Yo,
I hope everyone had a great weekend, especially with the extra hour of sleep. A little birdie told me that daylight savings is now gone for good? No more confusion at the break of dawn about what time it is!
Let’s get down to business.
In my mind, I separate all my ideas into a “serious” pile and a “not so serious” pile. The serious pile contains ideas that are aligned with the bigger trends that we are witnessing in society. Things like decentralization, new product developments, and social media. The big boy/girl stuff.
The not so serious pile contains more fun and satirical ideas, that may or may not hold water in terms of a business, but nevertheless are just simply interesting to investigate. In other words, I went down a rabbit hole and found some cool stuff.
In the next few weeks, I am planning to better organize my thoughts into categories so that I can focus on one theme over several weeks and giving relevant ideas, for example real estate, decentralization, tech etc. Maybe, I’ll even have a guest writer.
This week is not one of those weeks. This is a “let’s go down a rabbit hole with Matt” week.
Everyone Loves a Party Cup
This week’s rabbit hole has to do with domain names, but I’ll make it interesting I promise.
As you can (or probably can’t because of how small the picture is), I visited partycups.com to see if the domain name was available for purchase. Why? Because I thought it was a cool domain that was relatively self-explanatory and encompassed a somewhat large trend/fad/market.
Ever see the videos of “anything but a cup” parties where people drink out of bleach containers, shoes, and traffic cones? Like that, but safer and less DIY. Think one stop shop for all things cools cups, or “beer vessels” as they’re called in the industry.
None of that matters, though. The point is that it was for sale, but for $495.
Or so I thought.
It turns out that this domain name was not for sale at all but was actually up for rent. If you look closer, this venture company wanted to maintain ownership and lease this domain for $495/month. And if you look even closer, rent (per month price) increases by at least 20% every year.
In my head I was thinking “Wow, this is pretty sly. Who would actually lease a website?”
Who Does This?
Turns out, I was wrong. This very same website boasted other successful websites like camp.com, influencer.com, and the one that we’ll focus on: masks.com.
Masks.com was owned by this company and leased in the very early stages of COVID as a Shopify marketplace where people could go to purchase masks. Let me repeat, a Shopify site. Fast forward to whenever COVID ended (did it ever really end?) and this website has done tens of millions of dollars in sales and even brokered a partnership with Hanes.
That’s right, they predicted the demand for masks, identified what would probably be the most highly searched domain name for this demand, leased it, and made millions to the point where the monthly rent was just a drop in the bucket.
Just goes to show that with good timing, and in the right circumstance the pros can outweigh the cons for leasing a domain name.
Saucy Brew Works
Speaking of beer vessels…. With every vessel comes the beer that you need to fill it. And what beer better to fill it with than a Saucy beer. Saucy Brew Works has some great craft beer that I would highly recommend, and some pizza to go with it.
Their trivia goes hard (literally, it’s really hard), and their beer goes harder. Stop by if you’re in Columbus or Cleveland and go find some in a store if you’re not. My personal favorite Love You, Bye. #ad
Looking Forward
Now, internet domains are old and mostly bought up. Some famously rich people even still hold some high value domain portfolios.
But something that has gained some traction as of recently is buying up web3 domains since web3 is the up-and-coming thing. Domains like Amazon.eth, Starbucks.bitcoin, and Coke.doa.
So, who knows, maybe go buy some cool-named web3 domains and become the next Grant Cardone of the metaverse. Personally, this whole domain name leasing thing was new to me, and still seems a bit stupid, compared to just buying a domain name and driving your own traffic (like frommatt.com). But as with anything, there are success stories.
Bottom line is just let me know if you want in on partycups.com with me.
from, matt