying to you. I just think it’s what degree it gets to them. And I think as time goes on, if you actually care about the business and the people you work with, you you’re a human and you should have emotion towards what you’re trying to do. I think part of caring, though, and what I’ve learned over the last couple of years is you can’t let your caring turn into anger because you’re frustrated because things aren’t happening the way you want them to. And the thing I’ve learned is that people are not going to care as much about your baby as you are, or as much about your businesses as you will. And so when the email isn’t working on a Saturday, or the CRM is fucked up and it’s not taking the leads, or, you know, something is broken and they’re not around to fix it. You can’t be mad at them, because, you know, they’re not an owner of the business. You signed up for that, and so you need to be that person. And I’m telling you, I work every day of the week. I’m not saying work all day, every day, but every Saturday, I’m doing a little bit of work. On Sunday I’m checking to make sure shits working. Properly if it’s broken, you know, I’m sending emails to people saying you got to fix this or that, or looking at what customers are saying to keep things rolling. And you’re the janitor, you know, you’re the marketer, you’re the CEO, you’re the tax guy, you’re, you know, you got to stay on everybody. That’s it.
Max Branstetter 25:19
So I’d love to get in the weeds a bit more about the whole domain side of the business, sure, which gets very meta, by the way. I’m sure you’re over it right away, but it was very meta, and doing research and looking up all this stuff about domains and how it works on your site and all that, and then it’s just like there’s a domain behind your whole domain business. So it depends how many levels you want to go to here. But for starters, what’s like the short and sweet basics of just like how domains are bought and sold most of the time on the internet?
Jeffrey Gabriel 25:48
Well, I mean, you can list a domain for sale on our marketplace or in a lot of other providers. And I think the easiest analogy I can give you is it’s just like buying a pair of pants, you know, on Mercari, on eBay or wherever else. So you make an offer on it, or you can just add it to your shopping cart and buy it. When a domain is purchased, I would say the next analogy that’s closest to it would be really like wiring money from one person to another. So if the domain is at GoDaddy, but you wanted to move it to another registrar, like web.com, or it’s Network Solutions. Then you would give this person a code, and then they would transfer it over, which is a very, you know, a secret code. And then they’re doing this with like wiring money from one person to the other, and then it’s in your account, and then, you know, you control it and do as you wish for them. That’s that’s really the basis of it.
Max Branstetter 26:39
What are some key things to keep in mind when you’re looking for a good domain name like today, in today’s ever crazy changing online world,
Jeffrey Gabriel 26:47
I think the thing is, right now, when I started, saw.com the.ai domain extension was not that popular. Now it is wildly popular. And I know there was a period of time that you could get.ai domains actually for free. They were just giving them away, but we just sold a.ai for half a million dollars. I’ve sold others for millions. The value of that has gone up sharply. The problem with that is, is in it’s very trendy to own a.ai domain name, but what a lot of the public doesn’t understand, for example, and I’m going to bring this into picking domains, is.ai is Anguilla. It’s what’s called the ccTLD. It’s a country code, top level domain. It’s a tiny, little country that most people don’t even know where it is in the Caribbean.
