Michael Berkens purchased MotorcycleHelmets.com back in 2010, and it looks like GoDaddy/Namefind just sold the domain to a buyer using privacy protection at Name.com.
The domain was bought in January 2010 at the TRAFFIC Las Vegas Auction.
The domain was actually listed with a $50K reserve but immediately after it didn’t meet reserve Mike asked Rick Latona (the auction company) to reach out to the Seller, and he agreed to put it back up at auction with a $35K reserve and i won it on one bid.
That was all just a prelude to one Grant Aldrich questioning the size of Michael’s manhood.
This was always one of my favorite posts here and with the sale it’s fun to look back at the interaction Michael had with Mr. Aldrich.
On December 2, 2010, I got an inquiry for the domain,and I responded “we will only consider offers into the six figures for this category killer domain”.
So now we fast forward to last week, when some 2/12 months later I get this reply from a Mr. Grant Aldrich:
“”i Michael, thanks for the reply.
I apologize for the delayed response. Your ballbark was enough to scare off my client initially. They are looking to build a cool review resource, and a price tag like that is prohibitive. I want them to use this domain because I think its intuitive, but the reality is that in this Web 2.0 age, creative domains are more in vogue. Plus, with the rise of the mobile platforms, keyword domains are becoming far less valuable. Hard to justify that kind of a large expense.
I have been given a budget for the development and I would like to come to a middle ground with you that will be fair…I can offer $11,000 for the domain. No nonsense, here is what I can do. Well above the average for most .com’s being sold, and a nice chunk of change. I know its not the high end you were expecting when you first purchased the domain, but is a nice payday though.
Let me know if you think that’s fair. Hopefully we can have this work out. Thanks.””
Typically I wouldn’t waste my time negotiating or even responding with someone who considers buying a domain at $35K and selling it at $11K a “nice payday”
However the response from Mr. Aldrich pissed me off to be honest, based on his statements which I placed in bold above.
So I wrote him back:
Grant the reason this domain is priced into the six figures is because its simply the best domain you can possibly have for the topic it covers.”
“A similar name sportinggoods.com sold for $475,000.
“Grant let me ask you when your offering $11K and playing the “Well above the average for most .com’s being sold” do you really believe it or are you just hoping that someone doesn’t know any better?
So here is the response I got last night from Mr Aldrich (word for word unedited):
“”Mike, you’re a very pompous guy…and quite frankly, I’m not exactly sure why. You’re blog material is second-rate, and bland at best. Which probably indicates your below-average intelligence. You’re business model of waiting for domains to sell lacks sophistication, and is equivalent to used car speculating.
My statement is 100% accurate. MOST domains don’t sell for that rate. I purchased Dermatologist.net for $13k. AcneScars.com for 1200. etc. Those denominations make up the bulk of the purchasing world. Just because you point out a few outliers like sportinggoods.com or Vodka.com, or Business.com, doesnt mean that your domain portfolio should command a similar price.
So, Mike…maybe you have a little dick, or maybe you have a little man complex. Either way, you should try to be more professional in your dealings with people, and not take things so personal. Just because I make an offer for a domain that you dont like, you don’t need to reply with offensive sarcasm.
I’m no longer interested in your domain…good luck.”
So if you happen to get an offer from Mr. Aldrich (he uses the email address of grantaldrich@hotmail.com) you now know what your dealing with.
and at least this post wasn’t Bland.
That was a great read, I love the guy thought he was so slick when it came to domains. clueless
How come anytime a quotes a price for a domain, that the other party refuses to offer on all the sudden you get labelled unprofessional. I have seen this time, and time again, it is really mind boggling.
Berkens paid fair value if not high end wholesale for what a killer two-word keyword domain went for at that time, ie, 2010.
And Aldrich was clairevoyant in his “the reality is that in this Web 2.0 age, creative domains are more in vogue. Plus, with the rise of the mobile platforms, keyword domains are becoming far less valuable” – negotation ploy or not.
