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About

My name is Morgan Linton (as you might have guessed) and I currently live in Los Angeles California with my fiance Daina and our wonderful cat Samsie.

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I am originally from Northern California (Berkeley) however just moved-back to California after living on the East Coast for nine years.

During High School I started my own web design company designing web sites for high-end real estate companies. Since I was just a young lad then I worked with a partner who was older and had a BMW and some nice suits – he was our deal-maker, I was our developer. This was an amazing experience and we built the websites for some of the largest real estate companies in California. I even had my own technology for a little while that I called “GIF TV” – this was the first-ever animated GIF used to allow people to virtually walk-through a home.

I graduated High School in 1999 and went to Carnegie Mellon University where I received a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering with a minor in Computer Science. Being the geek that I am I decided to stay longer and graduated with my Masters in Computer Engineering in 2004.

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During University I was lucky enough to get an internship with IBM where I worked for two summers as a software developer. IBM was a great place to work and I made some incredible friends while I was there. During the school year I was IBM’s student ambassador and worked in recruiting helping IBM find great intern candidates at Carnegie Mellon. It was exciting to have the opportunity to work in both software development and HR for a company like IBM.

spacer After finishing grad school in engineering I came to a shocking conclusion – I didn’t want to be an Engineer! This is a great way to completely terrify your parents after you’ve just spend the last five years at University! So why didn’t I want to be an engineer? While I loved the problem-solving that came-with engineering I missed the interaction with people. For those who know me you know that I’m a big people-person and I love working with people – sitting in an office writing code all-day just wasn’t for me.

So I went to intern for Dreamworks in Los Angeles. I worked in the story department reading screenplays and coming-up with new movie ideas (none were accepted so I have no claim to fame there!). I’m fairly certain I was the only person to ever to intern at Dreamworks after finishing grad school in Engineering. Much to my surprise I was well-accepted there and had the opportunity to work with some amazing people. The pressure is high in the film industry but it is an exciting place to work!

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About two months into my internship at Dreamworks my cousin called me from a house they were renting in Santa Barbara – he told me I had to come to SB to meet the owner of the house they were renting. All he said is that the guy was working for some cool new music company and that I should meet him. I drove to SB and met a very nice, young successful guy who worked for a company called Sonos. The company was just starting-out but the idea sounded incredible – wireless music throughout the home.

Before I knew it I was interviewing for a position at the company – a job in the “Channel Sales” department. With an engineering background I had no idea what this meant but I was so inspired by what the company was doing I didn’t care – I wanted to get involved.

Well, I did get involved and that was over five years ago! I moved to Boston to work for Sonos in their Cambridge office helping to train and setup our first dealers in the U.S. A couple of years later I was promoted to Channel Manager of our International Sales in Asia, Australia, and Latin America. Before I knew it I was on a flight to Asia setting-up our business in the far east. It was a great adventure and very satisfying to help bring a product that I love to other countries. This was a big learning experience for me but I found that my engineering-background helped a lot as I was used to structuring large amounts of information into digestible chunks – which is what I had to do here in structuring our business deals. My strong technology background also helped me explain our technology to anyone regardless of how tech-savvy, or non-tech-savvy their were.

In Cambridge I met the woman of my dreams – Daina – who came from Canada to do a summer program at MIT. It was actually after I came-back from a trip to Hong Kong that she appeared in my house. One of my roommates (an MIT alum) had moved back to Korea and we were looking for someone to rent his room. Daina rented it for just a week and if my trip had been one week later we would have never met!

We shared many an adventure together and started dating and moved-in together in Boston about a year later. After spending a year living in Back Bay (on Marlborough St. for those of you who know Boston) Daina and I moved to Los Angeles so she could start her Ph.D. at UCLA.

In September 2011 I celebrated my seven-year anniversary with Sonos and I can honestly say I enjoy every minute of it. It is important to do something you love and I feel very fortunate to work for such an amazing company and have a job that I truly enjoy. I’m a fanatical music-lover so nothing could be better for me than helping people enjoy music all over the world!

In July of 2007 I was looking to buy some investment property but the real estate market had started to decline so I started Linton Investments as the holding company for my domain portfolio. Then in October of 2007 I started a blog about Domain Flipping which evolved into a blog about Domain Investing called Domainvestors.tv which has now become my blog – MorganLinton.com!

