IT.COM

My three and a half years in Domaining

NameSilo
Watch

Khurram

Established Member
Impact
75
I have been a follower of Namepros for a while, but I have never contributed/ joined this forum. While I am lingering at my home due to the current situation, so I thought of writing and sharing my experience.

Note: Pardon me for any English comprehension mistakes as English is not my first language.
_____

I will breakdown the points to make it easily readable:

How I was introduced to Domaining: My friend and I were planning to set up a Techblog and the next step was to set up a website with a good domain name. We searched one name on the internet, but to our surprise it was priced at around 25 thousands dollars.
Our whole budget was around 1000 dollars for the project. So we decided to hand register. But I was intrigued at the practice of buying and selling domain names.To my surprise I discovered the whole industry behind it.

Which blogs/ programs I followed from the onset:
Domainsherpa was my go-to program from the onset. Moreover I started visiting Namepros.

=> Personalities to follow:
Below are the people that I regularly followed:

i) Mike Carson (I actually follow him even before the introduction to Domaining)
ii) Doron Vermaat
iii) Morgan Linton
iv) Micheal Cyger
v) Abdul Basit
vi) Andrew Rosener (I like this guy. He is a straight shooter)
vii) Konstantinos Zournas
viii) Shane Cultra

=> Primary Registrars:
My primary registrar is Namecheap. For my personal web development projects I always use one European Registrar (Gandi.net). I have heard good stories of Godaddy but my experience with them was not so pleasant (or worse to say the least).

=> Auction Platforms:
i) Namejet
ii) Pool.com
iii) Snapnames
iv) Godaddy Auctions
v) 4.cn (Very famous in Asia)
vi) Flippa

=> Escrow Platforms
escrow.com
_______________________________________________

Year 1:
Initial buying spree and learnings:

I started with hand registering just like many new domainers and afterwards I discovered expireddomains.net. During this time I have registered more than 50 domain names.
I have made landing pages for them and then the waiting game started. For some months I never got any inquiry and I was thinking that I was doing something wrong.

Year 2:
I have decided in year 2 that I will take this seriously and I have invested around 2500 US Dollars. Mostly I concentrated on non .coms, .org,.nets and other cctlds. Moreover I have tried to buy the names from sedo and flippa along with the regular checking of expireddomains.net.

Year 3:
After a setback of the first 2 years with no sales whatsoever I have decided to go back to the drawing board. I had taken a critical look at my 100 domains and I came to the conclusion that the quality of my domains was not good at all.
But it was not easy to swallow my pride and agree to the fact that It was me who bought them in the first place. Then I decided to drop most of them.
At the same time I have decided to pour another 3000 dollars as the final investment.

Sales in year 3:
I was able to sell one .com in mid four figures and I was enthralled. I have decided to reinvest that money back into this business.
In total I was able to sell 4 domains during my third year. And I reached break even and in fact became profitable.

Year 4 (2020):
So far I have been able to sell one domain during this year, but I am satisfied with my performance.
The reason is that I have only 50-60 domains now and I am registering sales even with this small inventory.

Key takeaways:
i) Don’t emotionally attach yourself with domains:

Dropping the domains is an important step for improvement. But if you start loving all of your domain names then you will be doomed.

ii) Domaining is a business not a hobby:
Here I will disagree with many people who term Domaining as a hobby. I cannot consider it a hobby at all. For me it is a business, even if I put only 5 hours per week into it.

iii) Keep on learning:
Just like in any other business field you can never cease to stop learning. You should keep abreast with the latest trends.

iv) Domaining requires investment:
If you are a .com fan then remember that hand registration will not get you anywhere. Same is the case with other cctlds,
It requires investment just like any other business

v) Take care of your privacy: This point is important for me. So my Whois information is mostly private. Moreover I am buying the domains through my registered company as well.
Reason: Some domain investors will check your data on Namebio and other platforms and then will start bothering you with low balls (considering you dumb as a new entrant). Atleast it happened with me and I was so bothered with them that I decided to take my privacy seriously.
 
Last edited:
55
•••
The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Very good summary. Thanks for sharing.

Glad you joined the forum. Welcome!

Best of luck in the future!
 
8
•••
Hello and welcome to nps! Very nice summary!
 
5
•••
4
•••
Good but there any hand reg you sold in 3rd year?

In 2nd year, you had 100+ but now only 50+, did you drop them?

May tell your portfolio extensions?
 
4
•••
Welcome to NamePros!

Wish you all the best.
 
5
•••
Thanks all for your replies.
 
1
•••
Good but there any hand reg you sold in 3rd year?

In 2nd year, you had 100+ but now only 50+, did you drop them?

May tell your portfolio extensions?

Yes 2 of the domains that I sold were hand registered. But I have set the criteria for hand registration as well. I only hand register those domains with the previous history of registration but were later dropped.
__
" In 2nd year, you had 100+ but now only 50+, did you drop them?"
Yes I dropped most of them.

My extensions: Mainly .coms. Then .nets, .co and .io.
 
2
•••
Please share where to find history of registration
 
2
•••
Please share where to find history of registration

There are many tools available on the internet. Just search for " Domain age checkers" and also search for "Whois Archives". If you can program then you can write a script to check for the domains in the "Whois archives".
 
2
•••
Great summary ... welcome to Namepros !
 
6
•••
5
•••
Hello @Khurram and thanks for the detailed introduction. You were patient to wait more than two years for your first sale!

I'm glad you've joined us now -- we'll look forward to hearing about your future progress.
 
7
•••
Congratulation and more Success to you on your Domaining Journey @Khurram
 
4
•••
Fantastic overview of your domaining journey Khurram.

By the way, I cannot tell that you are not a native speaker. Your English writing skills are near perfect. :)
 
6
•••
Welcome to namePros!

The good news is that in the third year you reach a breakeven point. Some people are unable to reach even after 4 or 5 years.
 
5
•••
4
•••
4
•••
3
•••
Thank you very much for sharing your domaining journey in such detail with us all @Khurram The following points, in particular, resonated with me.
Dropping the domains is an important step for improvement.
The idea of critically examining on a regular basis which domain names are worth keeping is indeed the right thing to do and important. I think for almost everyone, even those with overall great portfolios, asking what is your bottom 10 or 20%, and what are you going to do about it, is sound advice.
Keep on learning
So true. While I am a big believer in education in general, I think in domaining it is successful. Options for registrars and marketplaces change. Business trends for popular names change. Valuations change. Marketing styles change. Google search changes. What we know about consumer behaviour changes. Legal aspects change (slowly to some degree). Technology and society both change.

One thing you did not list specifically as something to do, but you demonstrated perfectly through your post and actions, is to be reflective about domaining. What am I doing right, and what do I need to improve?

Thanks again, and the very best wishes for the year ahead.

Bob
 
11
•••
6
•••
Keep working on attaining your 10,000 hours
Good luck...
 
5
•••
Keep working on attaining your 10,000 hours
Good luck...
Thanks. Interestingly I have just finished "The Outliers" and Malcolm Gladwell was repeatedly talking about this "10,000 Hour Rule"...:)
 
3
•••
Thanks for sharing. I have actually done better with sales of handregs but a lot of that may have been luck. I would say practice mindful handregging. Of course, I have "better" domains from auctions and private purchases, but they don't necessarily perform better for sales.
 
4
•••
3
•••
Back