Watch the full video at: http://www.domainsherpa.com/john-rampton-due-interview/
收看完整视频请往：http://www.domainsherpa.com/john-rampton-due-interview/
Entrepreneurs have vision and put their money where their mouth is. And in doing so, they either sink or swim. That’s why I love entrepreneurship so much. Today’s guest put six figures on the line. Listen in as we find out how it worked out. Stay tuned!
企业家有远见，把钱放在嘴里。在这样做，他们下沉或游泳。这就是为什么我喜欢创业这么多。今天的客人把六个数字上线。听着，我们找到它是如何解决的。敬请关注！
今日秀的三个赞助商。
首先，如果你购买或销售一个域名或投资组合，而你想要估计它的价值，Estibot.com是一个去的地方。就像你访问Zillow.com得到房价的估计，Estibot.com提供关于最重要的统计信息的关键信息，以便您可以根据数据做出明智的决定。
第二：严肃的网上交易？保护您的资金，保持您的商品安全，并使用一家公司，保持买家和卖家的全程保护。这是Escrow.com。您可以信任的付款。
最后，如果您是域名投资者，您是否有独特的法律需求，需要域名技术知识和行业经验？这就是为什么你需要威尔·里恩的David Weslow。在DomainSherpa上搜索David Weslow，看他的采访，你可以自己看到，他可以清楚地解释问题，可以帮助你买/卖协议，处理网站内容问题和UDRP行动，甚至帮助你写你的网站条款和条件。 David Weslow是律师，呼吁互联网法律问题。在DavidWeslow.com看到自己。
迈克尔：嘿，夏尔巴网络。非常感谢你今天加入我。我的名字是Michael Cyger，我是domainsherpa.com的发布商，您可以在其中了解如何成为一个成功的域名投资者或企业家直接从专家。我的目标是，你会看到这些采访，拿走战略，战术，也许只是想法和成功。然后你可以回到DomainSherpa并自己做一个采访。企业家有一个愿景，他们把钱放在他们的嘴。在这样做，他们下沉或游泳。这就是为什么我喜欢创业这么多。
今天的客人把六个数字上线买了一个域名。我们要知道它是怎么实现的。我很高兴欢迎，due.com的创始人兼首席执行官约翰·拉姆顿，D-U-E.com，一个在线开票和支付平台。约翰，欢迎来秀。
约翰：嘿，感谢有我。
迈克尔：我刚刚提供了一个非常简单的due.com的概述，约翰。当你第一次见到某人时，你今天如何描述due.com？
约翰：你知道，我们是一个付款平台。我们正在帮助小型企业向客户开具发票，以更简单的方式在线获取付款。
迈克尔：那么为什么不是有人只是使用quickbooks.com，例如？
约翰：我的意思是，人们喜欢使用我们更多的时间，我们的简单的界面，我们易于使用的系统，自动化，一些支付方式比QuickBooks更容易，并有一些问题，因此…
迈克尔：是的，你知道，我是一个QuickBooks用户，并且因为我的会计使用QuickBooks，我的CPA使用QuickBooks，但很多，你知道，小企业家，1099s第一次，也许他们已经1099多年，他们想要一个简单的方法只是发票和获得报酬，对吧？
约翰：是的，是的。
迈克尔：真棒。那么你什么时候推出due.com？
约翰：你知道，我们在一年多前推出了一个。
迈克尔：好吧，只有一年。一年前推出的商业模式与今天不同吗？
约翰：你知道，一年前，我们更注重开发票。现在，我们更关注付款和这些付款的后端处理。
迈克尔：有意义。所以观众知道due.com是今天。给他们一些关于我们将要谈论的公司的观点。你能告诉我们你的收入是多少？
约翰：是的，所以，收入，我们不真正讨论。但是现在，我们有5万多个客户。这些是使用我们的平台的活跃客户。我们现在每月处理大约6000万美元。
迈克尔：哇。 6000万美元正在流经due.com？
约翰：正确，y。
迈克尔：哇，真棒。
约翰：是的，谢谢。
迈克尔：现在我明白due.com是在哪里，我想回去一点时间，理解你作为一个企业家。你不是新的在线任何东西。
约翰：不。
迈克尔：你已经营销多年了。你被称为企业家杂志在世界前50名在线影响力。你被评为世界前十名最有影响力的PPC专家。你是如何开始在网上营销？
约翰：你知道，我大概在15年前开始了。我一直是一个企业家我的一生。我一直喜欢卖人。我喜欢在企业看到这一点，你知道，迅速J型弯出来。我喜欢赚钱。金钱对我来说是非常有趣。所以我在一家公司工作，卖他们的产品。该公司，你知道，我加入了船上，帮助启动公司，我卖一个产品。我发现无论多少，
约翰：你知道，我大概在15年前开始了。我一直是一个企业家我的一生。我一直喜欢卖人。我喜欢在企业看到这一点，你知道，迅速J型弯出来。我喜欢赚钱。金钱对我来说是非常有趣。所以我在一家公司工作，卖他们的产品。该公司，你知道，我加入了船上，帮助启动公司，我卖一个产品。我发现无论多少，像，我只能每天打得这么多电话，在电话里谈这么多。我开始寻找更容易的在线销售方式。所以，你知道，在当天，我建立一个文本服务器，我去刮了网站的电话号码，我发短信的人只是说，“嘿，买我们的产品。”而且，你知道，我发现我得到一个点那里只有这么多，你知道，只有让我这么多的卖。然后我开始做其他形式的在线营销，你知道，进一步和进一步。我只是发现这是我喜欢做的事情，它是可扩展到一个点，我可以获得数百万客户，而不必真正的电话和谈话与他们每一个。
迈克尔：所以当你开始，你曾经是一个联属营销人员？你知道，很多人…
约翰：是的。
迈克尔：你没有。所以你有点…
约翰：是的，我的意思是，他们没有一个真正的名字，它回来的一天，但它是一种关联，我是怎么做的是我去Craigslist，我发布了工作。我已经支付了8美元我卖的每一个小部件。我去了Craigslist，我说：“如果你们卖这个，我会付你6美元，”我砍了一口。而我知道的很少，四年后，有些人喜欢，“这是什么联盟营销是。”这只是付给人。他们去做，然后开始寻找更好的方式，以越来越多的方式销售。而且，你知道，开始扩大我的迷你帝国。
迈克尔：是的，这是你高中毕业后的第一份工作。我认为我的研究表明，你是卖虚拟旅游到房地产代理。你去了Craigslist，并发布了，基本上，你支付了你所做的一切75％。但你很高兴这样做，因为它是可扩展的。
约翰：快乐，是的。这可能更多甚至沿着我做的一切的90％的线。但嘿，我罚款10％，如果其他人都在做这项工作。
迈克尔：是的，所以，你已经变成了时间从联盟营销销售他人的产品，留心他们，你知道，保持你或保持产品更新或任何，你知道，与他们运行它相比，现在你’re on due.com。这是你自己创建的第一家公司吗？
约翰：不，我的意思是，我创造了几件事。我是一个连续企业家。我创建了另一个在线开票公司，帮助人们卖房子。我最终卖掉了。在我这样做的时候，当我正在建立那个公司并推出这个产品的时候，我开始真正进入在线营销和写作，博客，以及真正的在线营销的每一个方面，因为我想知道每一个方面网络营销的每一个方面，使我可以营销我的业务，赚取尽可能多的钱。该公司非常，非常好，它结束了出售一个体面的钱。之后，我买了另一家公司。那家公司不幸地失败了。然后就到了。你知道，看到和继续。
迈克尔：真棒。我会回来问你所做的所有写作，因为你在许多不同的网站上做了大量的写作。现在，我想知道这如何帮助你变得更成功。但是让我们回到due.com，因为你刚刚把它。我读到你在flippa.com，网站和域名的市场上买了due.com。你是如何看待出售的，以及购买域名的动力是什么？
约翰：是的，所以我一直在寻找域名。我是域名。我喜欢它。
迈克尔：你是。你是一个投资者。
约翰：我是域名的投资者。好吧，它实际上有点超出了这一点。所以，当我年轻的时候，我还年轻，但是当我年轻的时候，我只能……我买不起房子。所以我去买了域名，因为它是我的在线房地产的形式。我可以负担得起。我可以买5000美元。我付不起50,000美元的首付款，但是我可以为一个我可以持有或构建的域名支付5,000美元，然后卖出20,000美元，然后购买一个20,000美元的域名，并在几年后将其翻转到正确的买家更多的钱。所以我开始学习我的在线房地产的价值和多少东西是值得的。所以我总是看不同的网站，如Flippa，Sedo，NameJet，其他地方在那里…
迈克尔：你在所有的网站。所以你就像其他批发投资者寻找伟大的机会吗？
迈克尔：你在所有的网站。所以你就像其他批发投资者寻找伟大的机会吗？
约翰：是的。很多时候，你可以找到他们的动机卖家喜欢，你永远不知道什么时候卖家会是，你知道，是一种绝望的现金。当我看到它，我伸出那个家伙说，“嘿，我会给你这个…”他是所有的，“嘿，我必须得到这么多。我付出了这么多。“但是你知道，我有一个房子，我是，有一定的情况，我不记得它是什么。但是，就像他的房子被封锁在他身上。他不得不出售这个域名。他喜欢，“我需要摆脱这个。”像，或者可能是他从一个人买了它，被封锁或什么，但我只知道是他在一个艰难的财政状况。对我来说，这是伟大的，因为我可以得到一个更好的交易。他很有动力去快速移动。而且，你知道，如果你能找到这些东西，它就像房地产。你接触和交谈的人越多，你做的房子越多，你会找到更好的交易。你可能会发现一个有动机的卖家，需要转储它真的很快，你可以得到一个真正的好房子。
迈克尔：是的。我会有其他夏尔巴协作，像你自己来展示来，说，你知道，我会接触到同一个人与伟大的域名，时间后的时间后，最终五年后，他们有需要出售。他们退休了。他们卖了自己的公司。医疗问题出现了。他们有信用卡债务。无论情况可能。
约翰：有些只是无聊。有些人喜欢，“已经五年了，我不知道该怎么办。没有人咬着它，所以去吧。
迈克尔：所以你看到了在Flippa拍卖。我想进入一些细节，因为其他可能正在看不是在域名的企业家可能会找到一些洞察。你看到了Flippa的拍卖，但拍卖并没有真正卖出？
约翰：正确。没有。
迈克尔：那么你接触到业主了吗？它不卖，因为它没有达到保留价格？
约翰：没有击中保护区。
迈克尔：好吧。
约翰：他的储备金是16万美元。
迈克尔：好的，这是一个合理的金额为一个三个字母，你知道，可操作的域名这样。
约翰：很合理。
迈克尔：那么你通过Flippa或者…
约翰：我伸出手来……我投标了，试图投标，他拒绝了。它来了近。他是这样的：“是的，我想要16万美元，或者我想他说的是20万美元。”我只是说他，“我不愿意这样做，但我会做100美元现在是k。“他就像…
迈克尔：这是一个非常严肃的提议，当然。
约翰：是的，这是一个非常严肃的提议。你看到任何人…像任何人，这个六位数的报价，你应该回应。
迈克尔：是的。
约翰：所以他回答我，我们来回来谈判。我和他在Skype聊天，我们刚刚达成了一个同意的价格。
迈克尔：那么你通过Flippa托管交易了吗？
约翰：通过托管，yup。
迈克尔：好的，最后的购买价格是…
约翰：$ 130,000。
迈克尔：130,000美元？
约翰：一万三千美元。
迈克尔：是的，哇。所以，是你以前购买过的最昂贵的域名吗？
约翰：不。
迈克尔：真的吗？
约翰：我买了organizational.com。
迈克尔：你买了organizational.com拍卖吗？
约翰：正确。正确。
迈克尔：我看着那个。
约翰：也是在Flippa。我发现一个在Flippa以及。那是几年前。
迈克尔：是的，那个发生了什么事？
约翰：那一个，我买了。我买了。它有一个网站。我买了它45万美元，35万美元，我不记得了。我的意思是，这是几年前。所以，是的，我买了其他域名，你知道，我现在竞价一个$ 60万。
迈克尔：你还有自己的organizational.com吗？
约翰：我不是。不，我不。
迈克尔：那个发生了什么事？
约翰：那个我们实际上已经失业了。
迈克尔：哦，那是你说的那个，是吗？
约翰：我们长大了，你知道，运气没有扭转我们的方式，我们失败了。我的意思是真的很难。我失去了很多钱，很多时间和精力，这样的东西。
迈克尔：是的，我看着那个。这是一些惊人的资产。他们有一个大的客户群，前一年，他们已经卖了，我不知道是否是在NDA下，或者如果NDA甚至有效了，但很多社交媒体，很多人访问，客户列表，社交媒体句柄，网站，域名，今天所有的资产在哪里？也许我会从你那里买。
约翰：资产与另一家公司。他们拥有他们。
迈克尔：你卖了吗？
约翰：是的，是的。所以我们卖了资产。
迈克尔：Gotcha。
约翰：是的，我的意思是，你赢了一些，你失去了一些。像一个是一个大赌注，没有工作。它没有为我们扑灭。因为，你知道，我们还在这个过程中。我会对所有的听众说，关于域的伟大的事情是，当你买一个真正好的域名，如果你能得到一个好的价格和知道域，如知道在市场上发生了什么，他们卖多少它。喜欢，你通常可以得到你的钱，或者至少，你可以采取一点点理发，但你仍然可以得到你的钱，特别是如果你找到正确的买家。如果你找到合适的买家，你可以做10倍的投入。
迈克尔：对。
约翰：我会说一个例子是due.com，另一个人正在投标。那个人想要20万美元，他们就像：“这个人，像储备金是blah，blah，blah，他们不会谈判。”嗯，从字面上，我买了它，并发出了一封电子邮件，“哦， ，这个人买了它，“所有的Flippa人为$ 13万。这家伙在我购买它15分钟后给我$ 175,000。我甚至没有送这笔钱，我得到了一个字面上的提议，那是什么，如$ 45,000多？
迈克尔：是的。
约翰：15分钟，所以我可以在15分钟，每分钟3,000美元。
迈克尔：你认为不建造它，只是卖它？
约翰：哦，是的。肯定想到了。我的妻子实际上是，“卖。卖了。做它。
迈克尔：是的。那么，哪个是第一个，您购买的due.com域名或创建此付款平台的经营理念？
约翰：所以我们看了另一个发票公司，也在Flippa出售。它被称为“做一些时间”，它已经出售，我一年前与创始人谈判，他们想要大量的钱。我看到了Due，我喜欢，“嘿，”对我来说，这只是一个很好的投资，我可以放一些东西。每当我购买域名，我总是有一个想法，在未来，如果这个想法发生，伟大的。如果它不发生，我有一个资产，我知道，我可以卖更多。我的意思是，那家伙在几分钟后给我45000美元。如果他愿意支付，如果我找到合适的买家，他们愿意支付更多，因为，我们已经提供，作为一个公司和资产基础在百万美元的约。
迈克尔：是的。
约翰：所以你可以做很多钱。
迈克尔：对于三字符域名，你知道，他们不经常出现在它有一个意义，它是一个动词，你知道你得到一些与do.com的混乱，但这是一个数百万美元的域名对比，你知道，DUE等，是的，这是唯一的…
约翰：另一个值得注意的事情是每当我个人看域名，这只是一个推荐给用户，我也看看社会资产。所以我看着twitter.com/due，真的没有什么。我知道我可以联系Twitter，并像“，嘿，我拥有这一点，我想把这一切。好吧，他们给了我。 Facebook给了我。 LinkedIn给了我。所以我能够获得每一个社会资产。所以我们在所有事情，在谷歌加，在YouTube上，在Facebook上，在Twitter上，在Slideshare，在…
迈克尔：哇。因此，有必要更多地，约翰，而不仅仅是联系他们，问他们，因为我在过去做过，我甚至不回答回复。
约翰：我知道，找人睡觉吧
迈克尔：所以让我先按事件顺序。
约翰：所以如果你有任何麻烦，我会翻转，让我知道。
迈克尔：所以让我知道事件的顺序。所以你买了域名，显然你甚至还没有运行公司，但你联系了所有的社交媒体平台，并要求D-U-E用户名？
约翰：不，我在合并了两个人之后。
迈克尔：合并两个什么？
约翰：所以我购买了域名后，我想，“嗯，也许我应该…像一个付款和财务和发票相关。”所以我一个月后联系了其他公司，我说，“嘿，已经一年了。你没有做这件事。您正在使用此资产。我想从你那里买。“他们有30,000，或2万客户。不，就像18000个客户。我去找他，说：“嘿，你有这些客户。他们都没有使用它，“你知道，”在你想要的方式。你不是真的维护它。他们不快乐。你可以看到这些投诉。我怎么样从你购买它。我将购买资产，然后我将它合并在这里，重做它，使它看起来更好，使用你的基地。
迈克尔：这是一个好主意，购买一个企业，你知道，已经有一些基础技术和客户…系统的一些用户，然后将他们合并成一个更好的品牌。
约翰：对，是的。
迈克尔：对。他们实际上是创造收入，还是他们只是在启动模式？
约翰：他们创造了收入。这是非常，非常小的收入。我的意思是，每月1000美元。
迈克尔：你买了它的收入吗？
约翰：不，我只是给他们现金，就像我愿意支付的钱。
迈克尔：是的，是的，是的。所以…
约翰：我的意思是我想我付了15000美元或20,000美元。这是非常，非常最小。
迈克尔：是的，他们可能很高兴，你知道，他们不会再花更多的时间了。
约翰：是的，他们只是复制资产，我是他们的朋友，我们仍然是朋友…
迈克尔：所以你通过重塑他们已经做过的事，让你的业务运行得更快了？
快速突破今天的三个赞助商的节目：
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最后，如果你在如何购买，销售和价值域名，你需要退房DNAcademy.com。发布由我，DomainSherpa的Michael Cyger，并被Uniregistry信任培训他们的新员工，你也可以学习使用DNAcademy加速学习系统域名投资。在DNAcademy.com了解更多。
迈克尔：所以你通过重塑他们已经做过的事，让你的业务运行得更快了？
约翰：正确。
迈克尔：然后你去了社交媒体平台，要求用户名？
约翰：然后我去了社交媒体平台。我的意思是，我有几个朋友。所以我住在硅谷，所以我住在Facebooks，谷歌，twitters，所有这些主要平台主要在我的房子20分钟车程。所以我有在这些地方认识人的人。所以我联系了，例如，Facebook。我联系了一个非常知名的Facebook人，谁在那里，因为他们的第一年的业务。他就像：“哦，当然。”10分钟后。他也得到了我的Instagram。
迈克尔：哇，所以你不必买任何他们，即使，服务条款说，“你不应该卖他们。我们知道这发生在售后市场。
约翰：是的，我买了一些人之前。
迈克尔：是的，太棒了。所以这是你如何得到的故事，因为获得三字符域名本身是相当惊人的。但是得到匹配的社交媒体处理，哦，我的天，这就像一个巅峰。
约翰：是的，这是伟大的。
迈克尔：哇。
约翰：这是一个大胜利…我们没有得到每一个人。 Snapchat，我们没有得到Snapchat。和像一两个其他小的。我们做的另一件事是我们注册我们现在拥有的商标。所以我们拥有Due，D-U-E作为商标。因此，如果在金融，发票，付款，基本上任何财务与Due有关的任何东西，如果他们提到，我可以合法接管。
迈克尔：太棒了。好吧，所以还有一个问题，我们得到社交媒体处理和做我的研究，我看到brand.com停业，你在Twitter上获得了品牌用户名。
约翰：我没有，我们做到了。
迈克尔：有一个巨大的，60万以上的追随者。
约翰：正确。它没有，当我得到它。当我得到它，它有15000。
迈克尔：真的吗？所以你已经把Brand，twitter.com/brand从15,000增长到60万？
约翰：正确。
迈克尔：首先，你是怎么获得的？
约翰：我联系了老老板。我试图买brand.com。所以我试图买。它最终以28万美元的价格出售。
迈克尔：brand.com？
约翰：Y。
迈克尔：这可能是值得的。这是一个伟大的域名。
约翰：哦，这很容易值得。
迈克尔：害怕。
约翰：他们原来为它付了50万美元。
Michael：所以我很惊讶，域名的买家不想在Twitter上的用户名。
约翰：我认为他们没有意识到它不是它的一部分，一些其他资产不是它的一部分。所以，业主，我知道它的主人，你知道，如果你在领域世界，你开始知道他们购买的人。你想要一个网络，因为如果我没有足够的钱买东西，或我想交易，我的意思是一旦你开始拥有域名，你可以开始交易，你知道，像due.com和现在，自己的buttercup.com，buttercups.com，和一堆其他很不错。我可以交换一大堆这些更大的。所以，你知道大家。
迈克尔：是的。所以网络很重要？
约翰：正确。哦耶。必要。
迈克尔：基本。这个Twitter帐户的目的是什么？
约翰：我开始没有真正的目的。这是一个好的处理，它的验证。这成为了交易的一部分。我没有付钱。任何人从Twitter，我没有支付它，我永远不会确认。
迈克尔：如果你支付了，你会支付多少钱？
约翰：你知道，我要付10000美元。它有15000个追随者，被验证和一个真正好的处理，我会支付10000美元。
迈克尔：是的，完全。验证是，哇，是的，这是今天的黄金。
约翰：是的，这是金子。而且以前很难得到验证。它以前几乎不可能得到验证。现在，这很容易，但你知道，这是一个重要的事情，你知道，只有在当时，可能是2万个已验证的帐户，这是其中之一。其他人大多是名人和知名品牌。这是一个好的胜利。
迈克尔：所以你说…
约翰：[听不清00:22:01]赢了很多。
迈克尔：所以你谈了很多关于域名的资产，可以欣赏随着时间的推移，你看他们像一个资产。即使业务失败，它也有剩余价值。你认为社交媒体处理像twitter.com/brand对你有残余价值吗？
约翰：哦，是的。
迈克尔：你呢？
约翰：是的，当然。我的意思是，首先，我接触到的品牌，所有的时间tweet他们的东西，他们愿意支付。例如，我有一个非常，非常大的汽车公司，现在只是给我$ 1,500两个tweets。
迈克尔：你认真吗？
约翰：所以，你知道，你看看这样的事情，它是死的。地狱是，这是值得的。所以这是值得的。我也有一个人给我提供35000美元的现金。所以，你知道，这样的事情，他们有价值。但更像是如果你可以附上像你可以买一个真正好的品牌和拥有社会资产与它，它只是使你的品牌这么多在线的强大。
迈克尔：是的，绝对。让我问一下due.com的商业模式。我去了你的网站，我看到缴费2.7％。所以如果我支付100美元，如果我给你发了发票，你支付我100美元。您的due.com将收取2.7％的手续费。 stripe.com费用2.9％加上30美分费用。如何应付费用少于条纹？
约翰：我们与银行有直接的关系，所以我们能够做到这一点。此外，为了在市场营销和巨大的玩家中竞争，你必须有不同的定价选择，并有一点点低，真正拥有转换客户的内在价值。因此，我们必须远远少于他们足够的地方，这是有意义的客户沟通他们，使用我们的产品。
迈克尔：是的，所以如果我给你发票，你付款，你的信用卡对帐单，我的名字或due.com或…
约翰：这将是一个组合，它会正当你的名字。如果你是一个实际的商家进程，它将完全是你的名字和我们的代码。
迈克尔：Gotcha。除了处理费用之外，还有使用due.com的费用吗？
约翰：不，没有什么。没有。
迈克尔：因为我进去，我报名参加了，我看着网上，我回头看通过档案，我想我每个月看到$ 3.00一个用户。
约翰：回来的方式，在档案中的方式，回到在我们购买业务的那一天，这是他们如何赚钱。我们删除所有的，我们给它一路免费。我宁愿创造一个很酷的产品，很多人可以使用，没有进入的障碍。我认为开票公司，当他们收取发票或客户的数量和东西，像这样，所有它基本上是翻转我的结束。它花了我什么，没有什么更多的帮助你出去和喜欢，肯定我可以赚一点钱，但我宁愿帮助更多的人出去。
迈克尔：是的，你们赚钱。你的现金流是积极的吗？
约翰：是的，差不多。几乎。我们离现金流正值约一个半小时。
迈克尔：哇，祝贺，12个月。棒极了。
约翰：Y。
迈克尔：所以，我看到，你知道，我喜欢，像你一样，当我去一个网站，我喜欢，“什么是他们试图做什么的根？”所以我看看源代码，然后我看看元描述，因为有时，你知道，他们把词放在那里，他们真正想要的是一个搜索引擎来识别他们。我已经阅读了，Due是一种简单的汇款方式，进行移动支付，并为公司收取付款提供了一种简便的方法。它几乎看起来像PayPal给我。
约翰：是的，我的意思是，最终，我们的最终目标是，让世界上任何地方的人更容易地向对方汇款，一点点，而不是成本。所以我基本上想要如果你熟悉Venmo或PayPal，一个免费的PayPal在世界上任何地方，或一个免费的Venmo，所以我可以真正去我的手机，从美国支付在印度的承包商，你知道，$ 200第二天他们得到他们，他们在他们的银行帐户在48小时内。这就是我想要的，我们正在努力建立。
迈克尔：但我知道很多个人自由职业者将有一个与PayPal的问题，因为他们不能得到的钱，或者他们不能从PayPal一定数量的钱，如果他们住在印度或你有什么。你是否用due.com解决了这个问题？
约翰：这是我们的目标。现在，我们没有。但这是我们的目标。
迈克尔：好吧。
约翰：这就是我们正在努力建立的。
迈克尔：是的，如果我去了due.com，我能找到你现在服务的国家吗？
约翰：是的，现在我们只是美国，加拿大，墨西哥和英国。
迈克尔：好吧，这是有道理的。所以如果我是一个域名的个人投资者，我住在美国，我想把域名卖给别人，due.com是一个很好的解决方案，所以我不必使用PayPal，有人可以做他们的信用卡退款，并把钱和我的域？
约翰：你知道，我们有一个服务，你可以这样做，我的意思是一种托管类型的服务。我的意思是，我会说在这种情况下，有很多公司像escrow.com，他们做一个非常，非常好的工作，减轻，这是他们打造的，是购买，更多的托管和控股服务。他们更好。我们更好地支付和信用卡和购买产品，并发送它。但是如果你发送的东西，你需要检查它，并确保你得到它，它清除在您的帐户和所有这些其他事情，有为此建立的服务。所以我会说在这种情况下，可能不是。
迈克尔：好吧，但如果我想卖500美元的域名给某人，我不需要该人的信用卡？
约翰：：，去。
迈克尔：做…
约翰：插上它，拿到他们的信用卡，你很好去。
迈克尔：给他们发票，他们直接支付，然后我把域推送给他们。
约翰：正确，y。
迈克尔：所以我想了解思维过程，以便其他企业家能够理解你做出的决定。为什么不选择较低的价格，可品牌的域名，如duenow.com？
约翰：是的，我的意思是，一个，我看到due.com出售所以…
迈克尔：那么机会。
约翰：是的，机会，但我的意思是，甚至更多，我真的很喜欢短，一个字域。你不能打败他们。一个人在他们心中的感觉对于对Duenow，对谷歌，它是一样的，一个人来到你的网站，这是一个更多的品牌认知和更多的信誉立即。我的意思是，人们喜欢，“哦，我多年前听说过你，我应该报名参加。”我喜欢，“是的，
迈克尔：我们已经存在了12个月，肯定。
约翰：当然。是啊。凉。就像你得到这么多的品牌知觉，我的意思是，即使我拥有Organize，人们会来找我们，就像“哦，我的话，这是最好的”。这是对用户的即时信任。
迈克尔：你在硅谷，你住在帕洛阿尔托地区？
约翰：正确，帕洛阿尔托，哟。
迈克尔：那么你在硅谷互动的其他企业家的看法是什么，你说你是due.com的创始人？
约翰：马上，“哦，你支付了多少钱？”每次都得到它。
迈克尔：他们嫉妒，对吧？
约翰：是的，是的，就像我说的60％到70％。我的意思是，即使投资者也喜欢，“哦，哦，”他们立刻认真对待你，因为他们知道你投资了几十万美元。他们大多数假设百万美元，因为大多数风投，当他们购买一个域名，这是一个东西让观众知道风险投资家和人们投资大量的钱。
当你是一个创业公司，你有东西为你，你筹集资金，一旦你筹集资金，你去购买一个域名，该域名将是你通常支付的五倍。和字面上，五倍的你支付它。所以一家风险投资公司进来，他们说：“哦，我们收购Do，D-O.com。我们支付了110万美元。“相比之下，你可能已经购买了D-O.com，价格为200,000美元，如果你在实际上大额交易或者有正确的人参与交易之前购买了它。
迈克尔：所以，为其他企业家学到的教训是在你关闭你的回合之前，确保一个伟大的域名，对吧？
约翰：我会说，不要让你的投资公司参与，不要让他们知道你是想要买它的公司。只是，像一些，有一个朋友买你的或有一个Gmail，组成一个Gmail帐户，只是像，我不是说假冒某人，但喜欢跳在电话上，因为域人将谷歌您。如果是20万美元或10万美元，他们会想知道你是一个人之前，他们会谷歌。如果我不能从那个人那里找到很多，他们会像“这个人试图骗我”，但它会是更昂贵的，你得到的道路越远。
迈克尔：是的，绝对。所以你提到投资。您是否为due.com引导或筹款？
约翰：我们自负，整个事情。
迈克尔：整个事情？
约翰：是的。
迈克尔：你有其他创始人把钱放在里面，还是所有的钱？
约翰：我的钱。
迈克尔：哇。所以你真的倍加了这一点。
约翰：哦，当然。我的意思是，这就是创业精神。创业正在冒着自己的风险。我有风险已经得到回报。我有风险，没有回报。但它冒着风险和机会给自己。这是一个很大的机会，我承担自己。
Michael：是的，所以你提到域名due.com已经帮助你的业务，因为客户觉得你永远在业务，因为他们知道你做什么。
约翰：即时的可信度。
迈克尔：即时的信誉。它如何帮助您的业务增长？
约翰：我的意思是很容易。我的意思是，人们很容易链接到，谈论，我的意思是，我喜欢这是真的，社交媒体真的很短。你可以说得更多，你知道。例如，如果你有这个大，长的句柄，你知道，你打字了一半的信件已经走了，也很容易让人记住，如果你有一个due@blahblahblah.com，你知道很难记住和人可能会忘记。因为，每个人都像，哦，很容易记住。
迈克尔：是的，绝对。它有它帮助你，你知道你是商人，但我猜信用卡处理器，它有帮助你谈判交易，获得更好的交易，条款，这样的事情吗？
约翰：它只是给了我们即时的信誉。我的意思是，人们知道，我们不仅仅是一些可能在几个月内失去业务，或者像夜晚一样飞行的业务，他们就像“哦，我的话，这些家伙支付了几千美元，人们为域名假设百万美元。如果他们愿意投资数百万美元的域名，这些家伙是严肃的球员。
迈克尔：是的，绝对。所以，早些时候，你提到你做写作，你提供了很多…我注意到你为其他企业家提供了很多好处。你想帮助别人，因为，你知道，你在过去得到了帮助。我相信，你写的企业家杂志，福布斯，墨水，赫芬顿邮报，和其他几个利基网站。我经历了品牌，你的Twitter品牌，我认为你在Oracle的博客。如何写这么多，这些文章，你发布到人们的博客和网站，这是怎么帮助你个人？
约翰：是的，所以…
迈克尔：我会问…我会亲自和你的业务说，但我会先亲自开始。
约翰：我的意思是，我个人认为，我的名字在数百万不同的人面前，我得到了帮助很多人。我发现，我写的每一篇文章，每一百人阅读它，我会得到一个超级迷。一个人会跟着我的生活。真的很喜欢我写的和读出每一个职位，可能是每一千个合法的，我的意思是疯狂的超级粉丝会做任何我曾经问过的。但我的意思是，每一个，你知道，它只是归结为我的数字游戏。如果我可以，每一个人，你知道一百人最终签署了我的公司，突然，我写的越多，我有更多的客户，我注册了那里。
你问了商业的角度。你知道，我提到我自己的事情在一些事情和试验，我将经历，和解雇一个雇员，发射联合创始人，买一个联合创始人，有一个业务，像企业组织， 你懂。我是房间里的人，把所有人都关了，清理了一个8万平方英尺的仓库。我有所有这些崩溃发生在我身上。所以我可以帮助很多人，但从商业的角度来看，我再次赢得了企业粉丝和超级客户。为什么我这样做？很多人问我为什么要继续？显然，它帮助我的事业。它真的成长我的业务。我也发现福布斯不会每一天写我的公司，因为我想让福布斯写我的公司，他们可能不会。但我可以写一些关于我的公司的参考文献，并链接到我自己的公司。可能不如一个职位好，但它绝对是好三或四个职位。所以我可以使差异，我可以运行写关于我每一天。所以这就是为什么我进入它。
迈克尔：你有一个团队为你管理社交媒体，因为你如何决定是否要发布到约翰·拉姆顿Twitter帐户或品牌Twitter帐户或把它放在博客上。你如何管理这一切？
约翰：是的，所以我们有一个大团队，一个大内容的团队。所以我们通常每天在Due博客上尝试发布三到五次，然后我平均每天在其他人的博客和互联网上投入三次。在社交媒体上，我们通常在那里发表热门故事，并鼓舞人心的事情。我通常排队鼓舞人心的事情，所以他们会出来。然后当我看到有趣的事情，我会经历。我的意思是，我有一个团队，帮助我，但它是一个非常，非常小的。
迈克尔：您的内容营销团队有多大？
约翰：我们有18个作家。
迈克尔：十八岁？全职或承包商？
约翰：承包商。
迈克尔：哇，18。
约翰：我们有四五个全职。
迈克尔：哇。
约翰：这是帮助内容主要是因为，我提出的大多数东西是我自己的名字。我喜欢说出来，而这个人正在写它，然后我经历。我有一个语法编辑器，一个事实检查编辑器和一个声音编辑器。
迈克尔：太神奇了。如果你拿出这18个人，due.com团队的其余部分有多大？
约翰：我的意思是，我们有一堆承包商。因此，我们的核心due.com团队现在是7个全职人员。
迈克尔：Gotcha。
约翰：但是，那么，我们有五个，像承包商，这就像合同招聘，所以他们在招聘过程。我们通常让人们保持六个月的承包商，然后我们的目标是让他们全职。那些是程序员和开发人员，然后只是一群内容的人。但所有这些通常是承包商。
迈克尔：Gotcha。六百万美元正在处理，是每月，或者，什么时候…
约翰：每月。
迈克尔：每月。在仅仅12个月的运行中就处理了6亿美元。显然，这增加了due.com域名和所有相关资产的价值。如果业务会失败，上帝禁止，今天会失败，你认为today.com的价值是什么？
约翰：嗯，我知道我有一个人在$ 175,000给我。这是一家公司。我可以给他发电子邮件，并在我的帐户有$ 175,000明天。这就像我设置我最低的期望一样多。我想象我们可以卖掉它，你只知道域名，我可能会包括社会资产，以及域名权威机构有这么多链接背后的事实。它是一个域权威65，它真的，真的好一年。我的意思是，我可能会签署一个像100万到200万的价值，但是，这是我的价值和假设和这样的东西。对正确的人来说，这是绝对值得的。对错人，价值175,000美元。
迈克尔：这是最后一个问题给你约翰。你对其他企业家说什么，他们刚刚推出一个创业公司，并正在考虑购买一个伟大的，单一的.com域名，如due.com？你知道，你很容易说，“我要买。我知道它有一个残余价值，因为我有一大堆的潜在的潜力。“但不是每个人都像经验丰富的企业家，你知道，他们的业务高低。你鼓励他们购买一个伟大的，单一的.com域名，或者你，是否变化，你知道，人对人？
约翰：是的，我做，但不是正确的蝙蝠。了解市场。就像当你买房子时。不要去买你看到的第一个房子或你看到的第五个房子。了解市场，了解社区，了解你的孩子将去上学的地方。你不想让你的孩子在一个一级高中上学。你想要他们去10分的高中。在你跳进去购买之前，了解关于生态系统的一切。
迈克尔：是的，这意味着从一个域名开始，也许有两个词开始或…
约翰：是的，我会开始知道，你知道得到两个字，得到，建立你的业务，并了解你想要的是什么。
迈克尔：因为你可以从一个开票公司转换到一个支付平台。如果你买了invoices.com，你可能会被停留在错误的域名开始。
约翰：没错。
迈克尔：对，伟大的提示。如果你对约翰有问题，请将他们放在DomainSherpa上的视频下面，我会请他回来，尽可能多回答。如果你从今天的节目中获得好处，学习一些新的，不同的方式为你的创业公司购买高级域名，请花一点时间感谢今天的夏尔巴。
我要第一个感谢约翰。 due.com的创始人和CEO John Rampton。感谢您来到DomainSherpa，分享您如何建立您的公司和一些挫折的信息。感谢您成为其他人的DomainSherpa。
约翰：谢谢，伙计们。
迈克尔：谢谢观看。下次我们会见到你。
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Michael: Hey, Sherpa Network. Thanks so much for joining me today. My name is Michael Cyger and I’m the publisher of domainsherpa.com, the website where you can learn how you can become a successful domain name investor or entrepreneur directly from the experts. My goal is that you will watch these interviews, take away strategies, tactics, maybe just ideas and become successful. And then you can come back to DomainSherpa and do an interview yourself. Entrepreneurs have a vision, and they put their money where their mouth is. And in doing so, they either sink or swim. That’s why I love entrepreneurship so much.
Today’s guest puts six figures on the line to buy a domain name. We’re gonna find out how it worked out. I’m pleased to welcome, John Rampton, founder and CEO of due.com, D-U-E.com, an online invoicing and payment platform. John, welcome to the show.
John: Hey, thanks for having me.
Michael: I provided a really simple overview of due.com just now, John. When you meet someone for the first time, how do you describe due.com to them today?
John: You know, we’re a payments platform. We’re helping small businesses invoice their clients, get paid online, in a much more simpler way.
Michael: So why wouldn’t somebody just use quickbooks.com, for example?
John: I mean, people like using us a whole lot more for our sleek interfaces, our easy-to-use systems, automation, some of the ways to pay are a lot easier than QuickBooks and there’s been problems there so…
Michael: Yeah, and you know, I’m a QuickBooks user, and because my accountant uses QuickBooks, my CPA uses QuickBooks, but for a lot of, you know, smaller entrepreneurs, 1099s for the first time, maybe they’ve been 1099 for a years, they want a simple way to just invoice and get paid, right?
John: Yup, correct.
Michael: Awesome. So when did you launch due.com?
John: You know, we launched a little over a year ago.
Michael: Okay, so only a year. Was the business model different when you launched a year ago than today?
John: You know, a year ago, we were much more focused on invoicing. Now, we’re a lot more focused on payments and the backend processing of those payments.
Michael: Makes sense. So the audience knows how big due.com is today. Give them a little bit of perspective around the company that we’re gonna talk about. Can you give us an idea what your revenue is?
John: Yeah, so, revenue, we don’t really discuss. But right now, we have a little over 50,000 customers. Those are active customers using our platform. And we’re processing about $60 million a month now.
Michael: Wow. $60 million are flowing through due.com?
John: Correct, yup.
Michael: Wow, that’s awesome.
John: Yeah, thanks.
Michael: Now that I understand where due.com is, I wanna go back in time a little bit, understanding you as an entrepreneur. You’re no newbie to online anything.
John: No.
Michael: You’ve been marketing for years. You’ve been named Entrepreneur Magazine’s top 50 online influencers in the world. You’ve been named to the top 10 most influential PPC experts in the world. How did you start off in online marketing?
John: You know, I started off probably about 15 years ago. I’ve always been an entrepreneur my entire life. I’ve always loved selling people. I love seeing this in businesses, you know, that swift J-curved out. And I loved making money. Money is so much fun for me to make. So I was working at a company, selling their product. The company that, you know, I joined onboard and helped kind of start the company and I was selling a product. And I found no matter how many, like, I could only make so many phone calls a day and talk so much on a phone. And I started finding easier ways to sell people online. So, you know, back in the day, I build a text server and I went scrape websites for phone numbers and I texted people just saying, “Hey, buy our product.” And, you know, I found I got to a point where that only worked so much, you know, that only got me so many sells. Then I started doing other forms of online marketing and, you know, got further and further in. And I just found it was something that I enjoyed doing, and it was scalable to a point where I could get millions of customers and not have to really call and talk with every single one of them.
Michael: So when you started off, did you used to be an affiliate marketer? You know, a lot of people…
John: Yeah.
Michael: You did. And so you’re sort of…
John: Yeah, I mean, they didn’t really have a name for it back in the day, but it was kind of affiliates, how I did it was I went on Craigslist and I posted jobs. And I got paid $8 every widget that I sold. And I went on Craigslist and I said, “If you guys sell this, I will pay you $6,” and I took a cut. And little did I know, four years later, some guy’s like, “This is what affiliate marketing is.” It’s just paying people. And they go do it, and then start finding better ways to sell in more and more ways. And, you know, started expanding my mini-empire.
Michael: Yeah, and so that was one of your first jobs out of high school. I think my research showed that you were working selling virtual tours to real estate agents. And you went to Craigslist and posted that, and basically, you paid out 75% of everything that you made. But you were happy to do so because it was scalable.
John: Happy, yeah. It was probably more even along the lines of 90% of everything I made. But hey, I’m fine making that 10% if other people are doing the work.
Michael: Yeah, and so, have you morphed over time from affiliate marketing selling somebody else’s product, being beholden to them, you know, keeping you on or keeping the product updated or whatever, you know, related to them running it versus now you’re on due.com. Is this the first company you’ve created on your own?
John: No, I mean, I’ve created several things. I’m a serial entrepreneur. I’ve created another online invoicing company that helped people sell their homes. I ended up selling that. While I was doing that, while I was building up that company and launching that product, that’s when I started really getting into online marketing and writing, blogging, and truly every aspect of online marketing because I wanted to be able to know every aspect so that… of online marketing, every aspect of it, so that I could market my business and earn as much money as possible. That company went very, very well, it ended up selling for a decent sum of money. After that, I bought another company. That company unfortunately failed. And then come along due. And you know, saw and went on.
Michael: Awesome. I’m gonna come back and ask you about all the writing that you do because you do a ton of writing on a lot of different sites. Now, I wanna find out how that has helped you become more successful. But let’s go back to due.com since you just brought it up. I read that you bought due.com on flippa.com, the marketplace for websites and domain names. How did you come across it for sale, and what was the impetus to purchase the domain name?
John: Yeah, so I’m always looking for domain names. I’m a domainer. I love it.
Michael: You are. You are an investor.
John: I’m an investor in domains. Well, it goes actually a little beyond that too. So, when I was younger, I’m still pretty young, but when I was younger, I could only…I couldn’t afford to go buy a house. So I went and bought domains because it was my form of online real estate. And I could afford it. I could afford $5,000. I couldn’t afford $50,000 for a down payment, but I could afford $5,000 for a domain to which I could hold or build that up and sell it for $20,000 and then buy a $20,000 domain and flip it years later to the right buyer for a lot more money. So I started learning the value of my online real estate and how much things are worth. So I’m always looking at different sites like Flippa, Sedo, NameJet, other places out there that…
Michael: You’re in all the sites. So you’re just like every other wholesale investor looking for great opportunities out there?
John: Yeah. And lots of times like you can find them for motivated sellers like, you never know when a seller is going to be, you know, be kind of desperate for cash. When I saw it, I reached out to the guy and said, “Hey, I’ll give you this for…” He’s all, “Hey, I have to get this much. I paid this much for it.” But you know, I have a house that’s on, I’m like, there was a certain circumstance, I don’t remember what it was. But it was like his house was being foreclosed on him. He had to sell this domain. And he’s like, “I need to get rid of this.” Like, or it might have been that he bought it from somebody and was being foreclosed on or something, but all I know is he was in a tough financial situation. For me, that’s great, because I can get a better deal on it. He’s very motivated to move quickly. And, you know, if you can find those things, it’s just like real estate. The more people you reach out to and talk with, and the more house hunting you do, the better deal you’re going to find. And you might find a motivated seller that needs to dump it really quick and you can get a really good deal on a house.
