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Even a blind chicken can find a great domain!

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On namePros most of us are familiar with a famous domainer that spent an entire night hand registering domains only to see them sell for millions of dollars. The domainer continues his streak and today is one of the most successful domainers on the planet.

Seems to me some businesses like Huge Domains are very much copying this process by registering millions of domains and hoping a percentage of them will resell at a profit. The difference here being that Huge Domains mostly registered dropped domains figuring eventually someone else will want them.

In German there is an expression.....

"Auch ein blindes Huhn findet mal ein Korn."

Loosely translated to english it means....

"Even a blind chicken sometimes finds a piece of corn"

The question here is can this be repeated in 2019?

So if someone decided to randomly sit 10 people down and hand register any combination of two word .com's could one conceivably have a successful business?

My opinion on this is that one probably could as long as the selling price of the domains stayed in the 2-4k range. Two word .com's are still very much in demand and chances of success are probably pretty good.

So what do my fellow domainers think?

Any successful blind chickens out there? :xf.laugh:
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
@Recons.Com I can share some sales and some numbers from my own portofolio if you want. Let's take for example 2017, because out of around 800 domains, I've sold roughly 23 domains to end users(prices mid xxx to low xxxx) and I've sold 357 or so to other domainers, making xxxxx profit on both sides. I never lost any money on any given year from 2015 when I've started, I've never acquired any aftermarket domain, but I know what I'm buying and testing multiple strategies all the time. Soon, I would do a test , investing the same amount in just aftermarket domains and just handreg in the same time frame(2 years) at the end I will share my results, but I'm doing this with some experience already, so this will not work for everybody who started today.

@boker your business model is different. It also requires lots of work and doesn't leave much for future.

I sold "only" 35 names, but my average sale price was around $4,300. My sell through % was just under 3%, but revenue was much better if I sold 50% of 1300 .coms I had (average for the year) at $xx.

I assume, the OP basically means end user sales, not when you are reseller to resellers. Your end user sales are also close to 3%, which is great. And it might make sense for you to focus on those and reduce the amount of time you have to spend with domains or the same amount of time for much higher revenue.

Now aftermarket vs handreg: I don't really distinguish and look down on some of my names because they are handreg. It is just that I have to spend less time looking through aftermarket and identifying good names than looking at drops and I am willing to pay premium of $5 to $xxx for that luxury. And also, most of the great names won't make it to drops, as they will be picked up at the auctions or closeouts and then one is left looking through leftovers (expireds) of leftovers (non-backordered ones) of leftovers (closeouts). And it is still possible to find a diamond in the rough there, but, again, too much time per name. If I value my time at $100/hr and it takes and hour to find a great name in the list, then its cost is no longer $8 for me, it is $108.
 
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Ok, your calculations are in so many way wrong that it's hard to choose where to start. First, I wonder why so many errors if you are a domainer from 2011? First, why do you count 9$ for a handreg, when you have big players like dynadot, namesilo with $5 $6 offers all the time and if you count the smaller players, like lcn and others, you can get to at least $3.8 on average(believe me), without risking with unknown registrars.

Best option I know about now is Dynadto with $6.99 / $9 renew for .com (they have now special offer of $5.99 until 30 April) but that will not make a big difference in calcs. Because what is important is the renew cost which is the main contributer to the total cost and it is always around $9. The cheapest renewal cost currently is $8.56 at Porkbun.

Here is the calcs if we take $6.99 as reg and $8.56 as renewal, old values are in red to compare:

Hand Reg Domains - 5 years forecast:
Total Spending = $24,859 (was $27,000)
Total Revenue = $12,500
Income = -$12,395 (loss) (was -$14,500)

High Quality Domains - 5 years forecast:
Total Spending = $7,140 (was $7,250)
Total Revenue = $12,500
Income = $5,360 (profit) (was $5,250)

As you can say that didn't help a lot on the long run because the renewal costs are around $9.

Also, after 8 years in domaining you don't seem to take in account that for a hand reg portofolio, more than for an aftermarket portofolio, you are curating your domains at the end of the year, based on views, inquiries and others, so you don't renew all of them, probably at best 60-70%.

That also will not make a difference because you will register new domains to replace the old ones! so if you maintain 500 domains all the time what you drop will cancel out with what you register, the cost of newly registered domain will be exactly the same as if you didn't drop any domain and just renewed all of them.

Also, probably you don't count any outbound done, because if you know what you are buying, for sure you can do some sales from reaching out to end users just to cover all your expenses. .

I agree with this I didn't take outbound in consideration, it surely will improve your selling ratio and can make a difference. But the problem is that with hand reg domains they are not very special, and so end user have many other alternatives to chose from. If you can do outbound successfully and get higher than 0.5% selling ratio on hand reg domains, then it can start to be profitable model.
 
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@boker your business model is different. It also requires lots of work and doesn't leave much for future.

I sold "only" 35 names, but my average sale price was around $4,300. My sell through % was just under 3%, but revenue was much better if I sold 50% of 1300 .coms I had (average for the year) at $xx.

I assume, the OP basically means end user sales, not when you are reseller to resellers. Your end user sales are also close to 3%, which is great. And it might make sense for you to focus on those and reduce the amount of time you have to spend with domains or the same amount of time for much higher revenue.

Now aftermarket vs handreg: I don't really distinguish and look down on some of my names because they are handreg. It is just that I have to spend less time looking through aftermarket and identifying good names than looking at drops and I am willing to pay premium of $5 to $xxx for that luxury. And also, most of the great names won't make it to drops, as they will be picked up at the auctions or closeouts and then one is left looking through leftovers (expireds) of leftovers (non-backordered ones) of leftovers (closeouts). And it is still possible to find a diamond in the rough there, but, again, too much time per name. If I value my time at $100/hr and it takes and hour to find a great name in the list, then its cost is no longer $8 for me, it is $108.
My reseller sales are just to make sure I cover all my expenses for my entire portofolio, so that my end user sales will be all profit. It's great that you count your time so valuable, at $100 per hour, I do a different count, I thinking that if I can do more than average wages in the country where I live, in the half time working for home doing domains, than I would choose domains.
Best option I know about now is Dynadto with $6.99 / $9 renew for .com (they have now special offer of $5.99 until 30 April) but that will not make a big difference in calcs. Because what is important is the renew cost which is the main contributer to the total cost and it is always around $9. The cheapest renewal cost currently is $8.56 at Porkbun.

Here is the calcs if we take $6.99 as reg and $8.56 as renewal, old values are in red to compare:

Hand Reg Domains - 5 years forecast:
Total Spending = $24,859 (was $27,000)
Total Revenue = $12,500
Income = -$12,395 (loss) (was -$14,500)

High Quality Domains - 5 years forecast:
Total Spending = $7,140 (was $7,250)
Total Revenue = $12,500
Income = $5,360 (profit) (was $5,250)

As you can say that didn't help a lot on the long run because the renewal costs are around $9.



That also will not make a difference because you will register new domains to replace the old ones! so if you maintain 500 domains all the time what you drop will cancel out with what you register, the cost of newly registered domain will be exactly the same as if you didn't drop any domain and just renewed all of them.



I agree with this I didn't take outbound in consideration, it surely will improve your selling ratio and can a difference. But the problem is that with hand reg domains they are not very special, and so end user have many other alternatives to chose from. If you can do outbound successfully and get higher than 0.5% selling ratio on hand reg domains, then it can start to be profitable model.
I'm telling you that my average for last year was $3.8, not ...$6.9. Also, it's very important the renew part, because let's say you renew just your best 50% of your portofolio, and you acquire new domains at 1-2$ each, so that will change everything.
If can assure you that in some cases and some type of domains you can reach two digits % selling ratio, not 0.5% higher, but that will be mostly at xxx-low xxxx amounts, which will still make a big profit.
Also, if you count that you can reinvest in the next second the revenue made from selling after a few weeks( because of the lower price) at the end of the cycle( let's say 5 years) you will have multiple times more profit compared if you would have waited 2-5 years to sell an aftermarket domains acquired for $50 at $2500.
 
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Here is a "blind chicken" finding a great domain. (I guess I am the chicken, lol )
This is mine
ChickenKnows.com
 
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My reseller sales are just to make sure I cover all my expenses for my entire portofolio, so that my end user sales will be all profit. It's great that you count your time so valuable, at $100 per hour, I do a different count, I thinking that if I can do

I'm telling you that my average for last year was $3.8, not ...$6.9. Also, it's very important the renew part, because let's say you renew just your best 50% of your portofolio, and you acquire new domains at 1-2$ each, so that will change everything.
If can assure you that in some cases and some type of domains you can reach two digits % selling ratio, not 0.5% higher, but that will be mostly at xxx-low xxxx amounts, which will still make a big profit.
Also, if you count that you can reinvest in the next second the revenue made from selling after a few weeks( because of the lower price) at the end of the cycle( let's say 5 years) you will have multiple times more profit compared if you would have waited 2-5 years to sell an aftermarket domains acquired for $50 at $2500.

Where did you get $3.8 and $6.9?
Regarding $1-2$ I don't do NetSol and I will never do that. way to risky registrar for me.

I understand that you can get high selling ratio at lower xxx-xxxx prices, if you revise my calcs they were done on the assumption of Average selling price of $2,500 for which I used lower ratios of 0.2% vs 2% (hand reg vs high quality domains).

the calcs were done on a set of fixed parameters just to make comparison between 2 models. What is important here are not the numbers themselves but the relativistic output of 2 models. Change parameters as you want, add outbound if you wish (it will help both models and offset the relative difference) and the end model B will always be better than option A by a margin.
 
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Where did you get $3.8 and $6.9?
Regarding $1-2$ I don't do NetSol and I will never do that. way to risky registrar for me.

I understand that you can get high selling ratio at lower xxx-xxxx prices, if you revise my calcs they were done on the assumption of Average selling price of $2,500 for which I used lower ratios of 0.2% vs 2% (hand reg vs high quality domains).

the calcs were done on a set of fixed parameters just to make comparison between 2 models. What is important here are not the numbers themselves but the relativistic output of 2 models. Change parameters as you want, add outbound if you wish (it will help both models and offset the relative difference) and the end model B will always be better than option A on the long run!
This is your thought, I think that with lower acquisition cost, selling lower and reinvesting all the time will result in a higher profit for the same period( waiting with an aftermarket domain 2-5 years to sell at $2500).
Netsol will be one choice but there are others, like domain.com, dotster, lcn register.it and others. The average was $3.8
 
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A great domain is anything that sells

Well.... at least by my definition anyways :xf.wink:

I would slightly modify that statement. A great domain is any domain that sells for a substantial profit.

Regging a domain for $8 and selling it $20. I wouldn't call a great domain by itself. If it could be consistently repeatable over 10,000 domains, then as a group they could be called great domains :)

The administration might kill you though if that was 10,000 different buyers :)
 
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Maple I'm curious - since you're the OP who started this thread - I'd ask: I've observed that you've spent or tried to spend a lot of money on domains past couple years. How have sales been?

I'm at the opposite end - most every domain XYNames has acquired was years and years ago. Acquired very few past couple years, sold MANY.

I used to be more open with my purchases and sales but because I operate in four distinctive niches I have found a number people and entities copying my business motto.

So I made a new years resolution to simply shut up and say no more and that seems to be working well for me. I have silently bought and sold under the radar and the less I say the better my deals are getting.

My advice to anyone working in a particular niche would be to say as little as possible, just make your deals and be done with it.
 
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I would slightly modify that statement. A great domain is any domain that sells for a substantial profit.

Regging a domain for $8 and selling it $20. I wouldn't call a great domain by itself. If it could be consistently repeatable over 10,000 domains, then as a group they could be called great domains :)

The administration might kill you though if that was 10,000 different buyers :)

You are correct up to a point...

If one can automate the process and sell enough domains for a 12 dollar profit margin then one get get rich as well. I can think of a particular dollar store that is listed on the stock exchange selling items for a dollar or so profit.

That said, I am with you because my minimum sales price is 1k. I will not respond to any offer for less and it states that clearly on my site. www.mapledots.ca/contact
 
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If the domain sells it can never be an idiotic domain.

A sale is a sale
Furthermore he has a platform to stand on. He has connects. His marketing is genius. I bet Mike Mann could sell a lot of names that we couldn't, even if our comparable domain was better in some way shape or form!
 
