Via DNJournal:
“Andrew Miller and Mike “Zappy” Zapolin are featured in a very interesting new article - “Realtors of the Web” - that has just been published by Israel’s Globes Magazine. A translated copy of the article has been posted at the dynamic duo’s website InternetRealEstate.com (Andrew and Zappy were also featured in a DN Journal Cover Story in September 2005). The article’s sub-heading said “Mike Zapolin and Andrew Miller were two brokers on the grey track on Wall Street, but they then realized the potential of the internet, bought a few domain names for pennies and sold them for millions of dollars to become the realtor barons of the net.”
Loved that article!! I already have forwarded it to all the naysayers around me…if guys like these have hopes for PetCloning.com than I have no doubts about some “crazy” domains in my portfolio. NanoTechnologyHealthRisk.com anyone?
These guys are legends, I hope to learn from them, they have some of the best names out there and to turn a small investment into multi million pound businesses is amazing. I hope I can do the same with some of my ideas like whiskycom.com - Cost me little but lets hope it grows into something big.
Great post Sahar, I love your blog and cant wait to see whats up next,
Ireportcom
Thanks Sahar for the post.
I like the response by Kelly L.
These guys did not think small with typos and 3 word domains or non .coms - They went right for the cream of the .com crop and were willing to pay up and finance creatively. That is a lesson for many of us.
—-answer—-
I remember a discussion with Rick Schwartz back in early 2000 when I first got in the business. Rick’s view was to get the very best .com domains even at higher prices. It made sense but you definitely had to have some real capital for that. We went a different route buying second and third tier domains, domains such as unpopular family names with .com attached to them, and many existing but unpopular search strings, .com domains.
Frank Schilling and Kevin Ham got in the game even later than we have and took the whole idea of second tier and third tier to a whole new level. Both have made few pennies while doing so.
If there is a lesson here it is that there are many ways to climb a mountain, some may make it with the short tail, some long tail, and some with no tail.
Cheers
Sahar