A Chinese company brand based on an English phrase.

I was reading Chinese venture capital news recently when a company caught my attention. I was attracted to the name because it is written in English and, more importantly, the name is unusual.

Wholly Moly is the name. Does it sound familiar? Yes, it is a smart play on “Holy Moly,” which is a very old expression meaning exclamation of surprise.

The food startup was founded in 2014 to offer premium quality health foods for the young and affluent Chinese consumers. “Wholly” suggests completely original, raw grains with no artificial additives or synthetic colorings added, thus giving you a very healthy diet. The startup recently raised $10 million Series A funding.

Wholly Moly’s corporate domain is the brand-matching WhollyMoly.com. The domain was registered in 2015, so the company likely invested a mere $10 to acquire this great digital address on which a global store can be developed. The company also owns WhollyMoly.cn, which displays the same contents.

If you visit the WhollyMoly.com site, you’ll see its English brand prominently displayed, even though I doubt that many Chinese consumers understand the term. Its Chinese brand is Hao Li (好哩=good!) but apparently not emphasized. This shows that English brands are acceptable in China.

Cases like Wholly Moly are common. I frequently come across well-funded startups using English-based brands and therefore, English-based domains. They are not afraid to use English words. Some, like Wholly Moly, even go one step further and play with common terms such as “Holy Moly”.

My own experience echoes such a trend. Last year I sold the domain Tcozy(.)com to a Chinese company in the heating/cooling device business. Tcozy is a play on the term “tea cozy”. So, corporate China is not afraid to use derivatives of English words.

English-based domains work in China, and your domains may already have potential end users in this massive market. To find out, you can try the tips described in the articles How to sell domains to China, Three steps to Chinese end user research, and A quick tip for Chinese end user research.

Wise words about domain investing.

A new investor asked me to comment on a .cn domain he registered recently. He likes the domain because it is a “one-word” name. He had not done any research before making the acquisition decision.

Since I am the worst domain appraiser in the world, I can’t comment on the value of his domain. However, as someone who checks more than 10,000 domains everyday in order to pick one or two or three domains, I have developed some basic investing rules that I can share with you.

The first rule is to invest in what you know. For example, since I don’t understand German, I won’t invest in German names or the .de extension. In the case of the new investor, he is American with no Japanese knowledge, but the name of the .cn domain he acquired is actually a Japanese term. With no understanding of Japanese and Chinese, it is very difficult to assess the commercial potential of the domain in China.

If you invest in the extension of a foreign country, be cautious. The government of that country may change the rule suddenly. In 2010, for example, the Chinese government started requiring owners of .cn domains to submit their identification information such as photo and ID. Many western investors let go of their .cn domains as a result.

The second rule is to do your own research. The days of acquiring obvious gems such as Diamond.com and CreditCard.com were gone a long time ago. These days, many domains require research to uncover their potential. At least, that’s what I do every day. I use tools such as Namebio, dotDB, and Google to help me assess domains. For the China market, you can also try “Three steps to Chinese end user research“.

Once again, let me repeat. Invest in what you know and do your own research.