Robert Kayian of AIM, LLC
Robert Kayian of AIM, LLC
12/13/2006 - Monte Cahn
Monte returns from the blistering cold in Chicago to speak with Robert Kayian. Robert started Advanced Internet Marketing, LLC, an internet marketing company based in Las Vegas Nevada and has more than 25 years of Marketing experience. AIM is an online magazine, newspaper, yellow pages and full service travel agency. Through AIM, Robert owns and is developing over 800 web sites seen in 41 countries and has another 4,000 plus highly marketable domain names. Robert is also a real estate agent licensed in Florida and California.
[Commercials]
M: Hello everyone. Welcome to Domain Masters Live, back in Florida. Last week we were at SES Chicago and it was freakin’ cold. Average temperature was about 8 degrees and you could definitely feel it. I’m from Cincinnati but I didn’t get used to the cold weather up there, that’s for sure, with all the winds blowing and walking to and from a couple places; I froze my little hinie off.
But we’re back in nice, warm, balmy and tropical Ft. Lauderdale and broadcasting live for Domain Masters. I have two very big domainers on tonight. My first guest is Robert Kayian and my second guest is Nick Spanos. Both have very large portfolios and we’re going to learn a lot about their business and a little bit about what makes them successful and some of their portofolio ideas, so we’ll be back on with them. And, uhm, recap the last week at SES a little bit. Hopefully, everybody got a chance to catch the show. I did it live on the show floor and then had to piece things together through the morants and tape a couple interviews together, so hopefully it worked out well. I didn’t get a chance to even listen to the episode.
In any case, we’re going to take a quick commercial break and be back on with Robert Kayian. Stay tuned.
[Commercials]
M: Hello everyone. Welcome back; this is Monte Cahn. As I mentioned before, we have two big domainers on tonight and my first guest, Robert Kayian started Advanced Internet Marketing, LLC, an Internet marketing company based in Las Vegas, Nevada and has more than 25 years of experience in marketing. AIM is an online magazine, newspaper, yellow pages and a full service travel agency. Through AIM, Robert owns and is developing over 800 websites, seen in 41 countries, and has another 4,000+ highly marketable domain names. Robert is also a real estate agent, licensed in Florida and California. Robert, welcome to Domain Masters.
R: Thank you, Monte. [inaudible]
M: And, I just want to make sure I pronounced your last name correctly, ‘cause we’re on the radio. Is it Kay-an?
R: Yes, that’s correct.
M: OK, great, great. I think we already mentioned you have about 4,000 domain names. Give us a little bit of background on how you got involved in the Internet and you know, when you first ventured on and buying your first domain name.
R: Well, that’s a great question. About six years ago, I was living in Newport Beach, California and uh, the Internet, uh, the dot com boom at that time was at its peak and I got to experience firsthand the quality of the industry, but then very shortly thereafter, when the dot com boom ended and sort of was on its way down, I realized that it was an opportunity now for me to get involved with an industry that previously I did not intend to work within.
M: Right. Right. So . . .
R: At this time, I noticed that there were a variety of different Internet companies which really had aggressively taken over the marketplace that were sort of falling by the wayside. And so at that time I pulled all my resources and, to coin a phrase in poker, I said, I’m all in.
M: [laughs] That’s great.
R: I began developing and purchasing highly marketable domain names about six years ago.
M: Good. Good. Good. So you built up quite a portfolio of between four . . . what do you have exactly?
R: We have right now an inventory of approximately 4,500 highly marketable domains.
M: Okay. And, what are some of the key domain names that you own and monetize? What are some of your leading moneymakers?
R: Okay. Right now, PinkRazr.com is one of the top websites in the country and of course, for the cellphone, PinkRazr; that’s one of our top websites. We just signed a deal with our other website, USAIdol.com; and that’s the deal that we just signed with American Idol . . .
M: Oh, wow. Well, what . . . give us a little bit . . . what . . . when you say you just signed with American Idol, what? Did you rent that domain out? Or sell it?
R: Well, what we do . . . our website USAIdol.com provides traffic to the American Idol website; and of course, we’re compensating for that. Uhm, it’s going to be a website that should be as of the return of American Idol in January, we expect it to be one of the top websites in the country.
M: Oh, that’s great.
R: Yeah.
M: And what . . .?
R: American Idol, presently in January, up to 200,000,000 (two hundred million) hits a day.
M: Wow; that’s a lot.
R: Yeah, it’s phenomenal. And, in addition to the USAIdol website, we also have MakeOver90210.com, which is one of the top websites for cosmetic surgery, because of the Popularity of Doctor90210; we launched that website a couple of months’ ago. Had great success with all of those. And then the one here in Vegas, VegasInStyle.com, we just signed an agreement with Win Resort & Casino, to provide Internet traffic to their main site here in Las Vegas.
M: So it sounds like you have some really creative relationships going on where you’re monetizing these domain names in various ways on more of like a lease-rental basis. Correct?
R: Exactly. We make it available sort of on a win-win scenario for all customers, whether or not they’d like to rent a website, they’d like to purchase the domain along with the website (we make that available); we want to make sure all our customers are served in the manner that they feel comfortable with.
