The Most Hands-Off Side Hustle Anyone Can Copy

Transcript

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that makes a little over 50 grand a year. I spent about an hour a month on it maybe.

>> Jeez. >> Zero concept or understanding of coding.

I got exposed to expiring domain auctions. I was like, "Oh my gosh, hang on.

Callers.com." I mean, look at that domain. You could build some call

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tracking application. >> Golfour.com.

>> Yes, these domains are interesting. Like this is like the key to the entire website.

I didn't like my livelihood dictated by someone else. I'd work 9 to5 then I'd come home and work on these projects in the evening.

What are the tools in your tool belt that you can't

00:31

live without? My friend Peter lives the life.

He lives the dream. He's got a portfolio of niche websites that just pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.

It took some time on the front end to build these up, but today he only spends a few

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hours a week managing these projects. So, I had to know, Peter, as someone who's been reading your blog for 15 years, following your progress, how do you do it?

What tools do you use? How can people copy you?

He did with onions what I did with Bies and Texas snacks. He just does things, permissionless

01:02

things. He partners with people he's never met.

He's cheap like me. He doesn't spend a ton of money, but he's patient and he's tactical and he shares his secrets with us today.

So, please enjoy this conversation with my friend Peter. I would love to hear this story.

How did this domain name come across your desk and what made you find it

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interesting and end up buying it? At this point in my career, I I'd been laid off several several times and that began to grate on my nerves.

I I didn't like my livelihood dictated by someone else and if somebody made some and I've lived through this through several startups.

01:34

You know, executives make a horrible decision and it kneecaps the company and I'm held responsible. And I had a few instances where I was at a startup and I drove like I was in the marketing and I built a product for the team and it drove an extra couple million dollars for the team and they promoted me and

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they hired I got an assistant. I trained the assistant up and then six months later they lay me off and keep my assistant for a lower salary.

>> That one really stuck with me and that's when I was like, I got to figure out this stuff. I don't have a computer science background.

I have a history degree from Miss. So I was like, I got

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to figure this stuff out. I have a background in SEO, a little bit in SEO, zero concept or understanding of coding, but I knew I needed to concentrate on it.

So I started trying to teach myself to code. Coding led me to start building sites.

Building sites exposed me to like

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AdSense and I could monetize the sites a little bit from AdSense and that started giving me a little bit of money. I mean, not a ton of me, 50 bucks a month and then it got to 300 bucks a month and I was like, "Wow, this is crazy.

A more on me can generate revenue online." Um, but

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there were small like peacemail projects and the more I kept building at some point and I always have to think back on how I got exposed to expired domains. I was building sites and I realized it might be faster to acquire a site.

What's stopping me from going into

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Google, typing in some highra search term, reaching out to the owner to see if they want to sell the site to me. In my head, like there's nothing stopping me from doing that.

So, I started attempting to do that. I'd reach out and for some strange reason tourism seemed fun.

So I'd search tourism terms. Aruba.

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Hooched up for the term Aruba. >> Buying sites.

Do you mean buying domain names that are just sitting dormant? >> No.

No. Full operating websites that look like kind of mom and pop design.

Maybe they were built in Dreamweaver and they hadn't been updated in five or 10 years and but they were ranked number

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two or three or maybe number one in Google for the term Cancun or some travel-based website. And I could see within, you know, on AdSense, Google typically gives you around 70% of that click value.

So I was like, well,

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tourism terms are quite expensive. They're a dollar, $2, $3 a click.

So, if I built out a tourism based website and somebody clicks on a dollar ad unit, I'll get 70 cents per click. That's that's pretty darn good.

And heck, I can go down to Aruba or go to Cancun or or

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go out west on a vacation. So, I started building these small kind of travel-based websites.

It felt like didn't feel like work. It was just like vacation.

I'm building vacation websites. And there's some arbitrage in here because the owners of these websites don't know that the cost per click is higher.

You have that information that they don't have. Right.

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Correct. They'd always show I always ask for analytics and I could look at their analytics and say, "Oh my gosh, if I got a 3% click-through rate, 1% clickthrough rate on these ads, I can make 500, a,000 bucks a month, 2,000 bucks a month, and their ask price is three grand.

Yeah,

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I'll I'll buy it and bring it in house." So, I'd buy the entire content and bring the domain over. And so, that's when I started getting exposed to domain.

So, I'd get a deal on a site and my brain immediately went to the domain and say, and my brain was telling me, I got to

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get control of this domain because if I control the domain, I control the whole site because they could waffle and change their mind, but if I control the domain and they go back on their word, I can still screen scrape the information, pull it over, and rebuild the site, but I have to own the domain. I was like,

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these domains are interesting. I like these are this is like the key to the entire website.

And some of the sites I was buying early on were just regular, you know, just they weren't terribly descriptive, but they ranked. They were old, they were trusted, but I kept coming across these really interesting

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new descriptive domain names like one of the early >> Go ahead. >> Sorry.

Before you go there, what what are some examples of some old ones that that you bought that were interesting but didn't quite work out. >> Yeah, so one was I've since sold this domain.

It was called Travel Envoy and it was a directory of wineries and

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vineyards that you could visit. I bought this around ' 04 and >> okay >> and then he he transferred all the pages to me.

I bought it for 10 grand and then I simply just added AdSense to it. Add it and I did a poor job.

I didn't know how to code very well. So >> So I added it to the site and then it

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started Yeah. throwing me whatever a grand, two grand a month.

>> And he didn't have any ads on it. >> Zero ads.

nothing on it. >> So, you bought it like as a business website and that wasn't even on his radar.

All you did was plug ads on it and wait. >> I plugged ads.

Yeah. AdSense ads on it

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and then and I had one affiliate thing and that actually worked pretty well. There was this cool map of all the like wine varieties where they're sourced from.

And this guy sign up for an affiliate deal. And so, if you go back in Internet Archive, you'll see this ad

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up in the top right hand side. Uh oh, yeah.

Yeah, you're going to pull it way back. >> Yeah.

Go >> 2004. Is this it?

>> This is before I bought it. Isn't that beautiful?

Look at that. >> Oh man.

>> This is This is what you're looking for. These types of sites still exist today.

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>> For those that are listening, it basically looks like Craigslist. Blue hyperlinks.

Very ugly. >> And there are still mom and pop operators out here that that have websites like this that are very receptive to straight up offers to buy the website.

>> This is before I acquired it. And 10,000

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pages on a website, that's a moat. That's a lot of tedious work.

>> I was kind of spitballing 10,000. It was a lot.

It may have been 5 to 10,000. It was a tremendous amount of pages because it took me hours when I did the FTP transfer.

He forwarded all the sites. I

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can't I think I did an FTP because there were so many pages. >> There was no easy way that I that I was aware of.

So, this may have been me. So, here top right, that's a link.

QPR Wines paid me. They paid me a few.

This one was like wine ratings. Yeah.

They wound

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up paying me a month. >> Is this like a trip down memory lane for you?

>> Yes, it is. I haven't been it.

So, if you notice this grape to the right of that was my AdSense ad unit. So, back then there were no uh AdSense wasn't including any kind of images within this.

They were straight hyperlinks that

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they'd pull. So, I'd always try to add some kind of imagery.

So, that was that was some free clip art I found somewhere. >> Dump it.

add the ad on the right and then included all the normal navigation to the site. >> And then wine books.

Did that just take you to Amazon through an affiliate link?

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>> I may have left that for him and I just let him keep all the affiliate stuff from the wine book. He may that I can't Yeah, I don't I don't remember ever put creating my cuz the the affiliates were so small the revenue shares.

So I never bothered I was making more from the

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AdSense. I just focused on AdSense and and some intriguing affiliate deals.

That little map up on the right converted quite well. You'd be you'd be surprised right here.

>> Yeah. I don't know if they're still in existence.

>> It looks very intriguing. It looks like a periodic table.

>> Yeah, it was really cool. Oh, yeah.

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Delong's wine info. It was really cool.

And they'd ship it. They sent me one for free.

Comes in that little just down memory lane. >> So, this one was one of the first big acquisitions I did.

I bought it for 10,000 bucks. >> So, let's talk about the unit economics

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of that $10,000. Like, what were you buying?

Was there any revenue from anything? How did you come up with that price?

I don't even know how we came. I may have asked him what he was comfortable selling it with.

And I believe he may have come around from what I remember it was maybe 12 to 14

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and I got him down to 10,000 bucks. So I could use that number and then look at the analytics and say, "Okay, how long would it take me?" I was still working a 9 to5 at this.

