Stevan Lieberman is well known to the domain industry in his capacity as an intellectual property lawyer. What not many people know is he is also an investor and entrepreneur.

In this interview Stevan shares about some of his investments and the progress he is making with his latest business - Digital Candy. I hope you enjoy watching the video as much as both Stevan and I did sharing from one side of the world to another.

It’s that time of year, where the tree is trimmed and Christmas is in every shop window enticing us to buy, Buy, BUY! Despite the commercialisation of Christmas there is an underpinning of good-will and generosity that permeates the air. So what is generosity and why is it so important?

For a start, people often view generosity as something that involves money. This is only one of the facets of generosity and depending upon your circumstances it is often the easiest one to enact. There is no reason you can’t be generous with your time, your attention, or your love. Generosity is more of an attitude of life rather than doing something at a point in time.

For example, there is nothing worse than talking to someone that is constantly looking at their phone. They are being a miser with their attention as they constantly tell you that someone else is more important than you are. It’s also just plain rude.

If a person is to be generous then it must be an act of free will. This seems obvious but have you ever been to a restaurant with someone where they’ve waited for you to pick up the tab? They’ve essentially stolen the joy of being generous by manipulating the situation for you to pay…..not cool.

A generous person also needs to be wealthy in what they are being generous with. If you’re time poor then you’re unlikely to be generous with your time…..you just can’t afford it. You may need to ask yourself why you are a pauper in that area of your life and work on how you can bring some flexibility to your schedule that allows you to become time rich.

So many people claim to be time poor but after a few minutes of talking with them you quickly realise they are this way because they consume their time on themselves rather than being generous to others. For example, how much time do you spend watching television, youtube or play games on your phone? Could you cut out just one of these activities and suddenly be in a position to bless others with your time?

For me, there is no faster way to destroy an evening out then when someone pulls out a calculator app to work out how much they should pay. It gets even worse when they ask the waiter for a menu so they can get their numbers down to the cent. But isn’t this fair? What’s the problem with that?

The real enemy of being generous is people who live a life of being fair. Being fair sounds so good until you realise that it removes all generosity. You see, generosity isn’t about being fair, in fact, it’s the polar opposite. Being generous is going above and beyond fair just because you want to bless someone else.

True generosity also means there are no strings attached. I know some people who act like they are being generous but carry a mental ledger of whom owes what to whom. This isn’t about being generous at all…..it’s about balancing the scales so everything is fair…..it’s also a lot how politicians behave.

I knew a couple that would literally keep track of who spent what amount of money on themselves so they could balance everything up. The wife bought some new clothes so the husband could then spend money on some technical gadget. Rather than being happy for the other person’s purchases they had a desire to balance the ledger…..sadly, the relationship broke apart.

One of the sad things about Christmas is it can dissolve into a time of obligations. I must buy a present for so-and-so because that’s what’s expected. The levels of expectations rise up and is one of the contributing factors for why Christmas is not very “merry” for many people.

The fastest way to put a smile on your face is to decide to be generous with your giving…..this doesn’t necessarily mean more money. It could be you spend the time making something. I’ve kept every birthday, Christmas and Father’s Day card that my kids have ever made for me.…..they are more precious than anything Hallmark could have produced. Maybe it’s time you dusted off your artistic skills?

If you ever want to do a “generosity health check” then do something for someone else where there is no possible way you can get anything in return. Don’t be a miser, go way over the top. Buy the groceries of the person in front of you at the store, give your favourite coat to a homeless person, pay for the McDonald’s of the car behind you in the drive through, anonymously donate money to a worthy cause, help a stranger with a broken down car or spend an afternoon with a nephew or niece.

One of the most amazing things about being generous is when you do so you will actually get more from the act then the person you are being generous to. It’s like magic! The feelings of well-being and happiness that envelopes you are worth every penny, second or effort the deed required. It’s only a few weeks until Christmas, decide to bring joy into the lives of those around you by being generous and receive a great gift in return……love.

We can all be a littler more generous.....we just need to practice harder.

One of the biggest challenges many businesses face is deciding which opportunities they should focus on and which they should leave for another day. It’s so easy to become seduced by one opportunity after another, only to find that none of them are concluded and their value isn’t realised.

Over the years, I’ve watched a number of businesses go bankrupt by mismanaging opportunities and becoming confused over what they should be working on. The owners didn’t make the difficult decisions to shelve a great idea, not do some development or say no to a fantastic potential partnership.

If you find yourself surrounded by opportunities and wondering which one you should pursue then there are a number of questions that you may wish to ask yourself. By addressing these questions then you’re very likely to gain a clarity to your thinking that will help you make wiser decisions.

Why am I in business?

This may seem obvious but it really gets down to the bedrock of why you’re doing what you’re doing. Some people get into business because they want to make money, others for the lifestyle and yet other individuals just want to create something. There are innumerable reasons for starting a business and the great majority of them are very personal.

Let’s imagine you enjoy the lifestyle provided by your business, then selecting opportunities that will take up all of your time is probably not a good option. Everyone assumes that all businesses need to grow….this is not always true and asking this question will help you come to grips with what you really want.

What does the business do?

Working out what you are good at and where you add value for clients is critical to understanding where your focus should be. Believe or not, your business can’t do everything.

I’ve walked away from a lot of deals because they would be a distraction to our primary business of monetising domain name traffic. I’ve had untold numbers of people approach me about partnering with them to develop an awesome domain but in the end, I inevitably way no. Developing websites just aren’t our thing right now….they may be in the future but not now.

So many domain owners believe they are domain managers, traffic monetisers, stock item salespersons and are awesome at selling their premium domains. Their time is soaked up with a multitude of tasks and although they are busy they really aren’t focused on what they are good at. To be quite honest with you, each of those tasks require specialised skills and to expect yourself to do all of them well is nigh impossible.

Where’s your business going?

Sounds pretty obvious but thinking about where you would like to be in the future is an important consideration that will have a direct impact on the opportunities you pursue. If you plan on becoming a domain monetisation specialist then you really have to ask yourself why you’re brokering domains.

Having a clear picture of what your business will look like in the future is the only way I know that will allow me to build towards that future. By not having a vision for your business would be like building a house without a set of plans.

Of course, there is only one thing worse then a lot of opportunities…..and that’s no opportunities. If this is your case then you have a very different kind of problem to solve and my guess is you’ll need to address it very quickly or you’ll end up burning a lot of cash.

So this past couple of weeks I’ve been working like mad expanding one of our product lines. It fits in with the three questions but even still my business partner wisely insisted that we do a check against the third question. This has brought crystal clear clarity to the project that would have otherwise not been evident.

These questions have really helped me stay focused on what we do at ParkLogic and I hope they can help you in your own decision making. I look forward to catching up with you all at NamesCon in Vegas.

Have you ever worked so hard that you literally fall asleep at the keyboard? Well, that was me this past week. In the wee hours of the morning I awoke to the uncomfortable feeling of the “A” key pressed into my cheek. So what spurred me into this fanatical desire to work myself into a stupor?

It all began with an idea. Ideas are very dangerous things and normally should be avoided at all costs but in my case I made the mistake of letting my idea germinate. I couldn’t stop thinking about it so I took the next step in my journey into oblivion….I picked up a pen and sketched on a piece of paper how the idea could theoretically be built.

The problem with this stage is the idea was really beginning to take shape. This of course made my singular focus even worse as it became an all-consuming fixation of seeing it come into reality. In some-ways it reminded me of Victor Frankenstein prior to throwing the switch to seeing his creation come to life.

I’ve said this to the ParkLogic tech-team and I’ll write it here. There’s nothing more dangerous than a person (ie. me) with some rusty old tools, a plan, and a vision. So I dusted off my programming skills and got to the work of breathing some life into my idea.

Like any great undertaking everything hinges on the strength of the foundations…..but they are so boring to build. You spend ages mixing the programming cement, belting together functions and working out the overall architecture. The result is more of a Picasso looking house with all of the bits seemingly in the wrong spot.

For me I, I made the fatal mistake of showing off my strange edifice to Roselyn (my wife) so she could fully appreciate the nuances and clever little bits that I’d built. After being somewhat polite she asked a really dumb but however smart question, “And this does what?”

