Month: November 2009

How To Make Money Online. No… Really. My Interview With Eric Borgos of ImpulseCorp.com

As anyone who has stumbled upon his ImpulseCorp.com blog knows, Eric Borgos has a treasure trove
of domaining/webmastering experience dating back to the very early days of the internet. Since selling
his Bored.com site in 2008 for $4.5 million, Eric has found time to share some of his experiences. Eric
graciously accepted my request for an interview.
Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure… Eric Borgos.

Podcast Notes: Eric Borgos
http://www.impulsecorp.com/
http://www.nameshopping.com/
http://bored.com/ (Record created on: 1997-05-24) sold for $4.5 million.
Early entrepreneurial efforts (as a kid). Baseball cards, coins, silver, Penny Stocks.
College years.
Early domaining, (Ye Olde Drop Catch).
Webmastering directory type ‘mall’ sites.
What was working in the late 90s.
Affiliate links > ad networks.
Bored.com [links to 1998 screenshot] directory of sites with fun stuff to do.
Copying other sites- why send the traffic away?
CoolVideos.com   vs. bored.com/coolvideos
Link-network vs. brand.
Site plays audio backwards.
Type in a phone number and a text message and the site calls the number and announces the message.
How fun sites get built.
Freelancers, overseas programmers.
http://www.scriptlance.com/
http://www.guru.com/index.aspx
Traffic, costs, profit.
Selling Bored.com, the psychology of the sale.
Two bidders are better than 1.
Tax advantages to selling vs. salary.
Capital gains vs. income.
AdoptMe.com for kids. Free virtual pet. > Plush toys for sale in stores with unique code identifiers.
GetFlowers.com CheapFlowers.com + Running two brick and mortar flower stores!
SEO value of hub site approach?
Selling domains.
9000 domain names > parking.
TrafficZ.com DDC.com TrafficValet.com
To renew or not to renew?
Mini-sites vs. parking income.
Auto-content sites.
Domain sale process – negotiation.
http://estibot.com/ http://dnjournal.com/
Paypal vs. https://escrow.com/index.asp
Still registering domains?
Revenue, profit, expenses, sales.
http://www.nameshopping.com/
http://www.dumb.com/
Keeping it interesting.

What’d I miss? Help me build a list of   questions to ask Eric in a follow-up interview.
.com vs. .net
ppc to drive traffic to his sites?

Domains ARE Brands!

I’ve been listening to a LOT of startup related podcasts. Especially ThisWeekInStartups.com mentioned earlier and Andrew Warner’s Mixergy.com. I’ve pretty much spent the last month going over every one of Andrew’s podcasts. It’s surprising how many startups miss the boat on domains and how that can impact marketing efforts. I think this clip from an interview Andrew did with Grasshopper.com founder Siamak Taghaddos pretty much sums up what I hear over and over again.

Siamak Taghaddos

Seems pretty obvious, right? But here’s an example (from another excellent Mixergy interview) of what so often happens.
Noah Kagan

Matt (WordPress / www.Ma.tt) had to get it. Would like to know more about that story.
Matt Mullenweg

Otis (of Goodreads.com) definitely gets it. Exactly, “a good domain will give you a 30% extra chance of success”.
Otis Chandler

Sure, domain names can be expensive. But the trouble is, the larger you grow your company, the more you
run the risk that someone is going to hold that domain name hostage (and why shouldn’t they, really?)
I guess my point is that getting the right domain name upfront will save you a lot of money in the long run.
If you would like help finding or acquiring a domain name for your startup please drop me a line. I love to
brainstorm domains and can help broker a deal for a domain that’s already owned.

In The News.
From: DomainNameWire.com

Social gadget company upgrades its domain name.
Sedo has brokered the sale of Poken.com for $75,000 to a company that bills itself as a mobile social business card.

According to the web site, “poken is your ‘social business card.’ it’s an easy way to share your contact details and online social networks in the real world. just hold two poken palms together – high4! – and you’re connected.”

The web site makes it look like a product primarily for teenagers. This domain is a big upgrade, as it appears the company has been using DoYouPoken.com as its web site.

From: DotWeekly.com

Ad.ly Purchases Adly.com Domain Name
Ad.ly is becoming a very popular in-stream advertising platform for Twitter.com users and they just purchased what would be considered a typo of their domain name, Adly.com for $6,000 at Sedo.com .

Adly.com was first registered in late 2001 and changed hands to Adly Inc. on 10-31-2009.

This is a very wise purchase for Adly Inc. because not only could the domain name be considered a typo of it’s Ad.ly domain, but it also matches the company name exactly.

I think Adly Inc. got a Great Deal on the new domain purchase, as Adly is a nice 4 letter brandable domain name… Just like Ad.ly decided to name their company!

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