We are the idiots ...

TheBaldOne · May 22, 2020

That's right 'we are the idiots'.

Why is it that the vast majority of us do not develop our domains into websites.

- Is it cost?
- Is it time?
- Is it lack of knowledge on the domain subject?
- Is it not knowing where to start building a website?
- Or is it because of laziness and just after a quick buck by reselling the domain name without doing any work?

Of course there is another option that should be added to the list, or is it because we do not think our domain names are not as good as we try to convince others that they are and 'they' should develop them into a website?

Of course we all know that a developed website with visitors is worth far more from affiliate income or even the sale of the website than just the domain name by itself that might be able to be turned into such, but very few domainers actually go on to develop websites on their domain.

Even if you cannot develop a website yourself through lack of knowledge on the subject (which can be learned anyway), or lack the ability to build a website (there are loads of programs to help you on the web), then you can hire people to do it for you from website designers to content writers they are all available for hire.

Come on be honest. Why do you not develop the domains you own?

bmugford · Jun 6, 2020

mpls said:
This is so disrespectful.
Do you pay your doctor only if it heals the disease?
Do you pay the restaurant bill only if you have eaten well?
You are a businessman and you know that if you want a service you've to PAY.
Period.
Developers are not clowns.

That attitude kind of explains why he has been searching for years now for a development partner.

I could see someone working for sweat equity if you brought something highly valuable to the table. Marginal domains are not highly valuable.

Otherwise, people want to be compensated fairly for their time and effort.

Brad

otismo · Jun 6, 2020

development is a pain in the butt, and a full-time/overtime job with a really successful site

and it requires just as much work for a highly successful website with NO REVENUE/PROFITS

as it does for a site with decent sales&profits - so it makes NO SENSE to develop unless you can see

THE $$$MONEY$$$ COMING IN.

what I am is a conceptualizer ( also called dreamer, hippie etc. )

I can conceive WAY faster than an army of teams can implement

AND I have acquired a "knack" for finding what I think are good

names that I feel fit very well with my entrepreneurial ideas -

so being in the domain "business" seems like the natural

thing for me to do. I imagine most domainers are a lot like me -

and you need to start thinking of yourselves as conceptualizers

and conceivers of entrepreneurial "actionable" ideas - which you

ought to be able to include at least a thumb-nail-sketch or even

a brief business plan for the millions with lotsa energy but who

do not seem to be able to think straight - otherwise, in the

richest country in the world, there would be no excuse

for being poor. 'nuf said. Cheers!

otismo · Jun 6, 2020

wait - there's more !

when my focus was development

the big problem was finding decent affordable domains

so most of my names were "placeholders" like mynewpix.com instead of newpix.com

which was always no-way affordable to buy the best name, even if that best name was even available

so I spent hours and hours and hours combing thru lists of the most complete and total garbage,

in the hope of maybe finding something decent, at an affordable price. I eventually enjoyed

some success, and had inquiries on some of my names. this prompted me to think

I might be able to make money buying and selling domains -

current scorecard :

thousands bought

thousands dropped

exactly three sold -

dreadful but getting better

but I am still a cheapskate

Cheers !

ThatNameGuy · Jun 6, 2020

bmugford said:
That attitude kind of explains why he has been searching for years now for a development partner.

I could see someone working for sweat equity if you brought something highly valuable to the table. Marginal domains are not highly valuable.

Otherwise, people want to be compensated fairly for their time and effort.

Brad

Sorry Brad, but this went over your head. I was quoting directly from an email I got from one one of the top domainers in the world...and since I got that email, here is another email I got from the same individual advising me to stay away from developers;

"Over the last 20 years, my brother and I have tried over 20 outside development/monetization deals.
Every one of them failed. With great names. With great developers. That's a 100% failure rate.
If we like a name we develop it ourselves.
Keep in my mind that I am not a technical person, but Word Press is fairly easy once you get into it.
I built several of my sites entirely myself.
So, when you ask me to suggest an outside developer, there are none.
The reason we make money is because I understand sales and marketing.
Therefore, our names are built with that intention SOLELY in mind.
We no longer do outside deals because I lost my temper with the last developing company.
I gave them what we wanted and they called us into their office.
They said, "We know what you wanted, but we think this is much better."
It was beautiful. It was state-of-the-art. And it couldn't have sold a life preserver to a drowning man.
Pick a up a magazine like Robb Report or Esquire. Study the full page ads.
There's some great Mad Men advertising stuff right there.
That is the same marketing philosophy that should be on a web site's pages.
A webmaster/developer will never intuitively go in that direction, but I will."

Brad, this guy is telling me to learn to develop my own site(s), but that won't happen. I'm not discouraged however for I found a technical partner in my past business life who understood and respected what I brought to the table. Together we built a company Acsel (the name I created) that generated many millions of dollars over many years. So please don't tell me what I can and can't do. You sir, don't have a clue.

bmugford · Jun 6, 2020

ThatNameGuy said:
Sorry Brad, but this went over your head. I was quoting directly from an email I got from one one of the top domainers in the world...

ThatNameGuy said:
This is EXACTLY why I won't pay a developer a dime up front. If they don't want to partner with me in some capacity or are willing to put in some sweat equity, it speaks volumes.

You agreed with the quote.

Again, that attitude is why you are having a hard time finding a quality technical partner.

Best of luck.

Brad

Recons.Com · Jun 6, 2020

otismo said:
wait - there's more !

when my focus was development

the big problem was finding decent affordable domains

so most of my names were "placeholders" like mynewpix.com instead of newpix.com

which was always no-way affordable to buy the best name, even if that best name was even available

so I spent hours and hours and hours combing thru lists of the most complete and total garbage,

in the hope of maybe finding something decent, at an affordable price. I eventually enjoyed

some success, and had inquiries on some of my names. this prompted me to think

I might be able to make money buying and selling domains -

current scorecard :

thousands bought

thousands dropped

exactly three sold -

dreadful but getting better

but I am still a cheapskate

Cheers !

Felt like one of those FB ads or emails one you fall for one of those.

Are you a copywriter and/or funnel developer? )))

frank-germany · Jun 6, 2020

namesquare said:
Time, money, content, management, development, oh and did I mention time and money.
I feel like it's the new era of cyber hoarding. Similar to a hoarder with a bunch of stuff (often junk), we all have big plans for each and every domain in our possession, but the probability of putting it to use is slim to none.

The era of domain hoarding

it always helps
if you have a great
photographic memory

frank-germany · Jun 6, 2020

NameBuyer.com said:
Ahhhh, the good ole days.

I had myself a network of over 400 restaurant sites, all on separate domains and my Google AdSense revenue was growing by about 50% per month. The sites were all keyword domains. When I could get a name like "CityName"Restaurants.com (for example SunnyvaleRestaurants.com) it would hit the first page of google in about a month, like clockwork. All of the sites were legit, I maintained the restaurant listings to be accurate and up-to-date, had reviews by users in each city and everything was humming along.

At the click of a button I could update the template of all 400+ websites.

At the peak I was above 10,000 real users per day, all bot traffic excluded. My revenue from AdSense alone was just starting to go over $1,000 per month. It looked like it was just a matter of time before it was at $5,000, or even $10,000 per month for very little ongoing maintenance work. Then Google's Panda update hit and by next month my revenue dropped to about $150 per month. This is after 100s of hours of work put into developing this. We had restaurant owners paying for advertising, and it's hard to keep them once you aren't in the top of the search engine results.

Once the revenue drops to this level and isn't growing, it is just better to abandon it than to have a half-maintained mess that is not very useful. Because the problem is, it isn't worth putting time into for a stagnant $100-$150 per month website. Once you don't put time into it, it doesn't even make the $100-$150 per month.

So my take is, it takes a large effort nowadays to make headway for just 1 website. If it's your passion, then great...go for it! But if it isn't, it's likely to not be a very useful site and at the same time will likely reduce your chances of selling the domain.

To me, a half-baked site just cheapens the perceived value of the domain. If someone has a $20k+ idea for a domain, then goes to the site to see a WordPress template with affiliate links, what kind of impression does that leave them with?

Here's my walk down memory lane. The actual site looked better because there are some images and other things missing now.

Main Site - Where we sold Ads

Show attachment 156099

Example of the Individual City Sites

Show attachment 156100 Show attachment 156101 Show attachment 156103

Then.....Panda

Show attachment 156105

here is my recommendation to solve these issues:

http://www.hypervre.com

that really works

( flash back of 2012 )

Joe N · Jun 6, 2020

ThatNameGuy said:
I found a technical partner in my past business life who understood and respected what I brought to the table.

