Video Transcription
Mike Mann:
I just got to, here we go. And we are live, so I just got to mute there. Cool, so here we are. Can you hear me okay, Teddy? Very good. So I was just going to let a handful of people join first and I’ll announce you.
Mike Mann:
Again, the main benefit is that it’ll be on YouTube with a lot of viewers for a long time. Some people join here live, but they might join after I’ve already announced you. So you might maybe in the middle, I’ll remind them who you are or what bio, whatever.
Mike Mann:
Also, if you want to post links to your website, your bio and the articles, you can just post them right on the Facebook stream here, at the end of the thing. So it looks like we have a couple of people starting to join us.
Mike Mann:
I’m going to just announce you in a couple of minutes and we’ll get started here. I just want to see if we can get a handful of people to join us just so it’s more of a live stream and not entirely YouTube broadcast.
Mike Mann:
But it turns out the main benefit is like saving videos of my friends on YouTube, where what I was trying to do is create a big live broadcast. We’re creating a small live broadcast, but a permanent YouTube video of my buddies.
Mike Mann:
So I like that a lot.
Ted Rose:
Yeah.
Mike Mann:
Answer. So it’s kind of cool. So now I have, this will be the fifth YouTube video, plus I’ve been doing all these other random videos for other people. So I’m just creating a little collection of content here.
Ted Rose:
Perfect.
Mike Mann:
Cool, so I’m gonna announce you and we’ll get started here. It looks like a few people joined the live stream. I appreciate that. Bring your friends and invite everybody. I’m Teddy, I don’t know if you posted it anywhere, but obviously you can post it if any of your friends wanna join or watch the YouTube video later.
Mike Mann:
So I’m gonna announce my good friend, Ted Rose: here, who I’ve known for a very long time. And he is the smartest guy and the nicest guy and he’s a role model as far as his work ethic, his education, the way he’s a family man.
Mike Mann:
And he’s my main man, Ted Rose:. So I’m gonna let him tell you about himself and then I’ll ask him some questions. If anybody else wants to type some questions on the Facebook stream, we’ll answer some questions there.
Mike Mann:
After that, I have another guest and then we’re gonna do some domain name appraisal training. So Ted, thanks so much for joining me. I’ll go on mute and let you introduce yourself, give us your bio and tell them how we met and things like that.
Ted Rose:
Great, great. Thanks, Mike. Good seeing you, as always. My background, obviously we met back in, I wanna say it was high school. I remember actually one of the very distinct meeting which you were actually the first true entrepreneur that I met and witnessed what goes into entrepreneurship.
Ted Rose:
But just quickly before I get into that, I wanna talk to you, just give you a quick background of myself, start, grew up in Potomac with Mike. I went to University of Maryland, got my accounting degree, went to work for the Big Four Price Waterhouse at the time, then went to work at a publicly traded biotech company as their controller.
Ted Rose:
And when that company’s clinical trial failed, it caused me to start looking around. I got my MBA, meanwhile, at Maryland as well. And I started looking for different opportunities and they kept calling me back, and this was back in 1994, and they kept calling me back saying, listen, we need, we’re gonna develop a second product, but we don’t need a full -time controller and we don’t need a full -time accounting department, but we need someone to keep our books and make sure we’re compliant with all of the SEC filings.
Ted Rose:
And so as I started continuing to do my job search, I kept working with them, and I realized that this was a good opportunity that there had to be more companies up there that needed a full accounting department, needed that high -level support, but didn’t have the resources for a full -time accounting group.
Ted Rose:
So I started Rose Financial on October 1st of 1994, and in 1995 actually coined the term accounting outsourcing in the Washington Business Journal. And no one even knew what outsourcing was when I started.
Ted Rose:
I did a lot of research in the library, we didn’t have Google back then, and I found the term outsourcing, put it together with accounting, and by the summer of 1995, the world had started talking about outsourcing as being the next big thing.
Ted Rose:
Peter Drucker had written an article in the Wall Street Journal about outsourcing back in the winter, like early 1995, and all the trade mags picked up on it by the summer of 95, and then that’s where RFS got its start and started to propel from there.
Ted Rose:
And so that was kind of the starting of RFS. If you fast forward to 2009, the real estate market had crashed and we had had a pretty good run up to that point, and the market started to wobble, and we were approached by Blackboard, which is a publicly traded company in DC at the time, they were publicly traded, and they wanted to outsource their accounts payables.
Ted Rose:
So we’ve been in the market for 15 years doing accounting outsourcing, and here was at the time probably about a $300 million company coming to outsource their payables to us. And so when we looked at the RFP and it went out, it was about 12 different companies around the world, we were competing in a global landscape at the time, we realized there was no way for us to win that engagement without bringing technology to the forefront.
Ted Rose:
And so we had been experimenting with this electronic workflow technology from about 2005, right around the time when we helped you with the sale of bi -domains, we started working with that electronic workflow.
Ted Rose:
I would say, I learned a lot working with you on the importance of technology and the internet and in our business, and we started to experiment with the workflow technology in 2005, and by the time we got to 2009 when that RFP came in, we were ready to build that custom application for Blackboard, we built that application, went live in June, I believe of 2009, and then we were processing payables and integrating that into PeopleSoft, which is now Oracle Financial for many years until they ultimately were bought out by a private equity firm.
Ted Rose:
So they got bought out by a private equity firm, and then the focus of the organization began to shift, and they ended up offshoring all of their development and the payables and the T &E outsourcing that we were performing as well.
Ted Rose:
So that ended up getting off -shored. And that was really the turning point for RFS, because they were our largest client at the time, and we had to make the decision. We had already had a big investment in this workflow technology.
Ted Rose:
We had a six -month wind down with Blackboard. And so what we ended up doing was we took what we had built and learned from working with Blackboard, and really began to build out a shared application for all of the various accounting functions.
Ted Rose:
And so by the time we got to 2013, we were on a new mission, which was to implement electronic workflows and process automation around all of the different accounting functions from AP and billing and payroll, cash receipts, financial reporting, the closing process.
Ted Rose:
And then about two years ago, we began to, we really developed it as an accounting tool, four accounts built by accounts, and we built up our development staff over the years. And a couple of years ago, we started to turn that accounting solution into a single source of all of an organization’s finance accounting information.
Ted Rose:
And now we rebranded it as ESB, powered by RFS workflow, and it’s a place where you can go to and get all of your accounting information, everything from a dashboard, which shows you your revenue and other P &L line items, your balance sheet trends, shows you your KPIs and compares them.
Ted Rose:
And so I love that. But you should pay attention.
Mike Mann:
Right, but post some stuff about it and let and then you know set up some meetings or whatever Yeah, because I want to ask you about some other stuff
Ted Rose:
Sure, yeah, anyways, that’s my background. I know I went on, but I wanted to give you the history of how we got to where we are. And really want to go back to that story about how we met. And that was, I recall, one of the first meetings was, we were over at a common friend’s house and you were spread out in their living room with all of your, I think you were installing QuickBooks and you had all of your invoicing out.
Ted Rose:
And you were, this was back when you were with the marathon delivery. It was the fun.
Mike Mann:
I met you way, way before that, but go ahead.
Ted Rose:
I meant the real the real I know we met long long time before that I’m talking about
Mike Mann:
about at John Vander Sleis’s house.
Ted Rose:
Yeah, John van der Sleis’s house when you were, it’s all spread out. I think you were even working with his brother on this property.
Mike Mann:
Don’t you remember JP Antonelli’s house and writing two houses, three houses away from your house? Yeah, yeah, and of course back then too. We’re going out of order, but go ahead. I’m gonna take people back in order in a minute.
Ted Rose:
Okay. And so I was referring to the first time we met, you know, really when I knew you were an entrepreneur.
Mike Mann:
I was told, but I mean, I knew you when we were kids also, I think.
Ted Rose:
That’s true. So, but yeah, definitely want to talk more about that. But what I remember was that work ethic that you had back then, you still have today, it was evident to me, even back then was you were a hard charger, you knew what you were doing, you were driven.
Ted Rose:
And we’ve been in touch through all your business iterations and the bi -domains. When we first started really working together you know, full time with that engagement.
Ted Rose:
Yep.
Mike Mann:
That’s for sure. Well, I’ll fill in in a second, but why don’t you just go back to like where your family’s from and what that neighborhood’s like and then I’ll say something to the abscain because you kind of went backwards about how we met in reverse order, but.
Ted Rose:
Sure, sure. So I grew up, my dad moved the family down here. When I was about three years old, he got tenure at University of Maryland. So we lived in Bethesda actually briefly, pretty close to where you live for a number of years.
Ted Rose:
And then my parents built a house in Potomac and it was on a small street near Great Falls in Potomac. And we grew up there from the time I was three until my mom’s still there. And so it was a relatively small neighborhood.
Ted Rose:
So there was a lot of people that grew up that same neighborhood like JP Antinelli who you were friends with and that we had a lot of time from the trampoline and different things in the neighborhood back then.
Ted Rose:
Yeah, yeah.
Mike Mann:
And first of all, it was a great party neighborhood, but keeping in mind that right next to like a block away was this place Cooley’s Field, where it was like the biggest party scene, no police. And then your house was right adjacent to Great Falls River Park.
Mike Mann:
So you could walk through the woods to the river in like five minutes and a thousand paths.
Ted Rose:
down, bike down to the, you know, the towpath and the canal and we’d go, you know, we’d be fishing down there, hiking and, you know, that definitely was a great place to grow up and, you know, near nature and, you know, a lot of, you know, a lot of bike, you know, bike rides and, you know, time down at Great Falls for sure.
Mike Mann:
And also, you know, there were these really cool gold mine caves, which were like super scary and insane. Yeah. I’ve done professional caving with like my class lots of times, but this was like really dangerous caving in the middle of the woods and closed down gold mines, you know.
Ted Rose:
Yeah, no, the caves were definitely really cool. I mean, those are definitely, you know, it was spooky going in there. You’ve got to make sure you brought a couple light sources because it does get awfully dark in there as well.
Mike Mann:
Right, and other crazy people might be in there also.
Ted Rose:
I’ve run into people in the cave. It’s definitely, you know, it’s more likely or not than you would run into people even though you wouldn’t expect that you’d run into someone in a cave.
Mike Mann:
Right, and so you know that island, if you go to the river right next to your house, there’s an island right across where, like Rickyard Park Road is. There’s an island right there. Do you know what they call that island?
Mike Mann:
I forget the name. I just found out the whole time we used to play there, but they actually call it Bear Island. Right, right. And all I remember, there’s a huge rope swing there where you could jump in and swim into the water, but there’s like a ton of poisonous water moccasins.
Mike Mann:
Not only that, that’s before there was the EPA, I think, or like EPA standards. So like the Potomac River was super polluted back then. It was just…
Ted Rose:
Well, I’ll say that the story I could tell that is the most like, if you think about it today, back then when you’re, I think I was in sixth grade, I was on the swim team. So I felt like I was a pretty good swimmer.
Ted Rose:
And I was there with a friend and doing, you know, just hiking or fishing. And we decided, you know what, the river’s not that far to the other side of Virginia. Let’s swim in across the river. And halfway across, you started to realize, you know, the current is actually stronger than it looks.
Ted Rose:
Yeah, we were good swimmers. And, you know, we grew up swimming, you know, some friends had pools in the neighborhood and I was on the swim team. And, you know, we went across and we rested, you know, a good 10 and 15 minutes before we came back.
Ted Rose:
But we, you know, we were able to get through that one. But that was a, you know, pretty, pretty crazy thing. You think about it today.
Mike Mann:
Well, that’s actually how I know global warming is real, is because the Potomac River used to freeze over, and we used to walk across it. I don’t think near your house, but near Georgetown, near Key Bridge, we walked across the Potomac River lots of times.
Mike Mann:
I don’t think it’s frozen there since I was a kid.
Ted Rose:
Well, remember when the Air Florida crash, it was ice there on the river. You don’t never see that anymore, you’re right.
Mike Mann:
Yeah, but I remember lots of times going across there one time. I think I was with JP and Jamie Kirsch and My leg fell in and I could feel the current rushing my leg and if my other leg fell in I was going under the ice and I was gone so it was like one of the hundred times.
Mike Mann:
I almost did myself in right. Yeah
Ted Rose:
across the river. I almost, we had to cross it once. That was enough of a lesson for me to not try that one again. Yeah. I never walked across it. But yeah, we used to actually ice skate on the canal.
Ted Rose:
Oh yeah. You can still
Mike Mann:
I think right
Ted Rose:
I think there are sometimes, not every year, this past year definitely you couldn’t, but I think two years ago was cold enough where you could.
Mike Mann:
Yeah. And also they had all these storms that wiped out the canal system so they weren’t able to hold their own water.
Ted Rose:
Right, the little bit lower. I think that’s definitely played a factor in it.
Mike Mann:
So cool. So I’ll just fill in a little more of the background, ask you a couple of questions, and then I have my buddy, Sean, coming on. Okay, great. So as far as the background, I mean, the first time I met you, I remember you were friends with Sean Hollahan and Sean and you were friends with John VanderSleis, who was my close friend.
Mike Mann:
And plus, you can tell us more about your brother and sister, but your brother Kenny is one of my best friends since we were kids. Yep. And, you know, even last time I lived in DC, which was like 10 years ago, but, you know, we hung out all night because I could walk to his house from my house.
Mike Mann:
So I hung out all night after I was done working in his basement shooting pool and going to late night clubs and stuff. No. We’ve been friends forever. And I’ve been friends with you, but it’s like, you guys are yin and yang.
Mike Mann:
Like I got to get Kenny on because his personality, you’re both extremely outgoing and friendly that you have in common. But just in general, it’s like, you’re just a very detailed, you know, accountant, MBA, very organized, and he’s more like a radical, you know, your brother and your sister for us.
Ted Rose:
He’s definitely a people person. He’s gregarious. He likes to be the center of attention when he’s at a party in a room. And he’s in real estate. So he’s doing a lot in real estate. And he loves people, loves talking to people.
Ted Rose:
And I think that really helped him kind of find his path as he’s more about that type of communication. And that type of interaction, he gets his energy from talking to people that way.
Mike Mann:
You can post the link. I mean, we have Rose Financial Services, rosefinancial .com and rosereality .com as his brother. So one’s Rose Financial, one’s Rose Realty. Kenny owns a bunch of good domain names because when we were at his basement all night, we were, I was helping him with domain names.
Mike Mann:
And I’ve never been on a dating site before, but he has a long, long time ago before he was married 10 years ago, and I used to set up his profile for him because I couldn’t do it for myself. So, but I was so good at setting up the profile.
Mike Mann:
He like rolled through, you know, unfortunately I wasn’t able to use that skill for myself, but valuable skill.
Ted Rose:
So yeah, and so the domain name was obviously, that was really when we started really working together. And do you remember what caused you to hire us and what things were like before as compared to after?
Mike Mann:
Yeah, I mean, I didn’t have it together at all. I was small time. You definitely got my stuff detailed and organized and put a lot of smart people on it. And I appreciate that. And you helped me with my big deal.
Mike Mann:
And also our good friend, Brian Taff, our mutual friend, introduced me to 20 something years ago. And Brian and I have done probably hundreds of deals together, I mean, small deals and medium deals, whatever, but literally hundreds.
Ted Rose:
Yeah, Brian’s a great guy. He definitely is a deal maker. He loves doing deals, as I know you do too. And that was, the five of main was a great business. And you definitely were a trailblazer in this whole industry.
Ted Rose:
And it was exciting when you came, you were just getting off the ground and working with you to learn a lot about internet marketing and you took the methodology. You’ve been pretty consistent about your methodology and hard work and marketing and effort.
Ted Rose:
And you apply the same principles time and time again. And it’s really done well for you. And I think what we do is complimentary to your skill set in that we handle all the details that allowed you to really stay focused on what you’re really good at and not get you bogged down.
Ted Rose:
And in the payables and payroll and financial reporting and preparing for audits. Because obviously for the size deal that you had, that was going to have to get through an audit in order to come to fruition.
Mike Mann:
Absolutely. Do you still work with the University of Maryland or the Dingman Center at all?
Ted Rose:
I actually, I did go back and I was on the board of the Dingman Center for a number of years with Brian Taft actually. And I took a step back from there because I joined the Workforce Development Board and they asked me to be their chair for a couple of years.
Ted Rose:
So I just finished up about two years as the chair of the Workforce Development Board, WorkSource Montgomery. And so during that time period, I had to take a step back from the Dingman Center, but I’m still active in the business school with the accounting department in the business school.
Mike Mann:
Very nice and how are your kids doing?
Ted Rose:
Kids are doing great. Everyone’s healthy and staying busy. We have Ryan’s out in Boston, working at McKinsey. And so he’s been there. I think he’s finished up his third year coming up here soon. It’s awesome.
Ted Rose:
Actually, this month. And Aaron is starting his job, his interesting story. He graduated in May. So he graduated through this whole COVID event. And he has had a job. He got a job in November of last year.
Ted Rose:
And it was supposed to start in June. So they deferred him to September. And he was really excited about moving to New York City. And so he’s still excited about getting to New York City, but they’ve deferred the opening of the office.
Ted Rose:
But he is starting his new job in September. So he decided to move back to college and work from Bethlehem, which is Lehigh University, and have his work, work remotely from there and start his career here this month.
Mike Mann:
Alex Eikensen went to Lehigh, which is like another of the craziest party places in the world. There used to be, I don’t know if it still is, but…
Ted Rose:
Well, a lot of universities are, but he was in the Greek system and I’d say they still are actively involved in parting.
Mike Mann:
It was like, they were so bad back then, it was unbelievable. Yeah, but. And how is Cindy quacking Bush?
Ted Rose:
Well, she did keep her last name rose. She’s doing well. She’s out in San Francisco. Baylor, so. 16th name rose.
Mike Mann:
What’s that? I just like saying the name. Yep.
Ted Rose:
Yeah, so she has two kids, Charlie and Nicole, they’re doing great. So one’s in high school, one’s in middle school, and really they’re doing fine out there.
Mike Mann:
Cool buddy. Anything else you want to say before I switch to Sean?
Ted Rose:
No, I think I just want to say, you know, been, you know, thanks for bringing me on the show. I appreciate it. It’s good catching up with you and seeing you again. You’re looking good and hope we can, you know,
Mike Mann:
get together and talk soon. Definitely, thanks so much for your help joining me and you can post anything you want. The one thing I wanted to ask you about that you can post about is like what people should do during COVID and make and save money since you’re a financial expert, but I’m gonna switch to Sean and you’re gonna answer that next time or on my wall.
Ted Rose:
Okay, great. Thank you.
Mike Mann:
Thanks a lot, buddy. Take care.
Ted Rose:
I’m here. Thank you too. Bye. Shawn. Mike, how are you? Great. How are you, sir? I’m doing well. You’re looking well. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining me.
Mike Mann:
No problem. Thank you for having me. So this is Sean Randolph and He is an awesome businessman and charity man and he and I are working on some extremely innovative Charity projects that he’s gonna tell you about in a few minutes In the meantime, I’m gonna let him tell you about his background and anything he wants to tell you about his family his work Whatever his geography and then we’ll get into our charity work Anybody has any questions?
Mike Mann:
Also, I didn’t give you guys time to ask questions for Ted because I kept talking and talking so A lot of you guys can post questions on the wall that we can answer later on the facebook wall So in the meantime Sean, thanks a lot and just go ahead and again Just tell us your background anything you want to tell us and I’ll fill in with questions later
Shaun Randolph:
Yeah, yeah, sounds good. So Sean Randolph, originally from New Jersey, I’d say if I put out highlights of my life, I consider myself to be well -traveled at least here in the continental US, been able to drive cross -country with my wife around six times, maybe seven, we’ll call it six and a half.
Shaun Randolph:
So been to most states, visited a lot of places, I currently live in Los Angeles for the last 10 years, but I’ve also lived in Tennessee, Virginia, and a couple other places. Career -wise, kind of all over the place, when Mike and I originally connected, I kind of described to myself as an impact junkie.
Shaun Randolph:
Wherever I can find projects or jobs that allow me to make an impact, I kind of find myself drawn to and chasing after them. I kicked off my career actually working in Skid Row out here in Los Angeles.
Shaun Randolph:
So I was working with at -risk youth. The site of the organization I worked for was right on 6th and San Pedro, which is right in kind of the heart of Skid Row. And I was working with kids who lived in the Union Rescue Mission or in some affordable housing, complexes, places like that.
Shaun Randolph:
Unfortunately, some at times would even be caught in situations, living out of a car with their parents or something like that. So kind of got that grassroots experience right from the beginning. And probably thought that my career would keep me at positions like that long -term.
Shaun Randolph:
But what I couldn’t help but notice was when you work in grassroots positions long enough, I think you can’t help but notice the underlying economic development elements at play and how so many of the struggles and challenges that the people are facing are connected to, a lack of ability to find stable income or to build wealth or what have you.
Shaun Randolph:
So that kind of led me to want to transition into the world of finance. And I knew that that would be a hard transition. So I started by getting first into grant writing and understanding at least the nonprofit equivalent of finance and understanding how philanthropic capital moved.
Shaun Randolph:
And that’s where I studied and researched PRIs and MRIs and got meetings with foundation executives at California Community Foundation and Weingart Foundation and all these foundations around the country and asked them their thoughts on this and their thoughts on that.
Shaun Randolph:
And to their credit, they were very honest with me because I wasn’t under the typical context of, hey, can you write a check to our organization? I was coming to them saying, teach me, what are the things you wish nonprofits understood that you can’t seem to get through?
Shaun Randolph:
And I asked them questions like that. And the insights were very interesting. And even though from there, I kind of continued my journey to break into the world of finance. I kept those learnings kind of in my back pocket.
Shaun Randolph:
Long story short, eventually broken to the venture capital industry, which was very, very difficult from a nonprofit background. There’s not a lot of respect for nonprofit professionals in the professional investment world because they simply don’t see how you add value.
Shaun Randolph:
But I tied in my grant writing skills and knowledge to show different innovative public -private partnership models and things like that. And that kind of became my end. Spent some time in VC, didn’t really like it, but knew I needed it on my resume in order to legitimately speak to certain topics and subjects.
Shaun Randolph:
And then from there, landed at my current spot with the organization that’s based out here in California that’s focused on the employee ownership space. But to kind of keep the story going, Mike and I connected what maybe two and a half months ago or so, which was a funny story.