And I'm a big believer of this. Some of these folks online talk about this.

You know, some online builders are under the impression that

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they need to quit their day job. >> Yes.

>> And then go all in on their project. >> Preach.

>> Andreach. I do not subscribe to that at all.

I ran my day job. I'd work 9 to5.

Then I'd come home and work on these projects in the evening. Also, guys,

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real quick, sorry. This is really good, right?

Like Peter's an awesome guest. If you want to say thanks to me and to Peter, just hit subscribe and the notification bell.

It would mean a ton. Thank you.

Every day. And I treated it.

I don't know you watch that old robot show, the Battlebot Show, and I mentioned this on Twitter sometimes. I compared it, these two little robots in

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it in this death den, and they're fighting each other. Which one, my nineto-5 or these projects that I'm building, which one can generate more money?

And whenever my little pro side projects, maybe it never happens, but whenever my side projects can generate

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more money than my nineto-5, that's when I'll consider it. or maybe when they're getting close, that's when I'll consider dropping off and going full-time.

So, I will still working 9 to5 in these projects. >> I call it the wing walkers code.

For

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those listening, I'm showing images of wing walkers on these airplanes. You never let go of one railing until you have control of the other railing.

>> Right. And that's the same thing with testing side hustles, testing business ideas.

Like, just don't let go of the thing until you have a better thing in

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hand. >> Yes.

>> Because it creates so much stress. I I see some folks that do this.

They'll quit. I'm giving myself nine months.

And oh my gosh, the pressure. And you know, these weirdo ideas, in my opinion, don't come up in that type of pressure tank.

It's when you're

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>> when you're allowed to sit and daydream and chew. Heck, at 95, you're probably sitting at your cube >> five or six hours a day just daydreaming on different ways to work on your project at night and doing two or three hours of actual work at your job.

Why not get paid for that? go home, work on

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your project and see where it can lead. And some of these projects, I mean, they don't require they require somebody just to baby them constantly.

And sometimes it's just an hour a day to push it in the right direction, make sure it's not going down, and it's fast and

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responsive. >> And you were having a ton of fun.

This was a hobby, correct? >> This is just fun.

And correct, you could even monetize this fun. So, >> right.

And I was teaching myself to code. I was like, "Wow, this code stuff's weird.

I'm not very good at it. I don't know if I have a ton of interest in it, but I'm fascinated by it.

I'm

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glad I understand. So, the way I kind of taught myself to code was I am not a coder, but I basically just taught myself how all these puzzle pieces work.

But, so back to Travel Envoy. So, I built it.

I start recognizing this importance of this domain name. And I

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keep running across projects with really intriguing just descriptive like my friend north of Atlanta Warren Royal bought the domain bobbleheads.com at a domain name auction had no experience in bobbleheads very similar to you and me you and Texas Snacks and

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me and Vidilia. He had zero experience in the bobblehead world.

Bought it at auction. I believe he spent 30 grand and he started a custom bobblehead business from scratch and he currently now has 15

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employees north of Atlanta. I've been to his warehouse a few times and it's just the coolest warehouse to go visit because he has life-siz bobbleheads, you know, like George Washington hanging around.

And so I was watching what Warren was doing. I was like, this is very interesting and fascinating what

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he's building. And so he bought that at auction.

I mean, $160. Do you know what his revenue is or what kind of volume he does nowadays from a >> $30,000?

You should get him on the He is wonderful. Uh he doesn't go on many podcasts.

He He's so heads down on this

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business. He rarely he'll show up on a few domainer podcasts from time to time, but he's always head heads down on Let's just use his math.

We We produce over 250,000 bobbleheads each year. I'm looking at his prices.

Nothing's under $100. >> Yeah.

So 25 million get two.

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>> Wow. >> That would be over 25 million a year if they were each $100, which most of these are 100 to 200.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> See, and it's funny, Peter, because like most people wouldn't believe that. They're going to hear that like, "No, you don't sell 25 million of bobbleheads a year." And it's like bobbleheads.

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Yeah. Oh, I can I can never get the domain bobbleheads.

All the kind of the cynical attitude. So, but go ahead.

I'm interrupting you. Yes.

>> No. Like that trap.

>> There's just so many e-commerce businesses out there. not named Amazon.com that do millions, tens, hundreds of millions, and billions of

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dollars a year, many of which have never been heard of. >> Yeah.

>> I owned an e-commerce fulfillment company and we would get leads all the time. Like, I have this makeup brand, I have this this food brand, this ice cream brand, we do 36 million, we do 20.

And I'm like, where are you coming from?

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How are there so many e-commerce brands? >> Crazy.

In the context of this conversation, a lot of times, not every time, it starts with a really good trustworthy domain name. >> Right.

>> Yeah. >> So, he got bobbleheads and then bobblehead came up, I think, a year or

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two after. So, he owns singular and plural.

He owns the entire, you know, beach head for this entire industry. >> Okay.

I went to bobblehead.com and it >> and it should redirect to Bobbleheads. He tries to redirect everything over.

So when you bought Travel Envoy, that

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$10,000 was just kind of goodwill. There was no really revenue, but you knew what you could do with it.

And that's kind of how you valued it, right? >> I valued it based on the traffic.

I could see how much traffic I could roughly napkin math, a rough click-through rate for my AdSense units and maybe some extra revenue from the

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affiliate deals. And I thought I could pay it off within six to nine months, and I w up paying it off within six months easily.

>> Oh my gosh. A lot of people are watching this, and I I know what they're thinking.

A lot of them are thinking, "Well, this isn't relevant anymore." Like, you just can't reach out to site owners and like, "Are you kidding me?

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It's 100% still relevant. Is AdSense brand new?" No, of course not.

But there's there's even more arbitrage opportunities. I I just bought a bunch of trees for my front yard and I wanted to buy them here, uh, you know, close to me.

So, I went to the website to try to shop around.

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>> Cool. >> This is their website.

>> I love it. I love >> pockets.com.

And I saw and I'm like, I want to buy this business. And I go in the business and like the gentleman helping me is like 83 and they have this prime real estate.

They've been there for 40 years.

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You can't shop online. You don't know what their inventory is.

They don't answer their phone. And it's like, of course, this is a much more expensive version of what we're talking about.

But arbitrage opportunities will always exist. And when you and I are 80 years old, people are going to be buying sites from us.

>> Correct.

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>> To do better things with them. Right.

Yeah, >> similar when I did my Videlia project, the farm I partnered with, no website, no online presence whatsoever. So when I started recognizing these domains were quite interesting, I was like, that's fascinating.

How do I get a domain like

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Warren has, like bobbleheads.com, you know, I wasn't able to register them in '95. It's 04 at this point.

I was like, oh, I I missed my opportunity. I didn't have any opportunity to buy these domains.

I the windows closed now. And I I rarely ever think from that perspective, but I kept digging through

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and at some point I got exposed to the expiring domain name market. And I think you're familiar with it.

You know, somebody doesn't renew a domain for whatever reason, the domain goes back to the registar and the registar puts it up for auction for open bid. And roughly every day 50 to 100,000 domain names

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expire. So it's a tremendous amount of inventory that you can sift through because at first I tried to buy.

So this is more of a marketplace. try.

>> Okay. >> What's a good GoDaddy Auctions is a is one of the biggest.

So they built their own auction platform to sell domains

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within there. So if you just do I think it's auctions.godaddy.com.

>> Yep. Shows some of within the at the expiring side.

All right. So, go to advanced search right there >> and then go to type and then do expiring auctions and then go estimated value and

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then go down on say they add uh I'm sorry on that top search results go down down a little bit more and right here. >> Yes, sir.

And then and then go down do it and click it again now. >> Go choosing their own.

Check out jtm.com

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is expiring. >> Oh, threeletter domain.

>> Threeletterallers.com. I mean, look at that domain.

You can build some call tracking applications. >> Golfour.com.

>> Yes, >> that could be a travel website. >> Oh my gosh.

So, this is this is a deep rabbit hole. So, when I got exposed and

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this was around 04, I got exposed to expiring domain auctions. I was like, "Oh my gosh, hang on." Because I was trying to buy domains direct from original registar from original owners and you know, they'd want I mean, and they're worth it.

They'd want a h 100red grand, 500 grand. I was like, I can't.

It's too risky for me. And I found this.

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This is simply a patience game. If you simply sit and wait, crownmolding.com, look at that cool one, >> dude.

You could buy all the interesting crown molding that the world has to offer. >> You could sell crown directly from the manufacturer.

You don't have to have a big warehouse,

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>> dude. You could do the recycled crown molding out of old historic homes.

>> Yes. Oh, man.

>> I know. So, this is this is where I started looking at them not really with the intention of building.

I was looking at them from maybe I buy them and flip them. Maybe I'd try to buy them and make

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some AdSense money off of them. But then some of these other names, Crown Molding would pop up.

I was like, and then they'd start inspiring me to build something. I was like, Crown Molding.

Oh my gosh. >> Rentmyhouse.com.

>> Yeah. And so this I started doing this every single day and I'd buy some.

I'd

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buy one, build a small site, figure out how to monetize it. Maybe it had existing traffic, maybe it had direct traffic, maybe it had had a a previous identity to it and figure out ways to build on that.

So, I'd build a few there, but it was more peacemail efforts. And I was like, man, I'm

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getting tired of doing these small. I'd rather wait and find a big one that expires and maybe just wait.

I'm not in a hurry. I'll just sit maybe and hang out and just monitor this thing every single day and wait for an interesting domain that expires.

And that's when

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dude ranch.com popped up. It popped up.

Oddly, a ranch up in New York State owned it. They owned it.

Dude Ranch got sold two or three times and then the last owner ran it into the ground and shut it down. Sold the sold the property.

If you want to go into

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archive, it's pretty fun to see the old version of drench.com so you can see it. >> I'll do that now.

>> And it used to be called Roseland Ranch. And so they own the domain.

They used to advertise on Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. >> No way.

>> Vacation. Yeah.

I I'll have to forward you the tweet. I I found one of the ads

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that they had. So, I I reposted it on my Twitter feed somewhere.

Here's another one. It looks Roseland Ranch Resort.

And you'll if you scroll down, you'll see usually they'll have Oh, you may have seen us on Wheel of Fortune. This is 2003 with that.

Oh, here it is.

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Yeah, >> it's before. So, they this expired and went up for auction in ' 09.

>> Okay. So I start I waited when I made that decision that I was going to sit and wait almost like catb bird seat and almost just empty mind and just wait for

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something to to pop up that's expired that inspires me to build. I like the and that's my first version.

I built >> 2009 >> and I built it. >> Yeah.

This looks awesome though. >> I mean I built WordPress.

So at that point I'd gotten exposed to WordPress

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>> and I had some rough idea. I had an SEO and paid search background.

love analytics and I was like okay I'll I'll build it myself to make sure I can advertise and then dude rancher started buying ads from me I was like sweet I think I can make this work and only then

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go ahead yeah advertise >> how did they start buying ads from you like how do they find >> oftent times so it started the easiest way for me I think I could have done this via email or phone but they I'm fortunate they have a yearly conference every year they hold it at a dude ranch typically so I was like sweet now this

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is kind of killing two birds with one stone I can start visiting dude ranges because I need to visit a few to get the feel of these just cuz I'm I'm basically representing the industry by owning this domain. It's it's crazy owning one of these names and folks will assume you

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are an expert in that field. The trust and authority authority.

>> Yeah. With a an exact match descriptive.com generic exact match is wildly powerful.

So they started advertising with me from from the

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conference and then they started signing up direct and then I met a friendly competitor. He ran guest ranches.com and he and I would notice sometimes a rancher would cancel me but they'd keep guestranches.com.

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Sometimes they'd cancel guest ranches and keep me. And I was talking to David and I was like, "David, hey, what if what if we uh what if we partner up and we corner the market or pseudo corner the market because if they cancel both of us, they're going to lose about 50%

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of their traffic. It's going to be very difficult for them to consider cancelling us." >> Yeah.

>> And so we partnered up and we did that for gosh eight years or so, maybe longer. >> Wow.

He's based in Littleton, Colorado. So I could always find a Colorado, hang out at his place, and then we take road

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trips and go around to all the dude ranches nearby. >> How much did this doium cost?

>> dude ranch.com. So it went up and it was Yeah.

penny delete and it cost 17 18,000 bucks basically. Just under 18,000 bucks.

>> And what signals did you look for before

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spending a dime on this to tell you that this was worthwhile? >> I wanted search volume.

I want to fish where the fish are. So, uh, there was a lot of search volume for the term Dude Ranch, but I wanted to make sure there's an album called Dude Ranch from some band.

So, I want to make sure they're looking for Dude Ranch Vacation.

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>> Isn't that Blink182? >> I think so.

Yeah. >> So, and then I was like, okay, I need to really I can look, but maybe a small percentage of that traffic is looking for the album, but it's mainly folks looking for vacations.

So, I could look at Dude Ranch vacations, and that was still strong search volume. Then I'd

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look I'd pull dude ranch Colorado, dude ranch, Texas, Idaho, all the states, all still strong search volume. I was like, "Okay, this is good.

I have one side of the equation. Somebody looking for a vacation." Then I went to the dude ranch.

I was like, "What's the average ticket price of a dude ranch vacation

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for a family of four?" It roughly ranges 10,000 to 30,000. This is just me spitballing off the top of my head.

I was like, "Okay, let's just assume 30% margin. So, the ranchers making three grand on one booking.

I still have these rates. I still have 575 as my flat

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yearly fee to be included on the site and it's just a onetime fee. I don't take any cut of the conversion.

I just drive leads constantly. I have about 60 advertisers.

It makes a little over 50 grand a year. And so, I built that over over the years.

Wound up buying David

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out of guest ranches. So, I own it and rebuilt it.

So, and it has very very low overhead. it it has hosting and domain renewal.

And I pay a friend that has more experience at PHP and and the back end of WordPress just in case the site goes offline, it goes sideways, I can

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ping her and say, "Please help. Something's wrong with the site." Or there's some plug-in update and, you know, the payment page is broken.

Can you please help? >> So, I lean on her, but she's I mean, it's it's only a couple hundred bucks a year to lean on her, but it makes me sleep better.

So, very good margins. It's not a million-dollar business, but

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man, very, very fulfilling. But that one taught me I do enjoy these small, fulfilling projects.

How much time does it take a week? I'm working on this right now.

I have two other projects, Videlian Ranchwork, that have kind of consumed a majority of my time, and I'm trying to figure out how I can devote more time or or maybe hire someone to

25:18

help me. I spend about a an hour a month on it, maybe, but it deserves more than that.

So, I'm trying to see if there are avenues of possibly getting some help, possibly selling it. Uh, to see if there are avenues who could do, but I'm kind

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of stingy or or in strict on if I consider selling it. It's going to have to be somebody who >> a good buyer.

>> A good buyer. I can't let this thing go into somebody who's going to put AI content slop on it or or cover the site with AdSense.

Even though I used to use AdSense, it isn't built for that. It's

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built for leads, for dude ranchers, and it represents the industry. You feel like a sense of stewardship over the industry and you want the next owner to do the same.

>> Yeah. In a sense.

>> And in short terms, yes. >> I've been using Beehive for about two years, almost as long as they've been around.

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You'll thank me later. But that one just

27:09

taught me. Oh my gosh.

Okay, this is quite interesting. But I always had Warren, my friend, to run bobbleheads.com.

So I'd run this. I'd run Dude Ranch, but it's sort of seasonal, has its peaks and valleys of traffic.

It's like, I still have time. I was still working 9 to5 when I was running Dude Ranch.

I was like, I still

27:25

have open time in my schedule. What else can I build?

Vidilia.com expires, goes up for auction. I don't intend to buy it.

I write this big long story on my little blog. But not blog, my little I write an essay on the background of of how I acquired Videlia

27:42

and I also write about how I acquired Dude Ranch on I think it's Deep South Ventures.com is where I have that. >> Deep South Ventures.com.

Okay. >> Yeah.

Deep South Ventures or you can go to ask you.org. >> By the way, I have been a loyal blog reader for over a decade.

>> Oh, thank you. Well, it's mainly I tell you it's almost therapeutic just to dump

27:58

it out of your brain because it gets all clogged up in there and it helps me to kind of just dump it out on the page and then kind of structure it. I have very short attention spans.

So, if it appeals to me, I hope it would appeal somebody else because it's very difficult for me

28:14

to read or focus. So, if it allows me to focus on it, it Yeah.

But very therapeutic. So, so if I were to wrap up the story of Dude Ranch in a sentence to this is oversimplifying it, but you paid 17,000 for the domain.

It was expiring. You had to 18.

You had to be patient,

28:31

but you were you bought it. At that point, you started kind of reaching out to the industry.

You started getting natural traffic because there was so much search demand. You love it.

You loved it because there was search demand and it was high ticket, right? And that's a great and there was not much

28:47

supply meeting that search demand. You built it on WordPress.