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So, two hand reg domains for $20 in 2011, add 8 years of renewal each. If you count the commissions and taxes paid for the 38k or so and is you ad the thousands or tens of thousand of his hand regs from the same period that did not sold, you will conclude that it's nothing out of ordinary. I can bet that there are lots of smaller domainers here at NP who have better ROI than him, but everything it's at a smaller scale, so it's not that evident.

Those are impressive sales, but If you own a few hundred thousand domains and ask high prices, you will make a handful of outlier sales.

However, you have to account for all the domains that don't sell as well; not just the ones that do sell.

Brad
 
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Any successful blind chickens out there? :xf.laugh:

I had a similar thought in 2006 and I ended up with many drops the following years, mostly .eu at that time.
 
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My advice to anyone working in a particular niche would be to say as little as possible, just make your deals and be done with it.

Hmm, but...you're about the most open and splashy with posting as could be, not only what you have bought, but about what you intend or would like to buy. Are we talking about the same person? "Say as little as possible" about what he has bought or intends to buy? MapleDots? Think McFly, Think!

https://www.namepros.com/threads/wanted-premium-ca-domains.1122103/

https://www.namepros.com/threads/my-first-1-000-000-offer-to-purchase.1115466/

https://www.namepros.com/threads/shopcost-co-nice-hack.1116420/

https://www.namepros.com/threads/gab-com-for-sale-would-you-buy-it.1107930/

https://www.namepros.com/threads/100k-domains-are-you-a-buyer.1104236/

https://www.namepros.com/threads/p-u-r-e-c-a-acquired-by-mapledots.1102794/

https://www.namepros.com/threads/i-...ut-i-just-bought-my-first-app-domain.1102452/

https://www.namepros.com/threads/just-registered-a-canadian-related-org.1099221/

https://www.namepros.com/threads/made-an-offer-domainer-let-the-domain-expire.1096909/

https://www.namepros.com/threads/p-i-n-k-c-a-acquired-by-mapledots.1092970/

https://www.namepros.com/threads/will-buy-your-ca-5-000-00.1074538/

etc. etc.

As far as any sales though you are mum about them. I don’t post my completed sales here either. Not asking you for specifics. Just wondering if you sell as much as you buy or try to buy. Or sell at all. 'Cause you sure do post freely about buying or wanting to buy domains. It doesn't really make sense to me that someone so transparently voluble about his buys or intended buys wouldn't post his sells, unless there are none.

All I've seen from you are posts about domains you wish to give away free
https://www.namepros.com/threads/free-domain-wifigratuit-ca.1105582/

https://www.namepros.com/threads/free-expiring-com-ca-domains-by-mapledots.1126822/

or have paid $5K for with intention to give away free
https://www.namepros.com/threads/re...ory-and-a-warning.1132707/page-6#post-7198692

but nothing about anything sold.

Again, you started this thread, so I think the question is a valid one to pose to the OP, given the topic you yourself created. I am not trying to pigeonhole you or put you down, just asking a legitimate question, given the topic you started.
 
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I checked your website. You have around 1300 names listed, some really great ones, but also many of those you can re-stock at $8-20 range from the closeouts or even drops. Just curious, why are you acquiring "very few" past couple years?

Whatever I have seems to sell, and haven't sold anything much under a $ thousand, maybe...ever.

The few I've dropped over the past couple years have always been snapped up.

There's talk (<<but also many of those you can re-stock at $8-20 range from the closeouts or even drops>>), and then there's reality (my nearly daily offers and my nearly weekly sales).

I don't try to second guess. I just field the inquiries and book the sales.

I'll think about dropping names if gross sales ever drop below monthly registration fees. I'm open to suggestions though I'd be curious about your messaging me the list of domains that you suggest that I drop.
 
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Searching and finding a great domain is what I personally like to do. I can say that I can make it even a hobby. Recently, I got one word .com domain with a positive meaning... http://www.demulce.com I made a quick Amazon affiliate site on it and earned approx $120 (without doing any SEO thing; just putting amazon feed products). At the moment, feed is not working.

Anyways, I have got a few more 2-word awesome domains with .com and few with new TLDs. But none of them is on sale.

I don't see good ROI by just selling these good domains. I want to build websites and earn even more. I don't if I'm a blind chicken or not. This is just to share my personal experience.
 
