Leland Hardy may dress like a pimp but underneath the flashy clothes and the Jay-Z attitude lies a brilliant man. He can also kick your butt. Leland attended Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, was a pro boxer and a Wall Street banker. In our world, what he’s most known for is owning NewYork.com. A name he bought on a hand register in 1994. Today’s article in the NY Daily News features Hardy and two other domain owners, Kevin Cahill, a firefighter, bought Statenisland.com for $30,000 seven years ago and Larry Fischer, a Brooklynite, spent five figures when he bought Queens.com
The article is written to showcase the value and money generated by geo domain names of New York but it really showed that the real value of the names are the people behind them. Leland Hardy is light years ahead of the other two when it comes to understanding monetization of his domain. It helps that he has a much better domain but no doubt in my mind he could do the same thing with the other two as well. Actually I could make more money that Fischer with Queens.com…..it’s parked and not very well. It’s obvious he just bought this to flip.
It’s a nice article and although doesn’t offer much new info, it does point out the three things you can do a great geo name. 1. Park it 2. develop it with little to no effort 3. Full on develop it. The other story within the article that is a good lesson for all….patience. All the guys are waiting for the right time to sell. They’ve all received offers that would make them very wealthy but they know the value of what they have and are willing to wait until they receive an offer they can’t refuse.