Meet Stuart Maloff of Brandable Business in Coral Springs

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stuart Maloff.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Stuart. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I am a full-time teacher currently teaching 3rd Grade Gifted/High Achieving students in Coral Springs. FL. I started domain investing in the year 2000 when I was living in Syracuse, NY and saw a commercial for a company called Register.com, a site in which you can register domain names. I was running a popular summer basketball camp at the time and already had a website, but it was through a company that used their own website to promote it.

That night, I registered about 30 or so basketball related domain names to help promote my site such as NewYorkBasketball.com and MiamiBasketball.com, as I ran an overnight camp. My camp website changed from Dreamscape.com/funball to eBasketballCamps.com. The domains immediately helped and I started getting campers registered from all over the world.

Just a few months later, I got a call from a man in Sacramento, CA asking me how much money I would sell SacramentoBasketball.com for. I said it was not for sale, as it helped promote my overnight basketball camp. He offered several thousand dollars and I immediately accepted. At that point, the light bulb came on that domain names, not only could help my business, but could be a business in itself. I pondered, if someone just paid that much for a basketball domain, which is such a small facet of the business world, what would someone pay for similar real estate or lawyer domain names? So I spent the next few weeks, registering as many city/job domain names as possible.

Later, I realized that domain name investing is a business and those who do it like me were called domainers. I started to follow the site DNJournal.com, which was one the few sites at that time covering the industry. I saw their weekly sales report and bought similar types of domains to the ones selling, I also, realized that at GoDaddy.com, I could get 5 or 6 domain names, for the same price as 1 at register.com, so I have been using GoDaddy since then. I was so into domain name investing, that around 10 years ago, I created a group with another local investor Mike Ward, called South Florida Domainers. We had meetings every couple months sponsored by local domain businesses like DomainHoldings.com and Moniker.com to network.

In the meantime, my camp was getting close to 300 campers a session and I had a contract with Disney to run camps at their Wide World of Sports for the summer of 2008. Unfortunately, that was the summer our economy was in shambles and gas was close to $5.00 a gallon, thus that camp never came to fruition. I sold the camp a year later and moved on to just domain name investing as a business.

What once started as just a basketball and geo-job portfolio, turned into one that also included many brandable domain names such as WineVille.com, HatHub.com, and SaladZone.com. The South Florida Domainers group got really big, but when I accepted a teaching position in 2013 at ACS.gr, the American School in Athens, Greece, the group folded.

Since returning from Greece in 2015, I have invested more heavily in numeric domain names as they are very popular in China. Today my portfolio contains between 2 and 3 thousand domains.

Each year, I attend the NamesCon.com conference in Las Vegas to learn more and meet other investors across the world. This past July, I also attended a conference in Xiamen, China to help promote that niche of my portfolio. Some of the best domains, I have acquired over the years include one word domains such enticing.com, operatives.com. and revising.com. I also have current trend domains such as CreateAnApp.com and 4kStreaming.com. I am focused more on selling than buying at this stage, but 2 niches that I see trending up are 4 letter pronounceable domain names and 3 number combined with 1 letter domain names in the Chinese market. I recently sold ogus.com for $8,000 and s138.com for $4,000. I believe other domains like these will continue to rise in value due to their short length and rarity.

Domain investing certainly isn’t easy. There is a lot of management involved, but it can pay dividends. It’s not too late to get in, but it will cost a lot more to get quality domain names, now that it was when I started.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
There have been struggles. Not having my camp in Disney, was a financial setback. I know my domains have a lot of value based on the number of inquiries and offers coming in. Unfortunately, I have had a few large 5 digit sales fall through over the years, but each time I learn more which has helped my overall sales. Luckily, most of my sales are quick and easy, and often happen while I am sleeping, as many of my domains are set as a buy it now option.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
1. I sell/lease domain names.

2. My actual company name is Stupendous Domains, LLC, but I my domain sales platform is now called BrandableBusiness.com. Every business needs to brand, so it gives a different angle from just domains.

3. My names are mostly .com. My general niches are:

Geo/Job-like BocaLawyers.com, MiamiTutoring.com etc.

Brandable domain names (ending in ville, hub, zone etc.)

4. Numeric domain names- for the Chinese market. Most of my numeric domains have an 8 in it, as it is the most preferred number there.

5. With the help of GeocentricMedia.com, I will have 10 developed city web sites that will be a hub of information to locals and tourists. The first one to launch will be WestBoca.com which is unincorporated Boca Raton, west of Jog Road all the way to the Everglades.

What were you like growing up?
I was a huge Syracuse basketball fan. I also, was an entrepreneur investing in sports cards. I was shy, but broke out of my shell in college and started FUN-damental Basketball Camp inc the summer after I graduated.

Contact Info:

• Website: BrandableBusiness.com, WestBoca.com
• Email: brandablebusiness@gmail.com
• Facebook: Facebook.com/WestBocaFL
• Twitter: Twitter.com/LearningVille

Getting in touch: VoyageMIA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.