You kind of started reaching out to the industry. You partnered with another partner website.

And today it does about $50,000 a year from one hour per month of work. >> Yeah, that's correct.

And I get free

29:02

travel and I get to go visit all these. I've been to 50 dude ranches over the past 14 years from >> gosh from Georgia to I mean there are a few dude ranches in Georgia.

I mean Colorado, Wyoming. >> That's worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in and of itself.

>> Yeah. I mean, it's just it's wonderful

29:18

to go meet these folks and and it's some of the most hardworking. I mean, talk about a difficult business to run.

Seasonal for them. Some run cattle, not many, but it's mainly hospitality.

It is summer camp for adults. So, how I sometimes describe it, but you get to go

29:33

chill. If you have a family, you can take your family and all the kids unplug.

They're out playing in the creek or going to the campfire and no one's staring at digital devices. It's wonderful.

You can go trap ski or ride horses or fly fish, go on river rafting

29:48

trips. It's >> it's one of the coolest vacations I've ever been exposed to.

>> And we can even dovetail into ranch work. So, I got ranch work out of which was my job board from Dude Ranch.

my partner had it and we don't have to talk long on ranch work, but it's another blessing where I can help folks get a

30:05

job on a ranch, any type of ranch, cattle ranch, an outfitter, an equestrian ranch or a farm, and even dude ranchers. So, I can still I can double serve my dude ranchers, fill jobs and fill heads and beds for their ranches.

So, he had it on the side and

30:21

sort of abandoned it. I saw it.

I had a friend in Atlanta that built a nursing job board and had a had a good exit on it. Shane had a good exit on his nursing job board.

I searched around on WordPress and there were some off-the-shelf themes for job boards on

30:37

WordPress for like 60 bucks. So, I bought an off-the-shelf job board theme, hacked it up on the back end to be just better like better architecture for SEO.

got out on a super fast server and then started sourcing jobs from dude ranchers

30:52

first and then sourcing them direct from ranchers maybe on their website and then slowly organic listings started coming through and then the seasonality aspect came back up again for dude ranchers and then they'd need to hire their crew again for the next summer then I get a wave of job listings and then word of

31:10

mouth started working and then people started repeat buying and it started running and this one has just been one of the biggest blessings Yeah. >> And again, this one goes back to memories and happy.

Not a lot of memories, but it's h I'm helping someone find gainful employment on a a on a

31:27

ranch. >> And a lot of times it's somebody that maybe grew up on a ranch and maybe they're in the big city now.

I just raised prices yesterday. I had that I added a diamond level yesterday.

For those listening, 100 bucks to post a job

31:43

for the cheapest plan. What are what's the difference between these plans?

And how did you >> mainly duration? So, uh, silver will run for 10 days, gold will run for 30 days, and there's a quick turnaround.

I'll take 24 hours. I hand curate every single listing.

So, I put live in 24

31:59

hours because it it goes through my eyeballs to make sure it's a legit. If it seems sketch or something off, it rarely happens, >> but if it does, I just refund them to say, "We're not quite the right fit for you because we're not going to be able to drive you good leads." Then we have free.

If it's a ranch that, you know, is in financial trouble and they need some

32:16

help, I like I never want to turn them away. So, I try to have a free option that allows them because I know I can drive a significant amount of traffic.

And I al on this page, I also allow job seekers. They want to pay me.

>> It looks pretty active.

32:32

>> Yeah, they do. So, they pay you to put this.

>> Yeah, they pay me to extend. And I filled one this Amy right there.

Amy W. She emailed me this morning saying, "Peter, can you pull my listing down?

I found something." >> I was like, and I was like, >> you helped her find a job? >> I was, heck yes.

August 4th, I found her

32:49

a job. >> What did she pay for this?

>> Huh? >> She paid 99 bucks.

>> Wow. 99 bucks to get a job.

And did you email all of your job? Like, how did you promote her?

>> Yeah. So, I I'm listed on the site.

We get 1.3 million visits a year to this site. So, we get a tremendous amount of

33:06

uh of traffic. I have 12,000 people on our email list.

I have 25,000 plus on our private Facebook job board page. >> Wow.

>> So, I cross posted on everything. >> Of all your projects, is this kind of your your cash cow?

One of your

33:21

favorites. >> Probably.

Yeah, probably. Right now.

Yeah. >> Good for you.

>> If you want a fun one to go into archive.org, go to archive.org and do ranch work. You'll see some of the early versions.

I think he just took us off the ball and it was dormant. Go.

Yeah, maybe a little bit after though. He may have a version of it on those pages.

33:37

Yeah, he probably has. He built it in 98.

So, it's a good It looks like that first like year gardening site. Maybe some comic sands in there.

>> Oh, yeah. >> So, it's like he look he was listing their first and last names over there.

Jeez Louise. People looking for jobs.

33:53

>> But then he pushed it just to a landing page saying, "Hey, I've kind of shut ranch work down. Hey, thank goodness he didn't pull it offline." So, it was still live and active.

and he had a link to another Facebook page that was deleted at some point. So I said, "What does this ranch work?" Cuz my my friend

34:09

did a nursing job board. Maybe I do.

I was like, "How about this, David?" So here was my deal to him. I was like, "Hey, here's what Let me try this.

There's I found a job board theme on WordPress. Point the name servers to me.

I'll do all the work. I'll build the whole site and if I get a job listing,

34:28

I'll give you 25% and I'll keep 75% for my hard work. And any money, if I put a little AdSense on the site, I'll keep the AdSense revenue.

And he is a great partner. He's always like Richard Branson.

He's like, "Screw it. Let's do it.

Who cares? Yeah, let's do it." Just like Aries was to me when I came into

34:43

Vid I was like, "Screw it. Let's do it.

That sounds fun. Let's try it." So, he was like, "Yeah, let's try it.

Let's that sounds good to me." So he jumped in, changed the name servers to me and I got to work and built the first version just offtheshelf job board theme and it started working and it had enough just a

34:59

little bit of trust and authority at that point and started driving traffic to the site and then I started filling jobs and folks were happy with me and then I uh the first version of the job board was trying to force people to set up an account in order to place a job

35:16

and I don't like my rand I don't like anybody to jump through hoops. >> Yeah.

>> I like projects being like a like a gumball machine. I sometimes compare them to.

So that was what the page was right there right before I acquired it. He was like, "Okay, go to our Facebook page."

35:31

>> If you want to go if you want to look at some jobs, you guys just talk among talk amongst yourself over there is basically what he's saying. >> Yeah.

You cut this 7525 deal. How long did that stay in place?

Did you ever end up buying the domain entirely and having it all to yourself? >> Yes.

Yeah. So, if you go to that same

35:47

Deep South Ventures, I I write all about this project as well if you want to hear the entire backstory. But yes, probably with David, we had it for if you go to essays at the top and then if you scroll down the very bottom, I have like the top I look at traffic and

36:03

you can see must ride mule to and from work location and there that's the one that's the whole story behind it. >> So, I think it was I'd have to read this article again to figure out how long we had it together.

I think it was five or six years and I could see it was working every single day. Chris, I wake up, I

36:19

look at expired domains and I try my best to post a job. I like consistency on my job board to alert folks that this thing is alive and kicking and there is somebody babying this site to death and I like every single day pro hopefully

36:34

posting multiple jobs if I can if I have enough free and paid submissions. So after six years, David needed some cash.

So I was like, "Hey, how about I buy it from you?" I think it was 10 grand. I have it in that article.

I'm able to continue working on these projects. This is a great year round project where

36:50

Videlia is seasonal. Dude Ranch is seasonalish, and this one is is year round, and I like being able to run this one year round, then kind of move a little bit of my attention over to Vidilia when it needs it in its season, >> and then move a little bit over to do ranch in it season.

But every audience,

37:07

every day throughout the year, I'm kind of focused on ranch work in this whole in your realm, the type of stuff that you're doing with these domain names. What has you curious today that you maybe you weren't curious about 5 or 10 years ago?

What types of niches or is it directories or AI tools? Oddly, to your

37:23

point earlier, right when we started this, I'll tell I'll tell you boutique e-commerce in regards to something you can spin up very quickly and get customers. You don't have to wait on this timing aspect of a directory marketplace.

the fact you can set something up. Even I'm a I'm a snob on

37:39

really good domain names. You really don't need a great domain.

I I lean on docoms and I suggest.com because folks default to it, but you don't need an amazing one. I tend to buy them.