M: Alright, so, let’s talk about a scenario, because . . . and I know leasing and renting are becoming more and more popular but uhm, what used to be kind of looked upon negatively just for the fact that when you make a domain name famous through a rental or leasing arrangement, uhm, and you don’t physically own it, you’re basically putting yourself at risk; you’re building a brand and identity on a domain name that you may not have title to. Talk about how . . . what your opinion of that is and you know, how you get around some of those obstacles when you’re negotiating those rentals and some of your leasing deals with your potential clients there.
R: Well, by the way, I agree with everything you said 100%. And, in the end, we always want to make sure the customer wins. But what we’ve made available, because the industry and in particular the domain name are so highly valued, there are companies that just can’t purchase the domain for their individual use. So what we do is we break it down and we offer them a small segment of advertising, whether that be a banner ad or whether that be a text ad; and of course they pay a significantly reduced price for that. But at the same time, because our search engine optimization rates us #1 on Google, MSN, Yahoo!, it puts their company right away in the forefront, sort of, on the pages that they would not be able to take advantage of. Then what we do is after a 12-month program, we also make that available to them to purchase, at an agreed upon purchase price at the time that we sign the agreement. So they really have several options that they can take advantage of. We want to make sure they get the most value for their money.
M: Oh, that’s great. That’s good. Okay, so you kind of lease-to-own, rent-to-own option so they can get into it. Certainly, Win Resorts could afford to buy, you know, LasVegasLife . . .
R: VegasInStyle.com.
M: Right, right.
R: [laughs] yeah, absolutely.
M: Right.
R: Ah, VegasInStyle.com has been one of the top websites that we own. And, its something that we entered into an agreement with to provide traffic to their main site. And we’re compensated based on the amount of visitors, and of course, whenever they purchase a hotel accommodation at the Win Resort & Casino, we’re also compensated.
M: Oh, that’s great. And, uhm, talk a little bit about PinkRazor now. It looks like a couple of these names, you know, one would think, how come this guy’s not getting slapped with some, you know, some cyber-squatting cases and stuff? So, like, PinkRazor, ah, I guess is the famous Motorola phone . . .
R: Right.
M: Ah, the USAIdol.com name, you know, kind of close to American Idol – do you ever get any kind of, you know, threatening letters . . .?
R: You know what? We haven’t received a single letter or complaint, either by a customer, an advertiser, or anybody in the industry that has a trademark protective right. First and foremost, we always want to make sure we do the legal thing first. We don’t intentionally infringe upon anybody’s trademark. The way that we’re able to achieve this, specifically, let’s say, for PinkRazor, is the term “pink razor” in . . . is used in a number of different industries – whether that’s the Pink Razor telephone or forty or fifty other industries. And, from what we did our research and our counsel; we saw that no one had the trademark or copyright protection under the Pink Razor name. So that’s when we launched it. In fact, we bought the PinkRazor.com name prior, a couple of years’ prior, to the Pink Razor phone coming out.
M: Oh . . .
R: We’ve been fortunate. It’s not our intention to infringe upon anybody’s rights. We just want to capitalize and really give the end-user customer what it is that they’re asking for and so that’s how we achieve it.
M: Got it, got it, got it. Okay, so, talk a little bit about, you know, your philosophy about developing these sites. How do you go about getting the content? What’s the strategy on getting limited content? Sharing content with others? Those types of things.
R: Well, we understand through our research – and by the way, we spent a couple of years in research and development before we launched even the first site – and what we found is that the first person to capture the web visitor, wins. The second thing we determined through our research is we only have about 15 seconds to create an environment for them to take action and make a choice. So we want to make sure that we limit their choices to three, four or five, so that we can ensure that we can capture the customer first, we create an enviorment for them to take action, and then we give them a specific target or product that they came for. And we cater that around a specific event. For example, PinkRazor.com is designed specifically for cell phones. MakeOver90210.com is an event such as a plastic or reconstructive surgery, which of course is, right now, booming in the country. VegasInStyle.com is centered gambling and the casino experience. USAIdol.com is for people that have an interest on being performers or getting on the American Idol TV show. So, it’s a specific event and we redirect that web visitor to their website.
M: Okay, got it. So that’s very targeted, so obviously you’re successful at that. So, get . . . are you able to share a little bit about what some of this is generating for you for income?
R: Oh, sure. And by the way, our philosophy, our motto at Advanced Internet Marketing here in Las Vegas is, “We bring people and business together.” And oftentimes, because, when you visit our website, you’ll notice that we, as a company, don’t sell anything. Everything that we do we generally give away to our company as a way to promote other companies promotions. But our websites right now generate up to $100,000 per month, each.
M: Wow, that’s fantastic. And . . .
R: And . . .
M: And it sounds like you have, you know, very little, you know, not as much . . . obviously, you’re ROI-positive in this venture; so, you’re making a lot of money doing this.
R: Well, not only are we making a lot of money and reaching a lot of people, and providing a great service for them; but in fact we are presently, ah, involved in negotiations where we’ve been offered up to $40 million for 25% of the company, and the company’s only 3 years old.
M: Oh that’s great. That’s great. Well, that’s sounds like a very successful model. Uhm . . . so the win-win philosophy’s paying off because you’re being very targeted and uh, you’re not selling anything but you’re bringing people to the, you know, the people in the businesses together, which is generating a lot of indirect revenue, obviously, through advertising and the leasing of your sites. Correct?
