Last week I received a tweet to @thedomains, asking the question:
“Is any domain name portfolio worth over $1 Billion Dollars?
We are about to find out.”
The link in the Tweet goes to this site, which says:
“The portfolio consists of 40 hyper names (and hundreds of others) that will ensure a substantial and immediate impact on the Internet if they are paired with the right global resource.
The seller’s preference is to keep the portfolio intact.
It is his belief that the whole is substantially more significant than the sum of the parts.”
I was initially concerned whether the company sending the Tweet out was really representing Castello Cities Internet Network, Inc (CCIN) as I never heard of the broker.
CCIN is the owner of the domain names linked to the Tweet, so I contacted Michael Castello CEO and President of Castello Cities Internet Network, Inc., who confirmed the domain portfolio was for sale but there were 41 primary domains not 40.
Michael agreed to answer some questions:
1. Michael Why did CCIN put this portfolio up for sale now ? Does it have anything to do with the roll out of the new gTLD program ?
“”I have been entertaining the idea since the beginning of 2014.
Back in 1994 I told my mother that our family is on a twenty-year adventure. I always look for indicators that something will occur in the future.
Whisky.com received one offer back in 1995 for $100.
The next offer (and sale) of $3.1 million was nineteen years later. There was no talk from the buyer in regards to its traffic or revenue. It was a domain name only acquisition.
At the same time, my partner and brother David had already put 15 years into our business, and he wanted to get back into the music industry, which is where we started. I can’t blame him. If you love performing on stage, creating music, and traveling, then that is what you should do. Success can be determined in many ways. When someone is able to do what they want to do, whenever they want to, I would call that success. I love what I do on the Internet, but there is a point when one needs to look at current events and decide if a change is in order.
I feel that it is a good time to see if I can maximize the potential of our portfolio. I realized that I cannot plausibly put the kind of time and effort into each of these 41 names that is required.
The Internet has changed so much over the last ten years. No longer can someone create a five-page website on a name like Tijuana.com and make thousands of dollars doing virtually nothing. If I spent the kind of effort that Tijuana.com deserves, I could easily make tons of money right now. But the public expects a richer experience than what a static info-site can provide. Now multiply that by 41 hyper names. It would be impossible for me to do so.
I now believe that the potential of what I built back in 1995 may be better realized by another enterprise. It makes sense for me to sell the portfolio and give David his share, and give the government its share. This allows me to simplify my situation, giving me more freedom to do what I want to do for the next 20 year adventure.
Of course, I will remain in the domain business; there is no better market to create wealth and financial freedom, and the future of civilization requires a functioning virtual world that continually grows in vastly new technological directions.
I was very happy to see Whisky.com move to a company that now has huge global reach. Imagine what the right party could do with Room.com or Bullion.com? Look at them in their current form and realize that their true potential would be a game-changer for any company with the right resources.
The new gTLDs are a part of the advancing name economy. There is a hierarchy in our market, and they have a place, but .com will always be the star of the DNS. That place will continue to grow as the public continues to use the Internet as an environment that they can dwell in, instead of as an app or tool to search for things.
Domain names are addresses for people to find each other. Some of those addresses already exist as common phrases in our minds, like Daycare.com, Nashville.com and Golfclub.com. In such cases, those names are already worth a lot, with great leverage and a worldwide trust factor.
I go to great lengths to allow myself the time and money to do what I want to do. For twenty years, I’ve had great personal freedom, and I have my portfolio to thank for that.””
2. Can you list the 41 primary domain names for me that are for sale in this portfolio?
Currently I am selling 41 hyper and generic domain names.
I have around 1,000 more that could be acquired for extra.
