Why So Many Entrepreneurs Hoard Secret Stashes of Domain Names
Dreaming up a new business starts with a domain name, and some entrepreneurs have hundreds of them
Michael Lindsey and Daniel Rubin have a tradition. At the end of each year, when GoDaddy announces that their domain names have renewed, they send each other screenshots of the notice, paired with a tongue-in-cheek caption: “We’ve got to get started on that idea.”
Since their time as undergraduates at California State University, Long Beach, the two of them have fantasized about launching a series of quasi-viable companies together, ranging from a Jewish holiday clothing line that Rubin dubbed “Mitzvapparel” to a subscription box for men (bottle of whiskey, disposable razors, a tie) called Alpha Mail. All it takes is a good pun and a few drinks, and the duo goes all in. Over the past seven years, they’ve sunk hundreds of dollars renewing about a dozen domain names tied to businesses they brainstormed together.
Whether either of them has the time or energy for the new business — or whether the idea feels commercially feasible at all — has become irrelevant. They don’t need a side hustle to boost their careers; Lindsey is a co-founder of the money management app iBank, and Rubin manages artists at the startup Element1 Music. The…
