sales Mike Mann Sells a Three Word .COM for $40,000

One of our favorite investors, Mike Mann, has racked up yet another five-figure sale. Following on from the sales of AnimalsUnited.com for $39,000 and GotBoobs.com for $15,000 is this latest $40,000 sale of a three-word .COM.

The news of the sale was broken by Mike via his Twitter account, where he also shared his acquisition date and price.

According to the tweet, Mike bought the domain name TheGoodWord.com back in 2005 for $350, and after holding it for 11 years, he has sold it for a phenomenal profit.

Turning a $350 acquisition into a $40,000 sale isn't an easy feat, especially for a three-word .COM domain, but Mike seems to be able to produce these sales on a regular basis. As he owns a portfolio of 250,000 names, selling high is a prerequisite for maintaining a large portfolio.

As ever with Mike's sales, the buyer is yet to be revealed. There are no immediate clues as to who the buyer is.

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

I enjoy reading your post.
All makes sense in every way you put it. Most likely.

I wonder the cost of his operations compare to $40K sales in one domain.

Anyone tracking all past sales and the new owner? Just curious.

I guarantee you his "Operation" is mostly situated in Mumbai or any other country where workers work for pennies.

Sorry India! It's the truth! hey at least Mike is helping some tech guy over there to feed his family.

Don't always assume that a Big boy like Mike pays TOP "Dollar" for his Operation ( More like Rupees). He seems like a smart guy and the SMART always OUTSOURCE.

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

I enjoy reading your post.
All makes sense in every way you put it. Most likely.

I wonder the cost of his operations compare to $40K sales in one domain.

Anyone tracking all past sales and the new owner? Just curious.

Thanks! and see? already the "Curiousity" has begun. lol as for his cost of operations read above.

I for one plan to try this Mike Mann Method soon. All you need is a "Got Rich Domaining" Story where a domainer shows proof he bought a domain for $10 and then sold it for $350.

Is it really a surprise that everytime he makes a sale he always "mentions" it? except for the ones he can't like the ones with a NDA.

Anyways. I'm a newbie and this was just an observation.

It's all about the HYPE. The HYPE is self perpetuating and in the process Domains get sold. Period.

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

9 out of 10 times a company that would pay 50k or 500k dont even want it out there that they bought the domain. Companies that spend big money on domain names ,dont want it out there that they had the buy their Brand,and the publicity that the domain would bring would not help the company in any way,no one cares that someone paid 40k for a domain name ,to the mainstream public ,thats like saying someone won a 50k lotto prize.

I see what you are saying about companies buying domains that their business will "sit" on basically. of course they wouldn't want to post how much they paid.

for example the sale of IOE.com by Cisco. real ninja stuff. you can't find out how much was paid for it. it's not listed anywhere. but I think it just makes people more curious as to how much it could have been sold for especially since the buyer was Cisco.

and then people will talk even more about it. speculating and investigating and asking forums and name dropping the domain. thereby volunteering to promote the domain.

Again Hype is self perpetuating.

 

[ivey]

Yes AGREED. But at some point in the beginning Mike was ONE OF US. just barely keeping afloat with this itchy "hobby" of ours. I think his big sales had to have been made using the technique I mentioned. perfected over time.

Not everyone starts like us.. some people got in at the right time in the 90's to early 2000's and became millionaires overnight. Not sure if Mann started like that though...

 

[Branded Domains]

wow nice sale...buyer must be an enduser

 

[ben pedri]

I see what you are saying about companies buying domains that their business will "sit" on basically. of course they wouldn't want to post how much they paid.

for example the sale of IOE.com by Cisco. real ninja stuff.



ok wait a minute. aren't there domains that sold. for millions where yes the buyer was kept private? yet does it change the fact that the huge price tag will be tag will be talked about in the forums and the news channels for weeks months and years to come?

are you saying that simply because the buyer wants to remain anonymous that the domain won't get the publicity anyway and get GOLD backlinks in all the high ranking websites? I know you know this is not the case. Quite thee opposite.

IN FACT. Let's put it to a VOTE. Who here would not be even MORE INTRIGUED about a domain especially if the buyer wants to remain ANONYMOUS? Again there is NO SUCH THING as BAD PUBLICITY.

