The first time I met George Verdugo — a long-time domain investor and developer, and entrepreneur of dotMediaBrands.com, he was sharing an interesting story at MERGE! about how his course of action regarding the development of multilingual domains, specifically Spanish Domains.

It’s been a while since I shared a domain sale experience. The reason I’m highlighting today’s story is based on my latest experience selling a domain to a buyer that’s likely a Chinese domain investor.

How do I know that the domain buyer is a Chinese domain investor? I don’t know with great certainty, but it’s highly likely based on what I’m about to share with you.

I’m glad to report a few months into 2018 that I’ve been blessed with an influx of favorable domain inquiries. In fact, most of my sales started last November.

However, this specific domain request arrived a few weeks ago and intrigued me because of the following reasons:

NamesCon has concluded with yet another successful year as I type this recap of Day Three (more to come).

If you’ve missed Day’s One and Two Recaps, then please click below to explore my NamesCon experience:

Day One of NamesCon 2018 in the Books

Day Two at NamesCon: Domaining to the Future.

It’s the start of Day Three of NamesCon, the halfway point. In a city that never sleeps, I find myself a few steps slow.

I receive a fair amount of weekly emails from people across the world attempting to sell me on their greatest gem of a domain and how it’ll change my life forever.

Not too often, one of these emails will be legit. Most recently, the email offers have been hyphenated, multi-word, wrong tense, wrong order if any order domains.

Case in point, the following emails just today and yesterday:

• Furniturez.biz
• Downloadz-empire.net
• Downloader-manger.org
• SafeCab.net
• Villerealestate.com
• TheTermInsurance.com
• ACarRepair.com

Most of these reach the spam bin if not already in there to begin with. But then there are a few legitimate domain sales emails that catch my eye.

The one I’m referencing today that caught my did for a number of reasons.

I often field emails and phone calls from persons wanting to break into the vast world of domain investing.

Some think it’s a business where they’ll be the ones to purchase a domain on Monday for pennies on the dollar and then flip it for thousands or millions by Friday.

I call this person the simpleton domain loser. Yes, I was once this person.

Without adequate understanding and comprehension of the various domain niches, they think it is just as simple as hand registering domains or bidding up expired domain auctions.

If you want to lose money quickly, then domain investing is one of many ways to lose your job, shirt, house, and car.

Domain investing is a precise game of patience and a thorough understanding of supply and demand economics.

So, where did I go wrong?

Over the last few weeks, Rick Schwartz has fallen beyond head over heels in love with Twitter.

While his blog has long been silent without new posts, there is no commentary shortage via his @DomainKing Twitter account.

Of course, I follow Rick’s antics, thoughts, spats, and other rare dispositions relating to business and domaining. The following tweet captured my attention and spawned this very post.

As I delve into the commentary of replies and rebuttals from Rick’s statement, I come across an intriguing back-and-forth between Rick and Elliot Silver (@DInvesting / DomainInvesting.com).

@DomainKing @thedomains In the last 10 years, how many times have you bought a $2,500 domain name and turned down or sold for $100k+ cash?

— Elliot Silver (@DInvesting) March 27, 2017

Elliot’s question got me thinking about what it would be like to have no domain investing experience and start from ground zero today.

After all, all the good domains are taken, right? I mean, is it possible to purchase domains at hand-registration fee or up to $2,500 and sell the domains for $100K+?

The short answers are “No” and “Yes” respectively.

It is possible to purchase domains at hand-registration fee or up to $2,500 TODAY and sell the domains for $100K+ DECADES later.

But how and how can you make such a claim?  Well, that’s what we’re here to debate.

About 5-6 years ago, I agreed to work with a gentleman here in Austin to develop a website. For my time in developing the website and since he owned the domain, we agreed to split the advertising revenue.

At the end of our 2-year agreement, the same gentleman had a fallen out with mutual business partners about another website we operated. It was a pretty bad fallen out too, involving legal and lawsuits.

Allegedly, this gentleman had possession of a domain that was personally not his. He forced the company to purchase another domain name because he held the old name ransom.

Well, some time passed and cooler heads prevailed. The old domain was transferred to the company after some tough negotiations.

Not too long after this, I approached the gentleman with an offer about buying the domain that I had developed a website for years prior.

The domain was no longer being used, so I thought I had a decent shot at getting the domain at a reasonable price.