But boutique e-commerce, man, is legit. And there are so many small niches that you could run out of a small little you

37:56

could run out of your house to start and then do like my friend Warren Royal at Bobbleheads ran out of his basement and then when it started justifying larger expenses. He's got a warehouse and now he has his own warehouse out in Asia that is his own custom bobblehead

38:12

creating out of his warehouse. but small boutique channels and you can use search to justify and it's funny I've been leaning on a lot of social stuff for Videlia and man it's powerful creating really good videos of I created a 30

38:28

secondond ad for Videlia and it was three clips me walking behind the tractor when we're harvesting me holding up a Videlia with my hand and then me walking through our packing shed and then I just filmed I wung it and I kind

38:44

of wrote a quick script and it wound up being about 30 seconds which seems to be a good sweet spot. It was like this is a Videlia onion.

You know they're custom they're boutique onions only grown in Georgia and we are a Vadelia farm. We can ship it direct to your door.

39:00

Consider us. Click the link in bio if you want to try one of these little special treats.

>> What are some other examples of boutique e-commerce outside of the bobbleheads example that you've seen or heard of recently? >> Oh gosh, man.

I've seen like individual this cool one. I don't even know the

39:16

name of the business. It was like what is that little red the little red pull truck for kids that kids get in, but it was like a Ritz Carlton version of >> a pull behind for kids to sit in that you can pull them behind >> like a w like a red >> wagon.

Little red wagon. I don't know why that name come to my head.

Little

39:32

red wagon, but it was >> like a >> like a Maserati version of a little red wagon. like individual seats, cup holders, uh, fancy, and you could pull your kids around in it.

And this guy was running that business.

39:48

>> I'm like, are you >> And that sells so well with ads, too. >> Oh my gosh, that Andy was his multi-million dollar business selling these custom high-end little red wagons.

And to your point earlier, I was like, are you kidding me? There is a I was like, yeah, it would do really well for

40:05

in social and you can pull kids behind it. It sort of looked like that.

It was more looked like a little red wagon, but like a fancy little red wagon with custom seats. I can't remember the name.

Maybe I can find it and email it to you later. But I was like, multi-million

40:20

dollar business. I was like, wow.

It's like, what else is out there that you could >> Oh, yeah. >> add an extra widget to that you could sell.

DTOC is not easy, but you can ramp it up very quickly if you do if you just know cursory. So, you don't even have to

40:36

lean on search. You could do social and create some really good video on your phone and edit it on Cap Cut and get some good audio and you're off to the races and it's very inexpensive and track transactions through Facebook pixel and you're ready to go at least

40:52

test it and see if it sells. That's been one that's interesting.

All kind of food ones are fascinating. There's a pickle company I think there I'm fascinated.

I haven't bought them yet but they've been showing up in my feed. I think it's I love my pickle, but I think it's olive my pickle and it's a free promotion for them, but I haven't tried it, but it's

41:08

like legit pickles in this. And so they're touting the health benefits of these specialty pickles that they send.

So I love kind of foodbased. I mean, look how well-designed this site is.

>> That's beautiful site. >> It is.

It's beautiful. And so they're they're touting the health benefits of

41:24

theirs. What's different of their pickle versus the pickles you may get at the uh grocery store.

I think they go into that maybe down the page like why ours are different. Ours are better for gut health.

It has all this extra stuff that's better for Yeah. Yeah.

There is

41:39

the ultimate gut health bundle. >> Okay.

All right. So, let's talk onions.

>> So, yeah. So, this one was an accident.

I monitor expiring domains virtually every single day. It's just like my morning paper.

I just pull it up. I started doing it.

I just found I never stopped cuz they're so fun because it's

41:55

just like you and I were doing just looking through the list like oh my gosh Chris crown molding you can do that is a legit business by the way if somebody wants to bid on that that is a legit you could go from new or crown molding from a historical home I may share that on Twitter here in the afternoon >> it only you should and it only has eight

42:11

bids so >> eight bids I mean look at the the traffic isn't exact scroll up to the top of the page I can't remember which column uh there's age look how old it is it's 27 years It's been owned continually for 27 years >> and these traffic stats I think 20 the

42:28

20 row or column is reflective of the traffic that it's receiving. GoDaddy is isn't it isn't exact, but it gives you a little bit of an idea if there is some natural type traffic of people just typing in looking for crown molding.

42:43

>> Crown molding out of historical homes is a is a legit business. I think people can't comprehend that that people still just directly type in domain names.

Can you talk about that before we go into onions? I got that from Warren Royal.

He shares this on his Twitter feed. He was

42:58

sharing listen you don't and no one quite understands how much type-in traffic it's one of his largest traffic sources and it's what allowed him to get the business off the ground. So when he started it, I think virtually all of his traffic was people typing in the term

43:14

bobbleheads into the browser. not going through a search engine and adding.com at the end and coming direct to his site.

And when he started, he had three bobbleheads that he was uh selling by thirds, drop shipping them. And it was right before >> it was before Obama, Hillary, and

43:32

someone else. I can't remember.

He had three Bob McCain. >> Okay.

>> And he sold three bobbleheads. >> Oh yeah.

>> And he was selling them out of his basement. And he started selling them out.

Just selling them out. He was like, "Holy cow, I got something here.

This is quite interesting. He started sharing

43:47

the fact and some of the old school domainers always share this, but it was neat to see it because he was sharing live and or just actual screenshots from his Google Analytics on direct traffic from a site that had never been developed, no backstory, no in links and you could see it was just direct

44:03

traffic. SEO really hadn't gained any traction yet.

And so I was like, "Okay, this direct is real." When I got Dude Ranch, right out of the gate, I was getting 30 to 50 visits a day from people typing in Dude Ranch and type in >> someone wanting a $5,000 vacation.

44:19

>> Correct. So, I was like, "Wow." Okay.

What I'm finding here with these great domains is >> if I get a good descriptive one, it gives me some tailwind right out of the gate. So, I don't have to fully rely on paid search, Google ads, or Facebook ads.

I can if I want, but if I want to keep my spend low, I can rely on just

44:37

the typein traffic from this wonderful domain and figure out and maybe ask the customers, what are you looking for? Are they maybe I'm providing a product and they aren't purchasing it?

And I can say, well, maybe they're looking for a service. Let me maybe offer a service out here.

So, I got that from Dude Ranch

44:53

and I started seeing it. I was like, wow, this is a longer term.

It's not even as good as bobbleheads, but I'm still getting typeend traffic from this domain. And I was like, "Okay, type in traffic's real." No one really studies it that much, but it is real.

And when Videlia came up, it's a longer term. Vidilia is tougher to spell.

I was like,

45:10

I realize it might get a little bit of type-in traffic, but again, I didn't intend to buy it. So, I was watching it just from I was curious about it.

It was up for auction. I was working on probably working on Dude Ranch and I had like a different browser tab open looking at the auction.

I thought the

45:27

domain was going to sell for like five to six grand at auction. So the bid was around 2,000 bucks.

So I was going in. I was like, I'll throw in 2100 bucks.

It was like 19 2,000. So I just threw in I think it was 2100 2,000.

Somebody else came in 2100. I was like, I still think

45:42

this is worth five grand if I but I posted in 22 and expecting to be outbid and no one outbids me. And I was like, "Oh no." I was like, "Okay, I don't I really I I don't have two thou.

I do have,000, but man, I'll be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the next month." >> I was like, "Oh no." And and so there's

45:59

a timer in these uh auctions where it's it's counting down. I was like, "Oh god, are you serious?" Like, "Nobody else is going to bid on this and then it it counts down and expires and I win." It and I was like, "Crap, man.

I don't have I don't want to spend 2,000 bucks. It may take five years for me to sell

46:15

this." >> Was this the most expensive one that you had bought at up to this point? >> Dude Ranch was Well, I bought it direct.

>> So, this was after Dude Ranch. >> Yeah.

I bought Videlia after Dude Ranch. Yeah.

>> Okay. Okay.

Gotcha. >> Yeah.

So, Dude Ranch was one of the most expensive. Travel Envoy I bought for 10 grand, but it was a fully developed site

46:32

with a lot of traffic. Dude Ranch was a blank slate, just the domain.

>> And then I built the business around it. But then I bought it and I was like, ugh, I'm just going to forget.

I just throw it into my portfolio and keep working on >> maybe I'll let it sit and resell it for a profit one day. >> Possibly.

Maybe I'll put it up for a for

46:47

sale page. I never oddly I never put it up for I just put it in just trying to forget about it that I bought it and but it kept it did.

This is the only project I had that that just kept needling me. It was in my portfolio and I mentioned I go out for lunch with some friends in

47:03

Atlanta at the time. I'm in Savannah now, but I was in Atlanta.

I meet a friend for lunch. He's an old, you know, startup friend of mine in Atlanta and I was like, "Oh, Allan, dude, I bought the Fideliaunions.com." Oh, I didn't mean to.

And I'd get the response like, "Dude, that's a big industry. That is legit.

It is like the

47:19

>> Yeah. >> know the caviar of sweet onions." and I'd see people's responses with the domain and it was you know even before that I was like there may be something there but I don't know man so I had it and I was like well I was like I don't know what this is but let me just put up

47:35

a landing page and uh I'll have just like an email sign up and say would you like you know more information about Videlas it was something rough like that I think and and then people started signing up saying hey and I may have had something hey if you are interested in having Videlas delivered you know submit

47:51

your email. I didn't have any promises.

I was just like, hey, if you have any interest in having them delivered, submit your email below. And so people started submitting their email.

And I was like, well, okay, that's kind of weird. It's like, but I'm not a Videlia farmer.

I don't I don't know how this works, but I was lucky that Videlia is

48:07

only about 3 hours away from Atlanta. What year was this that you put the landing page up?

>> I think it was 2014 or 2015. It may I don't know if it ever got indexed.

You may see the early version of the site because it was short. I put it up and I started getting a few nibbles and I was

48:22

quick and then I was like, "Well, Videlia is just three hours down the road. I'd love to go hang out in Vidia, Georgia." >> Videlia, Georgia, correct?

In the USA. So, I was like, "Let me just go down there for a day." So, I just jumped in the car.

They have a committee that represents all the Videlia farmers. So,

48:37

I called them up and said, "Hey, number one, I just want to make sure you know you guys know I'm I'm a good guy. I'm not trying to I'm not trying to hijack the name of your industry.

I'm a real person. mess around with big onion, Peter.

Don't mess with and it's a trademark term by the state law. I

48:53

almost needed their blessing to use it. So, I typically I thought it was generic, but then I wound up finding out it's a trademark term.

I was like, "Oh crap, I sort of need their blessing." >> But like, let me just go talk to them >> and if they get all huffing a puff, I'll just give them a domain, you know, or you know, just give it to somebody. But

49:09

I went down just saying, "Hey, I happen to acquire this thing at auction. My background is building web projects and sometimes e-commerce, sometimes directory marketplace, informationbased stuff.

I'm trying to see if there's an a business here for possibly shipping, but

49:26

I don't know any farmers. Like, could you can I come just come talk to you guys?

The the committee. They were super just welcoming.

And so, I went down and just met with the committee. Met with them.

And then they when they realized I wasn't a huge weirdo, they said, "Okay, let's drive around. We'll just introduce

49:41

you to a few Videlia farmers. Yeah, this is an old WordPress theme.

For some strange reason, the CSS isn't loading correctly within archive, but this was an early version of the site. I think our second or third year after 2016.

I think we were shipping I think two years at that point. I acquired in o in 14 and

49:59

I believe the 15 crop is the first one that we started shipping. Yeah, because we just celebrated our 10th year of shipping or 10th or 11th.

But this was the fancyish logo. I was still designing the site at this point.

I hadn't hired it out, but I had hired a logo.

50:15

>> That was That's the rough onion design that I created. >> Yeah, it's like that looks like they're planted.

>> Yeah, I kind of I did that kind of that design, but it's just rough the rough design that I included >> and that's the front. The old name of the site of the farm was Mnt and my partner bought the farm out so he

50:31

changed the initials to A and his name's Aries and Megan is his wife. So, they changed the farm to A&M Farms.

>> Uh, so yeah. So they started taking me around just introduced me to farmers.

I met the first farmer and you know they had some reps up front then just saying

50:48

oh they were like oh direct consumer. No they like it's they told me quote it was like it's the biggest thorn in their side.

They did a little bit of it and they hated it. >> To you this is opportunity right sweet off your hands.

>> That means they aren't really a competition because I know they're going to treat their customer like garbage.

51:04

But I can see where they're coming from after running Videlia for 10 years. It's challenging.

I mean D TOC is challenging but so I go to a second farm they were standoffish and then I went to Aries third one and we met a few others but I went to the Aries he got it immediately

51:20

he was like yeah I get it and he was the general manager at that point and he was like yeah I get it uh you want to ship I was like yeah I got the site I haven't even built a really full version of the site yet I was like here's what I can offer you I have the name of the industry and I can promote your name a mnt at the time I'll build you a website

51:36

for free you have to pay me a penny and then let's just see if we can ship some onions and put you I was like do you have boxes? Do you have storage or I didn't even understand the concept of because we have climate control storage which allows us to ship throughout the summer.

I just had to ask like do you

51:52

have boxes already here? Do we have to order so we already had boxes a packing shed and storage?

So he has a crew in the packing sh that can pack for us so I can just focus on front end and operations and marketing sales and

52:07

social media. >> He had nothing to lose.

>> Yeah. So we did a handshake deal, dude.

We and we operated off of a handshake deal for 10 years and then I had some silent friends in that deal. We had just some fun money where I used to buy and sell domains.

So they were in on Videlia

52:24

with me in the early days. So Aries and I just bought them out.

I owned like 40% at that time. They own 60.

So Aries and I came out and bought 100% of it out about a year ago. So Aries and I are now 100% on the deal.

But we operated Handshake deal. Whether that's the best idea, I don't know.

But >> yeah, >> it worked great for us. And we just

52:40

trust and it was I mean I my job was, you know, was sales generation. If I don't generate any sales, I don't get paid.

And I wanted to be no risk to Aries. And I wanted to be and I still kind of treat it this day.

I want to be just some quiet church mouse just doing

52:56

my job in the background where he can focus on growing this very special onion and I'm doing my job and he doesn't have to worry about me and I don't want to give him any drama. But I give sometimes feedback if the customers and he wants to know if the if an onion was damaged.

53:12

Sometimes it's tough for us to see if the an inner layer of the vidilia is is rotten. It's tough to see on the grading line.

So feedback from like that from customers is always helpful if we notice a certain variety of Vidilia. So I always pass that information along.

Go ahead.

53:28

>> How does the split between you guys look as far as the revenue is concerned? >> We're still working that out.

Right now it's just we run the business. I pay all the expenses and at the end of the year we figure out what how much cash he needs and how much cash I need because I'm kind of the employee of the

53:43

business. And so we'll just figure out some spread.

I mean, we we hit we've already hit £100,000, which is a new record for us this year. 100,000 pounds shipped.

And it's weird on the revenue side because I know you're always good on jumping into revenue numbers and

53:59

stuff, but it's weird for farmers. We I rarely share like revenue numbers because it's it's interesting hanging around farmers.

It's similar to the dude ranch industry. It's I don't want to call it tacky, but it's like farmers, they they don't think in that frame of mind.

This is their way of life. >> That's what makes it pure.

And it's such

54:15

a humble and rewarding, you know, industry. And and yes, revenue is very, very important.

So what I decided from an early point in that industry, I was like, I'll just share how much we ship every year. That's you can share do your own math.

You can figure it out. But it it's >> we ship 100,000 pounds.

And we and we

54:32

we've done that just by hopefully we are not the cheapest option around, but we try we try our best to take care of our customers and we ship UPS has done a great job with us. So, the farm manages all the fulfillment and logistics and stuff and you're just on the website

54:47

stuff. >> Quick question.

What if there were a private community out there of people that were building businesses based on this podcast? Well, >> I just made it and it's only for business starters and business builders.

It's called TK Owners and it's basically like having me and 100 other business geniuses as your business partner. Also,

55:04

there's going to be exclusive new trends, growth hacks, business ideas, and a database of everything I've ever talked about. You'll find thousands of startup case studies.

You'll have weekly ask me anythings with me while I'll answer your questions directly. You can join now at tkowners.com.

Link in the

55:20

show notes. >> I'm website.

I have the UPS. Yes.

So I have Yes. Website's on WordPress.

And then I have Shopify for the transaction shipstation to manage the boxes going in and out. I have a bad tendency of putting too much on my plate.

So next year we have a lot to do in our

55:35

offseason. We have a crew now in our packing show.

I'm going to try to I'm still doing customer support, Chris, and it about broke my brain this year. So, I'm going to have to delegate.

But I can step away from the screen and go hang out with

55:51

these farmers that have such a wonder. They're so friendly and just have a wonderful perspective on on the world and what what's important and not slowing down, but understanding, you know, farming you have to slow yourself down.

And it slows my somewhat frantic

56:06

brain. It forces me to slow down.

>> Like most people don't realize that you can have both. Like business doesn't have to just be business and money and profits and numbers and spreadsheets.

Like you can feel good about what you do as well. And once you I'm hearing like two big unlocks in your brain.

Number

56:22

one was two decades ago when you're like, "Oh, I can make money for myself. Interesting." And then it was kind of like, "Oh, I can actually take pride in what I do and not just move pixels around on a screen all day." Oh, very interesting.

And it just makes for a fulfilling life, right? Yeah.

And

56:38

building kind of these humble projects where I rarely set goals. I'll just build a project that seems to have opportunity and let it it's very similar to that Bill Walsh book.

You know, the score is going to takes care of itself. I don't have any goals.

I don't have I don't have some stretch goal for Videlia

56:54

on we need to hit 120,000 pounds next year. We just rinse and repeat and start again next season to make sure the crop is taken care of and see where it takes us.

If we take care of our customers and we have a fast site, an easy way to order and if we ship quickly and we s we

57:10

give them a great onion, then they should come back. I don't need to set some stupid goal because some guru told me I need to set goals.

I always compare it to almost like nature like you know some big redwood isn't setting up some goal to be 200 feet tall by this. It's

57:27

it just grows every single year and and when it's done and it's top it stops and maybe then the branches start going out and so we may hit a top for Videlia and then maybe the branches are maybe some interesting partnerships that we can >> you become more loyal with your customers >> more loyal maybe there's an interesting

57:44

social aspect to it we could get some customers through the social channel or yeah just growing slow and treating my projects almost like kind of a farming aspect of just slow growth let them go as fast as they want to go. I'm just the the dork behind the screen that is

58:01

trying my best to oversee everything and and lightly push it in the right direction. >> And that seemed to work well with me over the years.

So, I was like, I'm just going to stick with it. I don't there's no reason to change.

It works great for me. >> I think people set goals because it makes them feel like they've already accomplished something, right?

So, if I

58:18

set a goal, then I've done something. Well, no.

Doing something is the goal. Like, that's what you have to complete at the end of it.

But just writing something down is good, but sometimes it gives us a false sense of accomplishment and we're like, "All right, now I can move on." And then we don't actually do the goal, which is the whole point.

58:34

Yeah. Correct.

Or you put some unnecessary stress or pressure on yourself and then, you know, let's just say your goal was 120. You only delivered 115.

>> I failed failed to hit my 120. It's like, I don't care about these stupid goals.

Or one thing I love about this

58:49

story is you bought the domain name, you spent more than you thought you should have, and you just start talking to people and guy number one doesn't get it, guy number two doesn't get it, guy number three doesn't get it. With this story, even more than my Texas snack story, it reminds me of my Heartland bread story where I had a friend that

59:04

had a bread company that only sold bread to 200 stores within DFW. People wanted to buy it online and I said, "Keith, let me just put an ad in your bread because 10,000 Texans buy it every day." >> Wow.

Let's give them an ad so that they can tell their friend in Indiana who was

59:20

there for Thanksgiving and fell in love with your bread that they can buy it online now. Let's just do it as an experiment.

Don't pay me anything. If it fails, it's all on me.

If it succeeds, we'll split it some way. That's fair.

And it succeeded. And that led into Send Eats, which led into Texas Snacks.

And

59:35

it all started with a question. And it was all possible because I found a guy that just got it right.

And so sometimes you just have to keep talking to people until you don't have to try to convince anyone because sometimes we think of sales as convincing someone, but we just need to find the person that just gets

59:50

it and that just gets us and they just basically say, "Shut up. I got it.

Let's let's try to do something here." Right? >> It's a magical thing.

And then this another similarity is his online sales from me were like 3% of their overall sales, but it was like 30% of their

00:06

margins because it was direct to consumer. I have to think in your sense you're probably a small percent of their total volume, but they're not selling through a distributor and then a grocery store.

They're selling direct to consumer. So, they love you and we have a direct relationship with our buyers.

So, they lose the customer when they sell through the chains and they sell I

00:23

mean they sell millions of pounds. >> Yeah.

And yeah, much higher margin and we have a direct relationship with them >> and that's been tons of fun. But uh it is just yeah trying small things and and not beating yourself up if something

00:38

doesn't work is what you learn early when you start doing this iterative process and building projects. I sometimes call it you know some failure callous it doesn't hurt anymore.

You keep doing it enough you keep failing enough that callous is going to form and

00:53

then the future failures it doesn't matter. It just flows off and you're right on to the next project because it doesn't hurt anymore.

And that's what I kept doing. and I kept building and and and things would break or it get burnt down or it get de-indexed or or it just wouldn't work.

It wouldn't make any money and I wouldn't necessarily beat

01:10

myself up. I was like, "Oh, let me just try another project.

See where this one goes." But then like slowly a path started to emerge. But it took years.

I mean it was 04 is when I started. I got uh Dude Ranch in '09.

So that was five years of just tinkering and figuring out

01:25

what models might work well for me. and that I didn't buy Vidilion until uh 2014.

What was the story of finally buying onions.com? How much did that cost and did it did it move the needle much on your traffic?

It was more of a vanity. So, my friend Warren at

01:40

Bobbleheads uh he at first it went up for auction. So, I saw it.

I'll try to get the short version of this. So, and this was uh Videlia had already gotten some traction and I was tweeting about it saying just sharing what these weird projects and sharing it on Twitter just

01:57

to share it. And the domain went up for auction.

Uh somebody had it and I think they put it on Flippa and I saw it and I was like, eh, I don't sell onions. I sell Videlia.

It's a boutique product. You can only grow it and ship it and sell it from here in Georgia.

I don't

02:14

sell onions. I sell Videlas.

it's, you know, I don't sell a commodity. I sell this, you know, boutique product.

And I was like, ah, it went up for auction, so I just didn't buy it. Somebody else bought it with the idea that I wasn't washing the auction that they could get it and flip it to me.

So, they buy it

02:30

for I can't reme it was 17 or 18,000, maybe 18,000 bucks. It's in name bio on, but it they bought it for 18.

Like a day or two later, they emailed me, "Hey, Mr. ask you, "We just happen to own this this high-end domain name." And I was

02:47

like, "Yeah, I was watching that auction. Yeah, I'm not interested." And and then it was my whole business plan.

They were like, I'm sure they were like, "Dang, I thought I was going to be able to flip it to them for 50 or something." >> Yeah. >> So, it sits on there.

>> And so about 6 months later, it goes back up for sale on Flippa. The highest

03:04

bid it gets is like five grand. Doesn't even hit the reserve.

I see it. I'm like, "Okay, that's interesting." They put it up for sale, I think, on BIS by Sell.

almost no takers. They put it back up again on >> flippa.

>> Flippa with a high reserve. And that's

03:20

when my friend I was at a domainer conference and I passed my Warren Royal and I and he was like, "Hey, you see that onions.com?" And I was like, "Yeah, Warren, but I don't I don't sell onions. I I sell Videlas." He was like, "I get it." He was like, "I get it.

But understand, there's one time in our

03:36

lifetime that domain's going to be for sale. one time that in this reasonable range of price right now, the next time it's for sale, it's going to be a h 100red 200 $500,000.

>> Yeah, >> if you have an interest in that domain, this is your opportunity to get it. >> And I was like, yeah, I guess I didn't

03:54

think about that. I was like, you're right.

I was like, I don't have a purpose for it right now. And that's what was holding me back.

And I was like, I don't have a purpose for it. What do I do with it?

And and then my answer was, I don't care. I was like, who cares?

just just see if I can buy it. Maybe I get it for a little bit less

04:10

than 18. He bought it.

So, he had reached out to me. So, I just emailed him direct.

I was like, "Hey, I saw your thing on Flippa. I'm interested, but I can't make the numbers work.

Can you do whatever like 10 or 12 on this?" He was like, "Uh, I can do, you know what?" He did the negotiation thing, and he came down to 15. I was like, "Hey, if you

04:25

could do like 15, 14 or 15,000." I think we came to 15. And he paid escro fees, which are 200 bucks.

So, it was 14,800. And so I bought it for 14 and I didn't really have an idea what I was like, let me just buy it, see what happens.

I'm

04:41

pretty sure it's going to have solid type-in traffic. And it does.

It's 50 a day, maybe more of people typing, but it's a little bit of everything. It gets some from the satire website.

They own the onion. They own onion.com.

