“As far as I can tell, all greatness is achieved through novelty. It’s doing things that other people don’t want to do, doing things that other people are afraid to do, doing things that other people wouldn’t even think about doing.”

— Andrew Rosener

Andrew Rosener (@andrewrosener) is the founder and CEO of MediaOptions, which has been the #1 domain broker in the world for the last six consecutive years. Since 2008, Andrew has been involved in more than $600 million dollars in domain sales and has played a pivotal role in numerous high-profile domain-name transactions, including X.com to Elon Musk, Zoom.com to Zoom, and Prime.com and Podcast.com to Amazon, as well as thousands of others. 

Andrew is an inductee of the Domain Name Hall of Fame; he was named Domain Investor of the Year by TRAFFIC; and he is the creator of the Rosener Equation, a formula for objectively valuing domain names, widely adopted by the industry.

Andrew is also the owner of DomainSherpa.com, the industry’s leading educational podcast. 

Please enjoy!

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.

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The transcript of this episode can be found here. Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

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Want to hear another episode with a different kind of broker? Listen to my conversation with superstar agent Rich Paul, in which we discussed lifelong lessons learned from youthful street gambling, creating an enduring relationship with client LeBron James, beating bigger competition, entrepreneurial impulses that lead to darkness, best investments, influential confidence builders, and much more.

What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.

SCROLL BELOW FOR LINKS AND SHOW NOTES…

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

• Connect with Andrew Rosener:

Website | Twitter

Website | YouTube | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

• The 10 (now 15) Tenets of Charlie Tuna:

1. I’m not Mother Teresa; I’m here for a profit.
2. You can’t run a whorehouse without any whores.
3. Get your ducks in a row before you pull the trigger.
4. Pay for the mic, say what you want (as Reagan said to Bush during a debate, “I paid for this microphone”).
5. Don’t crowd the mourners (a reference to not overstepping your boundaries).
6. Don’t offend my sense of logic.
7. Play stupid and see what you can learn (go play Mickey the Dunce).
8. Don’t be backward about going forward.
9. When you woke up today, what did you tell yourself?
10. Tire-kickers are like leeches, they suck your time.
11. Once the toothpaste is out of the tube, you can’t put it back in.
12. Pay peanuts, get monkeys.
13. Cheap is always the most expensive option.
14. Do what you say you are going to do.
15. Gutter money is good money.

• The Industry Leading Domain Broker | Media Options
• Memento | Prime Video
• Forrest Gump | Prime Video
• Andrew Rosener’s Amazing Ride From Historic New England to Domain Sales Nirvana | Domain Name Journal
• The University of Rhode Island
• Exactitude Definition and Meaning | Merriam-Webster
• Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand | Amazon
• What Is Arbitrage? | Investopedia
• Mizuhopecten Yessoensis | Wikipedia
• Teppanyaki Restaurant | Benihana
• Top Five Best Nicaraguan Cigars in 2023 | Atlantic Cigar Co
• Jamón Ibérico | Wikipedia
• Quiet Please Farm | Sweet House Dreams
• Buy, Sell, and Talk Domain Names | DN Forum
• Domain Name Industry News | Domain Name Wire
• The Domain Industry News Magazine | Domain Name Journal
• Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
• Confirmed: Amazon Acquires Prime.com | Domain Investing
• What is Domain Squatting and How Can You Protect Your Brand? | Intercap Registry
• Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) | ICANN
• The Net | Prime Video
• Media Options Inc Completes the Sale of Domain Name Pizza.net | PR.com
• Back When SCO and Pizza Hut Made Headlines with PizzaNet | Santa Cruz Tech Beat
• Single-Letter Second-Level Domain | Wikipedia
• The Pros and Cons of Living in Panama | International Living
• Domain Names: Rent, Lease, or Buy? | DomainSherpa
• Everything You Need to Know About Domain Name Leasing (Including Example Agreement) with Zak Muscovitch | DomainSherpa
• Buy and Sell Anything Safely without the Risk of Chargebacks | Escrow.com
• Hire Freelancers and Find Freelance Jobs Online | Freelancer
• Diabetes and Obesity Outcomes Guaranteed | Vida Health
• Why You Should Use the .com for Your Domain | Name Experts
• Facebook Paid Farm Bureau $8.5 Million To Acquire Fb.com | TechCrunch
• Absolut’s Approach to Marketing: Then and Now | Banknotes
• Don’t Grow Your Garden in Someone Else’s Yard | Paul Jun
• Fuckyourself.com Now Points to Bob Iger’s Wikipedia Page | Kim Dotcom, Twitter
• The Big Lebowski | Prime Video
• Jackie Treehorn’s Doodle Pad | The Big Lebowski
• Hotel Biron
• Dr. Gabor Maté — The Myth of Normal, Metabolizing Anger, Processing Trauma, and Finding the Still Voice Within | The Tim Ferriss Show #620
• How to Keep Your Cool: An Ancient Guide to Anger Management by Seneca and James S. Romm | Amazon
• De Ira | Wikipedia
• The Easy Way to Quit Caffeine: Live a Healthier, Happier Life by Allen Carr | Amazon
• Allen Carr’s Easy Way To Stop Smoking by Allen Carr | Amazon
• Round 2: We Test the New Gemini-Powered Bard against ChatGPT | Ars Technica
• Know Your Client (KYC): What It Means, Compliance Requirements | Investopedia
• Chris Dixon and Naval Ravikant — The Wonders of Web3, How to Pick the Right Hill to Climb, Finding the Right Amount of Crypto Regulation, Friends with Benefits, and the Untapped Potential of NFTs | The Tim Ferriss Show #542
• One Stop Shop for Web3 Domains | Unstoppable Domains
• No, There Isn’t Child Porn on the Bitcoin Blockchain | Bitcoin News
• Five Ways You Can Use Web3 Domains | Unstoppable Domains
• In the Valley of Novelty by Terence McKenna | The Library of Consciousness
• Ronald Reagan at 1980 GOP Debate: “I Am Paying for This Microphone” | Face the Nation
• Inception | Prime Video
• A Summary and Analysis of the David and Goliath Story | Interesting Literature
• Dots Of Thoughts On Where AI Is Headed | Agent.ai

