Why I continue to focus on investing in two-word .COMs

While I don’t hold back on my excitement around seeing companies build strong brands on extensions like .IO, .CLUB, .ME, .XYZ and many more, as an investor my focus is on .COM. Also, as a startup founder I made the very conscious decision to brand on .COM since I believe that founders who brand on an alternative extension have all kinds of issues that I personally don’t feel like dealing with.

That being said, there’s more proof now than ever before that a startup can build a multi-million dollar or even billion dollar business on a non .COM. While that is exciting news, for domain investors, I think it’s very hard to build a strong investment business without keeping .COM as their core focus.

At NamesCon I talked to a lot of other Domainers about their investment strategy and it looks like most of us have a similar focus – two-word .COMs, and for good reason. While I do absolutely love one-word .COMs, my budget is smaller for buying names and I rarely buy domains over a few thousand dollars.

What makes two-word .COMs such great investments IMO is that they have a very strong sales history of selling for anywhere from a few thousand dollars all the way up to 7-figure sales like MyWorld.com which went for $1.2M. While I don’t think I have any two-word .COMs that would sell for six-figures, I have plenty that could sell for four and five figures, all of which would lock in a 10x or higher ROI.

The reality is, most companies want their .COM, and there’s only one of them out there. When someone can’t get their .COM, sure they go for another extension but as an investor, you’re always going to be able to get the best price for a .COM because someone isn’t coming to use as the alternative to the name they want, it is the name they want.

So let’s not get confused here when I talk about .IO domains. I’m a big fan of .IO, and I think it’s awesome to see people building super successful businesses on them. Still as a startup founder and a domain investor, I’m a .COM guy. Still, I’m not a .COM guy who thinks nobody can succeed without a .COM, I think many people can and many more will over time, but I’m sticking to .COM because the reality is, nothing else has been truly proven out to be even close to as good of an investment, period.

What do you think? I want to hear from you, comment and let your voice be heard!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton