Andy Booth Flies High – the Story of his Domaining Success

In 2006, Andy Booth, a 22-year old recent university graduate, had to borrow a thousand pounds from his Mum to make his first domain purchase.  Two years later Andy was regularly buying and selling six-figure super-premium domains, had quit his job and was traveling around the world with his new Mexican girlfriend, and was locked in a battle with one of the world’s largest corporations over a super-premium domain that he had recently acquired and that it desperately wanted.

Andy is one of my good friends in the domain industry.  I’ve done more deals with Andy over the past few years than with anyone else.

Andy has had a remarkable rise to success in the domain industry. This is his story in his own words.

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My first success with domains came when I was 18.  I had recently launched a WWF-related fan site when I heard a rumor that the WWF was changing its name to WWE.  I did a few domain searches, including for WWE.com, finding out that several of these names had been registered by the same person. I was feeling more confident about the legitimacy of the news and so registered a few domains, just in case, including WWEWrestling.com. Around a week later, the WWE name change was confirmed and I had immediate email interest in the domain.  Having paid $8 or so, I agreed to sell wwewrestling.com for $1000, a substantial sum at the time, which allowed me to embark on a tour of Europe with a friend.

That was the turning point for me. I then realized that domains were highly valuable commodities and would always have half an eye out for another preemptive registration to make me “rich”.

Very little in my background would suggest that I would become a domainer.  I grew up in the North part of England, a notoriously working-class part of the country called Chorley. My father was a pilot, having flown in the air-force and going on to became a commercial airline pilot, which meant he was often away. My mother had met my father in the air force as a radio-controller, but she had become a property marketer in my early life.

I have two brothers, one older and one younger, and one of the ways we would vent our competitive edge (apart from the odd physical bashings) was to play video games.  I always had a natural affinity towards games and it gave rise to the creative side in me.

My parents divorced when I was about 10 years old, at which point my father went to work in Borneo, flying for Royal Brunei Airlines. My mother decided that a change of scene was in order and having made friends with my father’s ex-fiancée (of all people), she was convinced to move near her to the south-east of England, a quiet county called Norfolk.

The change of venue was both exciting and nerve wracking at the same time and the process of making friends would have to begin once again from scratch. Being a huge fan of football (soccer) and a keen player myself, I made a good impression on the school team and helped us to win some games, which was an achievement for a school in an obscure small-village in Norfolk. Victory was not something they had been accustomed to.

My primary interests of football and video games were a big reason I helped to make friends and I found myself naturally getting along with like-minded people. In high school, I joined the school team and the junior team (not affiliated with the school) and would continue pursuing my ultimate dream, to be a professional football player.

As the years went by, despite winning several trophies and awards including the “best player” at a soccer school of 200 kids, I realized that the dream would be hard to achieve, particularly as I was physically smaller than a lot of my peers both in height and physicality. Late developers struggle in competitive sport, particularly at the higher levels, as proved to be the case for me.

We lived in a nice house growing up, but were always somewhat restricted financially. My mother was the main bread winner, despite my father paying maintenance payments, and as she only had a modest job, it was difficult for her having to support 3 boys as well. We got by, however, and my mother would always go the extra mile – although luxury was never something any of us were used to.

My first real experience with the internet was in about 1998. Of course I had no idea about domains, or the significance they had, let alone how to navigate the ever-expanding web of information that was the internet. Our high school’s library had installed the internet onto one computer – which would often mean sitting patiently during breaks for the current user to finish.

A friend of mine, somewhat precocious, had started an internet business from his bedroom at the age of 14. He let a few of my friends into this after we had started to become aware of the internet phenomenon. At this time, the internet was by no means present in the average household and dialup was the only way to connect – so the library was our only option. He came to school one day speaking of his earnings of around 800 pounds a month from his website, K-Gaming.com. It was a huge sum considering the majority of us were earning 5 pounds a week in pocket money.

I was always a keen writer from an early age and my friend was vying for a content producer for his increasingly popular gaming site. I agreed to help out, but had to convince my mother to install the internet, and even more so, to buy a personal computer. We got there in the end, but not without the odd sacrifice here and there.

I started to write reviews for my friend and I thought that I should get involved myself. I wanted to produce a website, and back then, Geocities was an easy platform to use. One of the most exciting parts for me was to choose the domain – geocities.com/keyword. Obviously one-word generics were long gone, so came the trial and error part we associate with the grueling search for an available .com today.

I eventually found one and evolved to a .com, finally launching the WWF related website I mentioned above which led to the registration and profitable sale of WWEwrestling.com.  Even though I would register and sell (via Dnforum) some hand-registered domains, my focus was not really on the internet.  I went to university which kept me busy from 2002-2005.

This changed again after I graduated and went for a job with Google. I had my hopes pinned on this job, having landed an interview according to my degree and strong interest in the IT world, but it didn’t come to fruition. This left me devastated and, working at an insurance company for 10,000 pounds a year gave me little hope going forward.

The 2006 soccer World Cup happened, which I watched eagerly and suddenly, Cristiano Ronaldo became extremely famous (or infamous) for an incident during the Portugal vs England match.  Several months had passed and I checked out the domain name, CristianoRonaldo.com. It was listed for sale at 1500 pounds, a price I could not justify paying given my salary. I called my mother, desperately seeking a backer, and she agreed to lend me 1,000 pounds from her credit card. I called the seller, and eventually convinced him to part with the domain for 1,000 pounds.

I knew quickly I had struck gold. I put a website up and it made around $20 a day from its Google ads. I discussed this with a friend on DNforum.com, the now owner of Bodis.com, Matt Wegrzyn, and he agreed to buy it from me for $11,000. This was a windfall for me and was the kick-start I needed to get me to fully focus on domains. I used this money to buy 3 more domains; LionelMessi.com (another hugely famous soccer star), BHC.com (a rare, valuable 3-letter.com) and WrestlingWorld.com, all interests I had in the past.

I would then sell BHC.com for around $13,000 on DNForum and the trend continued. I would buy and sell (flip) sometimes in hours, quickly having established a contact list of significant domain buyers. Due to the success and seemingly relative ease, I then decided to focus on LLL.com domains and almost went through them all (many coca-cola fuelled late nights sifting through 17,500-plus combos).

I was acquiring sometimes 5-6 per week as clearly the market had not been properly “tapped” and would often sell them to the same buyers who I had met through forums and internet business friends of friends. On one instance, one of my regular LLL.com buyers, Gerry Brady (an extremely astute businessman from Ireland) could not justify paying top dollar for a premium LLL.com I had bought, OPT.com. Instead, he referred me to Nat Cohen, now one of my best friends and colleagues in the industry. Needless to say, Nat and I reached an agreement and the rest is history. I owe a lot to DNforum for meeting people, contacts I would end up reaching out more and more to by chat clients like AIM and MSN messenger, which helped to forge good business relationships.

I was lucky enough to meet several of my online friends in person at domain conferences, something I think which helps build rapport and trust. I am still in touch with many people I have met at domain conferences face-to-face, and I can count several as real life friends. One such example is Steven Kennedy, a fellow domainer who took a similar path to me. We have since met in person and continue to exchange our opinions not just on domains, but life in general.

The majority of my success in the industry has come from short domains. I estimate that I have bought and sold around 50 LLL.com domains over the years, around 8 LL.com and numerous NNN.com domains. I also have owned several NN.com domains, including 82.com and 75.com. These short domains were relatively affordable in 2007 and the early part of 2008, owners not accustomed to receiving significant unsolicited high five figure offers. As a result, these domains were easy to flip, and now their value has approximately doubled since the time I bought them.

Eventually I shifted my focus and diversified into other types of domains. I now had a new job in London working for a TV company, but during the 6 months or so I was there, my focus was always on my own business. I was taking phone calls during the middle of my typical working day with a view to purchasing such titans as Face.com and Celebs.com, so it came as no surprise to my boss when I told him I would be leaving.  I was investing the equivalent of 7 times my annual wage for the Face.com purchase, for example. After flipping, I made the equivalent of about 4 times my annual wage with the company in profit, 40 hours per week, almost 50 weeks per year.

Securing Face.com was a big deal. It was not easy to acquire, but I saw a listing on Afternic, where it had a $130,000 bid on it. I contacted the owner and established that he was looking to sell it, but wanted the market to dictate its value. After numerous calls, I convinced him to accept my $160,000 offer, and we got the deal wrapped up. I felt that given the general domain market, this kind of money was more than value for such a premium, generic domain and later DNF appraisals and the resultant sale would affirm this belief.

I went on to travel Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, all while remaining active in the domain space. I hadn’t the funds to retain all the good domains at the same time, so in the instances of Face.com and Celebs.com, they had to be flipped in order to pay for my next potentially “big” acquisition.

One such domain came from speaking to someone while I was in Australia. I had graduated on to making inquiries into LL.com, much more valuable and prestigious, and received a huge surprise when I heard that the owners of LG.com may be willing to sell. I had already sold a few (TN.com and GR.com for example) but was particularly struck by this one as it had masses of potential. I had just bought Indian.com for the whopping sum of $225,000, a figure which shocked many, but at the time, I had a well-known DNForum’er contact me repeatedly about it. He had been involved in the auction (private bidding) for Indian.com and had not believed the seller that they had received a higher offer (my offer). Calling their bluff, he unwittingly allowed the sale to proceed, and was surprised that they had been telling the truth.

He then contacted me making several offers, all of which I declined (I loved indian food!). This was at a time when Chinese.com had just sold on Sedo for $1 million. Eventually, he offered $400,000, an offer I felt was far too good to turn down. I accepted and sold it. This would allow me more negotiating power for LG.com.

With the funds from the Indian deal, I was now in a much stronger position to discuss LG.com. I would call their legal counsel from Australia, sometimes as late as midnight and a few beers under, due to the time difference. This was something I needed to secure!

I got back to London and eventually settled on a price for LG.com, ensuring no previous “legal” action had been taken. I wanted a clean domain and had plans to launch the website – Live Games. Perfect with a short and resonant domain.

I continued traveling and in early 2008 visited North America, Canada and then the US, ultimately leading to San Jose, California to take part in a Zero G flight (gozerog.com). The whole concept was fairly novel at the time, and it was only from the advice of a successful Internet businessman and friend, Val Katayev, that I decided to “take a chance” and experience weightlessness. I didn’t regret it one bit and got to meet Simpsons and Futurama creator Matt Groening, who was on the same flight! A terrific experience.

My travels continued and I ended up settling for a while in Costa Rica, even bringing along my brothers, when a dreaded legal letter arrived into my inbox. The firm LG Electronics were ready to sue me and immediately I contacted John Berryhill. The company tried to claim immediate ownership of the domain, which struck fear into me, but luckily the ruling judge dismissed their claims. John referred me to his friend, Stevan Liebermann, and following months of discussions with the electronics giant, we reached a settlement. It was not particularly lucrative, but I was reimbursed for my outlay on the LG.com domain (funds which I simply could not have afforded to lose).

I continued traveling and met my then girlfriend, Ana, in Mexico just months later. I had a new found confidence from my wealth of traveling and had become much more outgoing. Something had changed, as she approached me, and that never happened before! We were together for over three years and got to travel and see the world together, visiting Europe, South America, the US and South Africa (for the World Cup in 2010).

I think what allowed me to be successful in this industry was the timing of my approaches. The phrase “right time, right place” applies appropriately to the domain industry and sometimes, you have to be perseverant, the moment a potential seller reveals any interest to sell. The business of course is a game of numbers, and in my experience, the more inquiries you make, of course the more success you’ll have. Therefore, my advice to someone starting out would be to work hard and hunt the unexpected. There is really no domain too big or too small for anyone out there. You just have to ask. It does no harm. I have now accumulated a strong portfolio of domains which earns a solid income each month, thanks to Frank’s InternetTraffic.com.

This has allowed me to take on another challenge in my life, learning to fly. It has always been something that has been in the back of my mind, my Dad being a commercial pilot for Singapore Airlines. After 6 months in Daytona Beach, I got my private pilot’s license, even starting a blog to document my experience on DumbPilot.com. It was certainly an accomplishment and one now I would like to further.

I have now set up Booth.com, which gives an overview of what my company does and hope one day to become a more serious domain consultant, to acquire domains on the behalf of a company who would prefer not to do the leg work.
I have also finally launched Messi.com, a website dedicated to the best football player in the world, Lionel Messi. My motivation is not financial, rather I enjoy giving something back to one of my biggest interests, football.

Domains have been very good to me and have afforded me the lifestyle that most people could only dream of. I am 27 and I have been fortunate enough to do and see many amazing things. I am still very much active in the industry and am always on the hunt for great generic .coms.