Grit.org Podcast Episode #31 is now live!

In this episode we sit down with the Grit Brokerage team to discuss the latest events in the digital world. Grit discusses the London Domain Summit conference they recently attended, the story of the global leader in online ad campaigns RTBHouse upgrading their domain, how character brand CoolCats trimmed their online brand, and the high profile entrepreneur Casey Wasserman who acquired his last name domain over a decade after his initial inquiry. This episode is action packed with everything you need to know currently happening in the domain space. Be sure to share this episode with someone you think would enjoy it, and reach out to GritBrokerage.com with all your premium domain needs! Enjoy!

Intro: Welcome to the Grit.org Podcast with Colby Harris and Brian Harbin!

In these episodes, they speak to top achievers in athletics and business to understand the habits and mindset they apply in order to build more grit.

Colby Harris: Welcome back to the Grit.org Podcast! 

My name is Colby Harris. Alongside me is Brian Harbin. And today we are bringing you another episode, all things domain, focusing on Grit Brokerage. We also have today with us Michael Law and Maureen Sullivan from grip brokerage to talk about the industry. Some things that you need to know currently happening in the market. We're going to go ahead and start off with Michael. 

Michael, you recently went over to London to attend the domain conference over there. How did that go? And tell us a little bit about the key values and takeaways that you took.

Michael Law: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Good to be here back on the Grit.org Podcast with you guys. And yeah, so London was great. For me, conferencing is always really exciting. It's great to get to hang out with people in the domain industry, you know, there's not a lot of us, so get a room full of domain investors and domain people and always makes for some good discussions and take a lot away from those discussions and time with those people. 

Yeah, I was invited to speak on a panel out there about buying and selling domains, which was a great experience. We had a really good panel with some industry colleagues, some other brokers, and some top domain investors. And so I think we provided the attendees with some really good tips and insights. And this was actually my first time in London, so it was great to get over there and have the opportunity to network with so many UK based domain investors and folks. 

co.uk is their country code and so there's a lot of investors that have a lot of really good co.uk domains over there. The people were super welcoming. So many of them I probably wouldn't usually see at a domain meetup in the US. So made a lot of friends, did a little bit of sightseeing while I was there and definitely hit up a couple of pubs. 

But yeah, so conferencing, you just never really know who you might run into. Actually, a few months back I had the opportunity to meet with a client at a domain event, and now we've already closed several high end deals for that client this year already. So it's just proof that one single connection at a domain conference can really lead to some tremendous success and bring a lot of value.

Colby Harris: Yeah, sorry, go ahead, Michael.

Michael Law: Yeah, I was just going to say, I usually come back from the conferences energized and motivated with a lot of new connections to build relationships with. And that's pretty much how the London show went too.

Colby Harris: Yeah, absolutely. And we were just talking before we got on here today that it was my first time to London this year as well. And it's very clear when you arrived that there's a reason it's a powerhouse of the world and where so much is happening in finance and tech and within the business world. You are recently working on a couple of very interesting deals that you want to discuss today. We would love to hear more about what you're currently working on, some of the deals you're seeing.

Michael Law: Yes, it's been a busy summer for sure. One deal that I thought it would be fun to talk about. This has been like my favorite deal probably so far, not because of the size, but just the way it went down and who I was working with on it. So I got an acquisition request by referral for the domain coolcats.com. And when the email came in, I was stoked when I saw that I'd have a chance to help them try and secure coolcats.com. So for those of you that don't know, Coolcats is one of the early and the most popular NFT collections. 

And so it was actually one of the first NFTs that I had bought. So I'm familiar with Coolcats and I've been following their progress and I thought it was awesome that they wanted to upgrade their domain from coolcatsnft.com just to Coolcats. So they wanted that clean version. And I started working with the marketing director over there and one of the things we discussed was that they really wanted to drop NFT from their domain because they wanted to be recognized as a global brand and not just an NFT project. 

So it was super important for them to get that exact match domain. The deal was very challenging and it took several weeks just to get in touch with the owners of the domain. At one point I actually thought we really weren't going to be able to get through to them. But LinkedIn sales navigator turned out to be a super handy tool for that and finally got through. 

