{"id":3899,"date":"2015-04-09T16:55:17","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T06:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/entrepreneur-john-rampton-on-buying-domains\/"},"modified":"2021-09-02T16:50:06","modified_gmt":"2021-09-02T06:50:06","slug":"entrepreneur-john-rampton-on-buying-domains","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/entrepreneur-john-rampton-on-buying-domains\/","title":{"rendered":"Entrepreneur John Rampton Acquires Due.com for $130,000: An Exclusive Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

You may have read that Flippa facilitated the sale of the premium domain Due.com for $130,000<\/a>\u00a0last week. In this exclusive interview, we talk to the buyer,\u00a0John Rampton<\/a>,\u00a0about his passion for\u00a0buying and selling domain names, the companies and products he builds\u00a0with them, and his day job as a serial entrepreneur. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Tell us about yourself and what you do day-to-day.<\/strong><\/p>\n

First and foremost, I\u2019m an entrepreneur. I love building things that bring happiness to peoples’ lives. My daily life is all over the board: I write for Entrepreneur<\/a>, Forbes<\/a>, Inc<\/a> and several other high profile places. I like telling people about things I\u2019m working on, as well as failures and successes that I\u2019ve had in the past.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m currently working on Due<\/a>, Hostt<\/a> and my personal site JohnRampton.com<\/a>. These keep me busy as well as allow my wife and I to live the lifestyle we\u00a0want in Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n

In addition to working on my own startups, I invest in companies. Lately I\u2019ve been investing in 4-5 companies a year. I get pitched around 10 a day, so it\u2019s a bit of hard work. It\u2019s something my wife and I love to do.<\/p>\n

Can you give us a brief glimpse into how you started investing in domain names?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I started investing in domains back in 2002 when I purchased my first domain Adogy<\/a> which I still have today. I purchased it to be used as an agency to exhibit\u00a0all the work that I offered clients. Basically, it was a website to explain everything I did. Since then,\u00a0I\u2019ve purchased over $2 million dollars worth of domains. I\u2019ve bought, sold, acquired, lost, bankrupt and everything in-between with different domains that I\u2019ve been a part of.<\/p>\n

I look at domains as my online real estate that I have to pay $20\/year to maintain. I can buy a good domain and — if it\u2019s really good — potentially sell it to someone that will pay me more. I once made $12,000 in 3 days flipping a domain that I purchased on Flippa. I purchased a good one and someone missed out on the sale. They came to me and offered way more than I purchased for it. I accepted, got the money and was happy.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been continuously buying and selling domains. I save up some money and purchase the next big one. I\u2019ve gotten pretty good at negotiation and figuring\u00a0out how much they are worth.<\/p>\n

What influenced you to buy Due.com, and why did you choose Flippa?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been looking around to acquire a good domain. I saw the auction for Due.com<\/a> a month ago and bid on it — I just wanted to see what it would go for. It\u2019s a 3-letter domain name that people can relate to. I then checked the social assets, all of which are not being used (good sign if you want to claim them).<\/p>\n

I made sure to quickly snag @due on Twitter<\/a> as well as a few others. I then discussed with my wife (who recently purchased Buttercups.com on Flippa<\/a>) —\u00a0I run everything past her.\u00a0If she says it\u2019s ok, I go for it!<\/p>\n

I watched the auction, talked with the seller and decided to pull the trigger. It was a good price and since purchasing I\u2019ve had one offer above what I paid for it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m literally on Flippa everyday, looking at all the domains. There are literally hundreds that I\u2019ve bid on and 20+ that I\u2019m watching right now. Flippa is the best place that I\u2019ve found online to buy and sell domains and websites. It\u2019s VERY simple.<\/p>\n

What are you planning to do\u00a0with Due.com?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I plan on building out a product that helps people invoice, pay bills and track time online. “The best place to pay bills, when bills are due.”<\/p>\n

Anything else you’d like to share about your acquisition experience?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Start small. I see so many people making bad decisions when buying domain names. Don\u2019t jump into something that you couldn\u2019t lose altogether and be just fine. Get to know how it works and start small. Buy a smaller domain that doesn\u2019t cost a lot — same thing with selling a domain. This will teach you how it works. Over time you\u2019ll get really good at it. There are thousands of people that make a\u00a0living buying and selling domains, are you one of them? ‘Cause it\u2019s not rocket science, but there is an art to it!<\/p>\n

I love connecting with other domainers\u00a0—\u00a0you can reach\u00a0me here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For a followup on the success of Due.com, you can continue reading here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You may have read that Flippa facilitated the sale of the premium domain Due.com for $130,000\u00a0last week. In this exclusive interview, we talk to the buyer,\u00a0John Rampton,\u00a0about his passion for\u00a0buying and selling domain names, the companies and products he builds\u00a0with them, and his day job as a serial entrepreneur. \u00a0 Tell us about yourself and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":1122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,145],"tags":[],"dipi_cpt_category":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3899"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3899"},{"taxonomy":"dipi_cpt_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flippa.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dipi_cpt_category?post=3899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}