Godaddy probably sold for between $11,000 and the $35,000 Berkens paid. My guess is $20-25K.
Question is does Berkens still think that domain is worth 6 figures to an end user in 2016?
My only feedback is I’m surprised this made you angry. 11k is a serious number for a generic two word product .com in 2016. Not saying it is the right price for you, but it does still indicate you had a potentially serious buyer. You never know where negotiations will lead. Juss sayin.
Ha. Read that too quick on my phone. Good story. My how times change.
Do you follow daily aftermarket auctions $11K does not go as far as it used to, paying $35K back in 2010 for this name was stepping up, and his person offered the owner 30 cents on the dollar for a $8 annual registration.
All he has to do is say no, spend $80 to renew for another decade, and guess what in 2015 he cashes out with $35M.
Hahaha. Hilarious when he says to be more professional!
Google and their army of mind zapped editorial columnists have went out of their way to convince everyone that keyword ranking is dead, as part of their conversion strategy to maximize PPC profits. Because you know, a $500bn market cap that lets you buy dozens of cool companies and close them impulsively, while saturating everything they get their hands like YouTube with more and more advertising and ad hijacking for greed – it is the perfect way for them to say thank you for all the support and loyalty their users have shown. They have become a cancer, and one of the greatest threats to small businesses over the past five years as they have continually marginalized their search feeds contrary to original core promises to not overly tamper with organic results through excessive pay-per-click ad saturation. That said though, they cannot de-weight the core words in a URL without massive ramifications to the quality of their overall results, which makes a domain like this ultra valuable in the hands of someone who knows how to stack the density and frequency off the base phrase for influencer dominance. This is a $60k-$80k domain that could be used to prop up $15m or more in direct and trade sales yearly as a base, with a net expectation of $800kish. Or be worth more aligned with a major manufacturer who wanted to use natural organic factors to de-influence their competitors over time. $11k would be a crime and there are too many Aldrichs in an industry obsessed with WordPress and abstract minimalism. I’d have loved to see Michael years ago convert a few hundred of names like this into an incubator. Fun stuff but a lot of work.
Great Read. @TheDomains
I am surprised the guy didn’t do some research on Mike, I am sure he would off come across this article back then @DNjournal …. http://www.dnjournal.com/cover/2009/july.htm
Maybe if he did, the 2nd email wouldn’t mention Mike’s little dick 😉 and he also would off found out Mike is a very clever dude. aka Lawyer
Tony
Don’t know what I would be asking but at this point would rather have a great brandable domain
Someone say brandable?
Domasphere.com – Great made up name for a well-rounded blog and info site about the world of domaining and domain investing. Available to reg.
“And now the latest live from the Domasphere…”
P.S. I’d like a 20% courtesy finder’s bonus if anyone regs and sells it please. 🙂
Maybe he went onto buy motorbikehelmets instead?
Mike,
I guess he was right.
“You’re business model of waiting for domains to sell lacks sophistication, and is equivalent to used car speculating.”
It is a shame you had to give most of your domains away this year because you lacked sophistication.
Can you teach me how to lack sophistication.??
🙂
LOL, IKR 😀
Plus from digital marketing perspective, 2011 was still very high on SEO optimization (that changed around mid 2012) with exact matches. And if they bought it and built it out, they would still have about a year to capitalize on seo boom, plus even now exact matches for certain products are very effective.
Hence he was talking out of his a$$ even if he was correct about brandables, it doesn’t mean for some categories exact match domain is not better. And motorcycle helmets is one of those categories.
Very interesting. I have a similar story with a happy outcome: I was contacted by a buyer rep to buy one of my name for $5,000. I politely declined the offer and stated that I don’t care what the other “expert” says, or what the “market” is doing. I was firm on the price. I sold the domain name at my asking price.
Comparing MotorcycleHelmets to sportinggoods.com not a good example. First one is only for helmets. Second one encompasses everything sports.