---
title: "Why Your Domain Is Your Credibility in the AI Era"
episode: 141
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Matt Overman"
guest_title: "Chief Revenue Officer, Identity Digital"
date_published: 2026-10-16
date_modified: 2026-10-21
duration: 00:47:27
word_count: 7754
topics: ["brand-positioning", "gtm-strategy", "ai-in-gtm", "demand-generation", "pricing-packaging"]
canonical_url: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/matt-overman-identity-digital-your-domain-is-your-credibility/
source: "LeanScale Knowledge Hub — https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# Why Your Domain Is Your Credibility in the AI Era — Full Transcript

> Episode 141 of The LeanScale Podcast, with Matt Overman.
> Published October 16, 2026 · 00:47:27 · 7754 words.
> Machine-transcribed and **not diarized** — speaker attribution is inferred, so verify
> attribution against the audio before quoting a specific person.
> Structured breakdown: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/matt-overman-identity-digital-your-domain-is-your-credibility/

## 00:00 — Cold open + intro: Matt Overman, CRO of Identity Digital

**[0:00]** Domains have really discontinued to go up and to the right in terms of their value

**[0:04]** to a business. And because of that, that's driven the value in the aftermarket.

**[0:09]** My guest today is Matt Overman, Chief Revenue Officer at Identity Digital, the company behind

**[0:15]** the world's largest portfolio of top-level domains with roughly 300 TLDs and supporting more than

**[0:22]** 28 million domains. One of the topics that we brought up that I think is really relevant

**[0:30]** to almost anyone is what you've called the trust recession with the noise and the volume of AI

**[0:40]** generated everything. What do you think is happening there and how does that impact the

**[0:45]** domain world? AI has proliferated all aspects of our life and you mentioned a bit in the intro,

**[0:52]** but it's becoming indistinguishable often. You can literally just say, copy this website,

**[0:57]** make it look exactly like that, same aesthetic everything, and just put like this content in it.

**[1:02]** What you're trying to do that they trust you and you're building programs that are honestly

**[1:08]** win-win programs for them, showing up in person really does one life. I've been seeing that trend

**[1:14]** quite a bit with CROs, CMOs that I'm interviewing. The old school is the new school, in-person,

**[1:21]** personal connections, relationships. I think there's been so much saturation. I don't think

**[1:27]** it's all about comments about what industry you're in and being consistent.

## 01:39 — What's changed: AI, new channels and agents buying domains

**[1:39]** Matt, you've been in domains for almost 15 years running auctions at name jets, premium sales to

**[1:46]** a portfolio of 300 TLDs. What does the job look like today that would have been unrecognizable

**[1:53]** to you five years ago? Yeah, a lot. Anthony, first, thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

**[2:02]** A lot is different and it's really changed dramatically in the last few years more than

**[2:07]** anything. As with many, I think, that are on your podcast and just in sales in general,

**[2:14]** AI has really transformed many aspects of our business. There's less busy work

**[2:22]** than ever. We have AI automating a lot of the things behind the scenes, interactions with CRM.

**[2:28]** Many companies are using that for prospecting. We have a lot more time to focus on the relationship

**[2:34]** side of it. That strategy and relationship side matters more than ever. It always has,

**[2:39]** but we're spending more and more time on that. That's been a big unlock, I would say.

**[2:45]** The distribution channel that we have and go to market through is very different. Years ago,

**[2:52]** it was only through traditional registrars and hosting companies. That's where you would go to

**[2:58]** buy domains, where users buy domains today. It takes all shapes and sizes, vibe coding platforms,

**[3:04]** cloud hosting. There's new platforms launching every day, SaaS platforms, where domains are

**[3:09]** natively embedded into them. The go-to-market channels that we use and what we would consider

**[3:16]** a channel partner are very, very different. Even who buys domains and how they navigate them.

**[3:23]** We have agents now starting to go and make choices through prompts, through cloud code or

**[3:30]** co-pilot. People are asking their agents to go navigate and recommend domain choices to them or

**[3:37]** go actually take the step and buy them. It's not just humans buying it. It could be agents

**[3:42]** doing it on their behalf. Those were all very unforeseen many, many years ago. Even why people

**[3:50]** buy domains, fundamentally a big chunk of that people buy from an investment standpoint. When

**[3:57]** I started 20 years ago, you would buy domains from a type in traffic keyword domains really mattered.

**[4:05]** Flights.com, things that people would type in and expect to find results for that particular name.

**[4:11]** Now it's all about brand and the type of domains that people buy. It's very, very different. It's

**[4:18]** brand-centric. It's less about the type in traffic or the SEO or now AEO capabilities of that and

## 04:26 — The trust recession

**[4:26]** more about brand. Brand matters more than ever. One of the topics that we brought up that I

**[4:35]** think is really relevant to almost anyone is what you've called the trust recession with the noise

**[4:45]** and the volume of AI generated everything. What do you think is happening there and how does that

**[4:51]** impact the domain world too? Yeah, I think AI has proliferated all aspects of our life. You

**[5:01]** mentioned it a bit in the intro, but it's becoming indistinguishable often what is AI generated versus

**[5:07]** what is human generated. I think we're going to see increasingly a movement towards people

**[5:15]** gravitating towards things that are brands or communication styles or even ads that are a

**[5:23]** little bit more authentic where they can actually understand and trust what the offer is. When

**[5:31]** everyone has access to the same tools and the same, you know, Claude's doing a lot of the writing for

**[5:37]** many companies, how do you distinguish between what is real or what is more authentic and then

**[5:44]** taking it a step further to our industry, domain names are one of those points that you can control

**[5:52]** where it is your brand. It is that sort of trust anchor where you establish a connection to your

**[5:59]** user. It's the call to action. Ultimately, when you are sending people to your website, sending

**[6:05]** people to your digital identity in email, that's something that you control and people take it very

**[6:12]** seriously how you protect that. You know, obviously there's the whole doubt, the negative security

**[6:18]** side of it and how bad links and phishing and different sort of bad actors use that lack of

**[6:28]** trust I think that people have or the inability to distinguish rather to fool you into clicking

**[6:35]** on links and from our standpoint, like having like a very clear brand and using that, using the

**[6:41]** domain name clearly in your advertising and your materials and being consistent is really key in

**[6:48]** terms of building that trust. There's all sorts of scams that are run where, you know, you can't see

**[6:53]** what you're clicking on and people get fooled. The toll road scams I think are a really common one

## 06:58 — You can vibe code a website. You can't fake a domain.

**[6:58]** that people are aware of over the last year. Yeah, and I think what it used to be, so I started

**[7:06]** LeanScale in 2021 and something that was very important was to get a website that was designed

**[7:12]** really well. If I'm showing up with a deck or a PDF or anything, like we had to make an investment

**[7:19]** to make sure that things looked and felt professional. Like this company was real.

**[7:24]** Now you can vibe code that in two seconds and you can make it look, you can literally just say,

**[7:30]** copy this website, make it look exactly like that, same aesthetic everything and just put like

**[7:34]** this content in it. So some of those barriers aren't there anymore, but you can't fake a domain,

**[7:40]** right? You can't. I mean, there's a lot of different choice, but everyone has those

**[7:47]** sort of same tools in terms of being able to do that. As you mentioned, I over a weekend, I'm not

**[7:54]** technical. I've been on the commercial side, operational side for a long time, never an engineer,

**[7:58]** never in product. I can vibe code a business over a weekend and you can take it to market in any

**[8:05]** number of ways, but a domain name, every domain name is unique and how you actually want to

**[8:12]** convey yourself is really attached to that name. It never ceases to amaze me how many people will

**[8:22]** launch initially on a third level domain or someone else's brand or link to a Facebook page,

**[8:29]** or even if they're building a website, you know, in the early days with Squarespace or Wix using

**[8:36]** their name dot Squarespace dot com or dot Wix dot com where you're actually not,

**[8:41]** you might have part of your brand there, but you're really building brand equity

**[8:45]** for that other platform and it's not the actual domain name that you control. It's not tied to

**[8:50]** your email. It might be that's the site and then you're sending from a totally different email,

**[8:54]** a Gmail, and there's no consistency. It doesn't build trust when you're talking to someone from

**[9:00]** a Gmail address and you can't actually tie back that that person is associated with this website.

**[9:05]** So the domain name is really the the connective point where you can have your website sent on it.

**[9:11]** It can be tied to your email when you're driving traffic from an advertisement. It lands on that

**[9:16]** site. It's the way that the users that show up there can trust that it is who we thought it was,

**[9:22]** said it was, whether you're a big company, a small company. Yeah, so it's really central to

## 09:28 — Is .com still Park Avenue? .ai, .team and trust signals

**[9:28]** sort of all aspects of that. I'm curious your perspective. What part matters? Is it,

**[9:34]** hey, the dot com is still like the park avenue of domains or is it more important to be

**[9:42]** consistent and just have a brand that lives in the same place? In terms of building trust with

**[9:50]** your market, are there certain things that signal more trust than others? Yeah, it's a great question.

**[9:56]** I mean, certainly dot com is still the most well known and if you go to most of the fortune 500

**[10:04]** companies, you're going to find that their primary site lives on a dot com. But most

**[10:10]** companies that are starting out small businesses, they don't have the luxury of being able to go

**[10:15]** get a one word dot com. Those have been taken for a long time and they cost often millions of dollars

**[10:20]** and some will raise money and eventually do that. But what has transformed over the last 2015 to

**[10:28]** 20 years is there's an incredible amount of different naming choices and you can get the

**[10:34]** one word name that perfectly describes your brand name with something meaningful to the right of the

**[10:40]** dot that conveys either what you do, lean scale dot team. I mean, that is the business that you guys

**[10:46]** are in in terms of helping to go and work with companies and be part of their team and extension

**[10:53]** of their team. It conveys sort of an extension, your business model as an extension of their team.

**[11:00]** Dot AI is another one that has become incredibly popular. It is a trust signal or very much a

**[11:09]** both building trust that we are a legit AI focused company and tells you clearly what

**[11:16]** type of company it is. That is a domain. It's actually a country code. We run the technology

**[11:22]** for it. It's for the country of Anguilla. It is really blown up over the last couple of years

**[11:30]** with the emergence of AI. But it's absolutely a trust signal for companies in that space.

