Brandable Names with Mike Navarini

Mike Navarini is a no-nonsense internet entrepreneur from the San Francisco Bay Area. He’s created and run various businesses on and offline since he was a teenager. He’s always been an enterpriser and started his first business, Handy Boys, when he was 8 years old. He believe that anyone with basic computer skills can generate a livable income using the internet.

Sully:  What exactly is Namerific.com and why is it worth discussing?

Michael:  Namerific is a marketplace for premium .Com domains and logo designs that are ready to be used to launch your new company or business, along with products, mobile apps, blogs, websites, and more. We have an awesome and diverse selection of ready-to-use, vetted brand names in dozens of categories. Every brandable domain name comes with a beautiful logo created by top designers. These days, it is difficult to find an available “.Com” domain to register, and we’re here to solve that problem for you. We make naming your new business as quick, easy and affordable as possible!

Sully: As far as brandable names go, how has Namerific.com served you?

Michael:  It’s been great. Personally, I have bought numerous hand-registered domains and then flipped it within a year or within a couple of years for a few thousand dollars, all through Namerific. Also, we have been able to sell various domains for our valued members with good profits over the last couple of years.

Sully:  What type of traffic do you receive?

Michael:  Currently we are receiving about a thousand unique visits per day.  The range varies between I would say a thousand and two thousand a day, but it depends. Sometimes we have spikes. Sometimes we will have a low day, where it is about five hundred individual visitors, but that is basically without any of our paid advertising. That is just all natural traffic coming in through search engines and also domain redirects. So, if someone is typing in a domain that they want to buy and it turns out that that is one of our listed domains, it will redirect you to our site, so the traffic is through that as well.

Sully:  What characteristics go into a quality brandable domain name?

Michael:  A brandable domain is a domain that can be used to ‘brand’ your business.  It will be the first thing that your potential customers see when they interact with your company.  It will be what your customer envisions when they think about your business (name/logo).  Some domains are more brandable than others.  For example, one of our domains, Hoopio.com is very easy to spell, pronounce, and remember; it is also fun to say.  A domain like Huupeo.com has a strange spelling, is confusing to pronounce, and might be difficult to remember because of how awkward it sounds it.

Sully:  What are some of the more notable domain names that you have sold?

Michael:  We have sold names in the 5-figure range to date. We are now looking to sell more premium inventory in the 6-figure range. Our recent acquisition of Projects.com and other inventory, including working with domain sellers with similar inventory, is going to help us reach our goals of selling high value domain real estate.

Sully:  What is your take on the new TLDs in the marketplace?  Worth registering?

Michael:  I think .COM is still king. Even if you did find a really great .IO or .ME, your visitors, your customers are going to ask, “All right, who owns the .COM and why don’t you?” The .COM has been around for so long that everyone kind of considers it  the primary domain, so I think that whatever business you start you should try to have the .COM at the minimum. You could also pick up those other extensions, but you should have the .COM because that shows that you completely own that brand.

Sully:  In your opinion, how do brandable names compare to generic domain names?

Michael:  Generic domains are very expensive, like dictionary words such as Motorcycles.com. Generic domains basically describe a category and also in a way they are not unique. Invented domains on the other hand may perfectly describe your business in a unique way that inform customers and give them insight into what your business is all about.

Sully:  I’ve noticed that the names on your site all have logos associated with them.  How does that work?

Michael:  This is a breakdown of how our system works: when you list your domain name, you actually choose the price that you want to list it at for the actual sale price on the site, the retail price, and then it shows a breakdown of where the proceeds will go when the domain sells. So, a cut of that will go to the logo designer. You can choose to award the logo designer between one hundred and one thousand dollars for their design.

Sully:  What advice do you have for the average domainer looking to sell a name?

Michael:  Try to gain as much knowledge regarding domaining by checking various domain related blogs and forums. In addition, check for latest domain trends as well as domain sales history through Namebio etc. Basically, if you have lots of time to learn stuff but a limited budget, then hand-registering domains is your best bet. Patience is the key, meaning if you have more time than money, focus on hand-registering domain names as there are big profits to be made from these domains.