What counts as success?

If you can live from domaining only - then it counts as success.

Ha! And you are experienced, I see. Do you think I can live from these? Any tips?

CraftRye
GigGold
JetCrop
OxyPortal
IncubatorCo
MarketOptic
PatientRobotics
PrescriptionCredit
TaxBargain
IVFstop
WeatherOptic
WeatherCountry
WeatherPrecision
SolarJacuzzi
IVFstop
OneStepFinancial

The only one tip: forget about 2/3word domains.
Except something really strong like SportsBetting.

That makes me sad. You don't like any of my domains?

For the first 2 years I am looking to break even

I am into year 2 now and probably will not hit this target, but there is still a long way to go until year end.....

As long as my losses stay manageable and I keep learning then I will persevere as I am a stubborn git

Turning a profit and having fun while doing so.

Doron Vermaat said:

Turning a profit and having fun while doing so.

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Exactly this.

Maldo said:

That makes me sad. You don't like any of my domains?

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Why dislike an advice? In this case it wasn't even a critic, which being open to can only be helpful.
Cheers

Doron Vermaat said:

Turning a profit and having fun while doing so.

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I was going to say:

If you're happy and not losing money, then you're successful.

Maldo said:

MarketOptic

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Assuming .COM, this is probably the only one I could imagine a company buying to use.

DomainRecap said:

Assuming .COM, this is probably the only one I could imagine a company buying to use.

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Thanks for your assessment.

Maldo said:

Thanks for your assessment.

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CraftRye-com is not bad either.

Hi

success, is a measure by which you, set the standard
and that depends on what your goals are

whether you want to be in the limelight, aka, a high profile influencer in domaining
or a low key, low profile bugger, plodding their way thru the game

but if you're trying to live up to somebody else's standard or level of success, then you prolly won't succeed.

if you backorder a domain and win, that's success

if you sell it later for a profit, you succeeded in negotiating and transferring the domain to a buyer.

even if you fail to succeed at times, you can still have success, on average or overall

if you knew nothing about domains in the beginning and now you know quite a bit than before,
then you can take satisfaction in your goal to learn. where each step, is a measure of success.

imo...

When you enjoy the journey it becomes success.

I would like to stress that I totally agree with the view that we each set our own meaning for success. For some it may simply be to have fun and not lose money. Others define success as making enough profit for a salary. Some would define success more in terms of having an impact on the industry, even if in a minor way, instead of specific financial returns. Many are in this as a side gig, and probably define success in terms of a certain return.

My personal goals are very modest

• Never risk more than I can afford to lose.
• Become better each year I am in domain investing in selecting domain names.
• Give back to the community in some way either through innovation, analysis, writing/education or maybe simply by being supportive.
• Offer great values to the end users I deal with.
• Never (well almost never) sell at less than 10x what I have invested in that domain name.
• Have a higher sales volume each year than the one before.
• Have fun. Do what I find interesting. Be my own person (listen to other voices, but don't let them define me or my actions).

@Maldo thanks for having an interesting topic title, and welcome to NPs. Why not tell us how you define success? Have a happy day everyone!

Bob

Positive cash flow suffices.

Highly positive is of course even better.

With respect to the list, you might wish to use the appraisal thread. I agree with @DomainRecap that MarketOptic (in com) is potentially good. By IncubatorCo do you mean incubator in co or IncubatorCo in com? I don't know the nice, but SolarJacuzzi might find a market (in .com I presume?). Weather has been a fairly popular term in sales - here are the list of NameBio ones starting with that term.
The very best wishes for an interesting and successful time in domain investing.
Bob

Maldo said:

I have been wondering what counts as success among domainers. And I mean in dollars. And over how long

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Likely there are as many measures of success among domineers as there are domineers.

There is no firm, structured universal measure of success in domains other than most in for the long term would likely agree that a profitable cash flow is an ingredient of their success.

" How " much cash is success " certainly varies from person to person.

Some measure cash success with " one zero" behind a digit while others require "multiple zeros" behind a digit to achieve success.

My first sale was a success, every time I turn an x hand reg to xxx or xxxx sale is a success, if I can pay a vacation of my sale is a success.

I'd plan it out and setup some goals for yourself. Decide how much you can comfortably spend and work at sticking to your budget. And lastly, figure out your strategy. Is it buying domains for the lowest cost possible, or buying better names (potentially) for a little more?

In dollars, as you asked. I would say the following:

Beginner: To me, when I had about 300 domains, I just had them because I liked domains and I wasn't really selling them. I would just get offers here and there. So at this level I was more of a pre-beginner, and just a developer with a bunch of names.

I'd venture to say that most people with a $1,400-$1,700 average selling price is selling about 1.2-1.5% per year. There are definitely exceptions, but many times those people are not buying $10-$20 domains, and are instead buying at $100 or more and selling them quicker for the same price range. So, to me it seems like they are buying a higher tier domain, and selling it at a lower tier price range for a faster sale, and then they achieve 3-8% of domain turnover per year.

So depending on your strategy, whether it is a small number of domains or large number of domains, I would consider a beginner when you are reaching about 1 sale per month with an average of $1,400-$1,700 per sale. That's about $18,000 per year, less your domain registration expenses. In a recent partnership, I was able to get to about $24k per year in about 2 years with only a $10k initial investment. Granted, this was after I was already doing this for about 13 years. But I believe the first time around I was in a similar position after about 2-3 years of doing it from 2005-2008, but when I did it the first time I believe my costs were about $20-$30k, instead of $10k.

Midlevel - For me the next big milestone was $50k per year in sales. By this time, I redesigned my website (betternames.com) and offered a marketplace to customers. I would say that this is about Midlevel, as I've seen many other domain investors do the same around this level. For me, I believe I had about 2,400 domains around this time, yet several hundred domains I did not have listed for sale. At the other extreme, I've seen some investors have 100 domains or less and achieve the same sales, though I don't know how consistent this is for them.

Advanced - This really depends on how far you want to go and your strategy. For me, I'm trying to get sales to $250k per year within the next few years, but for others it may be much higher or lower than that.

One more thing I'd like to add.

Your average sales price needs to be around $1,400 - $1,700 unless your portfolio turnover is high (over 2%) because if you are only selling 1% of your names and your average sales price is $800, you are already in the negative because your renewal cost on that number of domains will be $850 (and rising).

Alternatively, you can buy mainly higher quality names and try to achieve more sales in the $5k-$20k range, then you'll have less registration expenses each year as compared to your sales revenue.

Maldo said:

What counts as success?

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To reach your goalll

For that, of course you need to have oneee
Only then you can know the directionnn

My goal (regarding domaining) is to land the highest sale of all timeee
So I know the direction is towards the toppp
To reach those few who have the needed amount of money that will alow them to land the highest purchase of all timeee

Maldo said:

I have been wondering what counts as success among domainers.

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profit.

Maldo said:

And I mean in dollars.

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$1. If you make $1 profit you are successful.

Maldo said:

And over how long?


Beginners: ?

Midlevel: ?

Advanced: ?

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The same or more dollars compared to other sources you have done in the respective duration.
Assume you are barber. How much you made in the beginning, midlevel and later when you were working as barber?

If you haven't worked before, there is no comparison for you, then $1 profit is success.

My personal definition:

Beginner: Selling your first domain

Mid-level: Being profitable (total income greater than total expenses)

Advanced: Being able to make a living from it

Master: Becoming rich