> The way Faulkner treats his characters, I treat domain name projects. I buy them with an intention to develop. And I let them take the lead. They’re the inspiration for the business itself. They guide me towards what they need to become. I’m just the dude behind the keyboard (sorta).<p>I feel the same way about personal projects and blogs. A good idea tends to be self-reinforcing. It just needs someone to uncover it. Selling onions on the internet seems unusual but to the right person that idea is gold.
This is one of those articles that pops up here once every few years, and I love it every time. I love these stories of low-hanging, boring businesses that succeed in simple, yet strange and satisfying ways.<p>And of course, this helps me continue, like many others, to go domain-first on ideas that sound good at interesting times. I have enough domains to be ashamed of in numbers, but I will continue to register more, as more ideas hit me in the shower and on my walks. My wife has seen me walk out of the shower halfway more often than not to check availability and register domains. I’ve also had my share of well-sold domain names, so I don’t regret my hobby/obsession.
The internet was originally promised as a way to disintermediate these kinds of supply chains, yet we often ignore these "boring" businesses for hype trains. The fact that he added a phone number and it sometimes out-sells the website is the cherry on top.
I've found more and more often the last few years that a lot of the long time businesses I use still do most of their ordering by phone. Or some version that involves talking to actual person.<p>The restaurants I go to still generally do phone ordering because they care about the quality of their ingredients. They want to discuss and talk about it with someone before placing an order.<p>The engineering and consulting firms I work with are the same. The engineers I enjoy working with are all phone based, not a lot of emails unless there are details involved.<p>I'm a bit of the same way. There is a lot of peripheral information that we miss out on when everything is done via automation/email. Those dead moments when our brains wander, then we ask a silly question, tend to bear fruit.<p>It's gotten to the point where I generally don't order anything online anymore because I can't trust I'll get what I ordered. When I have to deal with support it's an automated system that only gives me 1 or 2 options, neither of which satisfy my needs so I have to make a compromise. I'm not interested.
author here : ) happy to answer questions if you have any. We also have a twitter account here if you want to follow along: <a href="https://x.com/vidaliaonions" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/vidaliaonions</a>
I live in a mountain valley in Mallorca where hundreds of tons of perfect Canoneta oranges fall to the floor and rot each year because the cost of picking them outweighs their market value. The valley became wealthy from this fruit in the 19th century but the economics no longer add up. [0]<p>At the same time the price of orange juice (elsewhere) has skyrocketed [1], yet this rural community seems unable to take advantage.<p>What would you do?<p>[0] <a href="https://ruralhotelsmallorca.com/guides/The-History-of-Soller%E2%80%99s-Famous-Oranges" rel="nofollow">https://ruralhotelsmallorca.com/guides/The-History-of-Soller...</a>
[1] <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c397n3jl3z8o" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c397n3jl3z8o</a>
How tough is it juice them and make orange juice that can be sold (to Spanish or EU standards)? I would think you could start small and grow over time.
I tend to avoid projects where the economics are challenging, or where the demand has fallen off. Vidalia is unique because it's a boutique item, not a commodity. Because of it's unique nature, we're able to charge premium pricing, allowing us to stay in business (& even at our premium prices, the margins are razor thin, so we're constantly watching bottom line). While I tremendously enjoy this project, this is not an easy business to operate.
You have Mr. Kraus making sorbet and selling that on the internet, don’t you? Though I guess he doesn’t come close to using up all of the supply… and his domain name is a bit more complicated than what Peter usually goes for. I can’t, to this day, remember how to pronounce Sòller. We keep asking the locals every time we visit. Do you own a grove yourself?
Do they let anyone pick for free ?
I was shocked by this in rural Spain as well. Just tons of high citrus and olives rotting on trees because their harvest can't be done mechanically.
How would you market such a business in 2026? I am from an Italian region where farmer grow many special coltures, and I was always a bit surprised why they don’t try selling on the internet. I ended up convincing myself it is not a viable business model.
I live in Sweden, and almost every year I discover someone I work with or have friends in common with, who has a friend or relative in Italy, or Greece who farms oranges/olives/cheese or what have you. And this friend in Sweden is selling their produce by word of mouth.<p>So once a year at harvest, the relative has someone drives a truck full of olive oil 2000 kilometers north, and dozens of Swedes turn up at an appointed time on a Tuesday afternoon in a parking lot to pick up their order of six bottles of oil. The prices are no better than in the supermarket, but ostensibly you’d get a high quality product.<p>It’s a funny way to do business in 2025, completely without Internet infrastructure. Somehow, I don’t think it would work as a web shop.