Shaun Randolph:
You just randomly found me on LinkedIn and pretty much was like, hey, would love to chat. And then just said, hey, what do you think of philanthropy? And maybe in the way I am, I went on a mini rant and just was like, here’s what I like about it.
Shaun Randolph:
Here’s what I don’t like. Here’s what people should be doing. Why do you ask? And then you were like, well, hey, I have this, excuse me, donor advice fun, and I’m looking to run it in a way that makes sense and that promotes sustainability, long -term sustainability of the grantees and so on and so forth.
Shaun Randolph:
Would you like to support in some way, shape or form? And that was kind of the beginning of you and I working together.
Mike Mann:
That is correct. The only difference is you said randomly, but actually it’s not random. I purposely targeted certain people on LinkedIn that fit a certain profile to join my network and then a certain portion of them I engage with.
Mike Mann:
You and I actually turn out to have a ton in common. For one thing, I worked with the homeless in the inner city for charities in DC and other places before I was ever a business person. I’ve been doing charity and the reason I do business is to finance my charity work is the point.
Mike Mann:
Plus, I’ve lived in Los Angeles a lot and I’m very familiar with the problems and issues there. Plus, I’ve done a tiny bit of venture capital and finance type stuff like you do. We’re both very interested in sustainable charitable work.
Mike Mann:
The one thing I don’t like doing is going to a ton of meetings. I think you’re more young and energetic and have lots of ideas and have a lot of history of these meetings of foundations, etc. In a couple of minutes, we’re going to get into more of what we’re trying to do.
Mike Mann:
But before I do that, why don’t you just, if you want to, you can talk more about what you’ve been doing the last couple of years. You mentioned it and if you want to talk more about it, it’s up to you.
Shaun Randolph:
Yeah, well, you know, a lot of my work these days and over the last few years has been focused on, you know, always underserved communities, you know, because my career kicked off, you know, working in kind of homeless services, I’ve always had a focus on, you know, figuring out solutions for people who don’t have a clear pathway to some kind of, you know, advancement.
Shaun Randolph:
So prior to breaking into venture capital and trying to figure out, you know, interesting solutions, you know, I kind of focused on the public -private partnerships front. And essentially what that just entailed was coming up with creative ways for for -profits and non -profits to collaborate where those for -profit entities, particularly if they were minority -owned or had a large minority workforce or something like that, could indirectly access grant dollars via public -private partnerships.
Shaun Randolph:
And so I kind of tried to build a specialization around that combined with, you know, social entrepreneurship or social enterprise consulting and kind of, you know, moonlighted as a consultant on that front for a while until I could really figure out how to best grow that.
Shaun Randolph:
So yeah, that’s what I’ve really spent kind of the last few years doing and just combining that with little bits of stuff that I pulled from the venture capital world or pulled from random internships with investment bankers.
Shaun Randolph:
And, you know, I say on my LinkedIn profile that I try to take, you know, the pillars of Wall Street and retool them for social impact. And I find that to be very interesting and exciting work. And, you know, it’s a constant thing.
Shaun Randolph:
It’s kind of a lot of innovation needs to take place in order to take something that’s really geared toward ROI or profit and change its DNA so that it has social impact in there. But there are ways to do it.
Shaun Randolph:
And that’s kind of what I’ve been working on the last few years.
Mike Mann:
Awesome. So you’re a perfect partner for me. And you’ve been doing a good job. You know, we’ve been working for a couple of months and I’ll just, I’m going to let Sean describe what we’re trying to do because in reality, the two of us are going to set up a process to change the world.
Mike Mann:
And we’re going to export that process to other locations and we’re going to help manage it. I’m going to finance it by building awesome corporations and selling them. So we totally know what we’re doing and we’re the people you should watch as far as changing the world goes.
Mike Mann:
Go ahead Sean.
Shaun Randolph:
Yeah, so to give some context around it, I’ll jump back to my past life a bit really quick. So when I was a grant writer, as you can imagine, when you walk into a room full of nonprofits and they find out you’re a grant writer, everybody wants your business card, everybody wants to work with you.
Shaun Randolph:
But one of the first conversations I would always have with a potential client or employer was, what’s your current organizational budget? If grant writing accounts for more than 25% of your org budget, then that’s something we need to work on because you do not need to be overly dependent upon grants.
Shaun Randolph:
And the typical response from an executive director or a chief development officer or what have you would be, yeah, that sounds great, we know we got it, but for now just write grants, right? This is many grants as you can, get us as many grant dollars as you can.
Shaun Randolph:
And unfortunately, that’s kind of how I would be utilized even though I would be proposing these social enterprise solutions or ideas or programs, what have you. And then you would have lulls in the economic market or some kind of event that takes place, whether it’s on a micro or macro level, where organization all of a sudden, their grant funding either dries up or just contracts a bit.
Shaun Randolph:
And because they were entirely reliant on that grant funding, the moment a grant that they’re used to getting 75K a year, the moment that contracts to 25K a year, well, they have to lay somebody off.
Shaun Randolph:
And that’s just an unfortunate situation or they have to contract their services and go from serving 2 ,000 youth to 1 ,500 youth. And it’s all situations that could have been avoided had they implemented some kind of social enterprise or earned income program early on.
Shaun Randolph:
So what you and I are doing, Mike, is essentially trying to make that more of a mandate for organizations that we provide funding to. So when we approach a nonprofit, not only do we have the standard conversation of, we love the work you’re doing, we think this is excellent, but right off the bat, we’re saying, so what do you have in mind from social enterprise standpoint?
Shaun Randolph:
Do you have any current earned income programs? If so, tell me what 2 .0 version of that looks like. How can that program expand? If you don’t, have you ever thought of it? Have you thought of this idea, that idea?
Shaun Randolph:
And many times I’ll have like a brainstorming session with the nonprofit during the application process, if you will, where I’ll say, have you thought of this program? I looked at your programs and saw that there’s earned income potential here.
Shaun Randolph:
Have you thought of that? And from that point, we’re kind of gauging, number one, their leadership skills. Are these conversations that they have? Are these things that they talk about, but we’re also gauging their kind of forward thinking?
Shaun Randolph:
Are you really open to doing this? Is the roadblock between you having a social enterprise tomorrow simply a matter of having the funding in order to make that exploratory push? If so, perhaps we’re a good match to provide that funding, as well as provide some technical assistance on top of that.
Shaun Randolph:
So the goal is to really write checks, but then to stay engaged as a grantmaker and say, all right, let’s talk about that earned income or social enterprise program we discussed early on. How can we be helpful?
Shaun Randolph:
How can we leverage the resources of the for -profit businesses that we’re connected to? How can we leverage our network with investors and so on and so forth to make sure you not only have the resources we directly provided, but a ton of indirect resources as well so that we can build out intimate social enterprise entity or program or what have you and get you less and less reliant on grants.
Shaun Randolph:
And the goal is any nonprofit that we engage with, we ideally do not want them coming back to us year after year saying, hey, can you write another check? Hey, can you write another check? At the very least, we’d like their need for us to be decreasing.
Shaun Randolph:
If we’ve provided them funding once, I would say, and this is kind of, we’re still building all this out and codifying a lot of this. But I’d say maybe three years would be the absolute most. We’d want to maybe support an organization, and that would really want to be focused on helping them build out their social enterprise.
Shaun Randolph:
And at the end of that three years, if we haven’t been able to build out something that is sustainable and working, that would be very unfortunate. I would be willing to believe that we’re gonna be successful in helping people build something out, whether it lasts for the next 10, 15, 20 years, that will remain to be seen, but we’re definitely gonna be motivated to help them build some kind of foundational infrastructure for earned income and social enterprise.