Anonymous BUYER?

You'll have people talking about this FOREVER. people will even play a sort of GAME of trying to figure out who the buyer might be.

I've seen it happen plenty of times in the short span of time I've been on NP.

Anonymous Domain Buyer = Intrigue + Gossip + Conspiracy Theories (LOL) etc etc = FREE PUBLICITY

Jealous domainers or fans of Mike or other gurus who hero worship ( like I do) will VOLUNTEER to chatter about the sale of BLAHBLAHBLAH.COM.

I really so no DOWNSIDE for the domain buyer.

YES TRUE. A good domain is good domain. It sounds good. It's aged Good. Great metrics. yadda yadda yadda.

but most domain buyers DON'T GET IT like WE DO who live and breathe this stuff.

Domain buyers are SIMPLE MINDED.

"I give you $40G's? and I can double and triple it's value in a couple of weeks?"

"Where do I sign and send the check?"[/Q
Do you think what anything anybody does here including myself is looked upon as great and people think wow these guy are the bomb. we are actually all holding domains waiting for someone to want ours or theirs that they may have dropped and now where gonna make them pay.Thats what 90% of what is going on here. The total gdp or I should say total world of all aftermarket domaining is probably less than what mcdonalds does in a small city in the US. ,,When the average person hears the name godaddy they think of HOOTERS.

 

[ben pedri]

hey avtar ,Do you think what anything anybody does here including myself is looked upon as great and people think wow these guy are the bomb. we are actually all holding domains waiting for someone to want ours or theirs that they may have dropped and now where gonna make them pay.Thats what 90% of what is going on here. The total gdp or I should say total world of all aftermarket domaining is probably less than what mcdonalds does in a small city in the US. ,,When the average person hears the name godaddy they think of HOOTERS.

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

?

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

hey avtar ,Do you think what anything anybody does here including myself is looked upon as great and people think wow these guy are the bomb. we are actually all holding domains waiting for someone to want ours or theirs that they may have dropped and now where gonna make them pay.Thats what 90% of what is going on here. The total gdp or I should say total world of all aftermarket domaining is probably less than what mcdonalds does in a small city in the US. ,,When the average person hears the name godaddy they think of HOOTERS.

lol Hooters.com! Speaking of which??!? Hooters.com? No listed sale! Amazing! anyways AGREED Ben!

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

wow nice sale...buyer must be an enduser

Yup. I told my GF and her first thought that it has a Bible "feel" to it. perhaps a Christian or Jehovah or Born Again Enduser?

 

[namerav]

Good domain for inspirational sites.

 

[hookbox]

Mike Mann. The Domain Rockstar!

 

[Casey L]

Yes AGREED. But at some point in the beginning Mike was ONE OF US. just barely keeping afloat with this itchy "hobby" of ours. I think his big sales had to have been made using the technique I mentioned. perfected over time.

Mike Mann started investing in domain names in the 90s, which is infinitely different than it is to start today. People who entered the business back are like Rockefeller and Carnegie in terms of massive wealth creation and kick-starting new markets. People starting today, unless they have a ton of money, will have a much tougher and longer road to comparable prosperity

 

[Sumit Agrawal]

Now I wonder, if it was price of the domain or price of seller's reputation!

 

[Bram C.]

Amazing sale no doubt.

Keep in mind he has a unique or different business model than most posting on namepros. His overhead is probably in the millions when you include renewals (10s of thousands of domains), cost of labor, and marketing/misc business costs for DomainMarket. Relatively good domains with a shotgun approach....and he waits for end user prices (even it that takes 10 years). He has the the capacity and wants to wait for these price. He probably needs a few of these a year to cover his costs alone.

Just food for thought.

Indeed. A lot of people here seem to think he sold that domain for $40K and thus made a huge profit. That's simply not true. Awesome ROI doesn't equal awesome profit unless of course that was your only domain in your portfolio and you manage to sell it. I'm sure that most of the money from his sales go to renew his 264,232 domains that he currently has in his portfolio that didn't sell. That's more than $2 million he pays for renewals, every year. He needs around 55 similar sales per year simply to break even.

A good question here would be "What are his yearly costs for renewals, new domain acquisitions, marketing costs and cost of labor compared to his yearly domain sales?". I'm sure his business model works (buy tons of domains for a low price and try to sell a couple for an extremely high price) or he wouldn't be able to continue doing it but the real question here is "how good?". In the end it's not a business model most of us will ever be able to try unless you have at least a million bucks laying around.

 

[Bean]

OMG!!! Wow a portfolio of 250,000 names???
The mind boggling renewal fees aside how is that even possible?? Is he just one guy or has he got a whole team supporting him?? I get a headache from managing just over 100 names lol

 

[Atta]

Great ROI!

 

[Paul123]

GotBoobs.com for $15,000

I'm in.

Best,
Paul

 

[doubleU]

Astonishing price for a 3 word domain, what most domainers here would have gladly parted for low $x,xxx or even less or even drop it.

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

Indeed. A lot of people here seem to think he sold that domain for $40K and thus made a huge profit. That's simply not true. Awesome ROI doesn't equal awesome profit unless of course that was your only domain in your portfolio and you manage to sell it. I'm sure that most of the money from his sales go to renew his 264,232 domains that he currently has in his portfolio that didn't sell. That's more than $2 million he pays for renewals, every year. He needs around 55 similar sales per year simply to break even.

A good question here would be "What are his yearly costs for renewals, new domain acquisitions, marketing costs and cost of labor compared to his yearly domain sales?". I'm sure his business model works (buy tons of domains for a low price and try to sell a couple for an extremely high price) or he wouldn't be able to continue doing it but the real question here is "how good?". In the end it's not a business model most of us will ever be able to try unless you have at least a million bucks laying around.

1. Operations? India.
2. Renewal per dn? .99 cents. Mike Mann probably goes to registrar's and says "ok I need to renew 100,000 .coms today. Who is going to give me a 99 cent coupon?for us ? We have to wait for stupid coupons and jump thru hoops. He had what's called buying superstar power. With concierge I bet. What registrar wouldn't want his business? Besides he probably dumps tens of thousands of domains yearly which will need to be auctioned off and the registrar's salivate at the thought of that for their 20% commission.

So I seriously doubt his back end is 2 million plus a year in renewals.

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

1. Operations? India.
2. Renewal per dn? .99 cents. Mike Mann probably goes to registrar's and says "ok I need to renew 100,000 .coms today. Who is going to give me a 99 cent coupon?for us ? We have to wait for stupid coupons and jump thru hoops. He had what's called buying superstar power. With concierge I bet. What registrar wouldn't want his business? Besides he probably dumps tens of thousands of domains yearly which will need to be auctioned off and the registrar's salivate at the thought of that for their 20% commission.

So I seriously doubt his back end is 2 million plus a year in renewals.

This is why the concept of buying after market is pushed heavy by the guru's. They need people to buy their drops.

 

[Bram C.]

1. Operations? India.
2. Renewal per dn? .99 cents. Mike Mann probably goes to registrar's and says "ok I need to renew 100,000 .coms today. Who is going to give me a 99 cent coupon?for us ? We have to wait for stupid coupons and jump thru hoops. He had what's called buying superstar power. With concierge I bet. What registrar wouldn't want his business? Besides he probably dumps tens of thousands of domains yearly which will need to be auctioned off and the registrar's salivate at the thought of that for their 20% commission.

So I seriously doubt his back end is 2 million plus a year in renewals.

1. I have no idea what his operation costs are. Maybe they are cheap, maybe they aren't. It would be wise for him to save money there, yes.

2. I seriously doubt though that enom (it seems that this is his registrar) is giving him unlimited 99 cent .com coupons so he can keep renewing 260,000+ domains at that price, year after year. Sure all registrars would love his business and will give a renewal discount but nobody is going to do this at $1/ .com. The highest renewal discount they will give is the wholesale cost of a .com and that's $8.03/domain ( 7.85 Verisign cost plus $0.18 ICANN fee). They are not going to pay his bill for him just so they can say they have Mike Mann as a client (and lose millions per year in the process).

