Vaxis, Saggydimes & BenFranklin- Intel Needed!!

[sker]

Requesting all our spies and intelligent officer and stampede victims of Vaxis, Saggydimes & BenFranklin(VSB) to feed in infos.

Can anyone tell me who are Vaxis, Saggydimes & BenFranklin? With who are they working for? Private investors? buydomains? or etc?

I wonder how are they manage to gather infos on these top names and bid till last drop of their sweat. No small time domainers able to defend their grounds when "VSB" are walking into their terrain.

 

[snoop]

You got to be on the right time and the right place. Sex.com was created for free during early days,that doesn't mean new comers who were just 15 that time are stupid. Some domainers might have good portfolio of names but their geographic location can be a major deterrent from being spotted by the American VCs'.

VSB are backed by VCs & private equity companies. they have the deepest pocket in the industry.

so perhaps you can tell us the "VCs & private equity companies" backing vertical axis and name administration? buydomains is in a different situation as they were bought out. The fact is most of the big players of today started out very small and late in terms of the timeframe you are talking about (very late 90's on).

 

[sker]

so perhaps you can tell us the "VCs & private equity companies" backing vertical axis and name administration? buydomains is in a different situation as they were bought out. The fact is most of the big players of today started out very small and late in terms of the timeframe you are talking about (very late 90's on).

I do apologise because i can't find any information about BenFranklin & Vaxis are related with VCs & Private Equity Firms.
Speaking about BuyDomains, i don't know when they started & how they became big but what i know they have classic names & priceless virtual estates. They certainly backed by private equity firm.

That's why i said, its only the desire we need to be like them.

Since you've proven me wrong, i wonder if you knew about them and their companies. Probably you could share some knowledge here. How did buydomains grow so big? and how Vaxis & BenFranklin manage to bankroll huge Ca$h for their acquisation?
PPC money aint enough for them to acquire such names since some the names aren't very likely to have high type-in traffic and not all the names are paying Poker/Casino like PPCs payouts.

I would love to hear your insight. I would appreciate you generosity.

V

 

[snoop]

PPC money aint enough for them to acquire such names since some the names aren't very likely to have high type-in traffic and not all the names are paying Poker/Casino like PPCs payouts.

V

That is exactly how they did it, buying names with traffic, buydomains is on the other side of the spectrun, a business built largely on domain sales.

 

[bobdigital]

Sometimes they get kick ass names for cheap because no one else tries to outbid them.

 

[Keynes]

This is an interesting thread, although the "debate" is a bit off course -- succeeding in the industry is at the margin, not in an absolute sense: earning a consistent profit over a specific time horizon, within your budget, is the key to the business model. Scaling horizontally and vertically certainly create economies of scale which beneift larger holders, but this doesn't preclude independents from success; rather, the potential for success must be found in new and innovative ways. Buying a prime .com generic or LLL.com is a sure-fire strategy, but there are many others outside of premiums and strong PPC names -- targeting the market commercial nature of the industry is key. You can get price real estate in Manhattan for a new store, or you can open a great series of shops in other parts of the city -- either way, success depends on meeting market needs broadly considered (and ultimately tied to driving leads.) Fear not the big guys -- they are in their own element of the industry, they hold up the top end, and many of us can fill nice gaps in the middle, as this is the most dynamic commercial market anyone has ever seen.

 

[Lasher]

y hold up the top end, and many of us can fill nice gaps in the middle, as this is the most dynamic commercial market anyone has ever seen.

If these big companies fail, it does not bode well for any of us. If they do nicely, it will attract more money to the industry. A time will come where the quality in drops, in any sufficient quantity, just isn't there anymore. With lowering quality in drops and more demand due to money coming into the industry, who will they look to for nice mid-tier domains? Domain holders of course - us!

Be nice to the big guys today, because they may be your biggest customers tomorrow.

 

[gazzip]

Be nice to the big guys today, because they may be your biggest customers tomorrow.

That would be nice but I don't think the good names are going to run out anytime soon :hehe:

I have noticed Vaxis does'nt tend to bid anywhere near as high as he did - the last one I saw him get was NinjaGames_com for 2,200

Bonkers still seems to be pretty keen but was'nt sucessfull trying to get jibs_com ! That was a helluva sale eh !

.

 

[Aggro]

I have noticed Vaxis does'nt tend to bid anywhere near as high as he did - the last one I saw him get was NinjaGames_com for 2,200

.

Eventually when the rubber meets the road there will be a time when buying a bunch of mediocre/crap earners ($2-4000 usual) that no "end-user" wants will be ROI dilutive and materially affect profits.
That time is probably about now.
No-one can indefinitely spend money on the above and without seeing diluted profits. Time to rein in the spending.

Domain sales market has stalled compared to the peak.
And as evidenced by Yahoo's warning: advertisers are reining in ad spend = PPC rates going down.

 

[gazzip]

No-one can indefinitely spend money on the above and without seeing diluted profits. Time to rein in the spending.
.

True - I think the type in traffic mentality is well overplayed in alot of cases with these xx,xxx drop names - saying that though, I just noticed that the jibs.com one is an excellent typo for jobs.com - I can't beleive that it did'nt even register with me until now :hehe:

Too many late nights


.

 

[greenlight]

I think that most of the times the traditional,or at least the focus of buying names on message boards like this are missing the real opportunity. I think that the real opportunity in the drops are not from the "traffic names" but instead are in the generic names and the brandable ones.

The problem with traffic names is that they die a slow death, this is not a good investment. A good investment appreciates in time and produces increasing income. I am not saying that traffic names are not a good strategy, but you need to separate out what is an income producer and a good money maker vs. what is an investment.

It is the same as real esate, some people (like myself) buy and fix houses and then sell them: but this is not investing and it will not make you wealthy. All it does (like traffic names) is allow you to earn a high income. In order to get the true wealth in real estate and now domains is not to buy a bunch of traffic names, but to accumulate names that will appreciate exponentially, and hold on to them and lease them out.

Now the advantage of buying and earning your income off traffic names, internet, web developement is that it allows you to become an expert in your investing field, so that you are able to combine your income/job expertise into investment savy, which is extremely valuable/priceless in a field that rewards education and market understanding.

Right now the way I see it, you are lucky that you are able to actually identify the screen names that are bidding regularly and have deep pockets, because i promise you that there is not another market that comes close to the smallness that domains enjoy right now.

If you think domains have reached their peak or have become too expensive, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Bottom line, stop concentrating on the traffic value of names, because the real value is in the name.

Thanks for your time

Scott

 

[Kate]

I like what you say Scott. It's not sound having a portfolio made up of high traffic names only because traffic can decrease or die (unless it is pure type-in).
Diversification is the key. Having a mix of brandable names, generic keywords and traffic domains means you are also diversifying risk and sources of income.
Unless you are selling on a regular basis or develop domains into profitable sites you need money to support your names (annual reg fee, hosting etc). It's nice having a bunch of traffic domains that bring revenue to support the reg fee of other names.
I fully agree with you that the opportunity in the drops lies in the potential of the names themselves. And there are still good names available, nice domains dropping every day despite what people may think. I myself grab a lot of these from the drop lists (hence my user title )
I think that monetizing traffic and moving on to acquiring strong names is the way to go ie migrating from a traffic-based portfolio to a quality-based portfolio.
I just hope that the people operating the drop registrars (or those using them) will take notice. I don't know about their long-term strategy but IMO they are not silly and they will pursue this route
After all you need money to make more money

 

[Lasher]

I agree, for me personally I've had a lot of fun in the last 6 months buying names, but now it is time to focus more on marketing and development (and culling the herd to get rid of my newbie mistakes). There is always more to learn, but in terms of finding domains to buy, writing tools to help me, finding the right places to backorder the right extensions etc I think I am well into diminishing returns from what I can learn with further domain reseach, and, researching the information to populate some of my to-be-developed sites with fresh content will be fun too.

Some domains however (such as LLL.us, biz and info) I don't plan to do a whole lot with besides renew them for 5 years for 'forget' about them. Just waiting for the right promotion to come along for such a big renewal/transfer spend.

There will always be drops I agree, but logically, the quality of them is going to reduce over time the more people are out there buying them.

 

[fonzie_007]

Kate, I disagree somewhat. Diversification can be a good thing, but there is also something to be said for cornering an entire (or large part of a) market.