Shaun Randolph:
So that’s kind of the vision right now, focused in South Florida. We already have kind of a portfolio of grantees, but we’ve really been pushing this new strategy and just are in the process of just about to kind of deploy our first nice little to an organization that’s very like -minded in that.
Mike Mann:
I’m going to fill in some of the cracks in a minute. But if you want to just give a, you have the one organization you just mentioned, why don’t you use that as a case study? We’re going to do such and such with this one organization.
Mike Mann:
And then we’re going to do that with a whole ton of organizations, not a whole ton, but the ones that meet our criteria in South Florida. Then we’re going to create a model. And that model, we’re going to do online and in person.
Mike Mann:
And we’re going to personally export it and find partners to do it in other communities. So we’re going to be extraordinarily successful with the nonprofit community, the ones that meet our criteria in South Florida.
Mike Mann:
And we’re going to bulletproof that model so we can bring it to other communities such that we can save the whole country. And it’s going to work great. And it’s already working great so far. So Sean, I’ll tell you about the first case that we’re working on.
Shaun Randolph:
is an organization called the Clean the World Foundation. They have a very innovative set of programs, and I won’t dive too deep into it, but there’s definitely a social enterprise element. Part of it involves putting together hygiene kits and working in collaboration with hotels in order to gather excess or disposed items and excess inventory and retooling that in order to serve some of more poor and disenfranchised communities, but the program that we’re specifically partnering with them on and will potentially be supporting is a mobile shower program.
Shaun Randolph:
So they came up with this interesting and awesome idea of actually purchasing trailers. In some cases, it could be a actual 18 -wheeler tractor trailer. In other cases, it can be kind of a smaller, towable trailer, but they purchase these trailers and retool them into mobile shower units that they then take to homeless centers in various metro areas, the one we’re partnering with them on will be in Orlando, but we’ll also have the potential to serve South Florida as well.
Shaun Randolph:
And they create these units that people who opt out of your traditional homeless services shower units or use to it for whatever reason, capacity or whatever, they can use these mobile showers, they’re given hygiene packets.
Shaun Randolph:
When they park this trailer in a certain locale, they also have a number of nonprofit partners who they kind of invite to join the area. So when a person comes to this corner, if you will, they’ll have access to replacing missing IDs, signing up for maybe mental health services or support, job fair, resources of some sort, the mobile shower, and any number of other resources.
Shaun Randolph:
But what also was important to us about this particular program is not only do they have an innovative idea, they’re also forward thinking in that all of these trailers will be equipped with kind of wifi, and they’ll be able to gather and capture significant data on number of showers utilized a day, demographics of the people, who are, what people are also signing up for ancillary services and they have a very…
Shaun Randolph:
The people probably won’t like that very much. Yeah, they’re definitely going to be prioritizing privacy and things like that. We actually had that conversation, so that can be done with dignity, but also still capturing what is accomplishing.
Shaun Randolph:
So yeah, we definitely have those unique conversations when needed. But yeah, very interesting program. But from the social enterprise standpoint, because as you can imagine, how can a mobile trailer be self -sustaining?
Shaun Randolph:
So we already initially had conversations about, is there a way to install sprayers on the exterior of these trailers so that the disinfectant or cleaning solutions that they have access to can be used to sterilize external areas, because they’re doing these programs in partnerships with municipalities and counties.
Shaun Randolph:
And so those counties also have commons areas sometimes, particularly if you’re talking about areas that where homeless services agencies congregate, they’ll have external areas that need to be, cleaned out or disinfected.
Shaun Randolph:
Is that an easy add -on to a trailer that could expand the scope of your contract with a county? So you’re saying not only will we provide showers at this cost per individual or whatever, but we’re also gonna sanitize three common areas within a five by five block area, however creative it gets.
Shaun Randolph:
So we’re having those conversations and they were very open to it. They have a great leadership team. And so I would say where I’ll call it at the most two weeks out from finalizing that relationship.
Shaun Randolph:
And then from there, we’re just gonna focus on building out some of those ideas that we’ve discussed so far. Sure.
Mike Mann:
So I’m gonna just try to step through, that the entire process we’re trying to do for the charity work, because it’s a little bit complex. I mean, you and I do this every day, so we know what we’re getting into, but I just wanna explain to the public, whoever’s watching live or whoever’s gonna watch this video, what we’re doing and why it’s so important and why they should be joining us.
Mike Mann:
And again, you can see Sean has a ton of energy and he’s very detailed. So he’s much more qualified to run my program than I am, basically, so that’s really the plan, is for me to finance it and support him and back him up and allow him to do what he’s been talking about.
Mike Mann:
So he was discussing one charity, Clean the World Foundation in Florida. So again, what we’re trying to do is, we’re looking at all the charities in South Florida, sort of the filter is, who helps the sick and poor is filter number one.
Mike Mann:
We’re not trying to support the arts, for example, not that I have anything against that, but it’s just not what we do. So we’re trying to help charities, 501c3 US charities that help the sick and the poor.
Mike Mann:
So we’re filtering all the charities in South Florida and we create a large list. And but within that list, what we’re trying to do is look at which ones of those charities really need help and which ones deserve help.
Mike Mann:
In other words, they have a structure, they know what they’re doing, they have a good plan, they meet our goals ostensibly, but they don’t have enough money, they don’t have enough financing, they don’t have enough help.
Mike Mann:
So what we’re doing is two things. We’re taking those organizations and charities, and I pasted a link on the Facebook wall and Sean’s meeting with them, talking to them, deciding which ones, studying them, studying the stuff online about them, et cetera, and discovering which ones of those meet those needs.
Mike Mann:
They help the sick and the poor, they’re small, they deserve help and they need help. So with that, it’s actually a relatively small list because they have to jump through so many hurdles, plus they have to be really good communicators, they have to answer the emails, show up for meetings on time and things like that.
Mike Mann:
So it turns out to be a relatively small list that we’re growing. So, let’s say we’ll have 10 or 15, 20 charities over the next couple of years that we’ll do a deep dive with, as Sean was mentioning with Clean the World Foundation, where we’ll talk to them about everything they’re doing, we’ll help them document it, help them get grants, and we’ll literally give them money, and then we’re gonna try to create case studies out of each individual organization, and then out of South Florida itself, the South Florida case study of what we did to boost up the best, most needy charities, try to create scale, try to create additional donors, and we may create a scenario where we switch from a donor to advised fund, where I’m financing 100% to like a foundation or another type of charity structure, wherein we can take money from the outside, because we are in fact, extraordinarily focused and efficient.
Mike Mann:
I don’t get paid anything, Sean gets paid very little, and all the efforts go into the charity work, and we’re, again, we’re very efficient and targeted, and we’re gonna do a great job with each charity, with building the model itself, and with expanding the model, so people who are spending lots of money on charity already, and people who aren’t, who should be, should be joining us, helping us with their time and money, so maybe in a year or two, we’ll have a structure that we can entertain that.
Mike Mann:
But for the time being, it’s Sean and myself and other people who work with us and help us, and we’re gonna promote that particular process, and we’re probably gonna work on some business stuff together also.
Mike Mann:
We started working on business stuff. We’re both super busy with our day jobs, working through some ideas, but I’m very grateful for Sean’s help, and he’s done a fabulous job so far, and I look forward to doing a lot more stuff in the future, and again, it’s all about helping the charities on the street.
Mike Mann:
The reason we help the charities is because they help the people. So what else do you wanna say before I have to guide into domain names?
Shaun Randolph:
I’ll just add that, you know, to your point about scaling it up, you know, and not to get too deep into it, but something that COVID, you know, the pandemic has done is it has ex- the inefficiencies, you know, there’s a lot of systems and organizations that were responsible for certain things, and then COVID hit and boom, all of a sudden, you know, you see how they’re not as well equipped to do, you know, certain aspects of their mission as before, you know, the same has happened with philanthropy, you know, and I know going all the way back to my grant writing days, you’d always hear, you know, the leaders of the philanthropic world say that you can’t just throw money at a problem to fix it.
Shaun Randolph:
But then when you actually try to look and see, OK, well, what do you do instead of that? It seems like at the end of the day, people just threw money at it, you know, you didn’t see a ton of technical assistance, you didn’t see a ton of innovation or trying to link nonprofits to the startup ecosystem or, you know, find ways to do licensing relationships and make nonprofits more tech -enabled and have conversations like that.
Shaun Randolph:
And so ultimately, you know, not only do we want to prove out this model of long term sustainability and support and grantees in a certain way, but also add some of these innovative layers on top of it so that, you know, when we go to other regions, you know, they’re really probably not going to be able to point to another organization that’s doing things the way we’re doing it.
Shaun Randolph:
And so, so yeah, that’s kind of the grand mission, the secret mission, the grand goal, whatever you want to call it. So looking forward to hashing it out and figuring it out. Appreciate you, you know, finding me not randomly and looking forward to see what we do.
Mike Mann:
Absolutely and again, I’m working super hard now So I have more time and money in the future to work with you on this stuff So I totally look forward to it and thank you so much for joining me I think we had a great session here and it’s gonna be saved in YouTube forever and shared so great Appreciate it.
Mike Mann:
Hope you have an awesome day, and I’ll talk to you again real soon. Same you might take care. Thank you, sir So now I’m gonna do domain name appraisal training So again, it’s not about appraising your domains.
Mike Mann:
It’s about training you how to appraise your own domains I’m gonna do the appraisals and share my screen and tell you the process. I’m using Keep in mind in the real world when I do appraisals. I have a ton of data.
Mike Mann:
I have a whole system I have a bunch of software that you don’t have so all I’m gonna use now is Google and common sense So they’re not great appraisals, but they’re better than anybody else can do So we’re gonna do these domain appraisals And I’m gonna look over to another screen so you guys can type in I’m gonna share my screen As soon as I figure out how Thank you.
Mike Mann:
OK. So you guys, hopefully, can see my Google screen here. And where am I? Let’s see here. I’ve got to find where you guys are typing. And then I’m going to, does anybody have domains they want me to appraise?
Mike Mann:
Because I think I can see the wall. If you want to type them into the wall. OK, I see some. Oh, I’m sorry. I see a bunch now. I’m sorry. I missed it. OK, so let’s see. SmartVibrators .com from Krista, last week’s guest, who was awesome.
Mike Mann:
If you missed Krista last week, you need to go to YouTube and look at my old videos. Smart Vibrators. I’m assuming she owns that one. Maybe not. My favorite type of vibrator. I hate the dumb ones. I don’t think I can click on the image like I usually do.
Mike Mann:
See what’s going on here. Maybe I shouldn’t have typed that in at all, actually. Well, there’s not that many results. So there’s 8 ,000. So it’s apparently not a popular expression. 8 ,000 is a low number, relatively low.
Mike Mann:
If it was a popular expression, there’d be hundreds of thousands, if not millions. But it looks like it’s a popular thing, apps, something, a growing idea. But I can’t really do an appraisal on porny stuff.
Mike Mann:
So I just have to guess, and I can’t look at the images. And in my system, the images are filtered out. So I don’t have to worry about weird domains. But it’s a cool domain because it means something.
Mike Mann:
And people probably spend millions and millions of dollars on this product. So it actually has some meaning and some value. So the answer is it’s worth about $10 ,000. But I would sell it for whatever I could to get it out of my collection because I don’t like stuff like that in my collection.
Mike Mann:
So big 5K. Good job. Uh -oh, for sale at Dan .com, of course. OK, so I’m going to look at the next one. Thank you very much. And let’s see here. Summerbirthdays .com is Shahor. I mean, I don’t know if that one doesn’t sound so great.
Mike Mann:
Summer birthdays, like maybe summer parties. But I don’t know. summer birthdays. You always put it in quotes, Google’s not trying to give you the best results. So you have to find those yourself. They’re just trying to give you the most results.
Mike Mann:
So maybe summer birthdays has something going on here. Celebrating summer birthdays, dealing with summer birthdays. Summer birthday, usually singular. There’s happy birthday. Those of you who don’t know, I actually own happybirthday .com.
Mike Mann:
Type it in and it goes to domain market and you can buy it right now. Not a lot of action on summer birthdays. So what we’re doing is we disambiguate them, which in this case is obvious what it means.
Mike Mann:
So we don’t have to worry about it. Then we try to find the depth and the breadth of corporations and brands that might want to leverage this domain name for their marketing in the future. That’s the only way they’re going to spend any money for it.
Mike Mann:
People don’t spend money, thousands of dollars for hobbies, generally. So in any case, summer birthdays, the depth, let’s do the breadth first. How many companies use that name in commerce? The answer is like almost zero.
Mike Mann:
I mean, there’s people that talk about it, but it’s really not the name of a brand or company. Then what’s the depth of any one? Well, there isn’t any. If there were, the depth would be very shallow.
Mike Mann:
So the answer is it’s really not worth anything. Sorry to say. Summer birthdays, 500 bucks. Next one is positioned .com. So it’s like a past tense. So again, right off the bat, that’s not a good sign.
Mike Mann:
Position, positioning, but positioned past tense. You used to be positioned and now you’ve lost your positioning and your placement. So again, I mean, it means something. There’s a ton of hits on the word, but it’s not a phrase.
Mike Mann:
It’s nothing. We know what it means. It’s the past tense of position. So that’s disambiguating it. The breadth is how many people use that in commerce? Well, actually, these people are using it in commerce.
Mike Mann:
So now the answer is it’s worth more than I thought. And the reason is people are using it in commerce. This is perfect. See, this made it from being worth nothing to being worth a lot right here. Positioned woman’s conference, being positioned, positioned for progress, positioned for purpose.
Mike Mann:
So this is why you do appraisals. If I had guessed, I would have thought it was worth 2000 bucks, but I’m totally wrong now that I’m doing the appraisal. It turns out lots of people are using it in commerce.
Mike Mann:
It’s one dictionary word. So the breadth is has a lot of breadth. There’s 20 people right here that are using it in commerce. One’s an aerospace company with billions of dollars, Accenture with billions of dollars.
Mike Mann:
So we’re totally onto something here. This is the reason we do appraisals. And this is also the way you can make a profit in domaining. You could probably buy a domain like this for very cheap, not necessarily this one, but one equally positioned as position .com.
Mike Mann:
Because it’s hard to do an appraisal. So you could probably buy it for whatever price, less than a couple thousand bucks. But the breadth is it’s very broad. The depth is any one person here could really use this.
Mike Mann:
So it has a lot of breadth and a lot of depth bingo. It’s worth a lot of money. So what is it worth as a matter of opinion? And since I do more domain appraising and domain selling than anybody in the world, my opinion is what matters here.
Mike Mann:
Nobody else has done any more of this to to trump me. But if you go to my website, accurate appraisals .com, the best way, the best appraisal in the world is that accurate appraisals .com because it takes three professional domain appraisers and takes the average.