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But what does it mean if an idiot buys a terrible domain and sells it to another idiot ? :xf.confused:
That industry will usher in explosive development, probably the next mobile phone industry.
 
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True it is funny

Just one issue...

I would love to have the money from all the domain sales that were thought to be idiotic.
I hope that is the "idiot" that can pick up the gems. Do you have CVCV for sale? We can communicate;)
 
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Show attachment 116615

On namePros most of us are familiar with a famous domainer that spent an entire night hand registering domains only to see them sell for millions of dollars. The domainer continues his streak and today is one of the most successful domainers on the planet.

Seems to me some businesses like Huge Domains are very much copying this process by registering millions of domains and hoping a percentage of them will resell at a profit. The difference here being that Huge Domains mostly registered dropped domains figuring eventually someone else will want them.

In German there is an expression.....

"Auch ein blindes Huhn findet mal ein Korn."

Loosely translated to english it means....

"Even a blind chicken sometimes finds a piece of corn"

The question here is can this be repeated in 2019?

So if someone decided to randomly sit 10 people down and hand register any combination of two word .com's could one conceivably have a successful business?

My opinion on this is that one probably could as long as the selling price of the domains stayed in the 2-4k range. Two word .com's are still very much in demand and chances of success are probably pretty good.

So what do my fellow domainers think?

Any successful blind chickens out there? :xf.laugh:

No such person, please stop encourage register bad names.
 
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but nothing about anything sold.

HeHe....

What a wonderful post, I've been meaning to make a nice directory of some of my best topics (y)

Crap....you found me out.... I AM THE BLIND CHICKEN !!!!!!! :xf.wink:

Seriously though, I was pretty open about what I bought and intended to buy but I made a new years resolution to stop that because it was creating competition I did not need, hence that advice.

I have a group of domains not listed on my site, they were purchased a long long time ago. They were bought back in the day when my registrar was called DomainDirect, that will probably give away the age. That's all I'm going to say about that.

This blind chicken does not worry about money any more.
 
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Whatever I have seems to sell, and haven't sold anything much under a $ thousand, maybe...ever.

The few I've dropped over the past couple years have always been snapped up.

There's talk (<<but also many of those you can re-stock at $8-20 range from the closeouts or even drops>>), and then there's reality (my nearly daily offers and my nearly weekly sales).

I don't try to second guess. I just field the inquiries and book the sales.

I'll think about dropping names if gross sales ever drop below monthly registration fees. I'm open to suggestions though I'd be curious about your messaging me the list of domains that you suggest that I drop.

You misunderstood me. I am not telling you to drop. I am asking why you stopped buying?
 
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@xynames I saw your list field, which is not a lot of liquid domains (I thought that only liquid domains would be able to sell high prices). I want to learn how you do SEO to increase sales per month.
 
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Do you know the story ends ? The chicken gets slaughtered and fries in the pot.
Bon appétit :chicken:
 
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You misunderstood me. I am not telling you to drop. I am asking why you stopped buying?

Ah, okay, so you're suggesting I could buy more names. I did have a number of names on a droplist and as those became available I did buy as many of them as I could, but I stopped doing that a while back.

I just don't buy much lately, haven't seen as much opportunity I suppose.

Put it this way: instead of buying, I demand higher prices for my domains, which keeps my inventory higher because I sell fewer domains, but at higher prices. For every inquiry I get I could easily dump at $1000.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/if...meone-offered-me-a-1000-for-a-domain.1055040/
but this would be selling the domain too low, below its value, so I quote closer to actual value, and not every end user is able to come up with the money, even if they all mostly seem to acknowledge or accept the value.
 
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No such person, please stop encourage register bad names.

Come on guys, I may have phrased this wrong so I will clarify....

On namePros most of us are familiar with a famous domainer that spent an entire night hand registering domains only to see them sell for millions of dollars. The domainer continues his streak and today is one of the most successful domainers on the planet.

I did not mean to imply he is from namepros

I meant, we as a group on namepros, are familiar with this hugely successful domainer who spent an entire night way back hand registering domains. He is now one of the most successful domainers in the business.

HeHe.... I can't believe nobody has guessed it.
 
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