Max Branstetter 27:32
That’s it. I do. Oh, I’ve seen so many data is and never thought it could be tied to a country
Jeffrey Gabriel 27:38
that’s so funny. It’s a 13,000 person country, and it makes up about 40% of their GDP. They don’t believe in gambling. And let’s go back to sex.com they don’t like pornography, okay? And they also don’t like other things that are against, you know, the Lord’s name. And when I lived in in the Cayman Islands, they didn’t allow any gambling whatsoever. Number one, number two, you had to be the bar is closed at 12 o’clock on Saturday night, right at Sunday, because it was the Lord’s day, you had to go home. All right. So just to give you an idea of what some of these nations are like, and they’re the ones calling the shots on restrictions and what can happen on their domains. And so if you bought, you know, let’s say blackjack.ai and you wanted to create a blackjack dealer that is AI for people to and gamble on it. You just spent a half million bucks on that you might wake up one day, and that domain is gone because you violated their registry agreement that you actually agreed to when you go to GoDaddy and you register that domain names, but you don’t know that, because you just think they’re all the same, right? So what I’m getting at is is, if you are an entrepreneur and you’re going to register something that might seem a little different, but might look cool again, like.io Okay, IO is Indian Ocean Territory. One of the things that is going up in debate right now, and I was very popular with startups and with tech companies. Indian Ocean Territory was an island that was taken over by the English military. They evicted all the people that live there and put a base there. And the reason why they put it there, it’s a refueling place for the US and the UK so they can bomb the shit out of China. If there’s a problem, it’s actually Mauritius is Island, and so they’re actually going to get it back pretty soon. And if that happens, technically the.io domain extension should go away. So what would happen if you had your business on it? Right? So there’s a big question. What’s going to happen? Because Mauritius already has their own extension, and.io would technically be part of Mauritius now. So what happened? The decision hasn’t been made. So anyways, if you’re looking at buying a domain extension, you should look into the background of that extension, right.com? Is almost like US currency. Everybody in the world is
Max Branstetter 29:55
comfortable with it. I thought you were going to say.com is short for
Jeffrey Gabriel 29:59
Cambodia. Yeah, it could be combo to you, yeah. But what I’m saying is is, like I saw an email address that you email me from before is, is Hippo Direct, HippoDirect.com so the perfect domain for you would be hippo.com but hippo.com would probably cost you a couple million bucks. You obviously can’t you don’t want to spend that. Whether you can afford it or not is irrelevant. But if your product was called hippo, and you’re going to be targeting like the basic consumer, right? If it’s some hippo product, maybe it’s something for like car polish or whatever, it doesn’t fucking matter what it is getting the.ai if you walk up to a random person on the street, they might not even know what that means. They might have never even heard of.ai so if you’re doing business to consumer, it might be better to get get hippo.com and hopefully your business takes off, and then you could go get an upgrade to like hippo.com and so you don’t want to bankrupt yourself. But if you’re like a startup, and you’re really cool, and you know, you guys got that really cool coffee machine and you got all this cool stuff going on, maybe.ai is better because it’s trendy, and maybe that will help when you put it on, you know, a book or a brochure, when you try to go get funding and you want to put it up on the PowerPoint, that we are this really cool.ai company, we’re forward thinking, you know, and that makes sense, and that makes sense to your business. Same with.io but then there’s other extensions. It’s the same thing like.net has fallen from grace over the last few years. I call it, you know, your father’s domain extension, because it’s just, people just don’t use it anymore. You just don’t see it really out there as much new companies aren’t buying it. But you could get a smoking deal on a one word.net domain. And if you’re targeting consumers, they’re more comfortable with.net than.ai right? So you need to think about those things you know, when you’re buying a business or starting a business,
Max Branstetter 31:54
and shout at hippo direct. That’s actually my parents family business is hippo direct. So that email should have been from so we’ll have to look into that later. Small world, it’s tied to the calendar or something. But anyway, that’s so fast. Well, I had no idea, like, I had never looked into that. So many of those extensions could be tied to actual countries. Like, I know a lot of countries are like that, but I didn’t know some of the popular terms that you see today, and domain names are like that too. So that that’s fascinating in itself. I would think about like,
Jeffrey Gabriel 32:25
action words to make the price cheaper for a two word, right? Like, get hippo, try hippo. You know, stuff like that. I wouldn’t do things that, like, are against what people are used to, you know, like, if you try, like, try hippo. Now today.net,
Max Branstetter 32:42
- Percent off,
Jeffrey Gabriel 32:43
yeah, and it just looks like shit, right? And it just called for people, the thing we call the radio test. If you run a radio ad, well, people know, actually, where to go after they listen to the ad, right? Well, they’re gonna, you know, it doesn’t make sense. Or people who the company name is this, they advertise the company name, but then the domain doesn’t match at all. So, like, what do you you’re asking them a lot to remember your company and remember the domain, and go to your site and convert. Like, you got to think about, you know, the hurdles.