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My blog has built quite a following over the past five years and I continue to write and share my domain name investment ideas with fellow Domainers (a term used to describe Domain Name Investors). Along with my blog I am also the author of the Domain Investing Handbook which details many of the investment strategies I’ve used to make money with domain names. I’m a natural teacher and love sharing my ideas and interests with others. The book and the blog have been a great way to share some of my successful strategies in the Domaining world with others.

I am addicted to passive income and have built-up a very steady stream of income by turning my domain names into brands. Linton Investments currently runs over 200 active brands in just about every niche you could think of from Credit Monitoring to Kayaking. I have made it no secret that I make over $5,000/month from my domain investments and my business is growing more every single year. What started as a hobby has turned-into a real business and meaningful income stream, it has changed my life but hasn’t inspired me to quit my day job, I love what I do too much!

I’m a big proponent of encouraging people to pursue Domain Investing as an investment strategy but don’t think you need to quit something that you love to do it. If you hate your job, that’s a whole different story. I don’t think I’d ever truly enjoy a job that involves sitting in front of a computer all day, there’s a travel bug inside me that isn’t going away and after trotting the globe for seven years I can’t imagine anything better.

Daina and I love to go to the beach, hike, watch movies, and explore the LA-area. We brought our beloved cat Samsie with us from Boston who has definitely made the move to California very gracefully – he’s a California kitty now! We both have very busy lives but always make time for each other every day and every weekend. In late 2011 Daina and I started a new blog together called Startup Nook covering the growing startup scene in Los Angeles. In 2012 we will be launching our very first software product – Appraiso, a tool that will make it easy to evaluate the price of a website.

The one thing I can say about me is – I am a very passionate person who works hard and loves to teach people the things that I learn. I feel that life is one incredible learning experience and find myself learning new things every single day. The motto I live by is simple – “Got a job big or small, do it right or not at all.”

That’s it folks – now you know me! Subscribe to my RSS feed or come-back often to hear of my latest adventures! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy my blog!

  • dnwired.com Ze

    First off I want to congratulate you on all your efforts and job well done educating and promoting the domain industry. I’ve been looking for your contact form on your new site to email you directly ..but can’t seem to find it.. do you have one?
    How do I get a hold of you?…

  • Morgan

    Thanks @Ze – I am very passionate about the industry and love sharing what I learn with others. Sorry – was actually going to be adding the contact form today but you can always email me at morgan(at)lintoninvestments.com

    Thanks again for the comment and I look forward to hearing from you!

  • Giuseppe

    Hi Morgan, I’m a Computer Engineering student from Italy and I discovered the great world of domaining about 9 months ago. Since then, I started reading, reading and reading forums and blogs and I’m resolute: I want to explore the many chances this industry has to offer. Let’s keep in touch on Facebook. (Sorry for any mistakes I may have made in English spacer

    Have a nice w/e

  • Morgan

    Thansk @Giuseppe! Welcome to the industry – looking forward to connecting-up with you!

  • www.COinternet.co Lori Anne Wardi

    Morgan, you’ve got a world-class attitude! I absolutely love your enthusiasm for what you are doing — and think you are an inspiration to many! Keep up the incredible work! – Lori Anne

  • FastWebsiteBuilder.com Bob Bernstein

    Hi Morgan,
    Great Blog! Well written and informative without the clutter and sales pitch…Thanks!
    Do you have a Facebook page and /or Twitter acct to follow?
    Hope to get up the coast from San Diego for the next Southern California Domainer meet up!
    ~Bob

  • Morgan

    Thank you @Bob – I appreciate the positive comment! Facebook is easy you can just search for “Morgan Linton” and for Twitter you can follow Domainvestors

    We would love to have you at our next Meet Up which is this Saturday in Laguna Beach! You can find-out more info at www.meetup.com/domaining

  • its.asia/forum Dot Asian Domain Forum

    Hi linton, I have a project about selling music albums online with musics.tv. Are you interested? I figured you like cool things, maybe we can work together if you are interested in selling albums. Right now I am busy with another project, so hoping someone can take the boat.

    If so contact me.

    Thanks.

