I have an idea for a new newsletter but I need your feedback…

So spending time with ~80 domain investors in Asheville last week sparked an idea, and I thought I’d give it a shot. Here’s what I’m thinking.

A lot of domain investors have to pick some names from their portfolio every year that they’re going to drop. It’s a fact of life, we can’t all pick names that end up being winners, or so we think. At the same time, one person’s trash could be another person’s treasure and I know many people have had the experience of watching a name they drop sell for hundreds of dollars on a drop.

This got me thinking, what if there was an easy way to broadcast out names you’re planning on dropping that you would sell for say $25 or $50? The reality is, you’re planning on making $0 on the name so why not make something on it?

Of course the first thing that came into my mind is that this could easily be abused. People could list names that they actually do plan on renewing just to see if someone else will buy them for $25 or $50 but I feel as long as the price stays low, the abuse will also stay low…but I could be too trusting, who knows.

I also know if I let people list as many names as they want this will become a huge junk newsletter which I also don’t want. So here’s my idea and the way that I’ll keep people from spamming junk names.

  • First – there’s a cost, $5 to have you names included in the weekly newsletter. I’m not going to do something like this for free and I think having “some” cost will limit this to people who are actually serious about selling names.
  • Second – you can list a maximum of five domains
  • Third – I can tell you that a name sucks too much to be included and you have to be okay with that
  • Fourth – one strike and you’re out. If you refuse to sell a name or end up renewing a name you submitted, you’re out for good. Same goes for buyers, if you decide not to buy a name after committing to it, you’re out.
  • Fifth – it felt like there should be five rules but I can’t think of a fifth, can you think of something I’m missing?

So here’s some things I’d like your feedback on:

  1. Is this a good idea at all? Be brutally honest, I can take it.
  2. Is $5 the right price to charge?
  3. Should there be one fixed price for names or should sellers be allowed to pick a price within a range? If you think they should be able to pick a range, what should that range be?

Thanks in advance for your feedback. If everyone thinks this is a bad idea, I won’t do it, but if enough people are in, I’ll give it a shot. The reality is, we’re all dropping names every year, if you made an extra few hundred dollars a year selling names you’d normally drop that wouldn’t be too bad would it?

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton