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.
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:
