Many of you know that I am highly interested in Domain Names. I like buying them, I don't like selling them but sometimes you need to to in order to move your portfolio along. This here post is about a domain name I recently sold.

I started buying domain names in 1997. Since then I have quite a few domain names and most of them are related to recruiting in the semiconductor industry and this represents about 70% of my portfolio. since I don't recruit any more, I have no real need to keep them all but this does not mean I want to sell them all. I decided last November to see about selling a domain I bought in 1998.

I made some calls and identified some companies who I thought could benefit from owning the name I was prepared to sell. I remembered meeting a woman three years ago who worked for Texas Instruments. I put a call in to Dave Mendoza because I knew he would have the contact information. He did and I made contact with the lady at TI. Right off the bat she said it sounded interesting and I should provide her with no more than 4 reasons why I thought TI could benefit from the domain name.

She passed on the email to the right people and a month later, the deal was done. Texas Instruments is the new owner of AnalogJobs.com . The transfer has been completed. TI is very excited about what this all means. We live in a world right now where it is easy to see how networks of like minded individuals can make things happen. Imagine a private social network set up and maintained by Texas Instruments that had 1000 analog design engineers in it. It's a very powerful domain name especially if you hire analog design engineers and pay big money every year in agency fees.

I have no idea how TI is going to use the domain name but if I were them, I would set up a private Ning network and start the ball rolling. You start by inviting in all of the thousands of people in your database and give them the opportunity to network with each other and make sure the fact that you have positions open is not a hard thing to find . Over the next two years, the way companies maintain relationships with potential candidates is going to change drastically.

And one more thing, the way to sell a domain name for a substantial amount of money is to pick up the phone and start calling. much like the way you do it as a recruiter.

Here are a couple of links to some articles I wrote on this topic for the Fordyce Letter website:

The Right Domain Name Makes A Difference #1

The Right Domain Name Makes A Difference #2

If you are interested in discussing your domain name questions, please let me know. I'm more than happy to help