R: Absolutely.
M: And, what, uh, what . . . tell us about some of the other inventory, like, uhm . . . you know, I understand you have some other domain names that are doing things for you as well.
R: Well, we have . . . we have a very, very exciting domain website called FreeBirthdayParty.com; and although the name seems a little long, its actually very, very strong. It’s currently listed on over 1 million search engines and its being visited by people in 41 different countries. And what’s exciting about it – it’s sort of been compared to the next MySpace, is that people go and register on their birthday or before their birthday, for products and services offered by over 300 different companies. And on their birthday, Monte, they receive a birthday menu with up to 43 gifts. And it’s just a way, a fun exciting way for them to print that menu out and then take it out, whether or not they’re going to take advantage of a free promotional offer or whether or not they’re actually going to get a free meal at one of our advertisers. It’s a way to introduce that person, on their birthday, to the new advertiser on the day that they’re most likely to spend money. And the average birthday has between six and seven people. So it’s a way the companies can bring in a half a dozen people on the day that you’re most likely to spend money, which is your birthday . . .
M: Right.
R: . . . and everything that we do for that person on their birthday is absolutely free – so at the end of the day they walk away with, uh, cash in their pocket, whether or not they’re visiting one of our advertisers, and they get a number of free gifts from the people that they visit just as a way of thanking them for coming into their place of business. Really, really exciting.
M: Yeah, it sounds very cool. Sounds very cool. Now, how many people . . . is it a membership site?
R: No, no, not at all. As a matter of fact, I’m glad you asked that question. There are no surveys to complete, there’s no purchase required and what we do is, you simply go online to FreeBirthdayParty.com, click “Register to Win” and just provide your name, your date of birth and your email, and you’ll be automatically enrolled in the program. There’s no purchase ever required and we will never sell anything through that website. And about every 90 days, you’ll get an update; and you’ll get future offers from additional companies that we add, so its not a one time thing. It’s something you can [inaudible] from . . .
M: So you’re basically . . . you’re getting a list of customers and email addresses that you can market goods and services to in the future and helping that, you know, potentially bringing things of interest to them, plus giving them what comes on FreeBirthdayParty.
R: You got it.
M: Great. Great idea. And how many . . . give us an idea of how many different email addresses have you been able to collect through that viral marketing program.
R: Well . . . let me just say this. Sometimes we get up to 40,000 – and by the way, the program has recently been launched in the last 12 months. So, we get up to 40,000 – 45,000 or 50,000 registrations per week.
M: Wow. That’s a great deal. [laughs]
R: [laughs]
M: [inaudible] and then . . .
R: . . . [inaudible] . . .
M: . . . and then . . . and then there are a lot of people that come in, you know, two or three times – you can only enter once and put your information in once or how does that all work?
R: You know what? Of course, we’re going to have multiple that register. We know that as a company. And we like when people show that level of enthusiasm. It doesn’t increase your chances because everything we do, everybody gets the same thing and its all given away, so it really doesn’t matter how many times you register. But the answer to your question is we do have multiple people register.
M: Okay. Okay, good. And, uhm, uhm, talk about . . . so are you still buying domain names currently?
R: Every day.
M: Every day. Okay. So, talk about your experience today compared to when you got started several years ago and what you do to get the best names. Are you buying domain names in the aftermarket? Are you playing the expired name market? Or are you registering from scratch?
R: Well, you know what? All good questions and all good ways to acquire them. What I tell people is that I got into this business several years ago, not knowing how involved and how competitive and complicated it could be. So the way that I acquire my domains is by all of the ones that you’ve listed, but specifically, I do research through my data on highly marketable key search or key words that people enter into the search engines. I take that information and I compile my domain purchases based on that. Now, naturally, we would all love to be able to go and purchase those right away at one of the registrars. But the reality of it is, they’re not available. No you can either negotiate with the owner to purchase it, which we do every days; we can either buy or backorder it, which is very difficult, your chances of backordering are very, very small; or, you can simply go online to companies like yourself, which I recommend and simply pay the amount of money that’s necessary for the specific domain that specifically targets your company; and then go to work to start serving your customers.
M: Right, right. Spend the money, get the domain name that you want that’s going to brand you properly and go to work.
R: That’s right. Because too many companies today, they start off with brick and mortar, they build an entire company, they put the key in the front door and they don’t have a website. They don’t have a way for a highly marketable domain to connect the customer to their place of business. And it makes it . . . it makes my job so much more profitable when people do business that way. When they should pick their domain name (which is what we do) and then we build a marketing program or a company around it. We work from the end back to the beginning.
M: So let’s talk in a little bit more detail about researching the domain properly and that marketing plan from beginning to end, uhm, based off of your marketing experience. And obviously, having a marketing background gives you an advantage with some of these programs that have been very innovative for you. Uhm, give us some inside tips and tricks that maybe others won’t know about that help . . . can help you and others be successful doing what you do.
R: Alright, I’m going to give your listeners – and this just goes to show you that it’s really about what you give back to people; it’s not what you keep for yourself, but I’m going to give them some information in a sentence or two that they’ve never heard before from anyone.
M: Good.