And I can't say too much about the price or go too far into detail about how the negotiations went down, but there's a lot of back and forth and we finally did strike a deal to secure the name for Coolcats within their budget. They were like super pumped just to get this domain and they even tweeted about it a few times and they actually just finally moved over their site onto coolcats.com as well. So excellent upgrade for them and I was really excited to be able to help them with that.

Colby Harris: Yeah, that's awesome.

Michael Law: Yeah, it was a lot of fun. So that was on the buy side and on the sales side I have a really interesting deal. It actually just closed out about a month ago. And this was for RTB.com. And so a three letter domain, and this was a name that we brokered for a client and it was really interesting because several brokers got involved. It took months of negotiation and actually the sale price ended up being higher than the original asking price, which is pretty rare. So outbound sale, we reached out to several potential end users using RTB within their brand. And this company, they had the acronym as a central part of their brand. 

So after a couple of follow ups, they finally answered and it's always good to include some additional information or bring something new in a follow up. So I was looking at their website and they're a marketing company and on their homepage they haven't big huge words. Something to the effect of we help customers generate a deeper passion for their brand. 

And so I brought this up in one of my follow ups and I basically said, this is your opportunity to lead by example. You can shorten your brand to the exact three letters that you call yourselves and secure this domain. So after sending that, their CEO actually replied back and just one line, he said, we'll do it for $30,000. And not bad. At least it's an offer, but this is a wholesale value for this kind of premium letter combination. These are like wheel of fortune quality letters. 

So I had to explain that to them and explain the fact that the owners of the domain just weren't entertaining offers in that range. We did quote a price that was in the low to mid six figures and we gave them a lot of reasons why it was a fair value for that particular domain and how it really helped boost their business. 

So at this point they brought in a domain broker that they wanted me to communicate with moving forward. And so I got on the phone with a domain broker and they actually increased their offer significantly through him. But it was still less than half of what the owners were willing to accept. At that point, we did provide a counteroffer and it was lower than the asking price. We put a timestamp on that counteroffer for how long that price was valid for, and they actually never ended up taking the counter offer. And even after several follow up attempts, really it didn't go anywhere. 

So I kind of thought maybe the deal was dead there. But fast forward two months later and our client had received an email from GoDaddy about the domain that someone was interested in the domain name. So got on a call with a GoDaddy broker and they said that they have a client that wants to buy the domain. They ended up making several offers that were slightly higher than what the last broker had submitted, but at this point the owners were holding firm and they really didn't want to transact through GoDaddy. 

So that actually ended up going nowhere either. And then fast forward another two or three months and I get a text back from the original broker and he asked if the domain was still for sale and if there was any updated price that we can provide. Now from this time we had worked on the domain for quite a while and we had just renewed our agreement with the owners and our client wanted to raise the price. Now after having had significant interest in the domain and just based on the fact that they're not in a hurry to sell it and it was one of their better domains. 

So I had to break the news to the broker that while yes, the domain is available still the price had gone up and that we had received other interest through GoDaddy. And we can speculate if it was those same buyers that went through GoDaddy. Based on the timing I think it probably was. So when the dust finally settled and after a lot of back and forth negotiation with the broker again, we finally did get to an agreement on the price and we were able to secure the deal for a little bit higher than what the original asking price was ultimately for the buyers in the grand scheme of things, this is a great deal on a spectacular domain name. Three letter domains are scarce, there's only 17,000 or so combinations. And yeah, without a doubt this will be a digital asset that will be valuable for their company in the long run. It's short, it's memorable, high authority and overall just a great investment for them.

Colby Harris: Yeah, and I feel like that's something everyone should know that doesn't know much about the domain issues. Obviously that the three layer domains are some of the most valuable. And something that most people don't know is that these deals can take months, just like you were talking about. And through your time at grip brokerage and within the domain industry you've become a bit of an outbound sales expert. So tell us a little bit more about how you target companies when you're looking to do outbound sales for these deals.

Michael Law: Yeah, for sure. It depends on the type of domain. But like for instance, for the three letter, there were quite a few companies that were using the acronym in their branding and there was a lot of companies also that we looked up kind of what the acronym means for a lot of different companies. And so even if the acronym wasn't being used in their brand, it would be a good candidate for a lot of the companies that might want to buy something that they say that acronym a lot in their industry or it might be a subpage on their website. So that's one thing we look at. 

You definitely need to consider the company size based on compared to the price of the domain. If you're taking a six figure domain to market and you see a company has less than a million dollars annual revenue, it's probably not going to work. You don't really want to waste too much time pitching high value domains to very small companies, mom and pops companies. 

And yeah, so on the flip side, if you're working on keyword domains, we've sold a lot of those as well through outbound. If it's like a one word that has a lot of meaning to a lot of different companies, this is a great opportunity to really shotgun it out and put it in front of a lot of different buyers. And yeah, it just really comes down to timing on a lot of these things as well.

Colby Harris: Right. And talking about timing, you said it's pretty uncommon for someone to actually get over the asking price or increase the asking price over time. Tell us a little bit more about that. And when is it proper for someone to increase the price of their domain and then end up getting a successful deal.

Michael Law: Yeah, so in the case of RTB.com, yeah, that was really rare. And if they had actually did use GoDaddy to try and get the domain, that kind of backfired by sending a bunch of different brokers out to us to try and negotiate from the owner's perspective, in their mind, they think they have a lot of people interested in the domain now. It's such a great domain that obviously they can sit back at that point and kind of wait for the best offer to come in. They can dig their heels in. And that's what happened in this scenario. 

When we updated the agreement with them, they made it clear that hey, we want more for the domain now and those old counteroffers are not on the table anymore. So that put us in the driver's seat when they circle back to be able to increase the price and get a deal done for more than what the asking price was a few months back. 

In general, when you put a price out there, usually you're not going to sell it for more than that and it's not really something that you want to do is increase prices on people all the time. When we had offered it at a lower price we put a timestamp on it. 

And that's really important when you are negotiating and you offer a domain at a lower price or at any price. If we're in a serious negotiation, it is good to use timing and timestamp to tell them that hey, the price is going to go back up after this date and we really need an offer or we need to make a deal before that. So that really helped I think us as well in that case.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, that's a great point to bring up too about the timestamp because it's important because if you give a lower price to a buyer and then they circle back two or three months later, they expect the price to be the same. But with the timestamp you kind of create proper expectations. Like well that was then, this is now. So that's a great point to bring up.

Colby Harris: Yeah, definitely. Always good to put timestamps on really anything. Keep everyone up to date, make sure expectations are laid ahead of time. Thank you Michael for sharing all that. We're super happy you were able to represent grip brokerage out at the London Domain conference and first little experience getting on stage as well. I'm sure you enjoyed that but thank you for sharing all of that. 

Brian, I want to come over to you real quick and discuss a deal you recently completed. You sold a domain to a company owned by a very high profile individual with wasserman.com. Tell us a little bit more about that deal and how everything went down.

Brian Harbin: Yeah, this was an interesting deal just because it's one of those that really kind of test everything that you've learned up to that point. And so a guy calls me late afternoon on Thursday. He's an older gentleman that's been a CPA for a long time, has been using Wasserman.com. But he's like, hey, I got to sell this domain and I got to sell it ASAP. Like within a week. I need the cash and wanted a six figure price tag for it and he said I've had a couple offers on it but I need the money soon. You know, got it under agreement. 

And usually like Michael said, we get a domain like that under agreement, you know, we take some time to research all the prospects and get contact information. But in this situation it was like since he wanted a quick sale. I was like, okay, I had two previous offers. Let me kind of start there and see if I can make something happen pretty quick. 

So there was two offers that had come in previously. There was one from a broker, and then there was one that he wasn't sure, but he thought it was from this company called Team Wasp, which is a big sports agency out in California. And so I reached out to the broker, let them know the domain was for sale, and the response was, okay, that was it. I'm like, all right, and followed up like, the next day, is your client still interested or what's the deal? I just didn't respond. I'm like, okay, well, that's pretty much a cold lead. 

And then that night, I'd done some research on this team was and figured out their big sports agency owned by Casey Wasserman, who's a big Los Angeles social elite, but very successful entrepreneur. And so I sent an email to four or five of the top folks at team was and got an email back from the director of it saying, hey, let's talk. Usually they're not the decision maker for these type of things, but I'm like, hey, if that's who they're assigning to quarterback this, then I'll roll with it. 

So get on the phone with him. And he said, yeah, we inquired about this domain back around 2010, but it was way over budget and we went with something else. And they bought like, wassermans plural .com back then, which still to this day wasn't in use. And I said, well, what was your offer back then? He was like, well, it was under 10,000. I'm like, yeah, unfortunately, that's just not going to work. And he said, okay, well, let me reach out to Casey and see what we can do. So he calls me back, comes back with a 25K offer, and I'm like, thanks, but still much too low. 

And then at that point, we're on the phone and I spent probably another 30 to 45 minutes with him. Just pitched him hard. I mean, I'd done a lot of research the night before and had all these different points ready about why they should own it. And sure enough, a couple of hours later, it comes back. That increased to a six figure offer. He passed me over to the finance deal, and then we got the deal closed. 

And what's neat about it, it's always great in the domain industry when we can help the company that should own it end up getting them the domain, and you know, Casey Wasserman. You know, they use that know with their name, you know Wasserman. They use it with Twitter. They use it know the front page of their site but they've been going by team walks. They really were the right fit for was. That was definitely a fulfilling sale.

Colby Harris: Yeah. It was awesome to watch that deal transpire as one of my favorite professional surfers is actually on team Wass which was a cool connection to see. Let's backtrack a little bit back into your pitch. Tell us more about some of the key points you made and how you got them to. I think it was double their offer, triple their offer. Really increase what they were willing to put into the domain.

Brian Harbin: Yeah. So that night after we got the domain under agreement I was doing some research and Casey Wasserman again owned a arena football league for a period of time and watched a lot of videos and interviews on him and different things. He actually represent 15% of all NBA players, a lot of coaches. But just because somebody's wealthy doesn't necessarily mean they're going to pay a lot of money for a domain. And I knew based on the conversation before if their top offer was less than 10k then they really didn't understand how it could help them. So it's interesting, Wasserman, I never really heard that last name before but means water carrier. It's a German name. And sure enough there's actually 24,000 people that share the last name Wasserman. 

When I get back on the phone with this guy after they made the 25K offer, some of the points I went through is exactly that. I said well there's 24,000 people that use the last name Wasserman. And I know this is a nice to have and not need to have as you said before. But at the same time this domain has been taken for over two decades and it's available now and if somebody comes in and buys it, it could be gone forever. Especially being that it's a lot of people's last name. And I said God forbid if any of those people, the last name Wasserman do anything that's negative with the domain it could be a marketing nightmare for you guys. God forbid there's only fans Wasserman out there that they decide to use it. But I said when you buy the domain you control the narrative. Period. 

The other thing I mentioned especially with them being a sports agency, obviously we work a lot in the sports industry and we actually have our own NIL athlete that we sponsor. And so I said look, everything in the sports world is going to personal branding with NIL and you've got college athletes making millions of dollars just on their own personal brand. And imagine when they get to the professional level, it's only going to escalate more. 

And of all the coaches and athletes you guys represent that are moving towards personal branding, but yet here you guys aren't even willing to pay more than 25 grand for your own name. And so I said, this just really gives you a lot more credibility when they come to you and say, hey, we want our own personal brand. Yes, we get it. We did the exact same thing because we purchased our name. 

So that to me, I thought was a big selling point just from credibility as a sports agency. The other point I mentioned too is that a domain name's value is a lot more than monetary. And I kind of painted the said, you know, just imagine that Casey Wasserman has this domain in his account tomorrow, right? Forget the price he paid for it, but let's say he's got it in his domain account. But then a week from now, I reach out to him and said, hey, I've got a buyer interested in buying Wasserman.com. What's the price you think he would give me for it? Right? It would probably be a lot different than the number that you're willing to offer. 

And I said, that's what's so unique about domain names. And we deal with this all the time where we sell a domain to a buyer and then sure enough, somebody circles back and says, hey, we want to buy that domain. 

So we go out to the new owner and the price is ten times what they paid for it three days ago, right? Or it's just not for sale for any reason. And so that just goes to show the value of a domain name, especially if it's related to your business. Another point I made up too, that I shared with them is just everything gets easier with a premium domain name. And we just see this play out all the time in our industry is that a lot of these tech guys, when they have a big exit, the first thing they do with their next venture is they go out and buy a premium domain name because they understand the power and the value that comes with that. And I said it's kind of like controlling the sun, right? Because with a domain name, you control where people's attention is directed, right? 

So let's say you want to, just for simplicity's sake, just redirect it to team Wasp, right? That just lets people know that, hey, we'll go to Wasserman. This is where they go. Let's say you do a big announcement on Twitter and you want to point the domain to your Twitter to get more eyeballs on that. And I said, by owning the domain, you kind of tell people to follow the sun. Right? Which I like that specifically because when I was doing my research. So Casey Wasserman is actually heading up the 2028 Olympics in LA. And their whole motto is follow the sun. 

So I don't know, I thought that was kind of clever with that analogy because it played in. But I said, look, a ton of people are going to be Googling Wasserman over the next four years with you guys controlling the Olympics. So I said, control the narrative and don't just be one of the 24,000 Wasserman’s out there, be the Wasserman by owning the domain. 

So I pitched that to him on the phone and then with the finance guy later on, I put that all in email format as well. So maybe it trickled up and helped a little bit. But I think too, it just helps them understand all the different pieces that come into play in owning a premium domain like that.

Colby Harris: Right. And I think that's definitely the importance of using a broker. Obviously, someone who is dedicated to the industry, knows what the value is, know why it's worth it. I want you to kind of just dive into that a little bit more. I mean, 15 years ago, roughly 15 years ago, they were looking at buying this domain they didn't want to acquire. They were offering less than $10,000. They come back and now they're basically saying, name your price, almost in a way. Tell us a little bit more about why that happens and really what it is that drives that for people to make that move.

Brian Harbin: Absolutely. And having been in sales now for a quarter of a century, I can say that regardless of any product that you're selling, that sales is almost always about timing. Right? And catch people at a good time, a bad time, indifferent. But here's a situation where you finally have a seller that's willing to sell, which takes a long time in a lot of cases, especially for a domain name. 

At the same time, you have a buyer that when they first started 14 years ago and acquired about it at the time, it didn't make sense probably for them to spend that kind of money on a domain. If they were just getting their business started, they maybe didn't quite see the value in it. Fast forward 14 years, they're in a little bit better position financially. 

So again, I think it was really all about timing. And we're in situations where the opposite is true. Where the timing is terrible. I know Marina and I were working on a domain acquisition back in March and taken a year to get to this point where the sellers were finally willing to sell, had a price. The buyers were there and then the bank fail happened back in March and then there was like three or four banks that failed that week. 

And I'm on the phone, the CEO, he's like, I'm sorry but this deal is off indefinitely. He's like, I don't want to look like an idiot and be the CEO that goes out and spends money on this domain with all these banks failing. And luckily we were able to eventually get that deal to go through but it took a few months. But again, just so many things that happen. And so I feel like too when they talk about sales being a numbers game, that's really what it is. Because there's so many things with timing that you can't control. But the more situations you put yourself in, there's going to be opportunities that fall in your lap and ones that don't and you just have to keep pressing on and keep moving forward.

Colby Harris: Right. And within that Wasserman deal you were representing the seller. So we've dove real hard into why they should have bought it, what the purpose is. And you've really highlighted your tactics to help make that happen. Let's flip the script here and talk a little bit more about the perspective of the buyer and what that process is like for them and maybe some of the potential limitations they face when acquiring their domain.

Brian Harbin: Definitely. And I think that's one of the things that gives us a lot of perspective in dealing with both buyers and sellers, depending on who we're representing, is that we've represented a lot of people like that, that we're helping go acquire a domain and we're working with a seller that maybe has unrealistic expectations or wants a lot more for it. 

But I can tell for all the sellers out there that there definitely comes a point where the budget is the budget and it ain't going to change. Because in so many cases, especially the bigger company gets that approval, has to pass across and be approved by so many different desks that every back and forth can be a deal killer. 

And so a lot of times when you're a seller and you've got a buyer that's at the table with a strong offer, it's really not the time to get greedy. And so I have to express that to sellers a lot of like, look, we've done everything we can. We've got their absolute best and final. And you can choose to want more or push the limit here, but there's definitely a risk. 

And so many times we see where you get close and the seller thinks, oh, well, they'll come back. But a lot of times they don't. That decision is gone forever. By the time it circles back, it's new leadership, or that money is gone, or they don't see the value in it, or they've been bought and they need to rebrand. And that name is totally off the table.

So again, I think there's just times where when you get the best price and the budget is the budget, a lot of times I tell them, I say, look, we didn't come this far to only get this far, right? Let's just get it across the table and get the deal done and help them start to see how they can take the money from the sale and put it to use in another part of their life. Because end of the day, that domain is only worth that as long as you have a willing, active buyer willing to pay that today, but tomorrow it may not be worth that much because you don't have an active buyer. 

Colby Harris: Yeah. And obviously great brokerage in 2022 did about $7 million in domain deals. You guys are constantly working Monday through Sunday on all of these deals. Are there any other deals that you've been recently working on that you can talk about that have been rather interesting?

Brian Harbin: Yeah, there was one we did just closed on as well was dollarstore.com, and this was a super interesting domain that the guy had actually owned the domain for 27 years and run a very successful business, made millions and millions of dollars off this domain and actually won a lawsuit back in the day against one of the dollar related companies that tried to take it. So he really just knew the value of it. We were able to get that just the domain name only sold for him. 

And I think one of the things that's interesting about that that I wanted to kind of shed some light on, too, is just the history of a domain. A lot of times people will come to us and they try and get us to sell a domain that maybe they just bought like two or three months ago. Right?

And we talk about there's value to having history with a domain. And there's a site that we use called Ahrefs, where a site is assigned a domain rating and based on the amount of backlinks that link to it. So, for example, if a site has been active and used by business for that long, there's a lot of other sites that either are pointing to it or there was maybe an article written that points back to it that just, again, drives it value. And this site had a DR of 45, which is really strong, had over 200,000 backlinks. 

And so that's something I think, too, for a lot of people to kind of keep in mind too, is that if you can buy a domain and add value to it in that way, then there's going to be value beyond just the domain name. And Michael, too, I know you know a lot about Ahrefs and anything you want to add to that in terms of just kind of the backlink value and why the DR matters for some domains.

Michael Law: Yeah. When you're dealing with domains that have been online and have content on them, the backlinks, it's hard to just get a clean domain that's never had any content on it and build quality backlinks to those kinds of names. So kind of like with dollar store, as Brian said, that guy had a business on it and he probably had an SEO team and they were doing a lot of backlink work and they probably got a lot of organic backlinks over the years just from other stores or affiliates that they had been working with or news sites and all different kinds of stuff. 

So the quality of the backlink is really important because you can go out and put backlinks on forums and all kinds of stuff all day, but those may not be high authority sites. So when you have a high authority site linking to your domain, that's when the value really comes in. And that SEO juice really pumps up the rating of the domain. And also it has to do with the keywords that they rank for in Google. 

So on Ahrefs, it also tells you how many keywords that they rank for in the search engines and the position of those ranks. And so that's really important as well. The more keywords that the domain is ranking for, the higher the juice, the SEO juice that it will have. So really important to keep that kind of stuff in mind too, when you're looking at buying domains with SEO backlinks to either develop or sell. And there's negative backlinks too. So you could have backlinks from non-savory sites and it might look good because there's a bunch of backlinks, but it could be actually bad for the domain, what some buyers want to do with it.