Michael: Yeah, exactly. And I’ll have other sherpas, like yourself coming on to show that come on and say, you know, I’ll reach out to the same person with the great domain name, time after time after time and finally after five years, they have a need to sell. They’re retiring. They sold their company. Medical issues came up. They have a credit card debt. Whatever the case maybe.
John: And some are just bored. Some are like, “It’s been five years and I don’t know what to do with it. Nobody is biting on it so go for it.”
Michael: So you saw the auction on Flippa. And I wanna go into a little bit of details because other entrepreneurs that may be watching that aren’t in the domain names may find some insight. You saw the auction on Flippa, but the auction didn’t actually sell?
John: Correct. No.
Michael: And so then did you reach out to the owner? Did it not sell because it didn’t hit the reserve price?
John: Didn’t hit the reserve.
Michael: Okay.
John: His reserve was $160,000.
Michael: Okay, which is a reasonable amount for a three-letter, you know, actionable domain name like this.
John: Very reasonable.
Michael: And so then you reached out through Flippa or…
John: I reached out through…I had bid on it and tried to bid, he had rejected it. And it came near. And he’s like, “Yeah, I’d like $160,000 or I think he said like $200,000 for it.” And I just messaged him, I’m like, “I’m not willing to do this, but I’ll do $100k right now.” And he was like…
Michael: Which is a very serious offer, sure.
John: Yeah, which is a very serious offer. And you see anybody… like any person with this six-figure offer, you should respond to.
Michael: Yeah.
John: So he responded to me and we kinda went back and forth and negotiated. I chatted with him on Skype and we just came to an agreed upon price.
Michael: And then you transacted through Flippa escrow?
John: Through escrow, yup.
Michael: Okay, and the final purchase price was…
John: $130,000.
Michael: $130,000?
John: One hundred thirty thousand US dollars.
Michael: Yeah, wow. And so, is that the most expensive domain name you’ve ever purchased before?
John: No.
Michael: Really?
John: I purchased organize.com.
Michael: You bought organize.com out of auction?
John: Correct. Correct.
Michael: I looked at that one.
John: It was on Flippa as well. I found that one on Flippa as well. That was years ago.
Michael: Yeah, what happened to that one?
John: That one, I bought it. I bought that. It came with a website. I bought it for $450,000, $350,000, I don’t remember. I mean, that was years back. So yeah, I bought other domains and you know, I’m bidding on one right now for $600,000.
Michael: And do you still own organize.com?
John: I do not. No, I don’t.
Michael: What happened to that one?
John: That one we actually went out of business.
Michael: Oh, that was the one you were talking about, yeah?
John: We grew it up and it… you know, luck didn’t spin our way and we failed. I mean that was really hard. I lost a lot of money and a lot of time and energy and stuff like that.
Michael: Yeah, I looked at that one. It was some phenomenal assets. They had a big customer base, the prior year, they had sold, I don’t know if it was under NDA or if NDA is even valid anymore, but lots of social media, lots of people visiting, the customer list, social media handle, website, domain name, where are all the assets today? Maybe I’ll buy them from you.
John: The assets are with another company. They own them.
Michael: You sold it?
John: Yeah, yeah. So we sold the assets.
Michael: Gotcha.
John: So yeah, I mean, you win some, you lose some. Like that one was a big bet that didn’t work out. It didn’t pan out for us. Due, you know, we’re still in the process of that. I would say to all the listeners, the great thing about domains is when you do buy a really good domain, if you can get it for a good price and know domain, like know what’s going on in the market and how much they sell for it. Like, you can usually always get your money back, or at least, you might take a little bit of a haircut on it, but you can still get your money back especially if you find the right buyer. If you find the right buyer, you might make 10 times what put in.
Michael: Right.
John: I would say one example is due.com, another person was bidding on it. And the person wanted $200,000 and they were like, “This person, like the reserve is blah, blah, blah, they’re not gonna negotiate.” Well, literally, I purchased it, and it sent out an email saying, “Oh, this person purchased it,” all the Flippa people for $130,000. The guy offered me $175,000 15 minutes after I had purchased it. I had not even sent the money for it and I got an offer for literally, what is that, like $45,000 more?
Michael: Yeah.
John: Like 15 minutes, so I could’ve made in 15 minutes, $3,000 a minute.
Michael: Did you think about not building it and just selling it?
John: Oh yeah, yeah. Definitely thought about that. My wife actually was like, “Sell it. Sell it. Do it.”
Michael: Yeah. So which came first, the due.com domain name that you purchased or the business idea to create this payment platform?
John: So we had looked at another invoicing company that was also on Flippa for sale. It was called Make Some Time, and it had been on sale and I kinda negotiated with the founders a year prior and they wanted a great deal of money. And I saw Due and I’m like, “Hey.” For me, it was just a good investment that I could put something on. Whenever I buy domains, I always have an idea for it in the future, and if that idea happens, great. If it doesn’t happen, I have an asset that I know that I can sell for more. I mean, that guy offered me $45,000 a couple minutes after. If he’s willing to pay that, if I find the right buyer, they’re willing to pay more, which since, we had offers, you know, for Due as a company and the asset base in the multimillions of dollars.
Michael: Yeah.
John: So you can make a lot of money doing it.
Michael: And for three-character domain name, you know, they don’t come up very often where it has a meaning, where it’s a verb, you know you get some confusion with do.com, but that’s a multimillion dollar domain name versus, you know, D-U-E and so, yeah that’s the only…
John: One other thing to note on it too is whenever I personally look at domain names, and this is just a recommendation for users, I also look at the social assets. So I looked at twitter.com/due which there was really nothing on there. I know I could contact Twitter and be like, “Hey, I own this, and I want to take this over. Well, they gave it to me. Facebook gave it to me. LinkedIn gave it to me. So I was able to acquire every single one of the social assets. So we’re /due on everything, on Google Plus, on YouTube, on Facebook, on Twitter, on Slideshare, on…
Michael: Wow. So there’s gotta be more to it, John, than just contacting them and asking them, because I’ve done that in the past, and I don’t even get responses back.
John: I know, find people to sleep with so…
Michael: So let me go with order of events first.
John: So if any of you guys having trouble, I’ll flip that, let me know.
Michael: So let me know the order of events. So you bought the domain name, clearly you don’t even have it up as running company yet, but you contacted all of the social media platforms and asked for the D-U-E username?
John: No, I did that after I merged the two.
Michael: Merged the two what?
John: So after I purchased the domain, I’m like, “Huh, maybe I should…like due is kind of payments and finance and invoicing related.” So I contacted that other company about a month later and I said, “Hey, it’s been a year. You haven’t done anything with this. You’re sitting on this asset. I wanna purchase it from you.” They had like 30,000, or 20,000 customers. No, it was like 18,000 customers. And I went to him and said, “Hey, you have all these customers. None of them are using it,” you know, “in the way that you want to. And you’re not really maintaining it. They’re not happy. You can see these complaints. How about I purchase it from you. I’ll purchase the assets, and then I’m gonna merge it on here and redo it and make it look better and use your base.”
Michael: That’s a great idea, to purchase a business that, you know, already has some base technology and customer… some users of the system and then merge them into a better brand.
John: Right, yeah.
Michael: Right. So were they actually generating revenue or were they just sort of in a startup mode?
John: They were generating revenue. It was very, very small revenue. I mean, sub $1,000 a month.
Michael: And did you buy it for the multiple of their revenue?
John: No, I just offered them cash like what I was willing to pay for it.
Michael: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so…
John: I mean I think I paid like $15,000 or $20,000. It was very, very minimal.
Michael: Yeah, and they were probably happy that, you know, they weren’t gonna spend any more time on it.
John: Yeah, they just copied assets off and I was friends with them and we’ll still friends so…
Michael: And so you got your business up and running a lot faster just by rebranding what they’ve already done?
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Michael: And so you got your business up and running a lot faster just by rebranding what they’ve already done?
John: Correct.
Michael: And then you went to the social media platforms and asked for the usernames?
John: Then I went to the social media platforms. I mean, I have a couple friends. So I live in Silicon Valley so I live next to the Facebooks, the Googles, the Twitters, all these major platforms are primarily within like 20 minutes drive of my house. So I have people who know people at those places. So I contacted, for example, Facebook. I contacted a very well-known Facebook person who’s been there since like their first year in business. And he’s like, “Oh, sure.” And it was done 10 minutes later. He got me Instagram as well.
Michael: Wow, so you didn’t have to buy any of them even though, the terms of service say, “You’re not supposed to sell them. We know it happens in the aftermarket.”
John: Yeah, I bought to some people before.