R: And this is how it works: When you go to GoDaddy or BlueRazor.com and you backorder a domain – when that capture is unsuccessful, you’re going to get an email response that says that capture was unsuccessful. 99% of the people at that time delete and move on. Most of the registrars, the big ones? They actually keep that domain in their possession for another 7 – 10 days. Don’t delete the backorder at that time. Leave the backorder in place; and in fact, that’s how I captured the name USAIdol.com. They said the backorder was unsuccessful; I left the backorder on for 7 more days. It became available in the public domain and I was able to snap it up.
M: And has that example or that, uhm, uhm, has that scenario worked multiple times with you?
R: Dozen or more.
M: That’s a pretty good trick. [laughs] Well, good . . .
R: Tell you what: it’s really the most important thing that I’ve learned in the six years that I’ve been in this industry is that one strategy for picking up backordered domains.
M: Now, now, is that doing backorders strictly through the GoDaddy-Blue Razor network, ‘cause of their sites or uhm, how are you . . .? You’re not at another registrar trying to get that, right?
R: Ah, you know what? Those are the only two that I’ve had the success with. I also, of course, work with the other top ones as well – Pool.com, Sedo . . .
M: SnapNames . . .
R: . . . and many of the companies that you work with.
M: Right, right. Okay, so, because the GoDaddy network just keeps its own names for themselves and doesn’t share them across the rest of the channels with SnapNames and Pool and all those, so . . .
R: Right, right.
M: . . . that’s a great strategy for the names that they have, and they do have a lot of names that delete because they have 14 million domain names registered and they don’t have a very high keep rate on their domains.
R: No, they don’t.
M: They turn about 35% of all their names every year; so that’s a good tip. What else from the Internet marketing side can you help out with and maybe share some love with the listeners and some of the domainers that are onboard?
R: Well, if I had to say anything with the listeners onboard, I would say, “Listen to the customer.” If you . . . it’s not different from any other industry. Somebody told me awhile back, “You must know a lot about the Internet.” I said, actually, I know very little about the Internet in terms of the size of the industry, but I do know a lot about people. And if you find out your customers needs by asking good quality, complicated questions and you simply fulfill those needs – you’ll be very successful in this or any industry. Too often, people become “experts” in their industry and they want to educate their particular client or customer, which is of course a part of it. But most people buy based on emotion and then reason with logic why they made that decision. So if I were able to tell anybody in the Internet industry how to capture the customer, is by understanding the customer’s needs, asking a good quality question, and then making sure that you do exactly what you say that you’re going to do, and then always fulfill your promises regardless of what happens in the meantime.
M: That’s a very good point. And definitely that’s more of a consultive approach, which actually works well for sure. And you’re right about people buying on emotion and buying on relationship and then they justify that decision afterwards. That’s for sure.
R: Right. And as you know and I know, the Internet, right now, as they see the incredible decline of the need for television; newspapers are going to be dinosaurs in the next year or two; the Internet is really coming into it’s own and its really going to be the way people and businesses interface with each other and their customers.
M: Where do you see the domain market going in the next couple years, given where you see the Internet going?
R: Well, I think its going to become much more valuable. We see domains like at the auction you recently had at Las Vegas that are going for as much as a million and a half dollars, ah, two million dollars. So companies are now recognizing the importance of branding and having a domain that captures the exact content of what they’re providing. And they understand that domains really are like a unique piece of real estate. There’s only one; and its important to have that protection and that domain to keep your company sort of in the forefront of making things happen on the Internet.
M: Yeah, I totally agree with you. And the auction that we had in Hollywood, Florida definitely shows that and there was a lot of emotion and competitiveness on the floor and a lot of people stepped up to the plate and bought domain names. We ended up with almost $5.4 million worth of domain names sold during that auction event . . .
R: Wow.
M: And it was a very successful event, and we’re getting ready for the next acution, which is coming up on January 17th in Las Vegas . . .
R: In Las Vegas . . .
M: In Las Vegas, at Internext and so we’re really fired up about it and so, that’s true. Alright, well, before we wrap up, Robert, is there anything else that you’d like to share with the audience about being successful on the Web and some of the experiences that you’ve learned and any other pointers and tricks and tips . . .?
R: I would say . . . I would say honesty and integrity are never for sale; put your best foot forward, serve the company and do the right thing by the customer and I think you’ll always win. And I would just invite people, anyone, to visit FreeBirthdayParty.com; its very simple – “Free” then “Birthday” then “Party” dot com, and just click on “About Us,” which is my company, and they can get sort of an overview of everything that we offer and I would invite anybody to call me at any time. I’m available, I work 24 hours a day, and I’m happy to assist anybody in moving forward with their own personal vision of their company or anything that I can be of service to your listeners on.
M: Alright, fantastic. Well, Robert, that was a lot of great information and everybody definitely go to FreeBirthdayParty.com. And are they able to contact you through FreeBirthdayParty? Or can I share your email address on the board?
R: You can share my email address on the board . . .
M: Okay.
R: And if they want to contact me directly, I mean, I’m happy to provide my telephone number in Las Vegas . . .
M: Yeah, why don’t you give us your email address and your phone number and then I’ll also write it in.
R: Okay. The phone number here in Las Vegas is 702-255-4246; and an easy way to remember it is it spells ALL-4AIM and then my email address is the same – all4aim@hotmail.com. And if by some change – I always return calls usually within the hour – please leave a message and the best time to return the call, and I’m happy to give everybody a call back and speak with them personally.
M: Fantastic. Well . . .
R: Monte, thank you for your professional time, and the courtesy you extended to me tonight.
M: Oh, thank you and I really appreciate the fact that you’ve been on Domain Masters and you’ve added valuable content and some great ideas for our listening audience.
R: All the best to you.
M: Thank you very much, Robert; take care.
R: Good night.
M: Okay, good night. Well, that was great. A nice little tip there from Robert about the drops that are going on at GoDaddy and BlueRazor. Uhm, do not delete your rejection notice when they say that the domain name’s not deleting. Hold onto that for 5 or 7 days, or whatever, and looks like the domain name becomes available and you’re able to get some of the domain names that your thought you were backordering that were not available become available. Alright, we’re going to take a quick commercial break and be back on with our next guest, Nick Spanos, who’s been on the Internet for ages and Nick has a long history with domain names and we’re going to talk to him about him and his successful business and what he’s doing with his large portfolio. So, stay tuned; we’ll be back on with Domain Masters in a couple minutes.
[Commercials]
M: Hello. Welcome back to Domain Masters. Thanks again to my first guest, Robert Kayain, who was onboard and shared with us some great tips and tricks about being successful on the Web.
My next guest is Nick Spanos, who got his start in real estate and applied his aggressive approach to succeed in many facets in the industry. And Nick took some personal ventures in the world of virtual properties such as BootlegBooks.com, ApartmentsExpress.com, NoMoreHotels.com. As CEO and founder of these companies, Nick oversaw the daily technical operations and overall vitality of these successful Internet sites. I think NoMoreHotels is still onboard. Nick, welcome to Domain Masters.
N: Hey, how’s it going?
M: Good; how’re you doing?
N: Pretty good; NoMoreHotels, as a matter of fact, we took it down this year. [laughs]
M: Oh, you did; you took it down.
N: Yeah; it was thriving business, but it was vacation rentals around the world; a lot of people used it, about 60,000 visitors a month at one point but then we took 20% commission from people on their credit cards and stuff, but then the buildings came down, 911, and everybody stopped their credit cards. Had about 70 employees and we . . . we had to go down.
M: Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.
N: [laughs]
M: Well, tell us a little bit about your history on the Internet, because I know you and I spoke a couple years ago and you’ve actually been in the domain name business for a long, long time and in the Internet for a long time. So give me a little bit of a background, a 30,000 foot view of your history with getting involved with the Internet and with domain names.
N: Yeah. Well, I started out with computers. I built one, a heathkit one back in 1978. And then I built one on my own, with a soldering iron and in addition to the Heathkit, I designed my own board, using chips and stuff . .
M: Yeah?
N: Ah, then, uhm, I discovered girls, because I was young . . .
M: Yeah, that’s good thing . . .
N: Bill Gates didn’t discover the girls, and he got all the money.
M: [laughs] Yeah.
N: And, then, did a whole bunch of stuff but then started buying up the domain names in the early 90’s.
M: Now, what year did you buy your fits domain name?
N: I think in ’93.
M: So you were like one of the first guys to buy domain names. So in 1993, do you remember what the first one was that you bought?
N: Well, I was general manager of the largest nightclub in Manhattan and I bought WebsterHalls.com.
M: Oh, fantastic.
N: That was the name of the nightclub.
M: So you got WebsterHalls.com for the nightclub back then and then what about your own portfolio? What was the first domain name that you got for yourself?
N: I bought some domain names for my cousin, who was in limousine company, like, ah, LimousinesOnline, LimoSource, a whole bunch of them. Sold some of them; I think he sold some of them. Then I bought a bunch of . . . ah, I used to manage political campaigns also, so I bought a bunch of political names . . . ah, Vote – one of the veriticals that I have is Vote and the name of every state dot com. And I have Vote, you know, the name of every state, like VoteNewYork, VoteFlorida, whatever, dot org, dot com, dot us (you know, recently I got the US). And I got the Vote and the initials, the two-letter initial of each state, in dot com and dot org.
M: Oh Wow.
N: You know, and in dot org . . .
M: You got the whole, ah, the whole thing
N: Yeah, I got a little crazy.Yeah.
M: So you got the whole voting and election thing covered, huh?
N: Pretty much. I don’t thing anyone . . . as they say, politics are local, that’s why I went state . . .
M: State by state.
N: I got other ones, too, National ones; I just don’t remember them off hand.
M: Now, how many domain names do you have in total and manage?
N: I have about 12,000 of them.
M: And, uh . . .
N: I got 2,000 myself personally and 10,000 with some relatives and some business partners with.
M: Now, tell me a little bit about what you do with the domain names. How are you generating revenue and income? And what are some of the things that you’re doing?
N: Uhm, we’re building some sites. I don’t know, at some time I had about 60 sites that actually did things. Then I had, ah, I threw them all into Sedo and they started making money over there. Then, I, uhm, put a bunch over with Moniker, of course.
M: Yes, . . .
N: I spoke to Monte, there; you’re Monte, right?
M: I sure am! [laughs]
N: [laughs] I spoke to you a couple years ago – I don’t know if you remember.
M: Yes. Yes. I remember you were interested in . . .
N: You got a bunch more features right now that I wasn’t aware of, until a little while ago. And I think I’m going to bring some over there. I mean, I don’t want to plug your site or anything [laughs] . . .
M: Oh, it’s okay. You can plug it, it’s my show. [laughs]
N: [laughs] Good.
M: So, you’re monetizing traffic on PPC pages, it sounds like. Now have you ever done any domain name . . . you have a real estate background, so have you done any domain name leasing or renting with anybody?
N: Yeah, I sure am. I’m a real estate broker; I’ve got a real estate outfit in Manhattan, eApple.com. And, so I know a lot about real estate and that is pretty much how I conduct my domain business. I’ve rented many names.
M: So, our previous guest, Robert, has been very successful renting his names, too. So walk us through some of the rental scenarios that you’ve been in, because as I explained in the first segment, a lot of people in the past were against renting domain names because you can build a brand and make it famous on a name that you actually don’t hold title to. And that becomes a little bit risky. What’s your thoughts and feelings around that both as a domain owner and also somebody in the real estate world that has the other side and the view of that?
N: Yeah, well; they’re right. They want to build a brand, its not going to happen unless they’re tied up in long term lease with an option to buy it. Now, the price that you would put . . . sometimes, you’re afraid to put a small price on it and you don’t want to put too big a price on the option to buy at the end of the lease term, because they might be too afraid to sign the lease; but maybe they might want it so bad they’ll sign the lease, you know, with the big number at the end, you know, for the option to purchase the name after 5 years or something.
M: Right.
N: Now, certain . . . I think I’m pretty lucky because the political names, the length of their existence if they’re running is about a year for their campaign; you know, a year and a half, two years, so . . .
M: Oh, I got it. So you’ve been renting some of the Vote names, for example, because they have short term lives to them, they accomplish their goal and then its not of use to them anymore.
N: Yeah.
M: So, give us an idea of that mone . . . give us an idea of how that revenue model looks like.
N: Well, if it’s a small . . . there have been some of them . . . small state; it was like 500 bucks a month, a thousand bucks a month. Then I had a secretary of state of a very big state negotiate with me; [laughs] I’m not going to say the state. It went all the way . . . a few weeks of back and forth and documents and all kinds of things; then he pulled out. But I’ve been in contact with . . .most every secretary of state calls me, because they have this program, something, where they get people to learn how to vote and . . .
M: So they . . . so those sites serve a purpose there.
N: [inaudible] Oh, I’m sorry.
M: No, I’m saying, uh . . .
N: [inaudible] [laughs]
M: No, go ahead . . .
N: . . .[inaudible] . . .
M: [laughs] No, I said, so these short term rentals actually help people get educated about voting and get them to participate more in politics, I assume.
N: Well, no; the short term rentals don’t because the secretary of state wanted long-term; that’s where the thing fell apart.
M: Oh, I got it. I got it.
N: When candidates are running, they’d like to put up something that looks like third party verification that they’re alright guys, you know?
M: Right, right, I understand.
N: Or someone who’s a benefactor to them has given too much money and he wants to do more for the guy and the fund raiser or someone in charge of the campaign will call one of their deep pocket guys and they’ll put up the rent money and people build a . . . you know, they’ll build up their guy on that site and bash the other guy, whatever they do.
M: Right, right. Got it. Got it. Now talk to us about some of your more famous domain sales. How many domain names have you sold out of your portfolio?
N: Well, I don’t really like selling them.
M: You don’t like selling them.
N: [laughs]
M: I’m sure when you do, they’re, ah, they’re ah . . . have you sold some?
N: Well, I sell, like, the obscure ones that I bought by accident. Ah, I sold FatBlackPussyCat.com, which was a password for the speakeasies in the 20’s . . .
M: Oh, yeah . . .
N: . . . during prohibition; that was like a password.
M: Yeah.
N: In the nightclub world, you’d know what it meant because there were a few nights that you promoted Fat Black Pussy Cat nights and whatever; I got like, 10 grand for it. And the guy opened the nightclub Fat Black Pussy Cat with the “.com” on the sign there; so he’s pretty happy. Ah, what did I sell? I don’t know.
M: Okay. Well, talk to us a little bit about what your current and future plans are with your domain names. What are you going to do to, you know, are you going to build some out? Are you going to continue to monetize? What are some of the plans that you have in place now that you have some of it since the early 90’s?
N: Well, I’m selling YNJ.com; just because, I don’t know. I put it on eBay. Maybe I should have put it somewhere else. But I put it on there; it’s on there today. [laughs]
M: Yeah. What . . . how much are you selling that for?
N: I don’t know. I don’t know what its going to get. It’s up to, like, $2,500 right now. I’ve had on there for two days. I don’t know. I don’t know what they’re worth, the three-letter ones. I couldn’t find anybody who’s company initials where YNJ in the whole country.
M: Yeah.
N: So, I couldn’t find any . . .
M: We sell a lot of three-letter domains. The average price for a three-letter domain name is around the $15,000 mark.
N: Oh, yeah?
M: Yep.
N: I better pull it off [laughs].
M: Well, again, if you had some companies that had some initials like that or it had some other kind of meaning, it might be more valuable. So that’s the average price; so of course some sell for 4-digits and some sell for five and some sell for more and you know, they vary.