Colby Harris: So really, like anything else in 2023, it's all about trading attention. And if you have an opportunity to build a business from that domain, you could obviously almost would you guys say that that's something that you could control? I mean, if you own the domain and you build it, you get this attention and you have all these backlinks, you could 10X your domain over time just by adding that value to it through your business.

Brian Harbin: Definitely. We have buyers in our newsletter that they just look for domains that have a great Ahrefs and there's definitely a wholesale value that they're willing to pay just because they know they can build something on it and quickly get attention to it. Sure.

Michael Law: And sometimes those domains don't even have to be like, good domain names. It's all just about the backlinks and the SEO juice that they have. So you'll see some really funny domain name weird domains with dashes and their .orgs and all kinds of stuff go through the sales charts and you're like, what happened with that? But you look, and sure enough, it had been a domain with some really strong backlinks and a high domain rating. So you'll see some different looking sales. You might just kind of assume that they're SEO domains.

Colby Harris: Very nice. Maureen, we're going to close out here for our last few minutes with you. I know you have a few highlights from the domain acquisition program. We would love if you could share some more about that with us.

Maureen: Sure. Thanks for fitting me into the podcast here. So I did want to bring up three domains that, I mean, a great part of what I do is obviously helping people get the domain that they really want. But a bonus for me is to keep checking in to see when they put the sites live. And so I have three to feature today that I wanted to share with you. 

The first one is prolids.com, and that is a site that is for kids. It's a customized safety helmet that this man who bought this site, it was really important for him to get so he could promote what he's built out for kids so that they feel safe, biking, skateboarding, et cetera. So that one's prolibs.com. 

The second one is a very cool site called amorpho, o-m-o-r-p-h-o.com. And this is a very cool product. Like, I constantly see press from them and updates from them. They've been highlighted as best product. And what they are are gravity vests that have weight so that when you're working out, you've got an added weight that gives you more strength. And it's just the most innovative thing. They have gravity vests, but they've now transitioned since I worked with them, they've transitioned into all types of sportswear. So I was really thrilled when I was able to get this site for them. They flipped to the live site within a couple of weeks to a month. So that was one I was happy to see go live. 

And the third one is a beautiful site that I worked with Michael on. Actually, it's called Lafs, L-a-f-s.com Latin America fashion show. And it actually is going to be this mega live fashion event in Miami in November, November 6th to the 8th. And it's an absolute gorgeous site. They did an amazing job with it, and as both of you have spoken about, is one of those things that they wanted to get to the next level. They've had a fashion show since 2018, but it's grown so much. They wanted a really strong name, and they did an amazing job with the site, and I'm sure it's gotten them more visibility and marketing. Go ahead.

Colby Harris: I was just going to ask, so what would you say the average is for someone, a client, to take the site live?

Maureen: It varies. Two of these three that I just mentioned went up live within weeks to a couple of months. The third one took over six months. But I think as a trend, what I'm noticing is the bigger the company, the longer it takes for them to put it live. Sometimes they end up redirecting it for a while to another site, but it's a whole variety usually.

Colby Harris: Thank you for that, Maureen. Brian, Michael, Maureen, any other closing thoughts before we wrap up here on the show today?

Brian Harbin: No, look forward to, you know Michael's talking about the domain conference coming up or that he went to. There's one in Vegas, the ICA conference that we're going, I think kind of to his point is that so much of the after-hours and getting a chance to meet people one on one, and those opportunities for us just make the domain industry so much smaller and you never really know the connections that you're able to make. So I know we're trying to get the whole team out there for that Vegas conference, so we'll keep you guys updated on that for sure.

Colby Harris: All right, well, you heard it here first Grit brokerage potentially at the Vegas conference. That's a wrap here today at the grit.org podcast. Be sure to check out our other episodes. Leave us a comment. Tell us something you learned about the domain industry. Share this episode with someone you think it would resonate with or impact. 

As always, we appreciate you tuning in for another episode of the Grit.org Podcast!