Why we built Efty – Part 1

The idea for Efty was born in October last year. Back then, I was actively investing in domain names for about a year.

Besides the obvious newbie mistakes (buying worthless LLLL .com’s and two keywords .biz domains) things we’re going well and the first couple of big sales we’re on the board (I even made it onto DNJournal’s weekly sales report!). But I was disorganized. With a growing portfolio of so many different domains at different registrars, marketplaces, and parking companies, things began to slip through the cracks.

I forgot to renew valuable domains, completely lost the overview of where domains were registered or parked and often I forgot to add or remove domains from marketplaces such as Sedo and Afternic. But most of all I didn’t really have a clue about my performance as a domain name investor. I knew I was making money but I didn’t have clear insight into what my real costs were for renewals, marketing ($10 listing fee on Brandbucket anyone?) and sales commission fees.

Back then, I relied on email and a spreadsheet for everything. Email is great for many things. But it’s definitely not great for managing an investor portfolio of domain names and it’s definitely not helping with giving you any insight into your financial performance whatsoever. Spreadsheets? Don’t even get me started.

So I started looking for a domain name management tool. I needed something to help me manage and track my portfolio and gain control again.

I tried a couple of tools, but they were complicated and too hard to use so I reached out to my long term friend Lionel and we decided to start building Efty.