Brian Harbin
Grit Brokerage Founder 

Grit was founded in 2014 by Brian Harbin, a University of Georgia graduate who is based in Jacksonville, Florida. Like almost everyone else who has been in this business for years, Brian came into it from a different field - in his case, sales and the Presidency of an insurance brokerage business. So, how did domains turn his head?  "There were several parts of this industry that attracted me to it," Brian began - "the value of these seemingly obscure assets was intriguing and mind-boggling at the time; the ability to apply my 20+ years  of outbound sales skills to the domain industry was an immediate need I saw we at Grit could fill; the opportunity to work from home to make a living; the intriguing part of one big sale bringing in life changing income; the pockets of time and revenue that would allow me to use Grit Brokerage to launch my passion project of Grit.org and helping build more grit in the next generation through our summer entrepreneurship internship, our summer sports camp and our monthly podcast."

Since domain sales reports are a big part of DNJournal's editorial content, we also took the opportunity to get Brian's thoughts on the respective merits of reporting or not reporting domain sales from a broker's perspective. There are generally two separate camps on this. One comprises brokerages that announce as many of their sales, especially major ones, as possible (obviously both sides honor non-disclosure agreements). Spotlighting a successful track record attracts clients and it also shows the general public how valuable these assets are. On the flip side, there are many brokers who are just as successful but rarely release sales information of any kind with several good reasons for this policy as well. 

Image form Bigstock

Brian told us, "Early on in it's existence, Grit would share many of the reported sales; however, as time went on, it became more strategic about what to share and the price.  Since our brokerage represents buyers almost as much as sellers, we started to find that our sales were used against us when we were helping clients with acquisitions.  At times, it would prevent us from getting the best deal for our client based on a previous sale we made where we represented the seller.  Additionally, since a large chunk of the business we do is through referrals from clients or returning customers, we don't want to create any animosity with our clients by sharing sales or numbers they don't necessarily want reported. Maybe it's shareholders they don't want to know what was paid for a domain or having future buyers use the purchase price as an anchor on what would be a reasonable sales price.

Ammar Kubba

Grit's approach has been paying off for the past 11 years and won them a lot of loyal clients along the way. Veteran investor/entrepreneur Ammar Kubba is one of their biggest fans and that was the case even before his historic Wisdom.ai sale. "I've known Michael Law (Grit Senior Broker) for many years, even before his time at Grit. I first met Brian at Rick Schwartz's Asheville meetup in 2019, then reconnected a few years later at an ICA event. Since then, we've done several deals together and both Brian and Mike have always been easy to work with. On this most recent deal, Brian was super professional throughout our negotiation, despite my pricing rigidity. He remained persistent and proficient, and got the deal done for his client. And at the end of the day, that's what separates the great brokers from the rest. Grit may keep a low profile, but they're definitely legit!"

For those of you will be attending the 2025 NamesCon Global conference in Miami November 5-6, you can meet Brian Harbin and Michael Law there.  To connect, just send them a text or email. For Brian use 904.316.7232 or email [email protected] and for Michael use 970.393.3387 or email  [email protected].