**[11:36]** There's many companies that gravitate to that over a dot com. They want to signify we are an AI

**[11:42]** company. I don't think it's all about com. It's about what industry you're in and being consistent.

**[11:50]** Having a shorter domain, there's a lot of different types of domains. A domain that

**[11:55]** fits whether you're an individual or a business that fits your personality. There's a lot of

**[12:01]** creativity that comes, but it really comes back to that brand consistency. You mentioned a few

## 12:08 — Red flags: bit.ly billboards and the offline-to-online bridge

**[12:08]** earlier, and that's super helpful of hey, here's some things to do. You have some options. Are

**[12:13]** there any major red flags that might not be as obvious to people when they're thinking about

**[12:21]** the domain to choose or how they're leveraging their domain? In terms of red flags, I think it's

**[12:28]** more like when you have a domain, how you put it out in the wild, or when you choose not to.

**[12:37]** Certainly one of the things that we've seen, and I know that you've probably experienced this as

**[12:42]** well, many individuals, small businesses, events, brands have a hard time making that offline to

**[12:50]** online connection. I've received wedding invitations or seen out-of-home advertising where there's a

**[12:59]** bit.ly link, or there's a the not forward slash a bunch of stuff forward slash the wedding name,

**[13:07]** and it might be a hundred character URL, and it's on a piece of paper, and I'm expected to

**[13:15]** type that in and somehow get it right to get to the site. People don't always make the connection

**[13:21]** that a short, concise, memorable domain name is often your best gateway to take someone

**[13:28]** from offline to online. Imagine on a billboard, or I always drive by them in the Seattle area,

**[13:35]** I drive by the sign as I'm leaving the parking garage at SeaTac and it's the airport, and it's

**[13:40]** this bit.ly link is the call to action. If you have any questions or comments here,

**[13:44]** go to bit.ly forward slash a bunch of stuff. That's just a generic short link. I'm supposed

**[13:51]** to remember that as the place that I'm driving by here. It's the offline to online bridge. Certainly

**[13:58]** QR codes play a role in that, but that requires you to put your phone up and scan it, and as you

**[14:04]** actually scan the QR code, you can only see sort of the root domain, and if it's going to a Facebook

**[14:09]** page, you're only going to see facebook.com. That doesn't tell you where you're actually going to end

**[14:13]** up, so that doesn't build trust in terms of I want to click on this and go forward. If you're sitting

**[14:21]** and looking at a restaurant menu, maybe you can trust that they're putting the right one here

**[14:24]** because I'm about to go on, but if it's just out in the wild, how do you actually know where you're

**[14:29]** going to end up? So being really consistent and purposeful about how you present your brand and

**[14:34]** make it easy for users to see it, to know what they're clicking on, and to again use that sort

**[14:41]** of branding opportunity as someone's seen the domain name and clicking on it to re-establish,

**[14:47]** build consistency there. I think it's critical. That is absolutely hilarious that there is a

**[14:54]** billboard with a bitly link on it. Next time in Seattle, I'm going to be looking out for that

**[14:58]** because I can't believe that. If you pay attention to it, it happens far more often than you would

## 15:06 — Shipping on Netlify and Vercel subdomains: the AEO cost

**[15:06]** believe, far more often than not. One thing that I've been seeing quite a bit recently,

**[15:14]** I've fallen a little bit victim to this too, so everybody's powered with Claude now. It's

**[15:20]** pretty easy to build web pages, landing pages, blog posts, and anything. You can build things

**[15:26]** really, really quickly. One of the most popular ways to share them is to deploy it on Netlify

**[15:33]** or Vercel. You take the asset, deploy it there, and go share it with people. What I think

**[15:39]** people really miss is if you're doing that, you're really compromising quite a bit of your

**[15:47]** AEO and SEO when you're sending so many assets and materials out that way.

**[15:54]** Can you share the magnitude of how detrimental that could be?

**[16:00]** Essentially, in terms of going to market on just a third-party platform as opposed to putting it out.

**[16:08]** Yeah, if you're sending materials out, yeah, exactly.

**[16:12]** Yeah, I think you hit it right there just in terms of your ability to be found in search,

**[16:20]** whether it's AEO or traditional SEO, publishing anything that's not on your own domain name,

**[16:28]** you're not going to necessarily rank as well. It's harder to be discovered.

**[16:34]** From that trust standpoint, being able to put it on a domain name, "This is my business. This

**[16:39]** is where my content lives," and have that be one of the signals that the LLMs are looking for,

**[16:47]** all sorts of stuff. A trusted URL is a component of it. Obviously, the content matters as well.

**[16:55]** What we're seeing within that, companies, you mentioned a few, Netlify, Vercel,

**[17:01]** Replit, Lovable, those are a lot of the platforms that I talked about in the beginning that have

**[17:07]** sort of come closer to our industry. Those are distribution channels for us now. When they

**[17:13]** started a handful of years ago, they allowed through a few different steps that you could

**[17:17]** connect a domain to it. Currently, they are actual domain resellers. They make it very easy.