Max Branstetter 33:14
Yeah, that CTA has got a lineup, and got to be short and sweet there. Sure does, and have a hippo in it, of course. Yeah. What other ways have has, like, the domain name business changed over the years, besides, like, those extensions that you were talking about, like, what else stands out to you? When I got in the business,
Jeffrey Gabriel 33:34
it was a lot less mature than it is now, and it’s a lot more formalized. And the companies seem to, you know, the main players all seem to be in place. When I first got in the business, it wasn’t really quite that way. GoDaddy was much smaller, for example, and I think Network Solutions probably owned the majority of the market share at the time. Also, if you go to a domain name and you see these links that it’s just a really crappy landing page with links on it, and you click on them, and they bring you to another advertising page that’s called parking. At the time when I got in the business, parking was probably paying 200 300% more than it is now, maybe even more than that domain investors, and that’s the reason why my the guy that started university that I worked for, owned so many domain names was he was doing this thing called tasting that you could actually register domain for like, three days, and if you didn’t want it, you could return it and get your money back. He would test it for up to three days see how much money it made in parking. If it made more than what it cost to have he’d keep it. So over a period of years, him buying names, and others buying names, doing tasting the parking was paying millions of dollars a month. And so when I first got in the business, there was a period of time where the parking revenue on, like, say, a domain like sex.com would be like $100,000 a month. And in some. Cases, people would sell that domain on a multiple of, like, three years or four years, and that would be more money than the retail price, but you would sell it to a big company so you could have, like, server.com server ads are really expensive through Google’s PPC network, and that server.com might be making, you know, 10,000 a month in parking. So someone would sell that at a 48 month multiple, you know, $480,000 Well, Microsoft isn’t going to pay you 480 they might pay you 200 for it. There was a disconnect, in some ways, where investors were willing to pay more than retail buyers. So that’s changed. And then there’s a lot of changing in the business in general, with the companies, like I said, are a lot more mature than they were. Were before
Max Branstetter 35:46
you hear the term domain squatting. Is that the same thing you’re talking about with Park domains? Or is that a little bit
Jeffrey Gabriel 35:52
different? No, like a squatter, like when it comes to parking, you could have freemaps.com was a domain we always used as a testing bed, but like, it could be hippo.com It doesn’t matter what it is. But then you could also do parking on Facebook, F, A, C, E, B, O, C, k.com, and a lot of people would mistype that, which would generate a ton of traffic, and those people click on the links that would be domain squatting.
Max Branstetter 36:18
So it’s like, you’re like, targeting typos, really, like everybody who, if you’ve ever accidentally typed something in wrong and you’re like, wait a second, what this site is completely different?
Jeffrey Gabriel 36:28
Yeah, it says, like, there’s a virus on your computer, or one of those, always fun, that would be something where someone is intentionally registered a domain name that is profiting off of some sort of a trademark holder or the goodwill of a business, right? And so that would be a technical squatter in my business. Today, I’ll give you an example, which is actually really funny. I was at Chili’s with my kids. Okay, they love Chili’s. They’re 11 and seven. And some nights, my wife wants a night off, so they do have two for one beers. So I’ll Father of the Year, will take my kids down there. I’ll
Max Branstetter 37:06
get very selfless of you with considering the discounted beverage in mind.
Jeffrey Gabriel 37:11
I think they know all the other dads that are there while we’re there. So and they got that little video game thing. So one night, I was at Chili’s with my kids on the boot. In the booth next to us, there was a guy saying to another guy, I’m starting a business. He’s talking about his new idea. And I didn’t really hear the whole idea, and I was on the edge of my seat waiting for him to say the domain, because I wanted to see if it was actually for sale on our platform. I would have loved it. That would have, like, made my day. I didn’t hear the domain, but I did hear that the friend goes, oh my god, someone’s squatting on your name. And it’s like, well, wait a minute. I wanted to chime in, but I didn’t. But that’s it’s really funny to me when an entrepreneur, someone looking to start a website today or last week or six months ago, goes to a domain and immediately says, the person who owns that’s a squatter. Well, how did he know that you wanted to start this business when he bought the domain 15 years ago? And it could be like a defunct business. They spent a half a million bucks on that domain. Or people don’t realize that Microsoft actually owns over 60,000 domain names, right? And you don’t know if it’s theirs. So you know, you have to prove intent to make someone a squatter. So you know, there’s a very fine line between squatting and investing or owning, right? So that’s what you have to think about.
Max Branstetter 38:39
Well, real quick note on Chili’s, this is a crazy connection. So actually, I had a I hadn’t thought about this in years. I had a an internship in college at a marketing agency down in Dallas, and the big client for this project we were working on was Chili’s, or breaker International, who owned Chili’s, and they were looking for like us, this team of interns who are all millennials, for ideas to like, make the dynamic experience and the eating experience at Chili’s more engaging and interactive. And we didn’t come up with the idea for like the video game tablet and all that like, they were already starting to roll that out, but it was around the time they were but we basically brainstormed, like, all these ideas for like games you could play and like things that you could do, like more, you know, together as a family, and ideas that were more than just, like traditional eating at the table. And it’s like, pretty cool to see that, like those video games and that tablet and stuff is still alive and well. But obviously the real key is the two for one beer specials. That’s really the answer there.