I'd still lean into a great .com domain, as it still gives you instant credibility. Also leverage Facebook, as my typical buyer hangs out there a good bit. YouTube has been helpful as well, as we try to share "behind the curtain" what life is like as a Vidalia farmer.
Just curious do you make a living primarily from this or is it more just a side income?
we also film a lot of the growing process here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@vidaliaonion" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/@vidaliaonion</a>
I guess my question is: why is this better for me the customer than just buying them at my local supermarket? The shipping must make them very expensive, relative to my store. Are they that much better onions?
Is anyone really getting into trouble growing Vidalia onions not in Georgia?<p>Like if I plant some in my yard and start selling them online or at the local farmers market, what is anyone really going to do?<p>Seems kinda weird they have a government granted monopoly on them.
If you grow them in the Vidalia region (20 counties around Vidalia, GA), you're aok... but if you grow them outside of that area, and call them a Vidalia, you'll get into hot water. The law mainly came into existence cause Texas farmers began growing regular yellow onions and slapping the 'Vidalia' name on it, and customers would get pissed. So all the Vidalia farmers got together and got a Federal law passed that says you can only call an onion a 'Vidalia' if it's grown in our special region down here where we have sandy, loamy soil that contributes to the mild, sweet taste.
It's a brand name, like any other. Usage of it requires fulfilling the brand requirements. It's like how you can't say a burger from Burger King if it's actually from McDonalds, even if it's a very similar hamburger.<p>But even then, this isn't uncommon for food and beverages. You can't call it "whisky" unless you follow certain requirements about the mash bill, barrel, etc.<p>(My dad, before his death, had started growing "Pennsylvania Simply Sweet" onions. Because you can't call them Vidalia.)
It's similar to French wines and cheese. News to me that we have this in the US but it totally makes sense. We have a few of these in the PNW, like Hermiston melons and Walla Walla onions.
It's a broader EU thing (named AOP - protected designation of origin) rather than French only, though you are right that France has plenty of those for wines and cheese. But it's also protecting Greek Feta, Italian Parma ham, Scottish Shetland Wool, etc
There are a lot of food and drink items with official legal definitions that include the region of origin. The most famous one is champagne, which can only be called champagne if it comes from a specific region.<p>You can think of the name as being inclusive of the region, not simply descriptive of the variety. So if someone made a sparkling wine in a different region and sold it as champagne then they would be committing fraud.<p>> Like if I plant some in my yard and start selling them online or at the local farmers market, what is anyone really going to do?<p>At your farmer’s market? Probably nothing. But if you came across a particularly grumpy person with time and money to burn on lawyers they would have a case against you. Not actually going to happen at that scale. But if you owned vidaliaonions.com and started selling fraudulent vidalia onions at scale, the farmers would likely get together and pursue legal action to protect their prices.<p>It’s almost like a brand. You can sell LEGO-style bricks but you can’t call them LEGO because they didn’t come from the LEGO company.
<i>> You can think of the name as being inclusive of the region, not simply descriptive of the variety.</i><p>The term of art is <i>terroir</i> [1], which is the "character" of the environment the plants are grown in. It's often that a region will have some special characteristic due to geology that allows a unique flavor profile to grow so these trade names are the equivalent of a terroir brand.<p>Some designations are more strict than others, though. IIRC in the case of Vidalia onions the soil is low in sulfur so the biochemical pathways in onions that produce astringent compounds are nutrient starved. As far as I know most sweet onion varieties nowadays are grown in similar soil, but they're not legally allowed to call them Vidalias.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroir" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terroir</a>
The geology-centered conception of terroir in wine that you're giving is actually rather controversial and not generally supported by any science we've done to date.<p>For wine, "terroir" rather encompasses things like climate, local customs and practices (viticulture and vinification), and sometimes things like local strains of grapes or of yeast.
Is your website accessible over the onion network by Tor?
just came here to say that this has been one of my favorite pieces of writing i came across on hn ever (i read it back in 19)
There is also a follow up article: <a href="https://www.deepsouthventures.com/part-two-i-sell-onions-on-the-internet/" rel="nofollow">https://www.deepsouthventures.com/part-two-i-sell-onions-on-...</a>
Absolutely insane way to start a business. “Let me blow 2 grand on a domain name. Not sure what it’s for, yet.”
I've been doing some version of this since college. ...holy shit that's almost 20 years.<p>It started as a bit of a joke on the "That's a good band name" line. It became "That's a good domain name". Yes, I went to a stem college.<p>Anyway, i've started 4 pretty decent businesses based entirely off that bit. My friends and I would be riffing out behind the pizza place/bar we frequented, someone would say something and then "That's a good domain name" comes out. I'd make a quick note and think about it for a few days. I found that if I come back to it after a week or so then it's maybe worth something.<p>Business and domain names can make or break a company.<p>On top of all that, i've also bought and then sold hundreds of domains for a profit based off this bit. I use various registars when they have sales, buy em up cheap for a few years, then park em.<p>After reading the OP, it's kinda funny. I did something similar with a garlic grower back in the early 00's. I had a domain, my brother worked for a garlic farmer, the farmer wanted to export to asia. It worked out well for a few years.