I own onions with a plural. So I get a

04:59

little bit of from them. But honestly, the biggest purpose of that site, it may have a further purpose two or three years from now because we may branch out into organic Peruvian onions.

But honestly, the biggest thing it served right now is Aries. So Aries has his email is Ariesunions.com.

05:16

And I per that was the first thing I did. I was like, Aries, his first domain, the domain they had used for their farm before they had a website was m and a ntfarms.net.

And I was like, Aries, I hate your email address. Let's get you a let's just get

05:31

you a better email. I get you Ariesunions.com.

And so we set him up with an account at fastmail and hooked it up to onions.com. And then, you know, I go over probably at least once a month in season, probably two or three times a month.

And he was like, "Peter, Peter, I went to a

05:48

conference and somebody a farming conference, somebody asked my email." And I said, "Aarizonies.com." And the other person, they didn't have an answer. Then they said, "How did you get that domain?" And he was like, "I got a I got a web guy.

He just got me the domain." He said 100% of the time.

06:05

It floors people that he as a small medium-sized farmer, we have this gorilla.com domain that allows him. We're not the biggest Videlia farmers, but that domain allows us to look like the biggest,

06:21

strongest Videlia farm out there. And we primarily use it for email right now.

Everybody at the packingshed has their own custom email. John atun onions, peterunions.com.

And we have our own custom, but right now it's like a landing page that just gives an overview of the farm. I have a

06:38

big thing for our YouTube channel. Like if they want to go subscribe to our YouTube channel, uh gives background, but we may eventually build it out to sell other potentially other farming project.

We may go down the citrus path. We may plant some citrus trees and we may just kind of take even though it's

06:54

onions.com. We may just say, you know, we we farm everything under the sun, onions included.

Just like monster.com used to be didn't have anything to do with jobs. It was just monster.com.

And onions is like we So we do everything farming, but it's primarily for email right now. And we'll figure out another

07:10

purpose for it down the road. >> It's hard to put a a dollar value on that, but it's valuable.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

It's fun to Yeah. showcase and put around.

It's easier to put in my Twitter profile. I'll just put onions.com versus Videlia.

Even like if I'm talking to a customer on the phone who is trying to visit our website, if

07:26

it's an elderly c customer, sometimes it's tough to type Videlia. Yeah.

>> And sometimes they spell with an a v a d v i d a l i a. And I just tell them go to onions.com.

I got a big button there. Just click the button to go to Videlia and it'll take you right to then you

07:42

play click the big green button on our homepage. You can go place an order and we'll get a we'll pack and ship tomorrow or the day after.

Well, one pattern I've seen with all your stuff is you always work with partners, critical partners that you couldn't, you know, you couldn't make this project work without. >> And I didn't anticipate that.

I don't

07:57

want to interrupt you, but you're right. I didn't I always thought I was a solo builder.

I'm a solo build. I'll do everything myself.

I'll put all this on my plate. And then lo and behold, I did dude ranch and then I wind up partnering with somebody.

I found Videlia. I partnered with somebody.

I only found ranch work because of my partner. And I

08:14

have found I do look for that now. If I It's more challenging.

I sorry to interrupt you, but you're you're exactly right. I was fooled into thinking I was a solar builder and I'm not.

I I work really well with a partner. It's tough to find a really good partner, though.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

08:30

>> Yeah. >> But what I was saying is you're like you're much better at sales than you might give yourself credit for because you're selling your partners on this opportunity and you're doing it in like a no-brainer offer way, right?

Good salesmen offer no-brainer offers. with

08:45

Dude Ranch, it was I I know they didn't go for the pay-per lead aspect, but that was one of your first offers. It was like, don't take any risks.

I'll find you a lead and then you buy it from me, right? And then that evolved over time, but that at least got your foot in the door.

And then with Videlia, it was listen uh like let's just split this and

09:02

I'll do all the online stuff. I'll be the distribution, you be the fulfillment.

And then with Ranchwork, it was 7525. You take no risk.

Keep your domain name. I don't need it.

Point it here, but keep it. and let's just see if this works.

And you had to find the right people, but you also had to give

09:18

them the right offer and you were able to do that. So, it worked.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

This is accurate. Yeah.

What are the tools in your tool belt that you can't live without? Like websites, like for doing research, finding expiring domains.

What's like a rapidfired list of tools? I love clicky analytics is

09:33

what I use to monitor. >> Clicky.

Clicky.com. Okay.

It's better than stupid GA4. >> Yeah.

I've never I got rid of GA probably five or six years maybe longer than that. I rely on click for everything.

SEO and paid search were very beneficial to me. Earn learn the

09:49

basics of SEO. It can still ignore what everybody's saying about you know artificial intelligence SEO.

It all leans on the same principles in my opinion. It's still going to rank and pull up content that matches your niche.

I don't use a ton of me. I have Shopify for the transaction for Vidilia Ship

10:05

Station to manage our tens of thousands of orders every single year because I got to make sure these things land and our customers get it. And I'd like to find out that the box has been lost before the customer realizes that the box has been lost so I can ask UPS or

10:21

just ship them a make good before it even lands and then even recognize that the original box was lost. What about like for looking at domain traffic and expiring domains?

Is GoDaddy auctions your go-to for that? >> If an old domain that was registered in 95 is failed to renewed, it pops up.

10:38

does not pop up over at GoDaddy. It only pops up at NameJet or Snapnames.

So, I'll look at GoDaddy, NameJet, Snapnames. NameCheep created their own auction platform to auction their own names.

So, they have their own those three and drop catch. I used Amaze as an

10:54

inspiration to build. I tried to build on ideas first and I never seemed to get anywhere.

When I shifted my perspective to build and be inspired by domains, things started working. I was like, "Okay, I'll just use the trust and authority from this name, see if I can build something

11:10

>> and let it do some of the heavy lifting and I can be the dude behind the keyboard." >> I like to say the same thing. I like to start with like a marketing channel and then work backwards from that.

And that's essentially what you're saying, right? Your domain name is the the grandfather of your marketing channel.

You start there and then work backwards.

11:25

>> Correct. Other tools.

Let's see. So, it's those are the primary from the expiration process.

There's a site called expired domains. Is it.net?

I'd use it sometimes, but it's a pretty good it's a fire hose. Let me pull it up and make sure I have the domain.

It's anet. Expired domains.net.

11:43

And it is just a almost a wall of text on the website, but you can set up a free account. There's no cost.

And and they do searches across properties. So you can do searches across NameJet, Snapnames, GoDaddy, Namechep, sometimes Drop Catch, and try to see if a name

12:01

pops up through those. I'm kind of old school.

I just go direct. I just go to Drop Catch, see what's up there.

Go to Goody and see what's up there. Do you think directory businesses are still viable today in the age of AI?

>> Yes, Dude Ranch is a good example because my site's providing photographs,

12:17

video, background information. So, the photographs have been helpful and they want a kind of a trusted source to look at.

What I'm seeing, I mean, the my traffic's up almost 40%. It was 39% year-over-year on that project.

My rebuild helped, but AI is helping as

12:34

well because AI is making suggestions on here are some ranches, but hey, here's dude ranch.com. It's a pretty trusted authority.

You can also go search on dude ranches with pickle ball that are an hour away from a major airport. AI is

12:51

kind of the cliffnotes version. They can kind of point you in the right direction.

I don't know if they'll ever be I mean yeah if there is if there was a directory business for sale that was in my price range. I would seriously consider acquiring it and looking into the numbers to see if it might fit into

13:06

my portfolio. But I'm pretty happy with my little three projects.

Dude Ranch has such interesting social media potential and I'm not doing a very good job promoting it from that aspect. So I'm trying to see if there might be an interesting person to either buy the

13:22

whole thing out or or I am it's so low touch for me. I'm you can tell I can I love the industry and enamored with it and I I don't mind keeping it if there's a good partner who can help either write content, do great social media that has experience with that and doesn't mind

13:37

going visiting some of the ranches and and kind of getting feet on the street. >> You're searchbound on Twitter, deep south.com for your blog.

Where else can people find you? >> Asku.org is kind of ogw.

>> Yeah, askew.org RG is kind of just the

13:54

just the little home base. Links to some of my art my essays that I've written, links to projects, links to failed projects that I've built.

Most importantly, things I've tried, domains I've bought and donated. I bought miss.com and donated to Miss.

>> That's amazing. >> Yeah.

14:09

>> Roll tide. All right, Peter.

Well, thank you. This was awesome.

>> No, I appreciate the invite. All right.

What' you think? Please share it with a friend and we'll see you next time on the Kerner

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