Michael: Yeah, fantastic. So that’s the story how you got because getting the three character domain name is pretty phenomenal in itself. But getting the matching social media handles, oh my gosh, that’s like a pinnacle.
John: Yeah, it was great.
Michael: Wow.
John: It was a big win that…We haven’t gotten every single one of them. Snapchat, we haven’t gotten the Snapchat. And like one or two other small ones. Another thing that we did is we register the trademark which we now own. So we own Due, D-U-E as a trademark. So if anything in the financial, invoicing, payments, basically anything financial that has to do with Due, if they ever mention that, I can legally take over.
Michael: That’s fantastic. All right, so one more question we’re getting social media handles and doing my research, I saw that brand.com went out of business and you acquired the brand username on Twitter.
John: I did, we did.
Michael: Which has a massive, 600,000 plus followers.
John: Correct. It didn’t when I got it. When I got it, it had like 15,000.
Michael: Really? So you’ve grown Brand, twitter.com/brand from 15,000 up to 600,000?
John: Correct.
Michael: First of all, how did you acquire it?
John: I contacted the old owner. I was trying to buy brand.com. So I was trying to buy that. It ended up selling for $280,000.
Michael: brand.com?
John: Yup.
Michael: And that’s probably worth it. That’s a great domain name.
John: Oh, that’s easily worth it.
Michael: That’s afraid.
John: They originally paid half a million for it.
Michael: So I’m surprised that the buyer of the domain name didn’t want the username on Twitter to go with it.
John: I think they didn’t realize that it wasn’t part of it and some of the other assets were not part of it. So the owner, I knew the owner of it, you know, if you’re in the domain world, you start knowing people who they buy at. You want a network because if I don’t have enough money to buy something, or I wanna trade, I mean once you start owning domain names, you can start trading, you know, like at due.com and like right now, I own buttercup.com buttercups.com, and a bunch of other pretty good. And I can trade a bunch of these for that bigger one. So, you get to know everybody.
Michael: yeah. So networking is important?
John: Correct. Oh yeah. Essential.
Michael: Essential. And what’s the purpose of that Twitter account, twitter.com/brand?
John: I didn’t really have a purpose at the beginning. It was a good handle and it was verified. And that became part of the deal. I did pay for it. Anybody from Twitter, I did not pay for it and I would never confirm that.
Michael: If you did pay for it, how much would you pay for a Twitter account like that?
John: You know, I’d pay $10,000. And it had 15,000 followers that was verified and a really good handle and I’d pay $10,000.
Michael: Yeah, totally. Verified is, wow, yeah, that’s gold today.
John: And yeah, it is gold. And it used to be a lot harder to get verified. It used to be near impossible to get verified. Now, it’s a lot easier, but you know, that was a big thing for, you know, there was only at the time, probably like 20,000 verified accounts, and that’s one of them. The others are mostly celebrities and well-known brands. It was a good win.
Michael: So you talked…
John: [inaudible 00:22:01] win a lot.
Michael: So you’ve talked a lot about domain names being assets that can appreciate over time that you look at them like an asset. Even if the business fails, it has a residual value. Do you consider social media handles like twitter.com/brand to have a residual value to you?
John: Oh yeah.
Michael: You do?
John: Yeah, for sure. I mean, first of all, I get reached out to by brands all the time to tweet out their stuff and they’re willing to pay for it. For example, I have one very, very large motor company right now that just offered me $1,500 for two tweets.
Michael: Are you serious?
John: So, you know, you look at things like that and, it’s damn. Hell yeah, that’s worth it. So that’s worth it. I also had a person offer me $35,000 cash for it the other day. So, you know, things like that, they do have value. But even more like if you can attach like you can buy a really good brand and have the social assets with it, it just makes your brand so much more powerful online.
Michael: Yeah, definitely. Let me ask you about the business model of due.com. I went on your website and I saw that Due charges 2.7%. So if I pay $100, if I sent you an invoice, you pay me $100 for that. Your due.com will take up 2.7% as a processing fee. stripe.com charges 2.9% plus a 30 cent charge. How does Due charge less than Stripe?
John: We have relationships direct with banks so we’re able to do that. Plus, to compete in a marketing and the huge players, you have to have a different pricing options and be a little bit lower to really have the intrinsic value to convert over a customer. So we had to go far less than them enough where it makes sense for a customer to ditch them and use our product.
Michael: Yeah, so if I send you an invoice and you pay, what shows up on your credit card statement, my name or due.com or…
John: It’ll be a combination, it’ll be Due dash your name. If you’re an actual merchant process, it will be fully your name and our code.
Michael: Gotcha. And is there a fee to use due.com in addition to the processing fee?
John: Nope, there’s nothing. Nothing.
Michael: Because I went in, I signed up, I looked online, I looked back through the archives, I thought I saw $3.00 per month for one user.
John: Back way, way, way in the archives, back in the day when we purchased the business, that’s how they were making money. We deleted all that and we give it all the way for free. I’d rather create a really cool product that lots of people can use and there’s no barrier to entry. I think the invoicing companies when they’re charging to invoice or the amount of clients and stuff like that, like all it is basically flipping a switch on my end. It costs me nothing, nothing more to help you out and like, sure I could make a little bit more money, but I’d rather help a lot more people out.
Michael: Yeah, and you guys make money. You’re cash flow positive?
John: Yeah, almost. Almost. We’re about a month and a half away from being cash flow positive.
Michael: Wow, congratulations, 12 months into it. That’s awesome.
John: Yup.
Michael: And so, I saw, you know, I like to, like you, when I go to a website, I’m like, “What is the root of what they’re trying to do?” So I look at the source code, then I look at the meta description, because sometimes, you know, they put words in there, what they really want to be for a search engine to identify them. And I’ve read, Due is an easy way to send money, make mobile payments, and offers an easy way for a company to collect payments. It almost seems like PayPal to me.
John: Yeah, I mean, ultimately, what our ultimate goal is I wanna make it easier for anyone anywhere in the world to send money to each other at a little to no cost. So I basically want like if you’re familiar with Venmo or PayPal, a free PayPal anywhere in the world, or a free Venmo so that I can literally go on my cellphone and pay from the U.S. a contractor in India, you know, $200 and it gets to them the next day and they have it in their bank account within 48 hours. That’s what I want and what we’re trying to build.
Michael: But I know a lot of individual freelancers will have a problem with PayPal because they can’t get the money or they can’t get certain amounts of money out of PayPal if they’re living in India or what have you. Do you solve that problem with due.com?
John: That’s our goal. Right now, we don’t. But that’s our goal.
Michael: Okay.
John: That’s what we’re trying to build.
Michael: Yeah, and if I went on to due.com, could I find the countries that you do service right now?
John: Yeah, right now we’re just U.S, Canada, Mexico, and the U.K.
Michael: Okay, that makes sense. And so if I’m an individual investor in domain names and I live in the U.S. and I wanna sell domain names to somebody else, would due.com be a good solution for me so I don’t have to use PayPal where somebody could do a chargeback on their credit card and take the money and my domain?
John: You know, we have a service that you could do that way, I mean kind of an escrow type of service. I mean, I would say in that circumstance, there’s tons of companies like escrow.com, they do a very, very good job at that, mitigating, and that’s what they’re built for, is buying and more of an escrow and holding service. They’re better at that. We’re better at payments and credit card and purchasing a product, and sending it. But if you’re sending something where you need to inspect it and make sure you get it and it clears in your account and all these other things, there are services that are built for that. So I’d say in that circumstance, probably not.
Michael: Okay, but if I wanna sell a domain name for $500 to somebody and I don’t need a credit card of that person?
John: Damn, go.
Michael: Do that…
John: Plug it, get their credit card and you’re good to go.
Michael: Send them an invoice, they pay directly and then I push the domain to them.
John: Correct, yup.
Michael: So I’d like to understand the thought process of, so that other entrepreneurs can understand decisions that you’ve made. Why not choose a lower price, brandable domain name like duenow.com?
John: Yeah, I mean, one, I saw due.com for sale so…
Michael: So opportunity.
John: Yeah, opportunity, but I mean, even more than that, I really like short, one word domains. You can’t beat them. A person’s perception in their mind of Due versus Duenow, to Google, it’s all the same, to a person coming to your site, it’s a lot more brand perception and a lot more credibility instantly. I mean people are like, “Oh, I’ve heard about you years ago and I should’ve signed up.” I’m like, “Yeah.” Like…
Michael: We’ve already been around for 12 months, for sure.
John: For sure. Yeah. Cool. Like you get so much brand perception, I mean, even when I owned Organize, people would come to us and just be like, “Oh my word, this is the best.” It’s instant trust in users.
Michael: And you’re in Silicon Valley, You’re living in the Palo Alto area?
John: Correct, Palo Alto, yup.
Michael: So what’s the perception from other entrepreneurs that you interact with in Silicon Valley when you say that you’re the founder of due.com?
John: Immediately, “Oh, how much did you pay for that?” Get it every time.
Michael: And they’re jealous, right?