Very interesting, I feel like domain names definitely have values but I don't know much about domain names that much but how do you buy or sell hundreds of domains?<p>I found websites/newsletters like <a href="https://ungrabbed.com/" rel="nofollow">https://ungrabbed.com/</a><p>Personally It would be interesting to see some domain names for cheap and if I have an idea, I can perhaps have domain name for cheap or something similar to it but I don't really know if I should go into this hobby perhaps and no guarantees that I would but I am curious about resources basically and I wish if you can tell me more about it<p>I feel like the issue I feel as if is that most domains would just be parked in there or would be sold for losses perhaps.
> Yes, I went to a stem college.<p>I don’t understand this.
My guess is that he took a meme for normal people ("that would make a good band name") and twisted it into a more nerdy version ("that would make a good domain name").
Probably:
"band names" -> Science, Engineering, TECHNOLOGY, Math college -> "domain names"<p>Learned about more things tech, started thinking about domains more than bands.
Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
I wonder if the sunk cost worked in his favor here. If he'd only spent ten dollars on the domain, he probably would have built nothing.
author here... you're correct - it's highly unlikely I would have built anything unless I had this unique, exact-match domain. I needed that unfair advantage to start, as the name sortof branded the project for me in the early days and helped drive new customers.
I've hung on to spellign.com for a bit over twenty years now.
Creation Date: 2005-10-19T05:59:21Z<p>The name still makes me giggle. I'd love to build something relevant and silly enough to put there, but I haven't found it yet.<p>Suggestions are welcome! :)
One place where I genuinely believe LLMs could be beneficial is correcting spellign mistakes. I just don't think the interface is there yet. I want to keep control over my writing. After feeding it through an LLM, it doesn't sound like me anymore and changes random stuff. Rather, i'd like something like a diff viewer that shows you your sentence and the LLM's corrected sentence right next to each other. You can review each suggestion individually and decide whether to incorporate it yourself.
Your could do a spofo Wikipedai cloen.
author here... in my defense, it was an accidental purchase : ) I thought it was gonna sell for $5k or more... but the music stopped when I bid ...
I was also quite chocked that you did this ^^ I'm not sure who is the naive one, either you or me, but I would never have assumed that such a name would sell for more than 2k (but at least it was worth it for you here).<p>I'm really wondering how important the domain was here. I feel it's more just what got you the motivation to do something rather than anything else then your hard work and the quality of the product made the rest (that makes me think of Dumbo's magic feather) but I read in another comment and your bio that you seem to feel strongly about domain names and how much they impact the success of a business (you probably know better)
“ The way Faulkner treats his characters, I treat domain name projects. I buy them with an intention to develop. And I let them take the lead. They’re the inspiration for the business itself. They guide me towards what they need to become. I’m just the dude behind the keyboard (sorta).”<p>To me it makes sense. Without a domain name, it’s just an idea. The domain name makes it real, and it’s a foundation the biz can stand on. Too many people try to start a biz without a foundation.
I wonder how you can then produce onions as a side business.
been sitting on fullstackjavascript.com for years. been too busy writing javascript to do anything with it and now I work almost exclusively in elixir.
It's a good domain name for what its worth. But are you/ anybody not worried about the javascript trademark by oracle and the lawsuit of oracle vs deno and the times oracle sends cease and desist to even books about javascript one time or any conference with javascript as an example<p>This I think is the reason why javascript conferences are instead called ecmascript conferences
I’ve had swiftbestpractices.com forever and still haven’t done anything with it. Meanwhile I’ve been going ham on my latest purchase of myfacespacebook.com. It’s weird the things that actually motivate us.
I was going to make a joke on how fullstackelixir.com would probably still be available, but I checked just in case and it's not ^^
Not really sure what's so crazy about that. A brick and mortar shop will spend way more than that on renting a good location for their business when they have no clue whether they'll turn a profit. This is just the digital equivalent of that. People trust authoritative domains like vidaliaonions.com way more than something like vidaliaonions-direct.net and they're given more SEO weight as well. At least I know that used to be true; not sure how true that is today but I'd imagine it still is.
You believe brick and mortar shops put money down on a location with no plan at all? This is what OP did, your analogy is pretty weak.
Yeah, exactly. Go price the equipment it takes to rig out a new upstart plumbing biz (trunk/van, all the hardware, insurance, etc). Startup web businesses is insanely cheap, even with a couple grand on a domain.
