Michael Castello has been one of the worlds most successful domain name investors since 1995.
He famously sold Whisky.com for $3.1 Million US and recently sold Room.com for $1.5 Million US.
If you visit his CCIN.com website, you will see he also owns Nashville.com(,) Traveler.com and Daycare.com, to name a few.
DNJournal.com recently featured a great story about Michael, so Rob and Ed begged him to tell these, and many other great domain name stories, on this latest Domainer Show Podcast.
Robert runs Registry Australia and DBR.com.au
Ed runs OnlineImpact.com.au
Another good interview guys!
The story about the price going up on Whisky.com from $10,000 to $100,000 a year later is a funny one. The same thing happens in the .com.au space.
There are 12 .com.au sales that have been made public in the 6 figure range. But what happens when there are 18 or 24 sales that have been made public in the 6 figure range?
Those who do not lock down names now will need to pay more than twice as much in 2022 that’s for sure.
That’s if the domain name is still available for purchase in 2022. Once someone is using a domain for their business, it’s very difficult to buy. Sometimes impossible.
True story – A mate (end user) wanted to buy a .com.au domain name from a well known domain investor / broker about 6-8 years ago. Asked for a price, seller said $2000-3000. My mate wanted to have a think about it and pretend he wasn’t that interested and he ignored my advice to buy it straight away. 2-3 months later he went back. He ended up paying $6000-7000. Should’ve took my advice. Funny thing is, it’s probably worth $40000-60000 now, so even though he paid what he thought was a high price, it’s a lot less than he would have to pay now. The domain is in the same league as domains like Sumo.com.au and Urban.com.au.
The point of the story is, there is no time like the present. My mate was worried he overpaid when he bought in the $6000-7000 range but I assured him it was worth much more at the time and he has more than recovered his investment with orders. He is also glad that a competitor didn’t get it.
My advice to those interested in buying a generic domain name for their business is to work out the value-add in the long run and value of looking like a business that has ‘got it together’ and stopping someone else from buying it eg a competitor from buying it and using it to compete with you.
Great interview Ed & Rob! Michael is one of the true pioneers of the domain industry and very few people on this planet understand the investment side of the business as well as does. My favorite thing about Michael is that even though he has had all of the success in the world he remains one of the nicest, most well grounded guys you could ever hope to meet (the same is true of his brother David). Michael has always been generous with his time and his willingness to share his expertise has helped keep the domain business moving forward, scaling increasingly greater heights as the mainstream business world comes to understand how invaluable the right domain would be to their enterprise (something the visionaries like Michael immediately understood when the ribbon was being cut on the Information Superhighway 20 years ago)!
Two legends of the industry in 2 weeks and both great interviews with very down to earth people. Well done! Can we go back in time now for a 2nd chance.