Jeffrey Gabriel 39:39
I mean, they figured it out also that they now have TVs outside of the bar so you can see, when you’re in the dining room, you you know, there’ll be a TV in the corner. You know, football, and I might stay for one more round to see the end of the game or something.
Max Branstetter 39:52
Yeah, that’s clever, though. Yeah, they’re just adding more purchases there. But it’s so funny now, because don’t, I feel so old, and you probably. Here feel so old listening to it that that was a project. How do we appeal to these young millennials? And now it’s like they’re probably concerned about, how do we appeal to Gen alpha and Gen beta? I mean, my daughter born this year is Gen beta. It’s like crazy, you know, like first year of that. So millennials are, you know, getting up there now, right before we reveal too many generations at once, let’s wrap up with some Rapid-Fire Q&A here. You ready for it? Fire away. Let’s do it. All right, all right. Let’s get wild. Let’s take you back to Cayman. What was the most like? Pinch me, I’m in paradise. Moment you had in Cayman.
Jeffrey Gabriel 40:34
I mean, the beach there, Seven Mile Beach, is absolutely unbelievable, and when you walk out to it just like white sand and the clear water. But what’s really interesting about that place is different than probably anywhere else on Earth that I’ve been to is even though there’s a massive amount of money there, people don’t really flaunt it as much as you might think. And I’ve been at a really crappy bar having some drinks on the beach, and it’s not Chili’s, unfortunately, I don’t have that there, but it’s a bummer. But one day I was, I was teasing this guy because he because he was smoking those, like, Capri cigarettes that were really long and skinny. I was, you know, was like, Don’t old ladies smoke those like, what are you doing? You’re a grown man. And I was teasing him. And then he walked away, and someone said, you know, you’re just making fun of I was like, no who? And he goes, Oh, that was the heir of the bazooka gum fortune, your man. And then, like another time, I was at the same place, and these two Russian guys were asking me if I wanted to go play golf with him the next day. But I had to work. I actually had a really busy day, and I said, No, thanks. I’m all set. And it turned out that one of those guys, I think it was the I forgot his last name is a Russian last name, but he is the owner of the nets.
Max Branstetter 41:42
Oh, yeah, he was, he used to be, right, Mikhail Prokhorov, yes, I think that was it. Who was famous? I mean, people, yeah, he was well known, and, like, a big splash when he came in the league. But I just remember that, you know, Bill Simmons from then, ESPN at the time, always called him mutant, Russian mark, Cuban.
Jeffrey Gabriel 42:03
He was nice to me. He was but someone told me when he left, that’s who you said no to. And,
Max Branstetter 42:09
wow, you meet a lot of personalities, yeah. So it’s an interesting place. Definitely living there.
Max Branstetter 42:16
I’ve got a friend whose family used to have a place there, and I was fortunate enough to go to one vacation there. I completely like the white sand beaches combined with that crystal clear water there. I think it might be the nicest beaches I’ve ever seen, like they were just gorgeous. But you’re right. It doesn’t, maybe, because it’s a little farther away, I don’t know, it doesn’t get talked about quite as much as some of those other areas, but it’s, it’s awesome, so cool. Well, we could talk about Cayman all day. You could tell I’m very rapid with my rapid fire, yeah, what is a one line sales tip you had you’ve learned from your sales
Jeffrey Gabriel 42:46
career, one line sales tip so any budding salesperson, or to any grizzled old man like me, for
Max Branstetter 42:51
anybody, you take that grizzled young man, but go ahead, grizzled young man,
Jeffrey Gabriel 42:55
yeah, honestly, I would say, know your product, all right, and what that means. And I’ll go in a little more detail real quick, and we’ll go on. The next question is, when I say, know your product, know your product, know everything that supports it, know all the vendors around it, and know everything you can about it. And if you do that, and you spend the time, you are prepared for every possibility that you’re going to hear, and what a great salesperson does is they solve problems, they don’t sell. And so if you can help people solve problems and attribute it to things that are going to happen next, or understand the problems that people are having, you can definitely find solutions, and they will buy them from you because of that, and then they’ll refer their friends to you. I don’t think you need to read sales books practice or do all these things and have like, the tooth that goes ding, and all that bullshit that people kind of associate with, slimy sales people, I really think if you really immerse yourself in your product, in your industry and what’s going on, you will immediately have a leg up, and you’ll be in good shape as a salesperson. And I don’t think many people do that, be honest.
