Thoughts

Andrew Miller

June 30, 2024

AI & Domain Names

 In March 2023, we oversaw the sale of Chat*com to Hubspot Founder Dharmesh Shah, for a now known $15.5M. Dharmesh is one of the savviest tech entrepreneurs of our generation and he has been known to acquire strategic, ultra-premium domain names such as Chat*com. Last week, he rolled out phase 1 of an experimental, AI driven domain name appraisal agent on his Agent*ai platform. When I first tested it, I texted Dharmesh some concerns about the results and he replied immediately that he was working on enhancing it and it was just underway. I have tested it several times since and it is much improved already. Here is my issue with this, which Dharmesh acknowledged. The most valuable exact match and category domains that we invest in and advise on, such as Chat*com, are, well, the most valuable, and since almost every transaction involving them since the Internet started is confidential, even the all powerful OZ (AI) is limited, at least until it can see behind confidentiality agreements. With that said, I love seeing the most innovative people investing in the domain name space. We are the lead investor in Atom, and they are on the cutting edge of deploying AI in the domain name industry.

Tried & True

Our team at Hilco Digital Assets advises on many of the most significant domain name asset sales and acquisitions that transact. I myself, have also been a 2X founder of market leading, category domain branded companies, as well as an investor in many more ultra-premium domains, which does carry weight with those we are negotiating a purchase or sale for/with. However, there is nothing more valuable than the CEO/Founders/Investors who are peers to those we are advising, discussing the different reasons why their exact match, category domain acquisition has been the most important strategic business decision they have made. To that end, we have added a page to our website, https://lnkd.in/eFS_NYXp, that features some of these CEO/Founders. These are articles, tweets, and videos, to go along with the end user guests I have on my Random Thoughts podcast. If you are senior management, an investor, or an aspiring entrepreneur, these stories from Gold*com, Home*com, Extend*com, Gravity*com, Teamwork*com, Public*com, to name a few, are very important.

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