Ryan Colby has become the latest broker to leave Sedo.com
I was looking to add some people to my Linkedin account and noticed under Ryan’s profile that under “employment” he listed Sedo.com as May 2010-July 2011
So I reached out to Ryan for comment and confirmed he was now longer with Sedo.com
I asked him why he left Sedo.com to which he answered “personal reasons”
Ryan seemed at least to me, to have been the lead Sedo broker of the current crop when it comes to big dollar sales;
Some of the Sedo sales I have recorded coming from Ryan include;
GamesforGirls.com, Jerusalem.com, Logo.com, RedWine.com, Consolidation.com, and most recently Billionaire.com
It was only 2 months ago that Elliotsblog.com announced that Ryan had put under contract some “stunning” domains. “I believe most (if not all) are each worth 6 figures or more, and I don’t recall seeing any of these domain names listed for sale recently.” Elliot wrote at the time.
This follows on the heals of Jeff Gabriel leaving Sedo.com in January, and Tessa Holcomb who left in a little over a year ago each I believe was a top producer for Sedo.com at the time they left.
So it seems like Sedo has lost its top sales producer for the 3rd time in about 15 months.
I reached out to Sedo for comment and Kathy Nielsen, Director of Sales for Sedo.com North America said:
“It was very hard to see Ryan go. ”
“He is a great guy who was really dedicated to his job.”
” The sales position is very stressful as you can imagine, we have a lot of people wanting us to sell their domains.”
” We wish him all the best and thank him for the excellent work he did at Sedo and for his clients. He was well respected all around.”
We wish Ryan the best of luck in his future endeavors.
He just recently changed his twitter username from a name that included Sedo to just his personal name, so I wondered if something was up. It will be interesting to hear where he next surfaces because yes, he has certainly been involved in some of the highest value internet domain sales recently.
First Signs of Cracks in the Infrastructure…?
Not First Signs – Third Signs – probably a bigger statement in that once these broker do 5-10 big deals – they know or know of all the decent players – and the brokerage firm is no longer needed
With all of the contacts he made through the years, maybe he just wants to go independent.
Independent and if you know what your doing makes perfect sense.
Now Dave Evanson needs to Dump sedo as well
@mhb Or Alan – you two been around for a long time, has sedo ever taken former brokers to court? Or a non compete for a period of time I would assume
Franks platform has all the good inventory. In house brokerage unit and cross sell imo.
Ryan handled some transactions for me personally. A true professional, I wish him well with his new endeavors.
-Peter
A good domain broker should be independent and free of conflicts of interest (sedo is dictionary definition of conflict of interest when it comes to domain brokering).
He should work either for buyers only or sellers only.
If he works for sellers only, his only job should be to take 5/6/7-fig domains, and make 10-40 phone-calls to obvious end users and try to make a sale. His commission should be 5% up to $200K, then 2.5% after that. A few hours it takes to make these phone-calls does not warrant higher commission. RE agents work a lot more than a few hours to sell each house, and they get 1.5% – half of 3%. Domain market is very illiquid, so brokers would be wasting their time with almost all their phone-calls, but that is just how it is.
It takes a ton of work and time closing 6 and 7 figure domain deals. For every big deal you do get, there are 10 other big deals you work on that you never find a buyer for.
That is why domain brokers charge 10% and up.
I bet we’ll watch him make 100’s of millions by selling cars to, the Amish.
Best of Luck Ryan:)
Jodi Chamberlain
The grass always looks greener on the other side
I watched a good hr video of Ryan about domains and thought he hit some great points. For someone to come into the industry fairly recent and pick it up and move domain assets effectively with a good understanding of deal flow was a nice thing to see from a true, i believe, entrepreneur. Great to have brokers that have integrity, drive and respect and we need more of them. Best of luck to ryan.
I personally had some dealings with Ryan. I brought him 2 top domains to sell for which he stated they should be less than $10k.
Needless to say within 30 days of signing with another top broker, 6 fig offers came in.
He seemed lazy and did not really care.
Cannot really look into why he left as we all will never know.
And yes the grass is always greener.
I think Rob Sequin is very good at educating “qualified” buyers however – that is the key to a sucessful broker – i.e. an intuitive / natural soft sell.
Brian,
Thanks for the kind words.
Yes, buyers need to be educated to appreciate the value of the seller’s domain and the rare opportunity to buy a good domain.
However, many times sellers have to be educated about the value of the buyer’s interest to purchase a domain…. meaning don’t overprice your domain if you really want to sell it.
So what happens if you were currently in a contract with him?
@ Bob. Please feel free to contact me at dave.evanson@sedo.com or at 617 499-7222.
Sales jobs have the most turn around. In general most sales people feel that they are not compensated enough for the value they bring in. It is what it is.
On the one hand these people are very good at what they do. On the other hand you can be the best out there but without connections and sometimes direction you wont get there at all, or alternatively it will take you a much longer time getting to the decision makers. Even a great sales person can use a list of contacts and sales kit in order to do it right. Of course a great sales person can create both but it’s much easier using an existing infrastructure rather than inventing the wheel all over again.
From what I’ve seen they are very busy, very professional and probably over maxed at this stage. Every company has those moments.
Definitely interesting to see three of the top brokers leave, but I wouldn’t read into it too much. My focus is on what an outstanding job he did in such a short amount of time. Congrats to Ryan for crushing it and kudos to Kathy for the positive words about his time with the company. True professionals.