Max Branstetter 44:02
Well, that was fantastic and profound, and I’m gonna ruin it with this next question. You mentioned Worcester? Worcester? Yeah, yeah. I, well, I already, you know, didn’t pronounce it the native New England way, but has an interesting spelling if you’re not familiar with that area. What happens in in Worcester? What happens there, if you were to pronounce all the letters there, like, what do they do to
Jeffrey Gabriel 44:27
you? Warchester? You get corrected, of course, quite
Max Branstetter 44:32
quickly. We should have done this whole interview. If that’s your natural voice, we should have done this whole interview. Yeah, it’s an AI filter. No, that’s that spelling always tripped me up. I just imagine you get some bad dirty looks if you if you pronounce it Worchester. And the last one I heard from a little birdie that you’ve been to the Playboy Mansion before. Oh, wow. What’s something most people would be shocked to hear about. What the Playboy Mansion is actually like. It’s
Jeffrey Gabriel 44:54
actually not as big as people think it is, and it’s not as big as it looks on TV. And. I know, when I, when I got there, I was a little disappointed. I mean, it was, that’s it, like, as big as I thought it was going to be, you know, there was some interesting parts of it that were pretty cool. And the grotto is not very big either. You know, you’d think that that would be the case, but, like, I guess that would be the thing, and it’s nice, but I just thought it was going to be, like, massive, that’s what I thought.
Max Branstetter 45:25
Yeah, well, they’ll have to call it the Playboy Apartment, or the Playboy Condo, yeah, you know,
Jeffrey Gabriel 45:32
you see it on, I don’t know, I’ve seen it’s been a bunch of shows in movies and stuff like that, curb, yeah, entourage, that whole thing in that area, and I’ve seen where the scene was filmed, and it just looks so much bigger, and it just isn’t, it isn’t that that big.
Max Branstetter 45:46
Ah, well, on that heart wrenching note, thanks so much, Jeff,
Jeffrey Gabriel 45:51
Jeff, there’s other things that are really big there, but not that
Max Branstetter 45:56
Bazinga! As Sheldon Cooper says, well, thanks so much, Jeff, Jeffrey, for coming on, sharing your wild stories on wild stories and a lot about the domain name business. I think it’s really, really fun and cool. And you’re you’ve built, in our building, a really inspiring business. So thanks for taking the time. I know if people want to find out more, they can connect with you on LinkedIn, or they can go to saw.com that’s saw.com anything else that you want to shout out? Any other CTA you got?
Jeffrey Gabriel 46:24
Yeah, I mean, I know you, you focus on a lot of different entrepreneurs. If you have questions, being a guest on here, you know, if you want to email buzz, b, u, z, z, at S, A, w.com, about hey, you know, I’m thinking of this or that. Maybe we’ll give you some, you know, give you some free advice if that’s what you need, if you’re on the fence about something happy to help that would go directly to myself and my assistant, Vlad, so we’ll certainly be there to help
Max Branstetter 46:48
you. Perfect. I appreciate that. And Buzz Lightyear will get hit up as well. Yeah, exactly. Thanks again, Jeff. Last thing, final thoughts, just literally one line could be words to live by. It could be something else in your mass accent, whatever you want, whatever you want, send us home here.
Jeffrey Gabriel 47:04
Giddy up!
Max Branstetter 47:09
We watched Good Will Hunting in between the recording of this interview and the production of this episode, so I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence or not, but giddy up. Thank you so much, Jeff, for coming on Wild Business Growth, sharing your Wild stories and Wild domain names, and thank you, Wild Listeners, for tuning in to another episode. If you want to hear more Wild stories like this one, make sure to Follow or Subscribe to Wild Business Growth on your favorite podcast platform and subscribe on YouTube for the video versions. YouTube is @MaxBranstetter, you can find all things about the podcast, about me, about the Podcasting to the Max newsletter at MaxPodcasting.com and until next time, Let your business Run Wild…Bring on the Bongos!!