**[17:24]** Some of the easiest ways to buy a domain actually in our industry are now through two clicks. You

**[17:28]** can go to Vercel, rapid search, buy a domain, two clicks, attach it to your project and you're

**[17:34]** published. They recognized on their end that their customers want that and that they don't need to

**[17:40]** necessarily monetize domain names to a meaningful degree. It's sort of an adjacent product. That's

**[17:46]** not their core business is selling domains, but allowing their builders to publish their projects,

**[17:53]** their apps, their sites in a really easy and clean way on their own domains is just a value add. It's

**[17:59]** a point of friction to not allow that. They've just embedded natively embedded domain registration

**[18:07]** and all the bells and whistles with that into their platforms. Seeing that customers expect that now,

**[18:13]** they don't want to go out and just share a random link on a lovable project or share a file that

**[18:20]** they generate in Cloud Code, putting it up and actually having it out. That is really your first

**[18:27]** step of the go to market by publishing it on the web on a unique domain. This is not just something

**[18:33]** that I was coding over the weekend. I'm publishing it for the world to see. It is that first step in

## 18:38 — Domain economics: premium names worth more than ever

**[18:38]** terms of building credibility on the conversation we already had. Are you seeing the economics of

**[18:45]** domains changing a little bit? I'm guessing, I'm assuming because there's so much more volume,

**[18:52]** people are building more, snagging up domains more. Is it making them more expensive for the good ones

**[18:59]** or because there's more accessibility and more diversity? Is it easier to get domains? What are

**[19:05]** you seeing in the marketplace of domains? Yeah, it's a great question. I think for

**[19:11]** the more premium domains and whether that is in dot com and the one word dot coms or other

**[19:17]** extensions like AI we mentioned and actually within any TLD, I can give some examples where

**[19:22]** they're really semantically relevant. The better names are more valuable now than they've ever

**[19:28]** been. There's been times throughout the history of the industry, I think the history of the industry,

**[19:33]** since I've been involved, which is 15, 20 years now, where domains where the sentiment in the

**[19:39]** market or speculation was, you know, is something going to disrupt the value of domain names when

**[19:45]** apps were launched? Is this going to take people away? Are they not going to go to websites? Is

**[19:50]** it going to devalue? And domains have really discontinued to go up and to the right in terms

**[19:54]** of their value to a business. And because of that, that's driven the value in the aftermarket,

**[20:00]** the pricing in the aftermarket. You know, the best domains, regardless of the extension,

**[20:06]** are worth more today than they've ever they've ever been. So that makes it that makes it harder

**[20:13]** to go out and get the most premium domains, but there's also more choice than ever at the same

**[20:18]** time. There's hundreds of extensions. If you don't want to pay for a one word dot com or a one word

**[20:24]** dot AI or some of the more expensive ones, you can find a top level domain that has a little bit less

**[20:30]** demand that's relevant to your industry and still get a really, you know, clear keyword that then

**[20:38]** adds, you know, to the right of the dot, some specificity about the industry you're in and not

**[20:43]** necessarily pay an arm and a leg for that. So there's more choice right now. And actually,

## 20:49 — The next wave: .agent and the 2028 TLD round

**[20:49]** we're about to embark on sort of the next wave of naming within the Internet. There's a whole

**[20:55]** another wave of top level domains that are going to enter the market. The process is running right

**[21:00]** now and they'll enter the market late twenty seven twenty eight. So top level domains that don't

**[21:05]** exist today will exist in the next couple of years. Ones like agent is one that a lot of people have

**[21:12]** have talked about or some of the Web three tlds dot BTC terms that weren't quite as popular and

**[21:20]** didn't get created back in 2011 during the last round will come to market, you know, circa

**[21:27]** twenty twenty eight. And so there'll be even more availability for people, more more choice, you

**[21:32]** know, to be able to find the domain that aligns with your industry, with your market, the most

**[21:37]** valuable names in any of those given namespaces and will continue to go up in value, you know,

**[21:44]** owning your own sort of sovereign digital identity has never been more important.

**[21:49]** I'm not super familiar with how that process works. Could you walk me and the audience through

**[21:59]** how do those get decided on? So how did I maybe take it for granted? I didn't know when dot team

**[22:05]** became available or dot AI. But what's the process of those coming into the market, getting approved,

**[22:13]** being available? What does it look like? Well, dot AI just to hit on one of the categories, any two

**[22:21]** character top level domain is a country code top level domain. And so every two character one that

**[22:27]** you see out in the in the world is attached to a country. Dot AI is for Anguilla. TV is associated

**[22:36]** with Tuvalu. You have dot DE is for Germany. UK is for UK. Some of them are very geographic specific

**[22:44]** where they're used by registrants in that country. And some of them have been essentially rebranded

**[22:52]** either purposefully or organically to be a more generic term. dot CO, it's the Colombian

**[22:58]** extension, but it's used as some order.com. It's kind of a generic domain. Certainly people in

**[23:04]** Colombia buy and register and utilize dot CO names, but people around the world do as well. Same with

**[23:11]** that AI. And so those are all governed where there's they're just assigned to that particular

**[23:16]** country. And they're administered by that country. Anything that is three characters or more

**[23:21]** has been, you know, a few exceptions like dot gov and dot edu. And some of the more restricted one

**[23:28]** are generic top level domains. And they go back to the really to the mid 80s with com and net being

**[23:34]** the first two. And there's been some that have been released in the early 2000s. Dot travel was

**[23:40]** an earlier one. And then the first large round were the governing organization for numbers and

**[23:48]** names. An organization called ICANN released around were many more, hundreds more of open generic top

**[23:56]** level domains and brand top level domains were brought to market in around 2011, 2012. And that's

**[24:03]** when the likes of dot team and dot live and dot life dot app dot online dot XYZ. Many that you

**[24:11]** would see in the market today were all created back then this next round. So that was into that

**[24:18]** closed in 2012. And it's taken 14 years to reopen another round where where companies could go

**[24:26]** through all the steps to apply for new top level domains. So that process has been running for the

**[24:31]** last year. Application window closed in August of this year. And really in the next couple months,

**[24:37]** we're going to figure out who ended up applying for what and which ones had multiple companies

**[24:44]** that have thrown their applications in foreign applications are both financial applications and

**[24:51]** heavy technological tech requirements to be able to operate them. And so that's all going to play

**[24:56]** out over the next couple months. And we'll start seeing some of those domains launch in early 28,

**[25:02]** I think is the approximate timeline. So it's an exciting time in our industry.

**[25:09]** How do you buy them? Is it a lottery system? Like how do you go buy up the Apple dot agent,

**[25:14]** Nike dot agent? How does that process work of who gets to buy them? There will be a company

**[25:22]** that ends up getting awarded dot agent. And in all likelihood, that will be that will go to auction.

**[25:29]** So to actually run the namespace for dot agent and administer all the whole, you know, any

**[25:37]** something dot agent, there's a company that will operate that that's what our company runs 270 of

**[25:42]** those today will run more in the future, but there will be a number of companies that throw their

**[25:48]** hat in the ring and spent $227,000 to apply and qualified through through all the application

**[25:57]** process. And if there are multiple applicants, which for dot agent that's expected to be one

**[26:01]** with multiple applicants, it's been one of the ones that have been talked about quite a bit in

**[26:06]** our industry. If there are multiple applicants, then they will end up ultimately in an auction.

**[26:11]** And the highest bidder will pay to operate that namespace. And so whoever ends up winning that

**[26:19]** and administering it will then bring it to market at some point, 2028 or later, depending on how

**[26:24]** long that takes, and we'll release it where you and I and anyone else can go buy whatever name dot

**[26:32]** agent. Now you gave some examples like Apple dot agent Nike dot agent. There are all of these as

**[26:39]** they go to market, the hundreds that will get released will run through a variety of launch

**[26:45]** phases. One of those phases is called the sunrise period that's protected for trademark holders.

**[26:51]** So the likes of Nike and Apple and any any major brands that have trademarks have the ability to

**[26:56]** go claim their names in a period prior to the general availability. You know, the idea is that

**[27:03]** brands can protect their brand names, and it's not for for you and I to go grab their names and do

**[27:10]** nefarious things with them. You know, they we want the brands to ultimately own their names and to

**[27:15]** use them. Some of those companies will not just go out and buy names in a generic namespace like a dot

**[27:20]** agent, but they might apply for their own. In the last round, we had many companies apply for their

**[27:26]** own brand names. And if you think about that as sort of like that, that trust anchor, Amazon was

**[27:32]** one they they had to jump through a lot of hoops to get that Amazon and work with the people of the

**[27:39]** Amazon region in South America to sort of unlock the ability. But Amazon is one that they use

**[27:45]** heavily. They have that AWS as well. And we don't you and I don't see a lot of that that doesn't make

**[27:51]** it out into the to their sort of customer facing advertising or products, but they use it heavily

**[27:57]** in terms of like their own internal systems. And so from like a trust standpoint, a trusted link,

**[28:03]** you know, if there is a domain that you see that is on a dot AWS,

**[28:07]** you are certain that it's legitimate. And it's been administered by the team at Amazon. And it's

**[28:14]** largely for internal, although they did run a campaign, I think it was get on if I remember

**[28:19]** correctly get on dot AWS, and they blanketed the entire New York City subway system with sort of

**[28:26]** advertising wrappers down in the subways of its get on AWS. So you see them occasionally the brand

**[28:31]** TLDs that are used in the wild like that. That sounds like it'd be a lot more effective than

**[28:36]** a bitly link on your subway campaign. Yeah, it was more than five years ago. And I still I think I

**[28:44]** have the domain right get on AWS. But yeah, it was memorable and easier to type in and bitly.

**[28:50]** What was it? Yeah, well, it's a fascinating process. And I think it's something that

**[28:58]** you know, it dictates quite a bit of business owners, people going to market for the first time.

## 29:05 — leanscale.team, and why you should own your own address

**[29:05]** I definitely I can share my story, I knew I wanted to name the company lean scale.

**[29:12]** So then immediately then I go to look for domains. lean scale.com was taken, but nobody was doing

**[29:19]** anything with it. So the website was, there was nothing there was just a blank page. And I was

**[29:24]** like, Okay, let me look around at different ones. And then I dot team was recommended. I thought,

**[29:28]** Hey, that just like you mentioned, that's reflective of what we do how we do it.

**[29:33]** Unfortunately, two months after that, then the lean scale.com folks launched a website. And then

**[29:39]** it's been a very confusing thing ever since I've reached out to them directly to try to buy their

**[29:42]** domain and everything. Anyway, so it's like this impacts your ability to go to market so much. And

**[29:53]** when you make a choice, you're almost here stuck with it. But you're making a pretty big commitment.

**[30:00]** You are. And I think like, it's not uncommon, you're not the only business that has the same

**[30:05]** name as another, as another company. I mean, there's, there's really big notable examples,

**[30:11]** and how many how many brands are named united in some capacity, and there's only one united,

**[30:16]** united.com, you take different permutations. And, and I don't think it's as much that there's one

**[30:22]** right answer in terms of how you need to name, there's different extensions that resonate,

**[30:26]** but it's the it's the consistency and actually driving that call to action, ultimately back to

**[30:33]** your domain name and a place that you control. This is something we talk about.

**[30:37]** That's not really a, it's not just an identity digital driven message, but just for our industry,

**[30:45]** really, the power of actually owning your own space, where as long as you pay the registration fee,

**[30:51]** no one's ever going to take that domain away from you, you own the content that's on it,

**[30:57]** the permissions of how you want to allow how you want to use it for email, what you want to host on

**[31:02]** it can't be taken away. We've seen examples in recent times, whether it's X handles that have

**[31:10]** mysteriously been taken away, or platforms that shut down, if I'm going to date myself and go

**[31:18]** back over 10 years to vine major short form video creator platform closed almost overnight. And all

**[31:25]** of those major early days vine creators had to port their audience that they built up on that platform

**[31:31]** had to pivot to another one, if that's all you're doing is trying to attract customers at a third

**[31:37]** party platform. I'm not saying you don't use that that's where the demand is that's where the

**[31:42]** audience is you have to go be on the various platforms. But it always boggles my mind when

**[31:48]** those users aren't ultimately trying to drive a call to action back to a space, a website that

**[31:56]** they own a domain name, ultimately that they own, where it doesn't matter, you might change what

**[32:03]** you want to put on that you might want to just redirect it somewhere. But it's a it's a, it is

**[32:08]** that call to action that you will, again, as long as you pay your registration fee will forever own,

**[32:14]** and no one's going to take away from from you. And it might be your primary website, it might be

**[32:19]** your foundation site, it might be that it's an aggregator, right? Lincoln bio platforms have

**[32:25]** become a thing, not just because Instagram only allowed one link in the bio, but that notion of

**[32:30]** actually aggregating all of the things that you want to share with people in one place, your link

**[32:36]** tree, there's tons of the platforms now, many of which have custom domains integrated into it.

**[32:42]** So we run dot bio and dot social, there's others like dot link, but it's not uncommon for someone

**[32:47]** to have, you know, you might have Anthony dot bio, and that's your call that you have a link to your

**[32:52]** Twitter page to your to lean scale dot team there to the, you know, latest funny video that you

**[32:58]** created your all your podcast archives, you can put it all in one place. And you're sharing that

**[33:03]** out as opposed to find me on these 19 different platforms. And here's all the the icons and they

**[33:10]** come and go or you get one of them hacked, and you lose it. And so that it's just back to that

**[33:16]** consistency and sharing that one sort of that one link that can be the central point can be trusted.

**[33:24]** Well, I think there's not I think I'm certain there's a huge under appreciation for the system

**[33:31]** that's in place. And also just the governance of this, so you can have a place that you own,

## 33:38 — The Procter & Gamble of domains: a channel-only GTM

**[33:38]** it's consistent. I think a lot of businesses take it for granted. I I'd like to get into a little

**[33:47]** bit what the go to market looks like for ID, how you have hundreds and hundreds of partners,

**[33:56]** I'm assuming channel partners are a big part of the go to market motion. But how are you going to

**[34:01]** market? Are you waiting for these big events where they're launching new things? Is that a big part

**[34:06]** of the strategy? How does it look like to go to market Friday? It's it's a great question. And

**[34:13]** I would say it's unique. We're unique in our industry for now, notwithstanding all the new

**[34:19]** extensions I just mentioned that are going to come out were the by far the largest portfolio applicant

**[34:25]** in that we run hundreds of these. And so that presents a lot of really fun and interesting

**[34:33]** opportunities for how you go to market and a lot of challenges, too. We have essentially 270

**[34:39]** different products that we're trying to sell at a limited number of storefronts. And those storefronts

**[34:46]** are expanding. There's there's new distribution points. But we still have a lot of different

**[34:50]** products. We're kind of to use an analogy to consumer. We're sort of the proctor and gamble

**[34:57]** of domain names. We have we have hundreds, hundreds of products. And, you know, at Walmart or a big

**[35:02]** store, how do we figure out how to how to merchandise them and which ones to run co-marketing

**[35:08]** with? It's it's we're never short on creative things that we can do. My teams run all the all

**[35:15]** the partnerships. We are almost entirely a channel, a channel go to market play. We have over 500

**[35:22]** partners. Many of them are existing partners. So we have a whole channel team that's running

**[35:26]** programs with those big notable domain registrars like GoDaddy, Namecheap, Squarespace is a

**[35:34]** registrar now. And how can we merchandise our products at the point of sale there? And then

**[35:39]** a whole other team handling new partnerships and sort of the expanding channel and expanding

**[35:46]** landscape for domain distribution, the vercells of the world that we talked about. Our channel is

**[35:52]** getting quite broad now where you might go to find some form of web presence. More often than not,

**[36:00]** you're going to have a domain name offering at the very least a simple way to connect a domain.

**[36:05]** But now more often than not, the ability to buy and easily configure one too. So all of the website

**[36:10]** builders, vibe coding platforms hosting increasingly even registration company and corporation companies,

**[36:18]** you know, a legal zoom, a Zen business, you're setting up an LLC, you can also set up a website

**[36:23]** and buy a domain. So what distribution looks like today is very, very different than what it did

**[36:30]** before. I would say just to kind of put a pin in your question, we lead with certain TLDs that have

**[36:36]** maybe a little bit more inherent demand. And so we have programs and promotional programs that

**[36:44]** incentivize the sale of some of those. But ultimately, what we're trying to do at any

**[36:50]** of our partners with so many extensions is to show the right name at the right time.

**[36:56]** I'm not expecting that GoDaddy is going to plaster on their homepage.taxi or.plumbing or even.team

**[37:05]** in place of .com. But if someone is coming and they're looking for something that is relevant

**[37:11]** to one of those searches, and they're looking for something and they type in AI. AI should be

**[37:16]** shown or other tech related TLDs or they're searching for something food related. There

**[37:23]** are TLDs, I mean, we run .restaurant, other companies have .bar, you know, there's food and

**[37:28]** beverage related ones, .menu. And so how you serve the name at the right time based on a platform,

**[37:37]** you know, their domain search or their product search and how you bundle it with the other

**[37:43]** products. I mean, we sell through many partners now where the core offering is not a domain name.

**[37:49]** Someone is there because they're building an app or they're buying a website and they're adding a

**[37:53]** domain, not as the first step, but later on in the process. And so if someone has just built a

**[38:00]** yoga website, you better believe we want .yoga or .studio or something akin to that to be one of the

**[38:09]** offerings. You know, our incentives are aligned with our partners there. They want to find a

**[38:14]** relevant name that's very associated with the product that their customer has just self-selected.

**[38:21]** And if they can find a really good name that matches their studio name .studio,

**[38:26]** they're ultimately going to get a stickier overall offering and a higher retention rate. And

**[38:31]** that's really the name of the game for us. We're trying to find ways that not just we can sell a

**[38:36]** bunch of domains, but we can sell high value ones that are going to renew, that are going to retain.

**[38:41]** Our model is a recurring revenue model at a micro scale, you know, 10 and 20 and $30 domain

**[38:49]** transactions at hundreds of thousands of times, millions of times. That's how it works.

## 38:57 — AI in the pricing engine, and why relationships matter more

**[38:57]** Has AI played a big role in helping that matching process recommendation engine?

**[39:03]** Are there other areas you're leveraging AI as well, both on product and go to market?

**[39:08]** Absolutely. And not just us, but our partners as well. I mean, the way that products are served up

**[39:16]** and those search results are heavily influenced by AI recommendations now. So how you would go to

**[39:23]** any of the partners I've just mentioned and search for a product or a name, it's heavily AI

**[39:27]** assisted now. Sometimes you can choose a legacy search or an AI driven one, but it's always

**[39:34]** working behind the scenes to some degree. How we price names, I mean, our whole pricing engine,

**[39:39]** we have 270 extensions, like I mentioned, with many price points that we've tested in terms

**[39:46]** of first year promotional pricing across each of these, across 500 or more partners, you get down

**[39:52]** to, that's many unique cohorts. And so we're heavily leveraging machine learning and AI to

**[40:02]** analyze all the data, ultimately trying to figure out the ones that are the most price elastic and

**[40:06]** what the perfect entry point is to maximize the lifetime value. So all of our pricing engines,

**[40:15]** in terms of go to market and how we design programs and content and logo, I mean,

**[40:20]** AI certainly plays a major role. And on the sales side, I mean, I started, I think our conversation

**[40:27]** a while ago, we've automated a lot behind the scenes and we do from an SDR standpoint as well,

**[40:34]** but increasingly are really leaning into the human side of it. I mean, from a partner standpoint,

**[40:42]** many of these partners are ones that we've done business with for a really long time. They're not

**[40:47]** new partners. The relationships matter now more than ever. And if we and every other business in

**[40:55]** our industries using AI heavily behind the scenes or more of the content is kind of going AI, like

**[41:01]** who you are and how you show up and the trust side, not just from the domain names, but on

**[41:06]** the relationships that we've built over time matter more than ever. And so we really place an

**[41:12]** emphasis on that with all of our account managers showing up in person, you know, there was a world

**[41:20]** when COVID hit where some of us for like our whole industry is booming. People are sitting at home

**[41:25]** building websites, buying domains. Are we ever going to go back to the office? Will I ever see

**[41:28]** you at an event again? I might just live in my basement and sell more domains than ever for the

**[41:33]** rest. And that is, that has come full circle back to, we spend more time and money going to events,

**[41:41]** whether it's new partner events or our industry events to go meet our partners face to face.

**[41:45]** It's more critical than ever in this, you know, AI slop is a common term, but it's just in that

**[41:52]** trust building. We have to make sure those relationships, they know who we are and that

**[41:57]** we present ourselves, um, you know, authentic authenticity, sort of a, of an overused term,

**[42:04]** but I mean, it really, it really matters that your partners know who you are and what you're

**[42:09]** trying to do, that they, they trust you and you're building programs that are, that are honestly win,

## 42:14 — Two humans on either side: why in-person is back

**[42:14]** win programs for them showing up in person really goes a long ways. I've been seeing that trend

**[42:21]** quite a bit with CROs, CMOs that I'm interviewing where the old school is the new school in person,

**[42:29]** personal connections, relationships. I think there's been so much saturation in a lot of the

**[42:35]** digital channels that people really don't know how to sift through the noise and pick up the signals

**[42:42]** that are really relevant. Everybody's inbox in LinkedIn has been completely obliterated with

**[42:48]** automated messaging. So it's very, very difficult to stand out there. And one of the biggest

**[42:54]** competitive advantages is getting in person again. And I think the, the word you're using trust

**[43:02]** in order for that equation to balance out, it does have to be two humans on either side.

**[43:07]** So I can't just be one human on one side and then trust the AI to do something. I need to know

**[43:14]** somebody's on the hook for making this a success and making this work. It can't be a nameless

**[43:21]** entity for me to have trust. So I think when it comes to the function of sales, the function of

**[43:27]** BD partnership development, it's not even possible if you don't have humans on the other side.

**[43:35]** I agree. I mean, when, when was the last time, I mean, I, I'll, I'll respond occasionally or

**[43:43]** look at the email, the amount of emails we get and LinkedIn messages. Certainly always curious

**[43:48]** how people are selling and what products could help us do a better job on our end. But you're

**[43:54]** not, I assume when was last time you intentionally answered a phone number that you didn't recognize

**[44:02]** or, or certainly one that's labeled spam call. I mean, that just how you, how you go to market is

**[44:10]** very different. We're not cold calling. There was some of that years ago, but that doesn't happen.

**[44:17]** At least, at least for us anymore, you know, we're, we have to be very thoughtful about how we come

**[44:22]** across in a trustworthy way in terms of online communication. And if we can meet people at events,

**[44:28]** even new partners, that is by far a more impactful way. I think you had someone on recently that

**[44:36]** talked about the power of events now. And I agree completely. Like we're going to spend more money

**[44:40]** in 27 on new partner events than sort of emerging industry events than we ever have.

**[44:48]** I think it's the channel that's producing the most. And then everything else is for them to go

**[44:54]** learn more about your brand after they've met you. So any, any thing that you have as a digital

**[45:00]** presence is really for them to kind of go down the rabbit hole in your brand and learn more.

**[45:05]** And I just think that's, that's going to be one of the few channels that continues to have a

**[45:12]** consistent return. You may get a few hacks here and there, but I mean, to your point,

**[45:19]** I have an EA that sifts through all my emails, only tags the important ones.

**[45:25]** She's not tagging a single one that is a random automated outreach and she controls my LinkedIn

**[45:31]** inbox as well. So even those are sifted through and tagged to where I never even see them. And

**[45:38]** then on my phone, I have them go to auto voicemail if I don't have the number saved in my phone.

**[45:42]** So only like people I know can really get through. Otherwise, I mean, it's not even manageable to

## 45:52 — Wrap

**[45:52]** get through your day. Yep. Matt, I really appreciate everything you shared on the podcast. I think it's

**[46:01]** really, really eyeopening to understand how important your domain is. And there's all of

**[46:07]** these new ways that people are creating assets, materials, artifacts that are really pointing

**[46:13]** their market somewhere that isn't your domain. And it really is one of the last consistent

**[46:19]** ways to build trust in the market. And I think as you mentioned, having that consistency where they

**[46:26]** can see your brand, they can see your name, and then pointing people there is going to be really,

**[46:29]** really important. And I also appreciate your perspective on how to build trust in the market

**[46:34]** right now, because there really is, as you put it, a trust recession that's happening with the

**[46:41]** expansion of AI content, AI driven automation, and anything you can do to help build trust and

**[46:48]** credibility is going to go a really, really long way. So Matt, I really appreciate you being on

**[46:53]** the show. And I can't wait to see what you all do next. And I can't wait to maybe apply for my dot

**[47:00]** agent domain in the future. It's an exciting time in our space. So certainly happy to follow up and

**[47:07]** point you to some of the info as that comes out as the future becomes a little bit more clear,

**[47:13]** and we figure out who's running what. I'll send over some of that info. Amazing. Thank you.

**[47:21]** All right. Thanks, Anthony.