SHOW NOTES

• [07:06] Who is Charlie Tuna, and what are his tenets?
• [30:11] Presidential ham and the value of owning coveted domains.
• [34:35] Tess Diaz enters the picture.
• [39:25] A domain industry overview.
• [43:14] Domain investors vs. domain squatters.
• [46:21] Getting a late start in the game.
• [50:16] Brokering the sale of pizza.net.
• [56:50] Why relocate to Panama in the midst of building a business that needed to make $250 per day?
• [1:00:40] Leasing vs. buying a domain as a startup.
• [1:10:36] Leasing vs. selling a domain as a holder.
• [1:13:42] How important is securing your brand as a .com?
• [1:15:50] Negotiating equity in lieu of cash.
• [1:19:35] Are we in the early stages of a digital real estate boom?
• [1:22:03] Why did Andrew buy Fuckyourself.com?
• [1:25:29] Anger management.
• [1:31:18] Email management.
• [1:33:57] How will AI affect the domain industry and SEO business?
• [1:39:53] Alternative uses for domains.
• [1:48:35] Finding Andrew and his projects online.
• [1:49:28] Pursuit of happiness.
• [1:55:08] Avoiding attraction to unnecessary pain.
• [2:03:13] Three most important influences.
• [2:06:05] Parting thoughts.
• [2:08:15] Hunting bigger fish.

MORE GUEST QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEW

“As far as I can tell, all greatness is achieved through novelty. It’s doing things that other people don’t want to do, doing things that other people are afraid to do, doing things that other people wouldn’t even think about doing.”

— Andrew Rosener

“Show me one meaningful piece of art that came as a result of rainbows and butterflies and happiness. Great art comes from pain, suffering, heartache, mental illness, just terrible circumstances. Great art comes from the darkness, not from the light, but you need both. And if you ignore the darkness, you will never get the light — or you’ll always be chasing the light. The light will always be in the distance, but you have to lean into the pain.”

— Andrew Rosener

“I was able to build a business that makes a lot of money and fits my lifestyle. I’ve optimized it for exactly the way I want to live. I don’t want to build, I don’t want to scale it. I don’t want to have 60 employees. I want to have four, five. I want to just keep doing what I’m doing.”

— Andrew Rosener

“I don’t necessarily pursue happiness, I pursue contentment.”

— Andrew Rosener

“I fundamentally believe that we are still in the early stages of domain names and domain value, the early stages of digital commerce and the internet.

Most people in the world have been online for less than 25 years. That’s a pretty short period of time. As we see commercial real estate sort of dying and all the distress in commercial real estate, we’re seeing digital real estate boom. And there’s a direct correlation there — I want to say a causation.”

— Andrew Rosener

“You’d be hard-pressed to tell me a company valued over $1 billion that isn’t on a .com. I think there’s only one Fortune 1000 company that is not on a .com.”

— Andrew Rosener

“I think that a long-enduring, mostly loving marriage is one of the most underrated elements of success in the world. Maybe the most underrated.”

— Andrew Rosener

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