Edit: As a matter of fact I did a little digging and just found out, from an old interview wiith him, that he's paying, just as I suspected, around $8 per .com renewal. Source: https://www.namepros.com/blog/a-chat-with-domainmarket-com-owner-mike-mann.872063/ . So yeah he's paying more than 2 million per years just to vover his renewals (and that's ignoring the costs for domain acquisitions and his other operation costs).

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

1. I have no idea what his operation costs are. Maybe they are cheap, maybe they aren't. It would be wise for him to save money there, yes.

2. I seriously doubt though that enom (it seems that this is his registrar) is giving him unlimited 99 cent .com coupons so he can keep renewing 260,000+ domains at that price, year after year. Sure all registrars would love his business and will give a renewal discount but nobody is going to do this at $1/ .com. The highest renewal discount they will give is the wholesale cost of a .com and that's $8.03/domain ( 7.85 Verisign cost plus $0.18 ICANN fee). They are not going to pay his bill for him just so they can say they have Mike Mann as a client (and lose millions per year in the process).

Edit: As a matter of fact I did a little digging and just found out, from an old interview wiith him, that he's paying, just as I suspected, around $8 per .com renewal. Source: https://www.namepros.com/blog/a-chat-with-domainmarket-com-owner-mike-mann.872063/ . So yeah he's paying more than 2 million per years just to vover his renewals (and that's ignoring the costs for domain acquisitions and his other operation costs).

Edit? Could this possible just yet another bit of Mythological HYPE if for no other reason to get people talking?

It's like when the greeks would talk about Hercules and his many mythological myths.

as for number 2. I still think they might extend him a huge discount if for no other reason than EVERYONE knows he has a high drop rate probably. and they are chomping at the big to make money from his drops.

does anyone here know how many Drops Mike does a year? I'm sure it's alot. plus his drops aren't 1 year aged but 5-10 + years domains. domains he's been sitting on. so yea maybe he can't find that $10,000 enduser for them. but to the registrar who is lucky enough to have him as a customer that year?

They will benefit for his Guaranteed Drops of which they will get some kind of commission I'm assuming for the transaction maybe the transfer? assuming of course if Enom has a marketplace like Godaddy or Sedo or a service like Escrow.com?

 

[Bram C.]

Edit? Could this possible just yet another bit of Mythological HYPE if for no other reason to get people talking?

There were no secret intentions for me to use that word and I think we both know you would have responded whether or not I typed "Edit" anyways

as for number 2. I still think they might extend him a huge discount if for no other reason than EVERYONE knows he has a high drop rate probably. and they are chomping at the big to make money from his drops.

does anyone here know how many Drops Mike does a year? I'm sure it's alot. plus his drops aren't 1 year aged but 5-10 + years domains. domains he's been sitting on. so yea maybe he can't find that $10,000 enduser for them. but to the registrar who is lucky enough to have him as a customer that year?

They will benefit for his Guaranteed Drops of which they will get some kind of commission I'm assuming for the transaction maybe the transfer? assuming of course if Enom has a marketplace like Godaddy or Sedo or a service like Escrow.com?

Whether or not Mike drops a lot of his domains and whether or not he gets some additional discounts that nobody knows about are only guesses at this point.

What is clear however is that his business model costs millions/year. I think it's safe to assume it's profitable or he wouldn't continue with it.

 

[WhoaDomain.com]

There were no secret intentions for me to use that word and I think we both know you would have responded whether or not I typed "Edit" anyways



Whether or not Mike drops a lot of his domains and whether or not he gets some additional discounts that nobody knows about are only guesses at this point.

What is clear however is that his business model costs millions/year. I think it's safe to assume it's profitable or he wouldn't continue with it.

no no my bad. I just referenced the word "EDIT?" with question mark to let you know which I one I was responding too. I was being lazy. lol

There were no secret intentions for me to use that word and I think we both know you would have responded whether or not I typed "Edit" anyways



Whether or not Mike drops a lot of his domains and whether or not he gets some additional discounts that nobody knows about are only guesses at this point.

What is clear however is that his business model costs millions/year. I think it's safe to assume it's profitable or he wouldn't continue with it.

AGREED! I'm a big huge fan myself (and hope to replicate his success. actually in the process of gaining a "Name" for myself like he did. either Good or bad publicity or notoriety.)as I'm sure most are too.