Thank you!
Since you are focused on brandables, how many of your names are listed at brandable marketplaces (like BB, SH)? Could you share your experience with them?
None currently. I have had near 800 at one point with BrandBucket, Brandpa and SquadHelp. They all start great and then degrade into mediocre results. Given their high commission, they need to deliver 2%+ STR consistently, which they don't for absolute majority of sellers. I also disliked that they position themselves as branding authority deciding if a name is good or bad with no real science behind. And they have added a lot of confusion into minds of investors thinking that if the name is approved it is good one and if not, then they should drop or not register it. Plus, listing with them is time consuming and requires lots of efforts, while there are no approvals, descriptions, fees etc. to list with Afternic, Sedo, Dan.
And, in the case of SH, I believe they stepped over the line with demands to increase my pricing at Afternic for listed names and start penalizing my listings if I didn't. Basically, all that screams "unreliable" to me. If I am investing 6-7 figures into this business, I can't rely on capriciousness of a third party, their antics and dwindling performance.
What is your current median cost of 1 domain acquisition?
I think I already mentioned this. Basically, currently I invest into a) liquid names that I buy at auctions, forums, groups with a median cost of low-mid $xxx or b) illiquid names that I buy at closeouts for low $xx.
Ideally, I'd like to balance 50%/50% in money terms between them, but currently I'd say 85%+ goes towards b). As my acquisition budget goes up, eventually I will take back to 50%/50%. This will make the portfolio more robust, as the renewals then won't be as high as 40%-50% of post-commission revenue.
In general, category b) is currently more profitable, but also more risky due to high % revenue going towards renewals. It also requires way higher skills, as identifying good ones is not as straightforward as with a) category. You can't easily rely on extensions regged or gauge by the interest from other bidders in the auctions.
How many names you handregged recently (including post-drop reg)?
Not more than a dozen in the past year I think. Overall, I'd say only around 0.1% of all my names are hand registered.
What is your criteria for an investment-grade brandable name? May you share some metrics you use?
This is, no doubt, the one million dollar question. I define investment-grade name as the one where if you could categorize and collect 1000 similar names you'd be selling enough in a year to cover your renewal costs and provide sufficient return on your investment (above the opportunity cost for the given level of risk).
As you can see with this definition, it is already not easy. One would need to have large enough portfolio, have ability to slice and dice according to various parameters for the types of names even within the brandable niche (albeit I disagree with this definition of brandable. Imo, even dictionary word names are brandables if they can be used as a brand) and then carry out proper data analysis to understand, learn and then apply to buying criteria.
Interestingly, you can see "investment-grade" being used a lot lately with no clear understanding what it entails. Most use it as another word for a "liquid" name.
-4, Huh? 