N: Yeah; I was just testing out the waters there. I might want to sell some of my stuff.
M: Yeah, well, we can definitely help you with that.
N: Well, I’m going to do it.
M: Good, good. So give us a little bit about some of the lessons that you learned through the early days of domain registration and what happened during your career and how that’s really helped you be better at domain name ownership than what you are . . . than where you were back then?
N: Well, I, uh . . . . what I’ve learned . . . the landscape of the domain business, you know as well as I do, I think, people out there over the years has been pretty weird . . . well, not weird but has changed. You know, before the dot com crash of the 90’s, I was getting all kinds of crazy offers, really big offers. First time offers, you know, nobody trying to get a bargain.
M: Right.
N: Now, you’re getting a bunch more money than you did a few years ago; but people start off lower, it looks like, like they think they can get it cheaper. But whoever really wants it will pay more; is what I realize. I don’t know, what do you think?
M: Well, for sure. There’s a whole lot of . . . there’s a whole bunch of venues, now, to buy and sell domain names, you know, like the domain auctions that we have. We’re holding five of them this year. And the market’s definitely appreciated from , of course, the bust back in 2000, 2001; so it’s appreciated quite a bit. And now, like you said, now that there’s more and more people on the Web, the value of Internet real estate has increased quite a bit and its going to continue to do so as more and more people get on. And unlike physical real estate, which I know you can assimilate to, domain names are very unique because there’s only one of each domain name. Where you can have two equal pieces of property sitting next to each other on the water and they look identical, same size lots, whatever, you know, before you build something on them, right? But with a domain name, they’re actually 100% unique. Each one is 100% unique. You can’t duplicate them. So that gives us some, you know, extra value and like in it.
N: Yeah, sure. Sure. Sure. I mean, they say that real estate is unique, because there’s nothing exactly the same, but its pretty much the same if you go into a development. There are similar lots that there isn’t any noticeable different. But with the domain name, of course, it is unique . .
M: Yeah, definitely.
N: And you should probably get the .coms; now eveyone’s buying all the other ones, too. And I get offers on that – I have other ones. People make offers on them and stuff. But . . .
M: Do you have any other extensions besides dot com?
N: Yeah, well, the .net, the .org and the .us.
M: Okay, so you went with the .us’. What do you think about, like the .mo . . .
N: I’m a old timer. For me to buy .us was a big move.
M: Yeah, sure. Sure, it was.
N: I mean, I bought the .us’ because the electoral names, you know?
M: Right, right. Because you’re concentrating on your voting names; that makes a lot of sense.
N: And, uhm, I think the business is on its way up again; steady, you know?
M: So, are you re-investing back into the industry?
N: Sure.
M: Are you buying domain names from other people and trying to buy them in the open market places? Are you registering your names from scratch.
N: Yeah, I got offers out there. Always have offers out there, yeah. I think the better the name the better off you are, if you can get the money together.
M: Right. And are you like, uh . . .
N: And now you can buy . . .
M: How much money . . . give us an idea of the most valuable domain name that you’ve purchased so far has been.
N: Well, I put some bid . . . I think I put a bid through you on CD.com . . .
M: Yeah, that was a long time ago.
N: I think put 250 or something.
M: Yeah, yeah.
N: It went for 400 or something . . .?
M: Yeah, we ended up actually selling that for $275,000 at the live auction in May.
N: And I was at two hundred . . .
M: Yeah, you were at two hundred or something before the live auction; that’s correct. Yeah, you had a friend in New York that had a bank or something that had interest in it.
N: Yeah.
M: Yeah, which made a lot of sense, because actually the traffic for CD.com has shifted from music over to the banking industry because of the interest rising and CDs becoming more and more popular. So, and of course . . .
N: And of course, the MP3s are becoming so popular that the music dropped off [laughs].
M: Yeah, that too.
N: Yeah, in addition, of course, to the rates are going up, yeah; people are shopping around for the CDs.
M: Right, right.
N: I told you that before, right?
M: Well, that’s why it has good banking attractiveness and also of course, it’s still . . . a lot of people say CDs are a music-related domain name. But, yeah, that’s how it worked out.
N: Well, they’re old timers; ask a kid. You know, he only knows MP3s now.
M: Yeah, that’s true.
N: You know, a lot of young people.
M: And iPods. [laughs]
N: Well, we’re in a fast moving society here. You got to stay on point if you want to make money with names and words. You got to be on the cutting edge of what everybody’s doing.
M: Exactly. So where else do you see some of the opportunities for buying and selling domain names? Where do you see some of the markets going?
N: Well, I have a lot of robotic names, which I bought ten years ago and stuff. Looks like I’m getting the offers now. I rented RoboMaid to the guy that sells them on the infomercial there.
M: Oh yeah?
N: Yep. And I rented that to him for about 5 grand a month, because he already built the whole thing around it.
M: Oh wow.
N: And I built the RoboMaid myself. And I had him sign off that he didn’t have, you know, any rights to the trademark or any more rights to the name, you know, by renting the name and all that stuff; that was in the lease. And, I just, uh, I control the DNS, I plug the stuff in there and that was it. I was getting about 5 grand a month.
M: Oh, that’s great. That’s a good way to monetize a name like that.
N: Yeah. And I got a bunch of whole other robotic names where people are calling me everyday; looks like they’re building robots, you know?