John: Yeah, yeah, like I’d say 60% to 70%. I mean, even investors are like, “Oh, oh,” like they immediately take you seriously because they know that you’ve invested like hundreds of thousands of dollars. Most of them assume millions of dollars, because most VCs, when they go purchase a domain name, this is something for the audience to know about venture capitalists and people with… investing large amounts of money into things.
When you’re a startup and you have something going for you and you raise money, once you’ve raised money and you go to buy a domain name, that domain name will be five times what you would normally pay for it. And literally, five times what you pay for it. So a venture capital firm comes in and they say, “Oh, we acquired Do, D-O.com. We paid $1.1 million for it.” And versus, you could’ve probably bought D-O.com for like $200,000, had you bought it prior to you actually going big or have the right person involved in the transaction.
Michael: So the lesson learned for other entrepreneurs is before you close your round, secure a great domain name, right?
John: I would say like don’t get your investment firm involved and don’t let them know that you’re the company that’s trying to buy it. Just be, like some, have a friend buy it for you or have a Gmail, make up a Gmail account and just be like, I’m not saying to impersonate someone but like hop on the phone and, because the domain person will Google you. If it’s a $200,000 or $100,000 plus, they’re going to want to know you as a person before that goes through so they’ll Google. And if I can’t find much from that person, they’d be like, “This person is trying to scam me.” But it’s going to be more expensive the further down the road you get.
Michael: Yeah, definitely. So you mentioned investment. Did you bootstrap or raised money for due.com?
John: We bootstrapped, the whole thing.
Michael: The whole thing?
John: Yeah.
Michael: Do you have other founders that have put money in it as well or is it all your money?
John: All my money.
Michael: Wow. So you’re really doubling down on this.
John: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, that’s what entrepreneurship is. Entrepreneurship is taking risks on yourself. And I’ve had risks that have paid off. I’ve had risks that have not paid off. But it’s taking a risk and a chance on yourself. This is a big chance that I’m taking on myself.
Michael: Yeah, and so you’ve mentioned that the domain name due.com has helped your business because customers feel like you’ve been in business forever like they know exactly what you do.
John: Instant credibility.
Michael: Instant credibility. How else does it helped your business grow?
John: I mean it’s easy. I mean it’s easy for people to link to, talk about, I mean, I love that it’s really, really short on social media. You’re allowed to say a lot more, you know. For example, if you have this big, long handle, you know, you typed up half your letters are gone, also it’s easy for people to remember if you have like something due@blahblahblah.com, you know it’s hard to remember and the person might forget. Due, everybody is like, oh, it’s easy to remember.
Michael: Yeah, definitely. And has it help you with your, you know you are the merchant, but I guess the credit cards processors, has it helped you negotiate deals, get better deals, terms, things like that?
John: It just gives us instant credibility. I mean, people know that we’re not just some business that might go out of business in a couple months or some fly by the night like thing, they’re like “Oh my word, these guys paid of thousands of dollars,” people assume millions of dollars for the domain name. If they’re willing to invest millions of dollars in a domain name, these guys are serious players.
Michael: Yeah, definitely. So, earlier on, you mentioned that you do write and you do provide a lot of…and I’ve noticed you provide a lot of benefit for other entrepreneurs. You wanna help others, because, you know, you’ve been helped in your past. I’m sure, you write for Entrepreneur Magazine, Forbes, Ink, Huffington Post, and several other niche sites. I went through brand, your Twitter brand and I thought you’re on Oracle’s blog. How has writing so much, these articles that you post to people’s blogs and websites, how is that help you personally?
John: Yeah, so…
Michael: I was gonna ask…I was gonna say personally and your business, but I’ll start with personally first.
John: I mean, personally, it gets my name out there in front of millions of different people, and I get to help a lot of people. I find that every article that I write, every hundred people that read it, I’ll get one super fan out of that. A person who will follow me for life. And really enjoys what I write and reads out every single post, probably one out of every thousand that will legitimately, I mean crazy super fan will do anything I ever ask. But I mean, one out of every, you know, it’s just boils down to the numbers game for me. If I can, one out of every, you know hundred people ends up signing up for my company, all of a sudden, the more I write, the more customers I have signing up out there.
And you asked about business perspective. You know, I mention my own business in some of the things and trials that I’m going through, and with firing an employee, firing a co-founder, buying a co-founder out, having a business go out of business like Organize, you know. I was the guy in the room that laid everybody off and liquidated an 80,000 square foot warehouse. I had all these crap happen to me. So I can help a lot of people, but from a business perspective, again, I’m gaining business fans and super customers. Why I do it? Lots of people ask me why do I keep going? Obviously, it’s helping my business. It’s truly growing out my business. I also find that Forbes won’t write about my company every single day as much as I want Forbes to write about my company, they probably won’t. But I can write about and drop references to my company every single day and link to my own company. Might not be as good as one post, but it’s definitely as good as three or four posts. So I can make that differences up and I can run write about me every single day. So that’s why I got into it.
Michael: And do you have a team that manages social media for you, because how do you decide whether you’re gonna post to John Rampton Twitter account or Brand Twitter account or put it on the blog at Due. How do you manage all that?
John: Yeah, so we have a big team, a big content team. So we typically try and post like three to five times a day on Due blog, and then I’m putting up on average like three a day on other people’s blogs and around the internet. And up on social media, we typically tweet trending stories out there and inspirational things. I typically queue the inspirational things up so they’ll come out. And then when I see something interesting, I’ll go through. And I mean, I have a team that helps me out with that but it’s a very, very minimal.
Michael: How big is your content marketing team?
John: We have 18 writers.
Michael: Eighteen? Full-time or contractors?
John: Contractors.
Michael: Wow, 18.
John: We have like four or five full-time.
Michael: Wow.
John: And that’s helping out with content mostly on Due, most of the stuff I put out is under my own name. I’m like dictating it and the person is writing it up and then I’m going through. I have a grammar editor, a fact checking editor, and a voice editor.
Michael: That’s amazing. If you take out those 18 people, how big is the rest of the due.com team?
John: I mean, we have a bunch of contractors. So our core due.com team is seven full-time people right now.
Michael: Gotcha.
John: But then, we have five, like contractors, it’s like contract to hire so they’re in the hiring process. We typically keep people on six months as contractors, and then our goal is to bring them on full-time. Those are programmers and devs, and then just a bunch of content people. But all those are typically contractors.
Michael: Gotcha. Sixty million-dollars being processed, is that per month, or, what’s the time for…
John: Per month.
Michael: Per month. Sixty million-dollars being processed in just 12 months of operation. Clearly, that has increased the value of the due.com domain name and all the related assets. If the business would have failed, god forbid, it would have failed today, what do you think today’s value of due.com would be?
John: Well, I know I had somebody at $175,000 offer me that. So that’s a firm. I could email him and have $175,000 in my account tomorrow. And that’s pretty much as much as I set my lowest expectation. I’d imagine we could probably sell it, you know with just the domain name, I would probably include the social assets in that and the fact that the domain authority has so many links behind it. It’s a domain authority 65, it’s really, really good for one year. I mean, I’d probably sign a value of like 1 million to 2 million, but again, that’s my value and hypothetical and stuff like that. To the right person, it’s definitely worth that. To the wrong person, it’s worth $175,000.
Michael: Here’s the final question for you John. What do you say to other entrepreneurs who are just launching a startup today and are thinking about buying a great, single-word .com domain name like due.com? You know, it’s easy for you to say, “I’m gonna buy it. I know it has a residual value because then I’ve got a whole bunch of upside potential.” But not everybody is as seasoned entrepreneur as you’ve been through, you know, highs and lows with their business. Do you encourage them to buy a great, single-word .com domain name or do you, does it vary, you know, person to person?
John: Yeah, I do, but not right off the bat. Get to know the market. Just like going when you’re buying a house. Don’t go and buy the first house that you see or the fifth house you see. Get to know the market, get to know the neighborhood, get to know where your kids will be going to school. You don’t want your kid going to school at a one-rated high school. You want them going to 10-rated high school. Get to know everything about the ecosystem before you just jump in and buy.
Michael: Yeah, and so does that mean starting with a domain name that maybe has two words to start or…
John: Yeah, I would start with getting to know, you know getting two-word, getting, building up your business, and getting to know what you would like it to be.
Michael: Because you may switch from just an invoicing company to a payment platform. And if you bought invoices.com, you might be stuck with the wrong domain name to start.
John: Exactly.
Michael: Right, great tip. If you have questions for John, please leave them below the video on DomainSherpa and I’ll ask him to come back and answer as many as he can. If you receive benefit from today’s show, learn something new, thought differently about buying premium domain names for your startup, please take a moment to thank today’s Sherpa.
I’m gonna be the first to say thanks to John. John Rampton, founder and CEO of due.com. Thanks for coming on DomainSherpa, sharing information about how you built your company and some of the setbacks along the way. And thanks for being a DomainSherpa for others.
John: Thanks, guys.
Michael: Thanks for watching. We’ll see you all next time.