Here are the 41:
ACAPULCO.COM
ADOPT.COM
BOOTLEG.COM
BULLION.COM
COST.COM
CAUTION.COM
DAYCARE.COM
DUST.COM
EEL.COM
GOLFCLUB.COM
GRAPE.COM
GREATGATSBY.COM
HARLEM.COM
HEARTACHE.COM
KENNEL.COM
KINGTUT.COM
ISLANDERS.COM
MANICURE.COM
MOOREA.COM
NASHVILLE.COM
NOVEMBER.COM
PALMSPRINGS.COM
PETALUMA.COM
PREACH.COM
RATE.COM
ROOM.COM
SAMPLE.COM
SEASONS.COM
SMOOTHIE.COM
STEW.COM
SUIT.COM
SUNTAN.COM
TGIF.COM
TIJUANA.COM
TOOTH.COM
TRAVELER.COM
VIRTUE.COM
WAGON.COM
WASH.COM
WEDNESDAY.COM
WESTPALMBEACH.COM
3. What is the asking price?
$1.2 Billion Dollars.
4. Why did you decide to sell these domains as a portfolio rather than separately?
“My gut feeling tells me that there are a few people in the world who both understand what my portfolio really contains and can afford it.
It was built at a time when whatever my passions were, became my domain name to own. Anyone can piece together a portfolio of names, but arguably none have the passion of creation that mine has.”
5. Does that mean at this point you will not entertain offers on any one domain in the list?
“”I’ve had some pretty good offers that I’ve turned down on some of them after the Whisky.com sale. That sale was a statement of timing.
The rest are like The Crown Jewels to me. It would be like taking a butter knife and plucking a beautiful gemstone from the royal crown.
No – they stay together.
I will hold at this price until the end of 2014 to sell.
After that I will be asking for more.””
6. At over $1 Billion I would assume its going to have to be a public company who would buy this portfolio, do you agree? Who has over $1 Billion in cash that might be a buyer?
“I feel that there will be an individual who sees what I see. ”
They might be the head of a large company, or someone with a lot of influence. There are people who have made vast amounts of money in the past five years. Many are not in the US, but rather Asia and the Middle East. But that money is scared money, and they are unsure of the best market for them to invest in.
Investing in my portfolio will allow any company with money and resources to be a major player in a multitude of verticals such as Manicure.com for beauty; Nashville.com for country music; Daycare.com for family; Bullion.com for financial; Traveler.com for travel; and Adopt.com for charity, just to name a few.
I would liken it to having the ability to be Rockefeller, Carnegie, Chase, Ford, and Vanderbilt all at the same time.
Those leaders carved out their industries over their lifetimes, always wanting to capture the other markets. They were very competitive.
Never before has anyone had that kind of global opportunity to dominate across such vast marketplaces. The Internet allows it, and my portfolio is a free and clear path to the future.””
7. Who is behind junxtion.com and why did you choice them as your broker?
“I did not expect this to go public.
I gave an opportunity to a friend to make some money, and he tweeted the portfolio out.
I have a small pool of friends who I offered to broker my portfolio.
It was never exclusive.
This release gives me a chance to say publicly what I have been saying over the past three months to industry friends at conventions. They had the same questions you are asking, and I think I should qualify my reasoning.””
8. If someone is interested in the portfolio, whom should they contact?
Thanks Michael and best of luck
I should note the 41 domain names priced at $1.2 Billion dollars, comes to $30 Million Dollars on average, per domain name.
Here are a few other stories about or written by Michael Castello:
Read about Michael’s Call To Action effort
Read about the sale of Whisky.com
Read about the Michael’s Block The Bullies effort
Read Michael’s post The Future is about Leverage
$1.2b dollars… WOW!
Can we have a poll asking if people think the portfolio will sell by the end of 2014?
Maybe later today
lol.
2005 was a long time ago.
there’s a sucker born every minute, but i seriously doubt anyone will give a billion dollars for 41 domains, even if they were the very best.
seems like a good marketing move or a delusional move calling for a major top in the market
And people wonder why the domain industry finds it difficult to gain respect. When one of the leading figures in the industry goes off the boil like this, it makes it very easy to see why domaining isn’t taken seriously buy the public, at large.
$30 million per name? That’s ridiculous. If each of the names had a successfully developed business behind it, we may be talking about $30 million per being appropriate. I think it is farfetched to think anybody pays $30M for any one of those names and I think it is absolutely absurd to expect one buyer to pay $30M, on average, for the package of 40 names.
The Castello’s have been at this a heck of a lot longer than me and I would love to be proven wrong, but I can’t see this portfolio selling for anything close to 10 figures. If the names are just domains, I can’t see it going for more than $100M to one buyer. If the names are sold to multiple buyers, perhaps $200-300M would be achievable if a very best case scenario for each name unfolded.
Totally agree here.
If we are talking 40 domains the calibur of Insurance.com, CarInsurance.com, Loan.com, Mortgage.com, Homes.com, NewYork.com, LosAngeles.com, then yes, $1B is very possible. I leave it to the other readers to surmise if this portfolio would compare to that.
I hope this entire portfolio does sell for as least 1.2b (if not more).
And I’m wanting $75,000 for a 300 domain name portfolio (some names acquired in 1999)? Ouch!
Nothing beats my domains and my MarijuanaGuy dot com
I am the brand!!
YouSuite.com anytime!
This would be a fantastic deal if it ever comes through. I suspect it’s a clever marketing ploy to gain loads of attention for these domain names and it seems to have worked really well for now.
That’s way high asking price for a package. $30 Million Dollars on average asking shows Castello’s sold Whisky.com was a bargain!
IMO, Whisky.com was a better domain than few listed in the package.
i need some of the stuff your smoking so i can dream big too…good luck
I absolutely agree with those saying this is just an advertising move. Castellos have an amazing portfolio, but they don’t own any top 20 names (casino, insurance, business, etc.). IMO selling domain names in bulk is the best decision when you just want to liquidate your inventory, not when you wish to get the highest possible price per domain.
Hey guys I wanted to jump in to say that Michael was VERY reluctant to do the interview.
I do think his “friend” overstepped his authority and made the offering public.
I had to talk Michael Into doing the interview so I really don’t think its a publicity stunt at all
Experience of exiting large portfolios clearly indicated domain name market illiquidity. Take recent .LY auction at Flippa. They could not sell it even for $1k a piece while receiving big bids individually in the past.
For this cases, applying average pricing is the best guess, and those are much lower than the brothers are asking for.
Still a nice portfolio and any PR is a good PR.
I’ll buy it for $300 million if they’re interested.
Can I have your email address for PVT sale of premium domain names?
did whisky.com pay him with 3 million dollars worth of whisky. that would explain a lot.
I hope they sell the portfolio. Worse case, they might have to settle for $ 1b.
Michael C., you must be right since the masses say your wrong.
And, if they don’t sell, they are stuck with only making a couple mil. a year and still owning the domains.
I struggle to see how this portfolio could be worth more than $5m at the most. Granted, Room.com, Suits.com, GolfClub.com and Bullion.com are all decent, but I’d suggest their plurals in this case would actually be worth more to build businesses upon. Many of the rest are simply $xx,xxx range names.
I struggle to see how this portfolio could be worth more than $5m at the most. Granted, Room.com, Suit.com, GolfClub.com and Bullion.com are all decent, but I’d suggest their plurals in this case would actually be worth more to build businesses upon. Many of the rest are simply $xx,xxx range names.
Michael seems like a great guy. I’d imagine it would be challenging to sell the whole portfolio to one entity or person. But you never know. He’s right; over the last few years, some people have made uber fortunes. Seasons.com, Room.com, Rate.com —- those are worth big-time cash. Maybe $30 million each
maybe, “the price is right” … but … how many domainers own over $1 billion in cash to spend?
Wait is it April 1st?
I find this a over inflated and unrealistic.
Unless Im reading this incorrectly, we are stating that each of the 41 names are in fact domains and not existing businesses with generating income. One of the highest domains sold to date is sex.com for 13 million.
I am not seeing how these names (41) divided by 1.2 billion equates to 24 plus million dollars each.
With 1592 billionaires in the entire world , why not call each one and ask them? Out of that many only about 300 have more than 3 billion.
Otherwise not one of them will even know its for sale unless contacted and the answer of whether they will be sold or not …well we already know. Public companies would have to explain to their shareholder and decision makers why they believe their particular industry warrants the value spending of 1,200,000,000.
I would like to hear however, from respected domainers in the industry if they feel the domains in the portfolio is in fact in their opinion worth about 25mm-30,000,000 each…but dont see that happening either.
If i just received 3mm dollars id probably have a write-up like this as well….because it simply doesnt matter. I feel the article is more for publicity nothing more.
“1592 billionaires in the entire world”
and, how many of them are “domainers”?
No Doubt, There are some terrific names in this list but I don’t think its worth $1.2BN, may be in $50 million range. Digimedia’s portfolio may be worth a Billion..Peer
Why not $1.2B? Investment deals, joint ventures, publishing, coupons, auctioning, retail, travel…this portfolio is elite, well-rounded and versatile. I believe the Castello Brothers would admit it would take a complex strategic visionary to develop just the right business plan for this value to be realized but why not expect the best? Good luck and I hope it is a success.
Do you think they would take a check?
Hello MHB,
The highest and best use in an end users mind will decide not anyone of us . Looking awesome Michael Highest and Best Use.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Chip
Sure a Cashiers Check
Very nice portfolio $ 20 mil tops.If i may say.
Good luck to Castello’s
“I’m, uh, H.E. Pennypacker. I’m a wealthy industrialist and philanthropist and, uh, a bicyclist. And, um, yes, I’m looking for a place where I can settle down with my, uh, peculiar habits, and, uh, the women that I frequent with. ”
“The asking price is $1.2 Billion.”
“Oh, I spend that much on after shave. Yes, I buy and sell men like myself every day. Now, I assume that there’s a waterfall grotto?”
I don’t think this a PR stunt, but looks like an attempt to raise the bar for market value perception. Only mentioning a portfolio value is the key here: whether or not it sells for that amount, it implies a high per name valuation. After that, may be some of the names gets brokered for amounts that would now be higher than before.
Based on Michael’s findings it’s quite possible the idea was not to get exposure on this but rather spread the idea among select circles. Remember the movie “Inception” ?
The guy has never sold a domain for 30 million but wants to sell 41 of them.
To sell whiskey.com (better one than those 41 domains) for a few millions he was waiting so long.
These days is a huge domain choice and people rather buy a name for up to few K (look at Sedo statistics) and put those 30 millions to develop a business.
I guess to little exercise and to much hair paint.
What would F. Scott Fitzgerald say if I resurrected him to inform him that TheGreatGatsby.com was selling for $30 million?
Setting the bar high makes sense. But this is too high to be credible in 2014 — for the domain-only purchases, that is. Developed sites may be another story.
The domain industry simply doesn’t have the capacity to absorb 41 additional domains in that 8-figure price range in a short period of time. During any given year, buyers at the 7-figure-plus scale are a finite set. Will 41 additional buyers in that class show up this year for some unknown reason? Or will all the buyers with 8-figure budgets choose the domains in this portfolio at the expense of other 8-figure options available to them — in other words, in lieu of ANY other undeveloped domain imaginable?
No question, there are 7-figure domains in that list. And some domains might cross into the 8-figures. The GEO websites are much more likely to do so. I’d expect to see more 7 and 8-figure domain purchases as time goes by. But it’s still wishful thinking to expect multiple $30 million domain sales in a year for a single person out of a sample size of 41.
To put this asking price in perspective, the U.S. military’s 2010 budget for housing was $3.1 billion. If I interpret that correctly, then $3.1 billion covered the cost of all buildings construction, maintenance, utilities, and off-base housing allowances for more than 850,000 people. Are these 41 domains — mere domains — worth as much to the economy as all those buildings, all those jobs, all that electricity?
Hope Michael Castello sells them all for a big pile of cash, though!
Ps I guess now Castellos want be on the domainsherpa show. Lets make a poll if people want to see them there with that ridiculous strategy.
Joesph
You better revisit that military budget number
More like $715 Billion
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/01/07/everything-chuck-hagel-needs-to-know-about-the-defense-budget-in-charts/
There’s a difference between the entire military budget and the budget for military housing.
Amateur Hour! Because the brothers are early domain investors we have to treat them like their crap don’t stink? What a joke. I can just imagine the conversation when justifying the value of ANY of these domains at $30million dollars! What smart company or investor would want to try and “dominate across such vast marketplaces” as you put it (#focus?).
Guy that just spent 1.2 billion: “Today we are working on Wednesday.com team! we need to make back our 30 million dollar initial investment in the next century who has any idea how we can do that? ” Opps you mean I could have bought a real established company in any of these verticals at a 7-10 Year EBITDA multiple and increased my share holder value etc.., that seems to make more sense….o well… Now lets move on to NOVEMBER .com…
Michael C, please pick any one of your 40 names and tell us how any investor would see any kind of reasonable return in the next 50 years on a $30 million dollar domain investment. Yes I am including the GEO domains! Don’t come back with the population of “WESTPALMBEACH”, and the industry travel numbers and average income crap…. try and try to tell us how someone would see a return on a $30 million dollar investment on any of those domains. Forum: Based on the build out you see on WESTPALMBEACH.COM currently (lots of affiliate implementation, which I am not knocking) how much do you think it makes? My range is $1,000-$2,000 per month.
Skip to the 1min mark. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKKHSAE1gIs
Why not just ask for a kiallgiioin bizillion dollars?
Let’s spark up a big fat joint and pull a ridiculous number out of our ass. Yeah, yeah 1.2 billion sounds good. LOL
I would have a copyright lawyer conduct a review before I included GreatGatsby.com in the list. If one of the grand daughters of F. Scott Fitzgerald find out the domain has a $30 million price tag I am sure they would file a UDRP.
The Great Gatsby was written in 1925. Due to the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act, generally only published works that were published before January 1st, 1923 are in the public domain. In Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate, LTD (2013) the court held that all of Doyle’s works published prior to January 1st, 1923 are in the public domain, but the final 10 stories are still under copyright. The court held that the term of the copyright for the final ten stories was 95 years from date of publication.
1925 and 95 years equals 2020.
Hello MHB,
The real miracle is that for close to thirty years the most valuable asset group has been until now ignored by Wall Street,. Pandoras box is open, expect miracles to follow.
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
Grossly overvalued, these are just domain names. And for someone to buy all of them together for $1.1 Billion is financial suicide. The buyer will never make any RoI at that price.
Take highest public domain sale; Sex.com ($13M), multiply by 41 and you get $533M.
So the portfolio might be at max $533M but the catch is not all of this portfolio names are even near to Sex.com except a few. Sex/Food/Sleep/Love/Search are the most basic universal needs, hence highly valued but most of these names don’t relate to any of these areas.
It would have been different if at least a few of names were established businesses like Apartments.com or Cars.com.
In my opinion, Costello brothers should be happy with $100M if they can get that much for it.
i literally lol half a dozen times reading through this..
but in all seriousness, the answer to the question “The 1st To Sell For Over $1 Billion?”
id say there’s a market for this starting with Jeff Schneider and ending with Jeff Schneider lol
I just read some nonsense on FragerFactor offering, in defense of this $1.2 billion price tag, a spurious claim that a selfie at the Oscars was worth $1 billion in free publicity. No comments can be left there, but the article annoyed me enough that I’ve circled back to comment again here at TheDomains.com.
Attributing billions to hypothetical transactions, it’s easy to multiply the planet’s wealth far beyond reality. No selfie is worth a billion dollars, and it’s ludicrous to think so.
To put the Castellos’ $1.2 billion valuation in context, it’s worth pointing out that the Gross Domestic Product of Iceland (according to the World Bank) is about $12 billion. So the Castellos are basically saying, “Hey, Iceland. Give us 10% of all the goods and services you produce in exchange for GreatGatsby.com and a few dozen other domains. Please ignore the other hundred million plus domains at lower prices.”
That’s not as crazy as asking Iceland for 10% of its work in exchange for a selfie at the Oscars. But it’s still out of proportion with respect to real world economics.
Honestly, guys, this is not the way for the domain industry to be taken seriously.
Put yet another way, the Castellos’ asking price is equivalent to 1 / 7700 th part of China.
That means these 48 domains would be worth all the work produced by 1.351 billion / 7700 people — including not just the goods and services produced by Chinese poor people but Chinese rich people too.
Do these 48 domains entitle the Castello brothers to 175,455 Chinese slaves?
I had a friend who works at a Fortune 500 company text me “are you fucking domainers retarded ?”
I think its problematic for Michael to have Whisky.com sell for $3.1 million recently and it is vastly superior to GreatGatsby.com and Virtue.com and KingTut.com. So how is someone going to rationalize paying 10 times for an inferior name from the same seller ? You can say that was a matter of timing but that means little to a buyer, which names on that list are superior to Sex.com ? More importantly why can’t this portfolio be broken up these names don’t go, if you are a Geo specialist, why the hell do you want KingTut.com, ? Great Gatsby.com, Smoothie.com ?
Joseph you are spot on that no selfie is worth $1billion and those numbers can be twisted any way someone in Hollywood wants, they twist numbers in many ways as to make sure most films never make a profit.
This whole post is another domain hype that like most other pumps just makes people outside the industry shake their heads at domainers.
If Frank put up his entire domain portfolio for $1.2 Billion, I doubt there will be any takers let alone these 41 domains.
Your mistake was going to that site that pretends to be about domaining. He suckers you in with sensational and misleading headlines and you leave more often than not feeling like you just wasted 5 mins of your life.
.
What Yun-Ye(UltSearch) is thinking about this? hehehe
He sold over 100,000 domains for Marchex: 164 million.
The brothas are just showing off. Stupid billionaire suckers are scarce. If this group sells for 5% of the asking price, I’m hoping the stupid millionaire sucker still has a lot of money left to buy me out.
I don’t get all the hate or the negativity, if a two year old app can be worth $7 billion, who’s to say these domains aren’t worth $1.2B?
Whether it can be achieved in a bulk sale or not is a moot point, but most domains are worth way more than what domain investors sell them for.
And the person / company buying these would have globally relevant brands for the foreseeable future. Even SalesForce sold / invested with Do.com – they could use these to seed $1 billion dollar businesses, each.
I think you are comparing apples and oranges with the app analogy, I think the bulk issue is not a moot point as the interview said they won’t be broken up, what $1billion dollar business do you see seeded on KingTut.com or GreatGatsby.com ?
I can see the Geo’s kicking ass.
You can’t see Room.com or Rate.com turning into billion dollar businesses?
Or any of the Geos? What’s the dollar value of real estate sales in the smallest city, let alone these?
I said it was a moot point because the bulk sale might not happen at all.
Buying an app for billions means buying some or all of these:
A company
Custom software
A user base
Patents
Employees
Pre-existing business contracts
Brand-related IP (including domains)
Google bought Youtube.com for $1.6 billion. It was already established — meaning a website, regular traffic, branding, etc. I doubt all 41 of those domains combined will ever match the traffic and advertising potential of Youtube.com.
This is precisely why I quit this industry. Too many people high on their own supply, and too many people with zero idea of how online commerce really works.
Fact: domains are a dying business. Yes, people want .coms, but you don’t need a top-tier domain to uild a successful business anymore. There is no particular SEO advantage to owning a keyword .com (Google made sure of that), and you can reach billions of customers with apps resting on crappy “Get-XYZ.com” domains.
And seriously, what business can you possibly run on GreatGatsby.com? Sell GreatGatsby merchandize? Brand it as another Robb Report? Please. Commercializing the legacy of a writer who wrote about the capitalist excesses will brew up the kind of PR shitstorm that would ensure the owner never sees a single sale again.