Mike Mann:
So it would take my appraisal, and it would remove all my biases by taking two other appraisals and averaging them out to process that nobody else in the world does. And we all have tools in the background to be more careful.
Mike Mann:
Right now I’m doing scratch quality appraisals. But positioned as a great, great name, which I didn’t realize at first because it’s past tense. And it’s a little weird and verbose, but we can see how good it is by looking at Google.
Mike Mann:
So it’s worth 20 ,000 bucks. And I would take 10 ,000. Thank you very much. Next one. Genome sequence. I don’t know if we did before. Correct phrase is genome sequencing. Nobody uses the word genome sequence.
Mike Mann:
So again, you’re massively diluted from genome sequencing. And really what we need to do is use Boolean to get out the bad results. So we’re putting genome sequence in quotes, we’re moving sequencing, we’re looking at first of all what it means, which a lot of us know it’s just a genetic term of organizing your genes, the human genome.
Mike Mann:
So we know what it means, the depth of companies that use it as a corporate name or a brand name is precisely zero, no capital case expressions here, no logos, no slogans, just a bunch of scientific stuff, which has some value in meaning, but not brand meaning.
Mike Mann:
So genome sequence should be sequencing, and it has a ton of hits here though, but again, they’re just not brand names. There’s a lot of breadth, but no depth to anyone as far as being a business and a brand name, it’s just a scientific idea, and it really should be genome sequencing, which is extremely valuable.
Mike Mann:
So genome sequence is worth 2000 bucks. I’m gonna look at the next one.
Ted Rose:
Um
Mike Mann:
Geez Louise, you guys put a lot of stuff here. Well, that’s cool, except for that, I’m not gonna do them all. But there are a lot of great names here, so I appreciate that. Pure vodka, I guess I’ll just go quicker.
Mike Mann:
If you guys really want me to do these.
Ted Rose:
No sequence.
Mike Mann:
fencing in this one. You can also look at this poll down here. Pure vodka, alcohol percentages, calories, drinks. We know what pure vodka means. It says 37 hits there, but that’s really not the right number.
Mike Mann:
You have to scroll down here to this stupid little thing. Repeat the search with omitted results included, which nobody knows about. This proves that Google is not trying to give you the best results.
Mike Mann:
Pure vodka. The premise is that lots of people could take Google and add additional filters and algorithms to give better results so you could create a better search engine than Google if you wanted to.
Mike Mann:
Pure vodka looks good. Somebody’s branding it. Some looks like several people branded it. That’s a very good sign. Not only does it have a meaning without being a brand, it’s also a brand. And here, it’s actually a company name.
Mike Mann:
It’s spelled with the European spelling, P -U -R. But here, it’s actually spelled correctly, P -U -R -E. So you’re talking serious deneros here. So this is great. There’s a bunch of people making a fortune on pure vodka.
Mike Mann:
So we’re very happy about that. And we want to make money on it as well. So purevodka .com. We know what it means. We know the breadth is pretty broad and the depth is pretty good. So we’re going with 25 ,000 here.
Mike Mann:
And going on to the next one. Good job. Silent drones. Sounds like sort of a random expression. But again, these are all emerging concepts. So you never know till you do your research. Silent drones.
Mike Mann:
I mean, people are using them. Silent drone technology. It looks like a very popular thing, actually. So that’s what you usually find in the research is that the domains are worth much more than you think.
Mike Mann:
So long as you’re dealing with a .com, in this case, all these people gave me good domains to start with. They’re all .com. They’re all spelled correctly. They don’t have any hyphens or any numbers. They’re reasonably short.
Mike Mann:
They have reasonable meaning. But so in this case, there’s really not a ton of hits. 7 ,000. That’s not very many. But it’ll probably go up every day because it’s a new idea. And the drones are very popular.
Mike Mann:
But again, you could put any adjective here for drones. So that dilutes the value of this because there’s 100 other adjectives that somebody could buy instead of silent, like quiet, calm, whatever. So the answer is it’s not that valuable.
Mike Mann:
It has a medium amount of breadth and not very much depth because it’s just not that great, but it’s pretty good. So we’re gonna do silent drones .com. 3 ,000. Good job. Threat brief. Sounds pretty good, Bob.
Mike Mann:
Thank you. We’re gonna do threat brief. You gotta do quotes and look at the images and disambiguate the depth and breadth. Make sure you’re being careful, studying. So in this case, it’s actually a real website.
Mike Mann:
So I’m not doing web site appraisals. I’m just doing the domain itself as if there was not a web site. But in any case, we’re gonna just look here. Threat brief, it looks like a cool name. There’s not a ton of people that are in the threat brief business.
Mike Mann:
There are not a lot of brands about threat brief. However, it’s a really good word and it has a lot of meaning to it. And it means something to various industries, not just one. Each of those industries is very profitable.
Mike Mann:
It’s easy to spell, it has a lot of meaning. It’s not gonna go down in value, it’s a .com. And most likely it’ll become more important because threats are increasing over time. This case, there’s an actual website, but it’s irrelevant to, of course, it’s Bob’s website.
Mike Mann:
So that’s awesome and it’s a great, great name. Question is how great. Let me just think for a second. Again, it could be diluted by threat briefing, threat briefs plural. So the fact that it could be diluted, I’ll go with another 25 ,000 here.
Mike Mann:
But I would not take 50% on it. I would take the whole price, maybe 20 ,000, but it’s too good to take 12 ,000, for example. A lot of them, like if it’s in the adult industry, I would take half price right wherever I can get.
Mike Mann:
This is such a good name. It’s gonna go up in value forever. And it’s always gonna be relevant and meaningful. So you don’t have to discount it. And most likely it’ll go up. So it’s worth 25 ,000 today.
Mike Mann:
It’ll be worth 30 ,000 in a few months and 100 ,000 in a few years, which is why you should buy a lot of great .com domain names right now before they go up in value. So thank you for that one. Threat brief, summer birthdays, we did that one.
Mike Mann:
Publicrentals .com, that’s a great one. Might be the name of actual real companies, which is a double -edged sword. If they had a trademark, you really can’t trademark this because it’s too generic, but if it was more specific and somebody had trademarked it, it’s a double -edged sword in that on one hand, they might pay extra because the brand’s so important to them.
Mike Mann:
On the other hand, they might sue you and claim they have trademark rights. But if you don’t compete with them, they don’t really have any trademark rights. If you do compete with them, then they could potentially make a case.
Mike Mann:
So publicrentals, we basically know what it means. It means a lot of things to a lot of people because you could rent anything to the public. So any product in the world conceptually. So there’s 43 ,000 Google hits, that’s the right number.
Mike Mann:
It’s not, and again, we’re gonna discover the depth and the breadth here. And the answer is, it’s surprisingly few logos and slogans that there’s, it’s all about renting houses, I guess. Again, I was thinking of renting equipment, public rentals.
Ted Rose:
Hmm.
Mike Mann:
And again, all renters it to the public by law, if you’re renting an apartment. So using the word public is not that specific. And there are a thousand other things you could use, like the best rentals, best rentals, cool rentals on and on and on.
Mike Mann:
But it is a cool name, it’s spelled in English. It does mean something. There are companies that are using it in commerce. The breadth is it’s actually pretty broad. A lot of people use it. The depth is shallow because it’s not terribly meaningful to any one person.
Mike Mann:
There’s too many alternatives for them. But it is cool and there’s a lot of references to it here in Google. Say it’s worth 6 ,000 bucks. 5 ,000 is too cheap. Very nice. Gonna do the next one. Guys are taxing me here.
