The effects of the Internet continue to astound me. As simple an asset as a killer web site name – and knowing what to do with it - can turn a nothing business into eight-figures in no time.
Serial entrepreneur Jesse Stein bought the name SportsMemorabilia-dot-com in 2006 for twelve-thousand-five-hundred dollars. At the time, the site was doing business of a few hundred dollars a month.
Last year Stein did $19.5 million on the site. He figured out several years ago that there is money to be made in e-commerce sites that have category-killing domain names. In other words, a domain name that generically best-defines a category. To sell sports memorabilia obviously, sport-memorabilia-dot-com is a category-killer.
For sure, Stein also is one smart entrepreneur. Knowing nothing about sports, he brought in ten guys who do, gave ‘em a big chunk of the company and turned them loose. He realized that his competitors in sports memorabilia hadn’t yet caught on to the Internet. And most were sports nuts who fell in love with the stuff.
His guys don’t fall in love with stuff. “We’re in Miami, but we’re as hot about Lakers stuff as we are the Heat.”
To Stein, it’s just about buying and selling.
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