Marchex Model

The Marchex Model came about when the company Marchex Inc, paid $164 million for 100,000 high-quality hand selected domains from Yun Ye. It was reported at the time that the names were generating $19 million in annual revenue. This makes the purchase price approximately 8.6 times the revenue.

The Marchex investment strategy was to:

a) obtain a number of high quality domains in the $1k to $5k range

b) leverage the type it in traffic

While the four figure purchase price eliminates the casual domainer, Marchex face higher risks. However its possible for them to receive significantly higher returns.

Yun Ye

Yun Ye is the founder of noname.com and Ultimate Search. At only 32 years old, Yun Ye sold his entire portfolio to Marchex for over $160 million. This investment strategy later became known as the Marchex Model. With a Masters degree in computer programming Yun Ye knew the smart thing to do was to scoop up domain names in the tens of thousands when owners would allow them to expire.

The first business Yun Ye created was noname.com directly out of graduate school. He lived in the San Francisco area. Working closely with his wife Jin Lu, the two worked their domain venture together. Years later after Yun Ye purchased tens of thousands of domain names he created the business Ultimate Search for people looking for domain names. Yun’s entire portfolio was sold for millions years ago.

Yun Ye has lived in San Francisco, Vancouver, British Columbia, Hong Kong, and the Virgin Islands. Today, his whereabouts are unknown.