After being somewhat flummoxed with the response towards my brilliance I ushered her out of my study with the promise of a nice cup of tea. I then returned with renewed fervour as I moved the programming bedrooms out of the garage, attached them to the hallway and made sure the toilet flushed downwards rather than upwards. All really important details that I’d neglected to finalise.

This is when I entered that state of being that many programmers only know as “the zone”. This is a point where you have a singular and intense of focus that can only be described as astonishing. The previous chaos of bits and bytes suddenly seemed to gain a sense of order as I plied my herding skills to the code. I glanced at the clock and casually noticed it was 4am…..how time fly’s when you’re in the zone.

I dragged myself away from my desk, climbed into bed and was asleep in about 3 seconds to the comforting feeling of dancing HTML and PHP code in my head. A few hours later I was back working on my regular tasks and at the end of the day I resumed my vision. Things were really beginning to take shape and I had not just a home but a castle!

So it’s now the end of the week and I’m thoroughly exhausted…..but what a week’s it’s been! For those of you that have any programming experience you’ll fully appreciate the euphoric bliss I’m talking about. It’s a wonderful feeling seeing something come into being that wasn’t there before. It’s an act of creation, built from a vision and powered by passion.

I honestly wish that I could show to you what I built…..but that is for another day. Right now I really to reintroduce myself to Roselyn, and then get some sleep that doesn’t involve a keyboard.

Have a great weekend!

The formula outlined in the previous two articles on EPC looks a little scary but whether we like it or not it is THE formula upon which a huge amount of the domain investor community swings. Understanding how it can impact your business actually isn’t rocket science but requires a little intuition. Here is the EPC formula in its entirety.

The formula now incorporates the advertisement clicks and also the Monetisation company filter in the denominator. What it does clearly show is the closer you can get to an advertiser the higher the payouts.....no surprises there! The goal is to effectively eliminate many of the margins on the top line and potentially remove one of the multipliers in the denominator.

There are two problems with managing direct advertising relationships:

1.      There’s a large hidden downside cost associated with the relationship management.

2.      Most domain owners don’t have the scale to attract the interest of the serious advertisers.

The one great thing about domain parking is that it’s scalable without scaling the direct cost base associated with matching the advertisers. The question is whether there is enough free margin available to offset the costs.

The rise of zero-click solutions is an attempt at getting closer to the advertiser in a unique manner. For those of you that are unaware, zero-click is where domain traffic is routed directly through to an advertiser’s web page and does not require a click. Behind the scenes there is a real-time auction process to determine whether the zero-click advertiser will pay more than a parking solution for the traffic….if they do, then they get the traffic.

Many of the zero click companies have moved away from working directly with domain owners because the domain owners do not have enough traffic to warrant working with them. The cost of doing business is just too high…..therefore domain owners are faced with working with traffic aggregators.

What needs to be appreciated is that as soon as you add zero click to the mix then you are effectively introducing yet another EPC. Remember that EPC is a measurement across a period of time (typically 1 day) while zero-click is an offer at a point in time. In terms of the stock market, this is comparing an average price versus a spot price….the two don’t mix.

Let’s take a look at an example that will hopefully provide further insight into the challenges of zero-click. Remember the example of EPC we used in article two in this series? The EPC was made from six clicks each of $10, $10, $5, $5, $1 and $1. The final average EPC result for the day came to a value of $5.33. You don’t know the individual values that made up the $5.33 you ONLY know the $5.33.

Let’s imagine a zero-click solution offered $6 for the traffic? Since it’s more than $5.33 then it looks great! Wrong! Zero-click solutions are smart and only want the pristine traffic. They can often accept the traffic that you were previously getting paid $10 for and now pay you $6. Your average EPC for the day has now dropped to $4……which is lower than you received previously.

Correctly setting up a zero-click initially solution sounds trivial but it actually isn’t. There must be a dynamic swinging of the real-time auction process to ensure each piece of traffic receives its full value. This can get really complicated really quickly!

I hope this series of articles helps domain investors in their understanding of one of the very much taken for granted metrics that are bandied around. EPC isn’t as simple as can initially be thought about and yet coming to grips with its intricacies can pay significant dividends. If you have any questions then please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.