M: Yeah.
N: We’re starting to build robots and they got, like, a bunch of geno names I got and DNA names and nanotechnology names – they don’t come around yet but they will. Like some DNA names I have; there’s a public company trading – he’s trying to buy the name off of me. But I think my whole life I’ve been always thinking about what’s going to happen, instead of what’s happening [laughs], so it takes awhile for me to get my money out of these names because I got a bunch of stuff that no one thought of yet.
M: Right. Well, that was pretty thoughtful of you. You were a forward thinker because you started buying domain names in the early 90’s, when a lot of people didn’t do it until, you know, the late 90’s and even today. So, uhm, although you may not have developed a lot of them out, you certainly had the vision and now it’s starting to pay off, I guess.
N: Sure. I might even be a billionaire with these names.
M: Yeah. Yeah. Me, too, maybe. [laughs]
N: I still walk to the corner and buy a sandwich, though. [laughs]
M: Yeah, definitely. Hey, ah, just off the subject, I also understand that you spend a lot of time with the 9-11 clean up efforts and stuff. You want to give just a couple minutes, you know, your contribution to that?
N: Yeah, it was pretty big. I run many events. I run for the city. As a matter of fact, I just came off the Pope’s trip; we produced the Pope’s trip to Istanbul.
M: Oh, really?
N: Yeah. Just got back, yeah. That was a big one. But, I also work with . . .
M: Now, when you say you produced it . . . what do you mean when you say you produced it?
N: Well, I don’t know how to explain it to people, so I say I produced it. Ah, soup to nuts – itineraries, walk-throughs with the Turkish government, you know, their Federal police and their Presidential guard months’ before; we set up a press center at the Hilton in Istanbul . . .
M: Was your company selected to that for that particular visit, for that engagement?
N: Yep.
M: Wow. Congratulations.
N: Well, no one else wanted to do it. No, we got the job back in January, so . . .
M: And was that from some of your political experience . . .
N: Yeah.
M: . . . sitting on some political campaigns, that’s how you were able to secure that particular engagement?
N: Pretty much the people that I’ve met in the political circles call me up to put together events for them, yeah.
M: Fantastic.
N: I’m pretty good at logistics, making sure everything happens.
M: Good. Good.
N: [laughs]
M: Well, before we wrap up, Nick, can you give us two or three really important tips and tricks about how you’ve made your business successful? Your multiple businesses? Something that could help the listening audience be better at what they do?
N: Well, multiple business, huh? Oh, I didn’t tell you about 9-11; since I ran all those events for the city, everyone knew me, and I don’t really sleep much. I was down there, the Tower, when everyone’s radio went down, but I had a bunch of radios [inaudible] repeater in another building, and I handed them out to all the different agencies so they were able to talk to each other . . .
M: Oh, that’s nice.
N: And we volunteered. I had my whole staff down, dressing people up in the rain, you know? And, moving supplies. I ran nightclubs, you know, and all the radio stations, they were broadcasting the equipment that we needed and they were bringing it down and pretty much just took on more and more responsibilities as things went by and while I was doing that, the merchant accounts were wiping out my bank accounts, from the NoMoreHotels . . .
M: Oh, really.
N: Because no one, everyone was stoppoing their travel plans, because of the buidling’s going down and they just stopped their credit cards. I had to go to every different venue to sue the guy personally for the money or something. I don’t know. But I lost everything. Not everything but that one business. I don’t know – what was the original question?
M: Uhm . . .
N: [laughs]
M: I was just asking, you know, from your hard knocks businessman experience, and also the domainer, what are some of . . . you know, maybe give two or three things out there that’s really helped you be successful at what you do that maybe people don’t usually know about. You know, something that can help them be better and be more successful in their business.
N: Well, the reality is the only commodity that we have is time, and what we do with it. I mean, anything you ever thought about doing, anything you ever wanted to do, anything you did do, you did within time. Time to love someone; time to go on a vacation; time to work; time to build something. And that time is finite. You only have so much of it. So you got to realize exactly the precious value of each moment and do what you got to do to enjoy it, and do what you enjoy and make something of yourself. [laughs]
M: Alright. Well, that’s good advice; that’s definitely good advice. Well, Nick, we appreciate you being on Domain Masters and we look forward to helping you monetize your domains better and also helping you do better at least with the domain aspect of your business and I ‘m glad that you were my guest tonight.
N: Very good. Nice talking to you.
M: Okay, we’ll talk to you again.
N: And buy domains! Buy them!
M: Yeah, at Moniker.com.
N: At Moniker.com, yep. Take care.
M: Okay, well, thanks a lot, Nick, I appreciate your time.
N: Bye-bye.
M: Okay. Alright, folks, that wraps up another great week of Domain Masters. I want to thank again my two guests – Robert Kayain and also Nick Spanos. And hopefully, you got a couple pointers tonight about how to be more successful with your domain names. And we’ll be on live next week with another great show, live here from lovely Fort Lauderdale and Pompano Beach, with Domain Masters. So, until then, I wish everyone a happy holiday; Chanukah starts on Friday, so Happy Chanukah to everybody. Happy Kwanzaa and Merry Christmas, in case you’re not on for the next couple weeks’ show and we will see you next week on Domain Masters. Be the master of your domain.
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