has three physical
storefront locations in Las Vegas. Still,
parting with over half a million
dollars is a step that
anyone has to give some thought to. We connected with Joe to
find out more about this major acquisition
and why he had no qualms about
pulling the trigger on this deal. DNJournal:
Joe, you were already in the
legal alternative medications
business with BuyLegalMeds.com where
CBD oil is among your marquee
products. Interest in this category
has mushroomed alongside the
legalization of marijuana for
medicinal purposes.
Tell us about your business
background and how you arrived in
this field.
Joe
Vargas:
I was in the United
States Navy for 8 years
(1998-2006), spent 10 years in the
Las Vegas entertainment
and media industry (2005-2015) and
now 4 years in the CBD oil hemp industry
since starting in January 2015. I
will retire from the CBD industry
and travel. Here's a descriptive
article on me and my background
that came out in our local newspaper
and the Las Vegas Weekly
a few months ago.
DNJournal:
CBDOil.com is a huge upgrade in
terms of your online identification.
A lot of mainstream business people
are not aware of how important a
category defining domain can be to
their business. How did you come to
understand the value of a name like
CBDOil.com and why it would be worth
over $500,000 to your enterprise?
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Joe
Vargas:
I'm
pretty familiar with
how the internet works
and why domains cost what
they cost. When I
was contacted on social
media by the seller about
the domain CBDOil.com
being for sale, I knew that
if I could get it for under
a million dollars, I
would have a good deal on
my hands. Personally
for me, I judge a domain
based off the industry it's
referring to. The value of
the industry. The CBD oil
industry is exploding
right now and to have
the authoritative domain
for the entire industry
would be
powerful. Since CBD.com
is taken by a Christian Book
Distributor,
they wouldn't sell it
to me last year, so
this was the next big
domain for the industry with
equal authority. |
We
will still operate the brand BuyLegalMeds.com,
but CBDOil.com not
only has authority, but it has
a lot of trust to the
consumer when they visit a site like
that. I also know that when an
industry is valued more, a domain
for it is worth more. Take
CarInsurance.com for example. It was
sold for $49.7 million dollars. The
value of
the insurance industry is
$7 trillion dollars, so when you put
into perspective searching for
"car insurance" and
CarInsurance.com is first on the
first page on Google, there's
extreme value there. $49.7 million
is a good deal when you look at it
like that. So $500,240 for a $2
billion dollar industry that would
be worth 100's of billions more in a
few years and possibly
trillions in the future, I got an
amazing deal and I would of paid
more. Don't tell the seller that.
LOL!
(Left
to right): COO Raquel
Geraldo, Founder & CEO Joe
Vargas and Operations Manager Nahtaly
Vargas at a BuyLegalMeds.com
dispensary. DNJournal:
What can you tell us about how
the purchase came together. Did you
work with a broker or deal with the
seller on your own? Was the
deal structured with payments
over time or did you pay the full
price and assume immediate
ownership? Joe
Vargas:
My social media
manager told me someone contacted
our Twitter page for Buy Legal Meds and said their
friend was selling the domain. I asked them
to email me direct outside of social
media. The owner did. I did my due diligence and
contacted GoDaddy since the domain
was hosted there and asked them to
verify the owner of the account. The
owner gave me his account number on
GoDaddy and I had his name with
his drivers license, so I simply
asked my rep if the account number
was owned by the person that claimed
to have CBDOil.com. It was confirmed
and from there negotiation started.
I assumed immediate ownership from
Escrow.com less than 2 weeks
after we started negotiating. CBDOil.com
is now in our control, a full site
is being built now and will
launch soon. DNJournal:
Are yours plans to operate
CBDOil.com as a completely different
site from BuyLegalMeds.com or will
your original site re-brand? Joe
Vargas:
BuyLegalMeds.com
(Buy Legal Meds) is a brand that's
been around for 4 years. Millions of
people know about it around the
world as we ship worldwide. It's a
great brand that people love and our CBD
dispensaries are called Buy Legal
Meds. We won't be shutting
down that brand and will operate CBDOil.com separately
as a sister company. We manufacture
all our products we sell in-house in
our factory in Las Vegas. BuyLegalMeds.com
is a little aggressive as a
name and the customers that it
attracts are a lot of fun. I love running
BLM.
DNJournal:
Aside from owning the
exact name of an entire
rapidly growing industry,
what will differentiate your
site from the ever growing
ranks of competitors? Joe
Vargas:
CBDOil.com will
be a marketplace, a hub
for great content and a
place people can trust to
buy highest quality
all-natural medicine and
learn about how cannabinoids
can help their ailments. The
Amazon of CBD with a lot of
education. It's what I
wanted to do with BuyLegalMeds.com
4 years ago, but it never
worked out that way. I can't
say much more than that. I
don't want to give away any
trade secrets before we
launch the site. Let's just
say that CBDOil.com
will in fact be the authority website
for the entire CBD
Oil industry. |
The
Vargas family - Joe with
Joshuah and Nahtaly |
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DNJournal:
Great domains require a sizeable
investment. What kind of immediate
impact do you expect to see from
CBDOil.com when it is up and running
and how long do you think it will
take to recoup your investment? Joe
Vargas:
The internet is
a tricky place. Although
we now own CBDOil.com
and the term "CBD oil" is
searched half a million times a
month on Google and only growing, it
will take an excessive amount of
work to get where we want.
Unfortunately, SEO takes time, so
finding other ways to market our
site is needed until SEO kicks in
and Google ranks you. Without a
doubt and having faith in my teams
abilities, we will recoup the
money invested into buying the
domain within the first 90 days of launching the
site. The impact of authority of the
site will take a bit more time than
that. DNJournal:
Anything you would like to add
before we go? Joe
Vargas:
Helping people is
therapy for me and my team. It's the
main reason why I/we are
in the CBD oil industry, so if
people need help with CBD products
or have general questions about CBD
oil (hemp industry), please don't
hesitate to reach out to us at [email protected]. There's
a lot of gratification being able to
help people with their ailments that
not even their prescription meds can
do.
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