This feels like a relevant wiki page to mention <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onion_Futures_Act</a>
Very interesting page, left me with a lot of mixed feelings after I read it. First, it seems like the biggest issue was not onion futures per se, but manipulating the market. It seems like banning onion futures was just a band-aid while ignoring the true cause. Second, if it really is the case that onions' perishable nature caused the problem, why not at least extend the ban to all similarly perishable products? Again it seems like they attacked the symptom rather than the root cause. But those criticisms aside, I kind of love that the government back then was willing to shut down shady money making schemes from finance bros. That would never happen in America today, so that part was pretty cool.
> but for kicks & giggles, I dropped in a bid around $2,200 ’cause I was confident I’d be outbid<p>Boy do I wish I could just drop 2k on a whim for a vanity project
Not to minimize the amount (2k is a lot), or obligations you may have (family, etc), but sometimes you can change your life in small ways to make those sort of impulse buys more affordable. Renting a room instead of a house, buying an old used car instead of new, etc. These kinds of changes are (to me) a small inconvenience, with big rewards
A lot of people pay a lot more than that for vanity vehicles, kitchens etc
I love this post. I read it a few years ago and tried the same thing. I bought and then built riverreports.com (<a href="https://www.riverreports.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.riverreports.com/</a>).
What a cool story. Not tech for tech's sake, but tech that grows into something simpler, more efficient, and more world-opening for something as wonderful as the Vidalia onion
Peter appears to still be at it.[1] Very impressed by his commitment to the bit.<p>[1] <a href="https://xcancel.com/searchbound/status/1996247844080996549#m" rel="nofollow">https://xcancel.com/searchbound/status/1996247844080996549#m</a>
If I could run a few services like this that just provide useful and predictable services to a community of people I'd be perfectly happy with my life
I bought djangosquare.com with exactly the same thought a year ago and till today I haven’t done anything with it!
Got these many years back after having been posted here. Very happy with the purchase, but wouldn’t order again as my wife hated the smell. Highly recommended everyone order these at least once.
This crosses from quirky to unhinged:<p>During a phone order one season – 2018 I believe – a customer shared this story where he smuggled some Vidalias onto his vacation cruise ship, and during each meal, would instruct the server to ‘take this onion to the back, chop it up, and add it onto my salad ‘.
> Some folks can eat them like an apple. Most of my customers do.<p>My grandfather and my cousin, who he pretty much raised were eating regular red or yellow onions like apples like that. I had never seen anyone else do that. They would make an onion "salad" which was just cut up onion with olive oil and salt.
Sometimes you start a business. Sometimes a business starts you. Awesome that the author saw this as an opportunity and not a down side to owning a name he never really wanted to begin with.<p>Sometimes the right business just finds you and you’re at the right place at the right time to see it.
This is the kind of thing I’d like to do. I have so many ideas, but I’m not sure how to actually make them happen.<p>How much money does it take to start something like this?
> Them: We leverage automated machine learning to enhance your existing BI visualizations with more proactive insights<p>> Me: I sell onions on the internet<p>That's exactly how I feel about AI! Instead of all that useless nonsense, just keeping it real, doing something that's actually useful for individuals and for society.
I love onions, but never tried a Vidalia. We have Walla Walla sweet onions out here and I suspect they’re pretty similar.
They’re similar enough that my aunt, who has lived in the PNW for ages, but grew up in the South, described Walla Wallas as “basically just like a Vidalia, but grown here”.<p>There’s nothing particularly special about the onion variety - it’s just a mild yellow onion. It’s the soil.
Great advertising for vidalias. I simply have to try one now.
They're really good. The apple thing is no joke. Vidalia and Walla-Walla onions are top tier alliums.
author here.. our Vidalia season usually starts in late April - FYI. If you visit our website, submit your email there and I'll drop you a note when our order lines are open.
Good luck finding them anywhere right now
That's very interesting. My domain purchased in 2015, finally seems to make some meaning due to recent tech advacnes. Time to do something with it.
(2019)
I love how I came into this thread going “it would be fun if this was actually about onions, but it is probably something about Tor” but was wrong!
I love this guy's marketing honest and compelling
233 points and 89 comments back in 2022 - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32053044">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32053044</a>
correction:
<a href="https://x.com/searchbound/status/1007015211486900229?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1007015211486900229%7Ctwgr%5E483a0fdfa73c26f08bf4734b755446438bfddc00%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.deepsouthventures.com%2Fi-sell-onions-on-the-internet%2F" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/searchbound/status/1007015211486900229?ref_src...</a>
It's kind of funny this guy doesn't understand his own business.<p>It's not onions. It's lead generation.