Someone the other day asked me when was the first time I made money with a domain name, when was my first sale ? My first profit from a domain was actually a lease, something I never even thought of doing back in 2003.
Back in 2003 I kept talking about wanting to start a t-shirt line and website, I was watching the movie Friday After Next with a girl I knew, and after Mike Epps said:
I said to her I think that is a great word combo, and she was like what are you talking about ? I said “Booty Beauty” I think it is a catchy name and its a bit fun to say. So then I thought some people might reverse them, I had been out when someone was trying to be funny and using the line, “It ain’t your booty, it’s your beauty” and instead said “It ain’t your beauty, it’s your booty.” So I regged BeautyBooty.com as well.
So in August of 2003 I got a phone call and it was someone from Hearst Corporation, the publisher of Cosmopolitan Magazine. The lady explained that they do a promo every year entitled Cosmo Beauty Booty, they owned the domain cosmobeautybooty.com. The problem was their publisher printed all their magazine ads and other promotional material with the domain beautybooty.com.
She told me they wanted the domain for a month, then quickly asked “This name has not been used for pornography has it ?” I said no the name has been regged for a t-shirt line and she said ok, she then asked me what I wanted for the one month rental ?
I was on another line when she called and did not give it much thought, not as much as I should have, this was Cosmo not some small regional magazine. I said $1,000 and free advertising for Booty Beauty when it launches. She told me if you mean on our website ok, I can’t give you print advertising in our magazine.
I said ok sure, the website is fine. I got an email with the details and forwarded the domain in October, here is a screenshot from archive.org:
I did not start the t-shirt line, so I never got the second part of the deal, foolish on my part. I did get an offer on BootyBeauty.com in 2006 from someone who had the same idea for a t-shirt line. I still own both names today and still thinking about starting a t-shirt line. Nothing like being a procrastinating idiot.
That is pretty cool you probably did leave some money on the table but I got to say I love the name booty beauty that is an excellent brand for that type of fashion.
Nice story Raymond, we don’t get enough of these on the domain blogs.
Since it was in print, I’m surprised they only wanted it for 1 month… print ads linger for a pretty long time, so I would assume traffic flowed in after the forward?
Either way, pretty cool story!
I’m with Howie, these old stories are fun reads. Thanks
Great story Raymond. My first money ever from a undeveloped domain name was shortly after i moved from the Netherlands to Hong Kong in 2006 and I received an email from a hosting company where i once regged the name Vacanza.nl with the plan to put a site on it with holiday and travel deals. I never got around to do so and actually didn’t pay any renewal fees for a couple of years. Still, the hosting company held the name for me and told me they received an email from an individual that was interested in buying the domain off me. I believe i sold the domain for 600 euros and the company that bought it had a developped site on it for many years, selling campers under the Vacanza brand.
Nice they held the domain for you and did not keep it for themselves.
Nice story Raymond.
As Jamie asked, was there any residual traffic from the magazine’s readers after the one month rental?
Thank you all for the comments, yes Jamie I did think they would want the domain for more than one month and was going to propose a straight purchase for $5,000.
The domain continued to get traffic for the next few months maybe 8 months at around 200 to 300 uniques, nothing crazy like 5000 in a month.
There is someone running a beauty blog on BeautyBooty411.com the owner never made an offer for BeautyBooty.com.
Great story.
Nice one, man! Back in 2003 $1000 for a month was a good deal, particularly as you say you haven’t had big offers on either of them to date. My first was downloadringtones.com in 2004, for US$2000. I would assume it’s worth a lot more now. I sold it via afternic – when that Irish guy wad there – forget his name but it was the same as that of some famous Irishman.
Cheers
Carl
Very cool story Raymond!