These people don’t realize how difficult it is to monetize most online businesses. BuzzFeed has 130M unique visitors. It still doesn’t make more than $30M from them. Would owning “News.com” give BuzzFeed any particular advantage?
I hang around far too many startup founders to know that buying top-tier domains is the last thing on their mind.
How many of them produce profits? Not revenue, profit. Even YouTube or WhatsApp.
And if they don’t produce any profit, people who bought them are only paying for the possibilities.
All the rest of the stuff remains constant for every site, what sets it apart is the brand and traction.
There 2 problems I see with this:
1. They are presenting it like selling all 41 domains at once makes the portfolio worth more. Since the domains are unrelated in every way, the exact opposite is true. By selling all of them at once, they are not going to get the premium Whiskey.com type of end user price, they are going to get a bulk wholesale price. What Fortune 500 type company that buys Nashville.com is also going to want eel.com and kingtut.com? Also, there are tons of premium domains for sale (just as good as these ones) a large company could buy if they wanted, so having them for sale in one big package does not really help a buyer any. If I had a billion dollars, I could easily buy 41 premium domains that I really wanted from 41 different sellers.
2. Only a handful of those 41 domains are of the level that Whiskey.com was. Off the top of my head, I would value the portfolio at $25 million. That does not mean that if they hold those domains and sell them one by one they won’t get more for them, but I don’t see any one buyer paying more than $25 million for them all at once.
Good luck boys and pass the kool-aid.
HAHAHAHA
What a joke.
You will NEVER EVER get even close to a billion dollars. Are you delusional? Seriously??
“A Billion ain’t cool. You know what’s cool? $3.2 Billion and those licensing points. That’s what’s cool.” Dr. Dre
Joseph
Talk about the government spending money by comparison hot off the newswire:
President Barack Obama asked Congress Tuesday for $3.7 billion in emergency appropriations to address the influx of child migrants crossing the southwest border and Rio Grande from Central America.
Tony What is mis-leading about the headline?
My comment was in response to the poster who was so annoyed by Frager’s post on his site that the poster had to post his response here.
I suppose some might say it is like having a headline “Will Michael Berkens Get Elected President?”, since that is not likely to actually happen, and neither is this $1 billion sale. But, since Michael Castello is actively trying to sell those domains for $1 billion and said so himself, I don’t think it is misleading at all. And, Michael has a right to try to make a crazy pie in the sky sale if he wants to. Many people told Rick Schwartz he was crazy for trying to get such high prices for his domains, yet he has made sales like that time and time again.
I see and you would have “predicted” that whatsapp would have sold for $20 Billion and that Bitcoin, when i was trading at $1 two years ago would have hit $1,200?
The headline reflected just what the story was about.
They are not my names, I didn’t price them.
The story is newsworthy in my opinion and guess what? when it comes to whether a story is newsworthy or not only my opinion counts
I’m not going to call you ask what you think. before I publish a story.
the headlne
…whatever he does or does not sell the portfolio for, he managed to garner a ton of publicity and make his portfolio very visible to many people. I admire that spirit and emulated that in a column which is somewhat a tongue in cheek take-off of his venture. If he can do it, anyone can. All it takes is that first step and daring do…
We are pulling for the highest and best use for this chapter in your life and wish you well on future projects. Rock On !
Gratefully, Jeff Schneider (Contact Group) (Metal Tiger)
The short answer to the topic subject would be “No.” If any portfolio would sell for $1.2 billion, it wouldn’t be that group of names, in my opinion. As Eric Borgos pointed out, anyone buying those names as a package would expect a big bulk discount, because they wouldn’t be interested in all of them (and the liquidation value of the ones they didn’t want would be small).
It’s “publicity stunts” like this which tends to make those who don’t follow domain names shake their heads in disbelief, or worse. That’s one of the reasons I didn’t participate in that “Call To Action” mailing from May — because you don’t know whether a bunch of self-promoters are going to use it for “marketing”, or say something that undermines people’s confidence/credibility.