Mike Mann:
I wasn’t planning on doing quite so many domain appraisals. Again, the object here is to train you and not to do it for you. So hopefully you’re learning training. Where am I at here? Well, we already did public rentals.
Mike Mann:
So there’s public rental. That’s probably worth even more. 10 ,000 for that one. Bitcoin list. I’m not a Bitcoin person, but I am a meal kit person. So that’s a great one, surrender. Meal kit is an extraordinarily valuable name for a multitude of reasons.
Mike Mann:
Mainly COVID, because everybody’s at home eating and they probably need a meal kit delivered to their house, which they never needed before. Meal kits, plural would be more valuable, but we know there’s a lot of people in the meal kit business already with varying degrees of success.
Mike Mann:
Also meal kit could be singular or plural. I mean, it could be two words or one word is what I really mean. So again, meal kit, 600 ,000, that’s a huge number without a space in it. With a space in it’s 5 million.
Mike Mann:
So this is a crazy valuable name, especially with COVID, there’s only seven letters. There’s a bunch of big companies using it in commerce. Everybody knows how to spell it. Everybody knows what it means.
Mike Mann:
People buy it, they put their credit card in and pay cash on the spot online. So it’s totally scalable and it’s already creating billions of dollars worth of commerce today. Meal kits, plural. This is singular so it’s worthless.
Mike Mann:
So it’s very valuable, it’ll keep going up in value because it’s a short .com. The idea of meal kits is not going away. Look how cool these things look. I don’t think I’ve ever even tried one, but I think I’m about to.
Mike Mann:
Let’s improve the whole thing here. Now we’re talking with varying degrees of success. I promise it’s vegan. Okay, so the answer is this is like an incredibly great name and it’s worth 100 ,000 bucks.
Mike Mann:
I’d take 50 ,000 because 50 ,000 is a huge amount of money and the buyers have no idea what it’s worth. So they just make up random numbers. So it’s hard to get a fair price. Great, I’m gonna do the next one.
Mike Mann:
Point. And I’m gonna be done in five minutes. So if anybody has any things other than domains they wanna ask and I messed up again with my guests because I forgot to get questions to Sean and I forgot to get questions for Teddy because I kept running long in any event.
Mike Mann:
Todd Julian, thank you very much buddy. Okay, hey Mike, I don’t think you look at this chat. Well, you’re wrong about that Jeremy. Okay, so where did I go here? NAS .com, I mean, it’s hard to appraise something like that.
Mike Mann:
Would require data and research. It’s another extraordinarily valuable one. You know, NAS .com, I mean, any like that several hundred thousand. Uh -oh, goes against our community standards on spam. Wonder why that is.
Mike Mann:
Well, NAS .com gave me a spam message by trying to post it. That’s annoying. No idea why. Well, in any case, nas .com.
Ted Rose:
Yeah. Stop it.
Mike Mann:
OK, that one posted. My first one failed. I don’t know what kind of site there is there. That’s nas .com. OK, let’s do just one per person here so we can get everybody. I’ve a sunny has rides on demand.
Mike Mann:
OK, well, there you go. I have no idea what that means. That may be like ride sharing probably. So we’re going to check that one out. Rides. Rides on demand. So again, we know what it means theoretically as you call somebody on your app and you get a ride.
Mike Mann:
And so we’re looking for the depth and the breadth, the breadth first, how many people need this thing. The answer is not very many because there’s 1 ,000 other ways of saying it. Demand rides, whatever the terms that Uber uses.
Mike Mann:
But it is a cool name. And we’re going to research it a little more. Again, it’s English. It’s a phrase as opposed to two words, one word. And I get a lot of money in the real sale market for good phrases.
Mike Mann:
So here, this phrase is enjoyyourride .com. That would be very valuable. This is rides on demand. I’m going to look a little more about this one. Uber comes up first. They’re using it with their search engine optimization.
Mike Mann:
Bingo, that’s awesome. Uber’s using rides on demand in their search engine optimization. So that just doubled the price right off the bat. Because again, we’re doing the breadth and the depth. So the breadth is there’s not that many companies that need it, but the ones that do need it are using it as the first expression on their website.
Mike Mann:
And Uber’s a multi -billion -dollar corporation. It doesn’t mean they’re going to buy the name. And they probably will not buy the name. But it does make the name valuable regardless. New competitors, old competitors, maybe them, somebody that just needs a cool name in that space.
Mike Mann:
Uber should buy it, but the people that should buy the names usually don’t. My friend, Shervin Pishavar, is one of the people that put Uber together in the first place. It’s a gentleman from University of Maryland that used to come for a training at my house and hanging out at my house before he became a big shot in Silicon Valley.
Mike Mann:
Shervin Pishavar, who put the deal together for Uber, put the venture capital deal together. In any event, so it’s a great name. I’m going on a tangent here. Rides on demand .com. It is worth, I’d say 40 ,000.
Mike Mann:
No discounts. Too cool of a name. Good job. Okay, I’ll do two more. And if you guys have any other questions that are not related to domains, I’m going to do two more domains. Save the rest for next week.
Mike Mann:
Again, I’m not even trying to appraise your domains for you like I am actually doing. I’m actually just trying to teach you the process to do it yourself for the future. So let’s see what I missed here.
Mike Mann:
Thecyberthreat .com. From Bob Gurley. Thank you, Bob. The cyber threat. Not that exciting. First of all, it could be cyber threat, but there’s a handbook. So again, what does it mean? We know what a cyber threat is.
Mike Mann:
Could be a cyber threat, cyber threat, the cyber threat, cyber threats, plural, the cyber threats, too many ways of diluting it, which makes it worth less and less. It’s pretty cool though, it goes with this handbook.
Mike Mann:
I’m going to look at the images, see if there’s any branding. So again, we’re going to look at the breadth, which is, it’s not that broad, mainly because of the word the. If we took out the word the, it would be valuable.
Mike Mann:
But the cyber threat, the cyber threat handbook, the only breadth is for one person. And the depth is pretty low. I mean, there’s a handful of people that might be interested in the cyber threat handbook.
Mike Mann:
I might like it, but it’s just not that good of a name. So nothing personal, but I’m shorting it. 1000. I’m going to do one more. And if you guys have any other questions, people are trying to, host stuff on YouTube, I’m not sure how it works.
Mike Mann:
I have to figure out how to integrate YouTube properly. But let’s see what names I’m, what name I missed here. Nightcarving .com, stop spies. I don’t know what any of that means. Let me just see what else is there.
Mike Mann:
Okay, so I’m gonna do nightcarving .com and that’s the last one. And if you have other questions, type them now before I end, please. No idea what that means. So, and we’re disambiguating it. I mean, it means something related to Halloween.
Mike Mann:
But usually there’s another adjective before it’s starry nightcarving. Fall night carving series. So, as far as disambiguating it, it’s not clear if it means you cut stuff at night or if the thing when you’re done is called nightcarving.
Mike Mann:
So, it’s kind of confusing. It has some links. The breadth is zero, the depth is zero and the name has no value. Nothing personal, of course. It’s just the way brazils go. So, you guys are awesome. Do you have any other questions other than domain names?
Mike Mann:
So, thank you so much. We’re gonna have another fabulous episode next week. You guys are welcome to message me in the interim if I didn’t answer your questions. And we look forward to growing this. Invite your friends, come back next week.
Mike Mann:
We’re gonna save copies of it on YouTube forever. I already ran 20 minutes over, so I really appreciate you guys joining me and thank you so much to my guests, Sean Randolph and Ted Rose:, my buddies who are fabulous businessmen and charity men.
Mike Mann:
And we look forward to talking to you and seeing you again soon. All the best, everybody. Be safe.
