discuss What defines a "liquid" brandable?

[Beezy]

"Brandables" made up words or even two made up words are in no shape manner or form an "investment" they are a lotto ticket-nothing else. Buying a NNN or LLL.com is an investment. If your made up name doesn't sell on BB or one of its competitors-go try to sell it and see what happens. You will never sell them consistently outside of BB or a company like BB-thus they are not an investment.

So I saw this post in the Brandbucket Experience thread by @London555, and I wanted to respond but it seems off-topic, as my question has very little to do with BrandBucket and is about investing in brandables in general.

I have to disagree with this poster. Every day I see brandable names sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars on Namejet, Dropcatch, Flippa and Godaddy. (check namebio) Heck, I've bought some myself for over $1k and I've received offers in the ballpark of what I paid.

There ARE liquid brandables that people invest in.

But how do you define these?

If you look at 5L's over $500 on namebio, for example, you'll see the number of pronounceable 5L.com's selling for that are increasing by the month.

Is this a foolish place to put your money, or one of the best places to see 10x-20x returns if you really know what you're doing?

Shout out to @dv82. http://dngeek.com is THE resource on brandables right now.

- Bobby

 

[ApeXX]

He's absolutely incorrect. Brandables, like anything, can be an investment. As I said in the thread lotto ticket implies the domain has no intrinsic value, which is not true unless you're buying very poor domains.

 

[Nick]

He's absolutely incorrect. Brandables, like anything, can be an investment. As I said in the thread lotto ticket implies the domain has no intrinsic value, which is not true unless you're buying very poor domains.

I agree. Earlier this year I registered a 5L .COM, made up of all consonants, that I was going to use for a startup. Since then, we've renamed the startup to something completely different. Someone recently, foolishly, decided to use these 5 letters as their trademark. This domain went from barely worth reg fee, to worth thousands.

 

[equity78]

I believe they can be valuable, but liquidity is another story. You can't just list any good 5L.com brandable say on Namepros on Flippa or Namepros or contact some people you know and get a consistent value.

3L/3N, 4L/4N and even 5N have buyers everywhere, may not be your ultimate asking price, but if someone lists an LLL.com they are getting several offers in the thousands of dollars, brandables can take years to get any interest.

Perfect example would be I have listed 5L.com pronounceable domains on forums that received 0 interest that I went on to later sell in $500 to $2,500 range, with a liquid value someone would have offered something like they would for a 4L.com no vowels plus v right now.

 

[biggie]

brandables are not liquid, because they are not clearly defined.

only domains that are real words which can be branded are liquid.

any crap that isn't properly spelled, can be called brandable by someone who doesn't know better... simply because they don't know what else to call it.


randomly made-up words or abbreviations or shorten words with letters missing or extra letter as prefix or suffix, are all one-off sales.

they are all lottery tickets. and yes, people do win the lottery on occasion, but more people "don't than do".
BB and others are just places that sell high priced lottery tickets that you have to do more than scratch, after you buy one.

a domain that is a real word, can also be branded, but it is not a brandable domain as such.


ie:
kayak.com > real word, but branded for a search engine
dice.com > real word, but branded for job search
indeed.com > "" ""
yahoo > not a real word initially, but branded and became one, for a SE

imo....

 

[Beezy]

I believe they can be valuable, but liquidity is another story. You can't just list any good 5L.com brandable say on Namepros on Flippa or Namepros or contact some people you know and get a consistent value.

3L/3N, 4L/4N and even 5N have buyers everywhere, may not be your ultimate asking price, but if someone lists an LLL.com they are getting several offers in the thousands of dollars, brandables can take years to get any interest.

Perfect example would be I have listed 5L.com pronounceable domains on forums that received 0 interest that I went on to later sell in $500 to $2,500 range, with a liquid value someone would have offered something like they would for a 4L.com no vowels plus v right now.

But, for example, if I look at your daily godaddy list, there are brandables on there. You are pointing them out because they have investment value.

Same with DomainShane's list.

 

[equity78]

But, for example, if I look at your daily godaddy list, there are brandables on there. You are pointing them out because they have investment value.

Same with DomainShane's list.

Right I am not saying there is no value, I was just talking about the liquid aspect, that we can't just take one and put it out there and get a bunch of offers for more than just a couple bucks. I had a name Xqqm.com I had no problem getting plenty of $250 to $300 offers, I can't get that on Cloudaco.com right now, though plenty of people liked the name or in private said nice name.

 

[hookbox]

The only brandables that are truly liquid are pronounceable 4Ls. You can always find a buyer for them.

I have had names listed here on Namepros where I couldn't even get a $25 offer but while it is sitting here for sale on this forum it sells on a Godaddy listing for $2,500. You just never know who wants it and when so you can't base the value on liquidity to other domainers because it so subjective.

The other problem is that brandables are so easy to come up with that there is no reason for me to buy yours when I can fire up the name generator and make 10 exceptional ones in an hour or two. Brandables will only be liquid if they are either 4Ls or exceptional names. Really good 5Ls are liquid to some but 6Ls are a dime a dozen and aren't worth crap. I listed here once the 5L S T A K K which didn't even get an offer over a couple hundred bucks but I sold it 3 months later for $4,500.

To base your investment off the liquidity to other domainers is a waste of time. If you want liquidity stay away from brandables because the domainer market is a lot smaller for brandable domains which in turn creates lower liquidity values even if they are good names. I would say that for every 10 domainers maybe 1 likes brandables so you can see how hard it would be to put a liquid value on such a small domainer to domainer market.

 

[Doron Vermaat]

Thanks for the shoutout Bobby. Happy to hear ppl appreciate the blog. With regards to the topic. I also fully disagree with the comment that brandables aren't a real investment and just lottery tickets. I actually responded to that statement here.

As @hookbox and @equity78 already pointed out it is still difficult to quickly liquidate a brandable compared to a 3 or 4 L .com, a one word dictionary keyword .com or the numeric domains. That said the times are changing and high quality brandables now sell every day on sites like NameJet with sales prices increasing every month meaning you can choose to liquidate high quality brandables on sites like NameJet or Godaddy auctions or perhaps even here on NP.

IMO two keyword brandables have the highest chance of becoming more liquid with the made up pronouncables less likely unlike they are are very great 5 L ones such as Ambeo or Ehila etc.

 

[Beezy]

I shouldn't have used the word "liquid" in this thread or title, because that's not what I reall meant, but I learned a lot from your responses! Thank you.

 

[Asfas1000]

I shouldn't have used the word "liquid" in this thread or title, because that's not what I reall meant, but I learned a lot from your responses! Thank you.

Right, maybe the wording should be different.

But, in a sense, high quality brandables (for instance, common phrases) are liquid IMO, meaning you can get an offer any day of the week.

 

[hookbox]

High quality brandables will always be liquid but I think there are many definitions as to what someone considers a high quality brandable. Some think that 6L made up pronounceables are considered high quality. Personally I don't think I would ever buy a 6L from anyone because they are so easy to create on your own. 4Ls and 5Ls I would definitely buy if they are good pronounceables. 7 letter and higher completely made up names are again so easy to create that they are not liquid. Compound names are a totally different animal and the good ones are absolutely liquid. I consider liquid brandables to be names like the ones below that have sold in the past. These are the type of names that you can list on a forum and sell on the same day.

YouWish
BuzzBoard
EverSafe
CityLab
Krash
AllDay
EasyBook
Domax
Venzo
Evalu
LeadFoot
BrandBee
GoPlay
LoveHub
SpaceBase
FashionForce
Maxly

 

[equity78]

Thanks for the shoutout Bobby. Happy to hear ppl appreciate the blog. With regards to the topic. I also fully disagree with the comment that brandables aren't a real investment and just lottery tickets. I actually responded to that statement here.

As @hookbox and @equity78 already pointed out it is still difficult to quickly liquidate a brandable compared to a 3 or 4 L .com, a one word dictionary keyword .com or the numeric domains. That said the times are changing and high quality brandables now sell every day on sites like NameJet with sales prices increasing every month meaning you can choose to liquidate high quality brandables on sites like NameJet or Godaddy auctions or perhaps even here on NP.

IMO two keyword brandables have the highest chance of becoming more liquid with the made up pronouncables less likely unlike they are are very great 5 L ones such as Ambeo or Ehila etc.

Agree Doron, another thing that makes M.U.P.S. tough for liquidity is the subjectivity, like the two examples you gave I really like Ambeo but do not like ehila at all. That is always the way, never universal appeal to a M.U.P.

 

[timestamp]

Who wants to take my brandables and liquidate them? $300/name for me, the rest is yours. In 1 month.

 

[DNVantage]

I believe they can be valuable, but liquidity is another story.

brandables are not liquid, because they are not clearly defined.

I shouldn't have used the word "liquid"

Good brandables must be liquid. Liquid gold.

To me brandables are anything but liquid because I have no idea how to make good ones. I am in awe of those you churn them like it is nothing and make 4/5 figures!

I came to this thread due to word liquid, so it was good word

Who wants to take my brandables and liquidate them? $300/name for me

@timestamp, $300!!! next time I will PM you to take mine for $30, I sold my 'brandable', which I had registered for one of my business site but never got around to making a site, for just $17 and dropped another one. so $30 is good