There are more humble and soft-spoken participants in the domain industry whose top 41 domain names would blow away the Castello portfolio list. If there was a “Domain Deathmatch” or “Domain Showdown”, where you put the top 41 Castello portfolio names up against the top 41 from *each* of:
– Digimedia
– Anything.com
– Kevin Ham
– Alex Lerman
– Nat Cohen
– Reflex
– Gerry Gorman (India.com, Doctor.com, etc.)
– Marchex
– Slavik Viner
– P&G (with their Beautiful.com, etc.)
– Centralnic (with their 15 or 18 or whatever 2-letter .com domains — and they are a public company)
and a bunch of other people, I think *each* of those more humble domain portfolio owners would win a vote based on quality and overall value of their top 41 domains.
Agreed. Castellos and a few others are among the most famous names when it comes to domaining, but most domainers with superpremium portfolios keep a low profile and thus are not very known by the masses.
George
I guess I’m under the “bunch of other people” category
I’m thinking you probably are, Mike (I’ve probably missed a bunch of other uber-domainers, too). Although, I don’t know which are your “top 41” domains (as I know you have a huge portfolio of “mid-cap” domains, whereas others own smaller portfolios so it’s easier to pick out their “elite” names).
So, I sense a new posting with a poll: “Domain Deathmatch — Top 41 of Berkens vs. Castello” 🙂
“So, I sense a new posting with a poll: “Domain Deathmatch — Top 41 of Berkens vs. Castello””
Great idea, I’m sure it would be a success 😀
@Berkens,
OUCH!!
There’s an ouch there, Berkens.
Kirikos doesn’t hold his tongue.
You knew that before asking.
let’s see… 21 million is the top price that ebay will let you list a domain for… 42 names minus commission… he’ll be lucky to get 800 million.
I love George he is smart articulate and finds all sorts of information no one else finds
Just having some fun with George
hehe Thanks for the kind words, Mike.
I obviously missed a bunch of others, like Garry Chernoff, Thunayan/Elequa, Shepherd/Sahar Sarid, Rick Schwartz, and others who’d likely prevail in a “Top 41 Domain Deathmatch” against the Castello list.
Don’t forget, the keyword WAS “humble” 🙂
$300k would be a high price for KingTut.com in today’s market. Ditto EEL.com. And, as a buyer, if someone quoted me even $30k for GreatGatsby.com, I’d simply assume I was their first domain inquiry ever, laugh, and walk away. $3k would be the normal retail range on something like GreatGatsby.com — not $30,000,000.
You can probably identify a number of domains in that list of 41 where the highest realistic asking price is maybe mid 6 figures at most.
$300k is just 1% of $30 million, which is the average sale price implied by that $1.2 billion price tag. So for every domain in that list that can’t be expected to sell above 6 figures, some other domain in that list has to compensate for 99% of the missing $30 million.
In other words, for every domain in that list that maxes out in the 6 figures, the Castellos would need to sell a different domain in that list for $60 million.
@Peterson,
:…$3k would be the normal retail range on something like GreatGatsby.com — not $30,000,000″.
I believe that’s probably why the seller stated that his package as a whole is greater than the individual parts; Castello didn’t want the portfolio parsed, not even into logical syntactic components.
So, let’s give him that.
It has been reported that Ex-Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wants to buy L.A. Clippers for $2 BILLION, and some in the press have described this figure as “stunning”; so value-wise, this portfolio is just shy of the impending Clippers deal.
The whisper of such deal could shake the earth.
Worth $25M – $50M
It’s now 2015. No takers at $1.2 billion? I’m shocked!
Lol, shocking indeed, not even in 2030 ?
A commercially strong new domain like hotels.rocks might sell for a million bucks before the ludicrous portfolio dreams of selling for $30M, not even close to have a B.
Rate.com (one of the better names on the list) just sold for USD $750,000. That’s somewhat below the $29 million/domain average required to get to $1.2 Billion…..