Growing up in the 90s, basketball was life. In 1998/1999 when I registered my first domain, that same season I was the Beverly Hills YMCA 3 point champion (I have to dig up that trophy for nostalgia!). The competitiveness that I grew up with never left me, and I have always strived to be the best I can be.

XYZ, like most small businesses, had an extremely uncertain 2020, especially in the first half of the year. The pandemic was tough on so many levels. When the pandemic first hit I told myself that our team members and their job security and health were my number one priority. I wanted to first make sure they were OK, shore up our operations, and focus 100% on our team & new opportunities. We operate multiple businesses, some of which were deeply affected by the pandemic. It was scary and I had many restless nights. We successfully moved the entire XYZ team to remote work and we did not fire, furlough or lay anyone off. After assuring our team that we would survive I then doubled down on all marketing initiatives and focused on coming up with as much capital as possible to live out a deep bear market. I also realized that with uncertainty – comes opportunity.

With our team secured and operations continuing I then changed gears into growth. You may be wondering… Growth? In a pandemic? At the time I really felt like I was fighting for our lives and the future of our organization. While the competition might have been trying to figure out how to operate remotely, we had already implemented a work from home policy years ago – which gave us a huge leg up in the process. This allowed us to go deep on the offensive to do accretive transactions. Our partners were there for us. To my pleasant surprise our TLD businesses – specifically .xyz, saved the day. Our renewal rates hit the highest rates we’ve seen yet, the cash flow poured in, and opportunities were raining down. We had scheduled 5 TLD launches – which we postponed to 2021, which opened up some budget. Then we obtained a bundle of 5 more TLDs, which we will be relaunching on June 14th, 2021 at some really attractive price points (details coming soon). That took us up to 22 TLDs. After watching The Last Dance I began the hunt for a 23rd TLD, which we just closed on in the past few weeks and are excited to bring to the market. Anyway that’s the background on why I’m claiming this our Jordan Year. Not bad for a bootstrapped startup.

SMBHQ

Small businesses, entrepreneurs, and hustlers have been at the forefront of our mission to democratize online naming. We started with .xyz, the world’s go-to choice for the next generation of innovators, makers, and leaders online, and we have come so far with our additional TLD offerings.

Today, March 2nd, we launched .Skin .Makeup .Beauty .Hair & .Quest (AKA SMB HQ… I love it when we can create acronyms that speak to our target audience). These new namespaces come with accessible pricing and large, open availability. We’re giving the power to the people and making a large amount of amazing names accessible to the masses. Our registry’s expertise and our team’s branding ability are unmatched. We will grow these five new extensions just as successfully as we have grown the rest of the TLDs in the XYZ family. You should expect to see marketing partnerships and end users start popping up soon. We already landed some incredible visionaries in these namespaces and we plan to share more details in due time. So far the volume has been above expectations and it seems it is concentrated among our end user base which is the goal!

logos for .Beauty, .Hair, .Makeup, and .Skin domain names

logo for .Quest domain name

Beautiful naming options for a fast growing market

  • The beauty industry is massive, valued at over $500 billion /yr and counting[1]
  • Trends show near-peak and peak levels of keyword search intent for “beauty” spread across North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and parts of Asia and South America[2]
  • Skincare accounts for 40% of the global cosmetics industry[3]
  • There are over 1.3 million hair professionals in the U.S. alone[4]
  • Beauty and personal retail sales generated $23 billion in e-commerce revenue in 2019[5]
  • “If I miss this I suck” – 12 year old me.
    • We won’t miss this one – it will take time to reach market penetration but we will evangelize these namespaces to increase economic activity worldwide and help beauty professionals stand out and come out of this pandemic stronger than ever.

I am really excited and proud of the approach we took here as most names will be available to buy for ~ $14-$20 / yr retail and I feel strongly that this approach will lead to maximum end user adoption. XYZ has always been a provider of TLDs that give entire industries more choice and memorability online – from .Storage, .College, and .Rent to .Cars, .Car and .Auto. The .Beauty, .Hair, .Skin, and .Makeup domain names are the new, premier, vertical-specific TLDs for the beauty industry. Beauty companies, organizations, and professionals have never had access to domains this brandable, memorable, and affordable — ever. These domains are going to help them create incredibly memorable websites with domain names that feature the exact keyword for their industry.

Normally, these kinds of keyword domains are expensive and out of reach for many. But I want these new extensions to help individuals and small businesses completely disrupt the power structure. I’m always fighting for the individual, the small investor, the business owner starting from scratch. “A rising tide floats all boats” doesn’t just apply to the domain industry. This rising tide of new naming options raises up small businesses and individuals as well. With a $14-$20 price point, that’s exactly who these extensions are for.

We’ve already seen many beauty brands claim their industry-branded names. Beyonce.Beauty, TaylorSwift.Hair, ASOS.Skin, and Chanel.Makeup are just a few of the notable names that have already jumped in. The launch made news and I’m excited to see these new, memorable keyword domain names help professionals serve niche markets, appeal to customers with standout names, and revolutionize online beauty promotion.

One of my favorite things about domains has always been their ability to give a voice to individuals so they can reach a worldwide audience. Today, millions of hair and makeup artists around the world can start attracting new clients with their own professional .Beauty, .Hair, .Skin, or .Makeup website. Beauty industry influencers can establish themselves as authorities by sharing content on these domains. Small business owners can get their city or state domain to attract customers in their area.

At my last appointment with my barber I told him about .Hair and the opportunity it would give him to promote his own business. He absolutely loved the idea of being able to use his own .Hair domain to establish a personal brand online. I saw him realize the amazing potential a .Hair website would have for him not only to reach more clients, but to show the world he is a leader in his profession. That’s the kind of empowerment that makes me absolutely love what I do.

I would encourage you to ask your barber, hair stylist, beauty professional if they would like to buy their name .beauty .hair .skin or .makeup. Let me know what they say! My barber asked for specific city keyword names, their personal name, & their brand domain. Beauty professionals have always been early adopters and trend setters.

I expect that when the word is out there we will grab significant market share over time, especially at this extremely affordable price point. It will take time, though, as most of our audience has their reach and personal brands bound to social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, TikTok – etc. Their voices and their relevance are currently subject to the whims of an algorithm. They will come to realize they can solidify their platform and control their destiny by centralizing it under TheirName.Beauty or TheirBrand.Hair. We have our eyes focused far into the future, the patience to win them over, and the passion to show them that their permanence in this world matters to us. We aren’t here for the short term likes and viral hits – we want to see them all have continued success as they grow far beyond their wildest dreams with a website where the world can always find them.

A domain called .Quest

The fifth launch of 2021 is .Quest. At some point on my blog I plan on writing about the background on what led me to some of these acquisitions. But for now, I digress. .Quest is a really exciting, high intent, generic namespace that will likely become our #2 domain behind .xyz (.xyz will always be our #1).

.Quest is made for gurus, experts, and authorities from any field. .Quest is a truly generic domain, making it the perfect name for sharing expertise on any topic. It’s built for SEO as well, as search trends in the U.S. show the “quest” keyword draws consistently higher search interest over time, even greater than keywords like “guru.”

screenshot of Google Trends search showing search intent for quest outperforming search intent for guru

Individuals and brands who are authorities of their industry can now show their audience that they have the answer to their search. Or as we like to say — .Quest will help them “Be the Destination®.” They can attract clients using a .Quest domain that guides their audience to the end of their pursuit. Communities can gather around a shared journey with their .Quest. Internet users everywhere can use .Quest to showcase their progress on a domain that shows their expertise.

The legendary co-founder of Justin.tv aka Twitch Justin Kan already snagged Justin.Quest as the domain for his podcast. We’re excited to introduce .Quest to the many gurus and experts that will follow his lead, and to give the world more choice and freedom when looking for a domain name that shows their excellence.

23

diamond emojihands emoji
Having massive anxiety over the pandemic in February 2020 made March 2020 relatively easy as we started preparing and closing our office to go remote a solid month before everyone else. I knew it would be difficult, but I saw this as an eat or be eaten scenario. And I was hungry…let’s be honest, I was starving. We didn’t just double down in 2020, we went all in. We got the .Beauty, .Hair, .Skin, .Makeup, and .Quest TLDs. We bought out our partner and took full ownership of .Cars, .Car, and .Auto. I decided I would go broke before I stopped paying my employees. I’m proud that we’ve been lucky enough to keep our team working. I’m even prouder at how hard our team has worked to help XYZ not just survive, but thrive.

In 2020 we focused on the opportunity to bring more inventory to our platform, and we were able to close on Dominion’s portfolio of domains: .Homes, .Autos, .Motorcycles, .Boats, and .Yachts (aka HAMBY). Wait until you see our new marketing, pricing, distribution and all that’s coming for the real estate and transportation industries that they define. I’ll be blogging about these TLDs at a later date.

.Homes is another absolutely massive market opportunity that I could write a few pages on…and I know this because I cut my teeth as a real estate professional and investor. We’ve all heard the rule: location, location, location. There is no better location for your ideas to live than a .homes domain.

.Autos, .Motorcycles, .Boats, and .Yachts will of course provide the affordable pricing that I believe is so crucial for innovators to adopt unforgettable names and grow their brands. Online sales are a massive driver for the bottom lines of businesses in these industries. Now it’s time to give them the ideal launchpad to tune up an unforgettable online presence and launch their businesses into orbit. I really can’t wait to see communities like fishermen, bikers, yacht club members, and auto enthusiasts all gather around websites using these domains as well. Everyone who is passionate about these four different modes of transport can enjoy the same benefit — being able to build a standout online presence for an affordable price. The innovation that will come from startups and new adopters on these TLDs is going to be epic.

Our mission has remained clear and has guided our response to support our community of users during the pandemic as well. We launched an RGP waiver restore program that waived redemption fees and helped domain owners keep their names. We continued to help pave a path for the next generation of internet users by supporting 20 hackathon events in six different countries. This support helped internet users from our backyard in LA to rapidly rising internet markets like India, Vietnam, and Africa get their brand, products, and messages out to the world. With our #WebsiteWednesday blog posts, Gen.xyz/live page, XYZ Quarterlies, social media, and all other awareness efforts, we’ve celebrated 830 new websites built by small businesses and individuals in 2020 — our Jordan Year will be even stronger. We’re not just giving people a platform to launch their business into the stratosphere, we’re using our reach to support them along the way.

As more naming options, including .Beauty, .Hair, .Skin, .Makeup and .Quest, become available to internet users everywhere in 2021, at an affordable price point, I can promise that XYZ will continue to bring innovation, competition and choice to internet users all over the world.

.xyz emoji to the moon emoji

BOOM BABY!

D

Sources: [1] 360 Market Updates [2] Google Trends [3] Statista [4] IBISWorld [5] Statisa