By now I assume you have read the press release that my company Worldwide Media, Inc., more commonly known in the domain community as MostWantedDomains.com, has sold the vast majority of our domain portfolio to GoDaddy/Afternic.
While I can’t get into the details of the transaction, I did want to share some thoughts about the sale and what it means and does not mean about the state of the domain industry in my opinion.
Let me start by saying this transaction was prompted for personal life reasons, not based on any sudden shift in my belief, or feeling about the domain industry or the value of domain names.
This year has been very tough for myself and my wife Judi, who went under a very complicated back (spine) surgery in August. In March Judi began to develop a very painful limp in one of her legs. We spent March-August seeing several doctors around the country to find the best solution with least chance of complications. Long story short, Judi is much better, she no longer limps and is recovering very well, although total recovery time is like a year.
Several years ago you might remember a company, Domain Guardians, started in the domain space to provide for services for domainers who wanted to put a plan in place to manage their domain assets after they passed.
Great idea.
As we know the domain business is very quirky, not really teachable and would involve family members who don’t typically have the detailed knowledge of the business especially including valuation and selling of domain names.
Then a legendary domainer who I respected very much igal Lichtman passed away and I started seeing some of his domains expire, go to auction, etc. (although some people stepped in to help the family) but at that point I decided if a reasonable offer came along, it would be smart to cash out, not burden the Judi and the family, work less and enjoy life more.
Do I believe I could I gotten more money selling domain names individually?
Absolutely.
Do I think GoDaddy will make money off this portfolio?
Yes I do.
Do I think this is the right outcome for my portfolio?
Without question, I’ve had a long-standing relationship with them and I love their approach. They will place a ton of these domains with businesses that will put them to work – exactly what we domain investors want to see.
It’s a win-to-the-third-power transaction.
Simply put, life is short and this it was the perfect time for myself and my family to make a move that doesn’t require working 7 days a week, 365 days a year on the computer.
So now what can you expect from me?
Don’t expect to see me rebuild a huge portfolio of domain names.
There is nothing that restricts me from doing so, but it’s not going to happen.
Sure there will be domains here and there I will buy or bid on at auction, but you’re not going to see me daily in the drop auctions.
On the blog front my plan is not to quit writing at this point, but you will see a lot fewer posts.
The blog is going to go back to where it started as a platform for expressing thoughts and opinions about domain names and the industry from time to time.
I’ll continue to share thoughts and stories on Twitter, a lot more often than I will be writing on the blog.
There are other great blogs in the space so you will be well served.
There will come a time where I will pretty much go the way of Mr. Schwartz and go quietly into a different life.
However, for now I’m still involved with RighoftheDot.com and will be working hard on what is shaping up to be a great auction at Namescon to make that a huge success.
We look forward to seeing everyone at Namescon in just over a month.
I’m still very bullish on great domain names as an investment.
As a final note, since Mostwanteddomains.com was included in the sale to Godaddy, I will launching two new sites this week, one for our adult domain names that we retained which will be under the new gTLD; Adult.Domains. The rest of our non-adult inventory we retained, which are mostly new gTLD’s will be under The.Domains.
I know everyone has a ton of questions about the details of the sale but Godaddy is a public company and I’m restricted from saying much more than I have said here.
I want to thank every one of you and there are a ton of people in the industry that have taken some or all of the 18 year ride with me.