  • m.a.

    Your blog is on my A list.

    a. High Value Information.
    b. Clear Concise Writing.
    c. Layout… Navigation… Easy-Peasey.

    Your blog is on my A list!

    and thanks for all the fish.

  • Morgan

    Thanks @M.A. – I appreciate the kind words!

  • www.loganflatt.com Logan Flatt, CFA

    Morgan –

    Awesome bio and personal history!

    But, man, you gotta stop watching CNBC (blech!) if you’re serious about investing in companies. The true investing insights to be gleaned are in the cold, hard analysis of companies’ financial results (look into Discounted Cash Flow models based on Free Cash Flow to Equity, which you’ll have to calculate) vis-a-vis the market price for their securities, not on the business entertainment channels (after all, entertainment is all they are about — they entertain you with “news” about the markets so you’ll sit around watching the commercial spots on which they make their money). Turn off the TV and read anything and everything Warren Buffett has ever written (not what has been written about him) and learn how to value companies of all shapes and sizes by reading books by Aswath Damodaran (his blog: aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/), who is super smart and a great teacher of all things finance. Going through the CFA Program is a great educational experience as well, especially if you are a masochist (I guess like me) and you are really serious about investing and managing a portfolio of other people’s money some day.

    My $0.02, the purchasing power of which could start to fall rapidly if the U.S. government doesn’t get its financial house in order within the next few years!

    Logan.

  • www.dwaynesealy.com dwayne sealy

    YOU ARE THE MAN!!!! KEEP IT UP.

  • Morgan

    Thanks @Dwayne!

  • www.menreviews.com J.P.

    Hi Morgan. I started buying domains for fun two years ago. Today I own about 60, which are just parked on a site. After watching several of your youtube video’s this past weekend, I’m excited to finally do something more with my collection. Thank you, very much, for giving of your time and knowledge. Something I read mentioned you broker sales. How should I contact you to learn more about your services? All of my websites are .com Cheers! Jen

  • andreherca@blogspot.com Andres

    Thanks for share it! I identified a lot with your life experience really congratulate you meet those challenges and be a “madman”who lives to the fullest, working harder than normal and being not only an engineer, but live each day learning and teaching. I’m sure your life experiences are also summarized in days without sleep, major problems that have generated great lessons, if only I read your blog, I parachute as I know you. Thanks for that! Exitos!!!
    @andreherca

  • Pingback: The Difference Between Giving Advice and Sharing Experiences | Domain Industry News

  • Brad

    Hi Morgan

    Enjoyed your video with Michael at domain Sherpa, and also I have seen your videos on you tube. I appreciate your information.

    I have a relatively small portfolio of several hundred domain names.

    All are parked, but I am having a number of 5 page web sites being built. Each will have content; photos; basic SEO and a few quality back links, to get the sites rolling.

    The price I feel is fair of a few hundred dollars to create each, however, the goal is to have all the names developed. This is the way to go in achieving any potential revenue, in time.

    That said, although there would be a quantity discount for “X” number of web sites being built at a time, this will still take me awhile , to have say 50 names developed, per year, due to my slim budget.

    At this pace, even with potential revenues from developed web sites (being developed now), it could easily surpass, 10 years, to develop all the names. I am not feeling the love for that scenario!

    — That all said, for lower cost purposes and to achieve a much higher “build out” of the domain names I have, would it be realistic to develop, and rely on the growth of 1 page web sites that will have similar basic SEO, content; photos and quality back links applied, much like with what I am doing now with the larger 5 page web sites?

    I feel that although the 1 page web sites may not achieve a higher page ranking, as quickly, as the multi page web site, they are at least created (alive, and not dead — like a Parked Page), and no matter how slowly they are growing, a modest revenue could be realized.

    This is somewhat analogous to Frank Schilling’s parked 1 pagers, but unlike those 1 pagers — these 1 page web sites will have a full page of content, some photos, basic SEO, and a few quality back links — a distinct difference.

    — Do you think this slim budget approach in creating a lot more web sites, 1 pagers as described above — in a much shorter period of time, is the best way, as far as overall effectiveness, in growth and potential revenues are concerned?

    I look forward to your response, if time allows. Thank you very much for reading my email.

    Brad

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