Did early domain investors sell their portfolios because of decreased end-user interest?

Domain Portfolio Sale

Today I read an interesting article on TLDInvestors.com about why some bigger domain investors sold their entire portfolios. The article shared some speculation from a contributor at NamePros about what they considered to potential manipulation of the market.

First, if you read the article you’ll see that Raymond think the person making these claims is uninformed, the reality is, they can’t backup their claims. Still, I think it’s great that Raymond shared this since if one person thinks this, there are probably a lot more than one people thinking the same thing.

While I haven’t run the numbers, my two cents is that the person who made these claims isn’t just wrong, in fact, the reasons big investors have sold is because the exact opposite trend has taken shape. The reality is, rewind a decade or two ago and the Internet just wasn’t what it is today. For most of the legendary domain investors we know and love like Frank Schilling and Kevin Ham, they were incredibly early to a new trend, people actually valuing and wanting domain names.

That trend took off and today, people don’t just want domains, they need them, period. What we’ve seen over the last few years is people need domains so bad, they’re willing to pay six figures for a non .COM because domains are so important to their identity online.

I think the domain investors who were early and sold their portfolios did so because they had seen so much growth from increased end-user demand and appreciation that it made sense, the dream they had envisioned happened, and they cashed in.

Of course, at the end of the day, data speaks a lot louder than words, and I don’t have the data, nor do I know exactly what Frank or Kevin were thinking, but like I said above, I think the reality is the opposite of what this person on NamesPros thinks. If the person who shared their opinion is reading this, know that I’m not trying to offend you in any way, everyone is entitled to their opinion and I’m just sharing mine here.

At the end of the day only Frank and Kevin know the real reasons why they sold their portfolios, but I put these two in the visionary category and trust they sold at the right time for them. As for less end-user interest in domains and domains just selling to other domain investors, I think that’s a bunch of BS, I think end-user interest in domain names is the highest its ever been, and interest is only growing.

That being said, if you do think all the end users have gone and you shouldn’t buy domains any more, I’m fine with that, that just means more names and less competition for those of us who see things differently 🕺

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton