Bentonville, Arkansas
About
Chris Zuiker
Senior broker at MediaOptions. Brokering premium domain names since 2014, on both sides of the table — which is the whole reason I am useful on yours.
I spent seventeen years as a sales and marketing executive before I ever sold a domain name, managing accounts north of $100 million in annual revenue. That background is the reason this site talks about acquisition cost, brand authority, and scale rather than registrars and extensions. I learned to think about these things as business decisions first, because that is the only way the people approving them think about anything.
What pulled me into domains in 2014 was watching good companies pick names that quietly capped them. A hyphen here, a wrong extension there, a prefix bolted on because the real word was taken — and then years of paying for it in every campaign, every introduction, every conversion rate that ran a little below what it should have. Meanwhile the large corporations with real branding teams understood exactly what a category domain was worth and bought them without fuss.
So I built a process for the companies in between: how to identify the right asset, value it honestly, and acquire it without handing the owner your entire negotiating position on the first email. That process is the five steps on this site.
Most of my work is representing the owners of premium domains. I spend my days on the receiving end of acquisition inquiries — reading them, pricing against them, deciding which ones are serious. I know what a corporate email address does to an asking price, because I have watched it happen from the seat where the price gets set.
That is the entire argument for hiring me on the buying side. I am not guessing what the owner will accept. I have been that owner's broker several hundred times.
MediaOptions has been named Domain Broker of the Year eight consecutive years and has closed over $750 million in transactions. Names I have handled on the acquisition side include Wise.com, Firework.com, Galaxy.com, Loyal.com, Bend.com, Identity.com, Keystone.com, Transform.ai, Parachute.com, Engine.com, and Passage.com. Most of the rest are under terms that keep the buyer, the price, or both off the record.
I write and talk about this market more than most brokers do — two books, a podcast, and a steady stream of video and posts about what is actually happening to prices and why. Partly because the market is badly understood. Partly because a buyer who understands what they are acquiring makes better decisions than one who does not, and I would rather negotiate for the first kind.
I work out of Bentonville, Arkansas. If you are trying to acquire a domain someone else owns, a short conversation is the fastest way to find out whether it is realistic.
Written and recorded
If you want the thinking before the conversation.
Most of what I know about this market is public. If you would rather read for an hour before you call, start here.
Book
Domain Name Broker Secrets
How premium domain transactions actually get done — pricing, owner psychology, and the negotiation itself.
Book
.COM Strategies
Why the domain a company chooses sets a ceiling on brand authority, marketing efficiency, and how far it can scale.
Podcast
.COM Strategies
Short, regular episodes on domain sales and marketing strategy — what is moving in the market and why.
Video and posts
Ongoing commentary
Deal breakdowns, pricing commentary, and what current transactions say about where the market is heading.
How I work
Three things worth knowing before you call.
- I take one side. On your acquisition, my duty runs to you. I will not hold a position on the other side of the same asset.
- I am paid on success. No retainer, no hourly billing. If the acquisition does not close, you owe nothing — which means I have no reason to run a process on an asset that was never reachable.
- I will tell you to walk. Some domains should not be bought at the number the owner wants. Hearing that in week two is worth more than hearing it in month six.