Domain investing tips, strategies, and industry insights
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I first interviewed Kate Buckley years ago when she was making a name for herself brokering premium domains. Since then she's quietly built something much bigger. The domain brokerage is still there, but Kate has expanded into naming, brand strategy, and growth consulting. She rebranded to Defining.com , and honestly the name tells you everything you need to know about where she's headed.
Nobody gets into this business planning to lose money. They get into it because they saw a screenshot. Some five-figure sale on NamePros. A guy on Twitter talking about a hand-reg he flipped for 50x. A blog post about someone who turned $10 into $15,000. And I get it. I really do. It looks like the most accessible business on the planet. Low overhead, no employees, digital inventory you can buy from your couch at 2am. What's not to like?
I've known Jeffrey Gabriel's name for a while now. If you've been in the domain space for any amount of time, you probably have too. He's the guy who sold Sex.com for $13 million and held the Guinness World Record for the highest .com domain sale. He spent seven years at Uniregistry working under Frank Schilling, contributed to over $550 million in domain transactions, and then in 2019 he walked away from what he calls his dream job to build Saw.com from scratch.
In 2007, John Markus registered local.io thinking it would be a good domain for hosting programming projects. It was just another domain until September 2024, when he turned on a catch-all email address and discovered something most domain investors never see: accidental access to the internal systems of billion-dollar financial institutions, IBM's corporate network, cryptographic handling sites, and secure gitlab repositories.
Some domain investors consider outbound as a moral debate. I consider it a tool. Some names deserve a quiet landing page and patience. Others deserve a short, targeted push. Here is the decision tree I actually use when I'm looking at a domain and deciding: outbound or silence. Step 1: Risk check first Before I get excited, I try to talk myself out of trouble. Any obvious trademark landmines, brand confusion, celebrity names, or "sounds like" a protected brand: silence, or I drop it.
Do you hear it? The quiet after a buyer says no. You refresh your inbox, stare at the thread, and move on to the next thing. That's where money gets left on the table. I'm guilty of it too. For years I'd get a rejection and just... absorb it. File it under "people are cheap" or "they don't get it" and keep scrolling. Somewhere around 2019 I started actually writing them down. Now I write down everything.
The country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Anguilla that has become extremely popular for artificial intelligence companies and projects.
A generic top-level domain (gTLD) operated by Google, designed for mobile applications and app developers.
A generic top-level domain for communities, organizations, and membership-based groups.
A generic top-level domain suitable for any internet-based business or presence.
A generic top-level domain designed for e-commerce and retail businesses.
A generic top-level domain targeting the technology sector.