What kind of site is he building for you, Rich? Are you leaning towards focusing on the scotch business, or on selling domain names?

Recons.Com · Jun 6, 2020

Joe Nichols said:
What kind of site is he building for you, Rich? Are you leaning towards focusing on the scotch business, or on selling domain names?

I think both. Consuming scotch might definitely increase number of impulse buys for domains.

ThatNameGuy · Jun 6, 2020

bmugford said:
You agreed with the quote.

Again, that attitude is why you are having a hard time finding a quality technical partner.

Best of luck.

Brad

Joe Nichols said:
What kind of site is he building for you, Rich? Are you leaning towards focusing on the scotch business, or on selling domain names?

All of the above

Joe N · Jun 7, 2020

ThatNameGuy said:
All of the above

Ambitious!

Looking forward to seeing the sites.

ThatNameGuy · Jun 7, 2020

otismo said:
development is a pain in the butt, and a full-time/overtime job with a really successful site

and it requires just as much work for a highly successful website with NO REVENUE/PROFITS

as it does for a site with decent sales&profits - so it makes NO SENSE to develop unless you can see

THE $$$MONEY$$$ COMING IN.

what I am is a conceptualizer ( also called dreamer, hippie etc. )

I can conceive WAY faster than an army of teams can implement

AND I have acquired a "knack" for finding what I think are good

names that I feel fit very well with my entrepreneurial ideas -

so being in the domain "business" seems like the natural

thing for me to do. I imagine most domainers are a lot like me -

and you need to start thinking of yourselves as conceptualizers

and conceivers of entrepreneurial "actionable" ideas - which you

ought to be able to include at least a thumb-nail-sketch or even

a brief business plan for the millions with lotsa energy but who

do not seem to be able to think straight - otherwise, in the

richest country in the world, there would be no excuse

for being poor. 'nuf said. Cheers!

You sir share some exceptional advice, "it makes NO SENSE to develop unless you can see THE $$$MONEY$$$ COMING IN." Everyone reading this surely has heard of the KISS principal or "Keep It Simple Stupid". What I've learned in life is there's ALWAYS an easier way. Bottomline, profit and monetization are keys to success.

Thanks again for your words of wisdom

Save Breach · Jun 7, 2020

Laziness it is for me, as I have some dev experience.

Then I don't want to spend money on VPS, etc. but I have plans to do so and have even made an Youtube channel for my best domain

ty

ThatNameGuy · Jun 7, 2020

otismo said:
wait - there's more !

when my focus was development

the big problem was finding decent affordable domains

so most of my names were "placeholders" like mynewpix.com instead of newpix.com

which was always no-way affordable to buy the best name, even if that best name was even available

so I spent hours and hours and hours combing thru lists of the most complete and total garbage,

in the hope of maybe finding something decent, at an affordable price. I eventually enjoyed

some success, and had inquiries on some of my names. this prompted me to think

I might be able to make money buying and selling domains -

current scorecard :

thousands bought

thousands dropped

exactly three sold -

dreadful but getting better

but I am still a cheapskate

Cheers !

Again....thanks so much for posting this. Not realizing, you have possibly saved me and others tens of thousands of dollars. We are a lot alike in that, "as conceptualizers and conceivers of entrepreneurial "actionable" ideas", this is what I've been doing all my life. It's the nature of the beast (domain industry) that requires a little more patience, but given time and patience it will all work out.

I too am a lot like you in that I know I'm "getting better" at this every day. Practice really does make for ~~perfection~~ improvement

Joe N · Jun 7, 2020

ThatNameGuy said:
Everyone reading this surely has heard of the KISS principal or "Keep It Simple Stupid".

I definitely agree with this!

For me, keeping it simple means buying domains that can sell without development. The time and cost savings is huge, and the ROI is great.

otismo · Jun 7, 2020

Recons.Com said:
Felt like one of those FB ads or emails one you fall for one of those.

Are you a copywriter and/or funnel developer? )))

just sharing my experience, for what it's worth...

I will tell you what I am NOT

I am not a quitter

and I will not give up

it will take some time, but I will succeed eventually...

otismo · Jun 7, 2020

Joe Nichols said:
I definitely agree with this!

For me, keeping it simple means buying domains that can sell without development. The time and cost savings is huge, and the ROI is great.

EXACTLY !

I have to fix my KISS which was originally "Keep it Short and Simple"

AH kicked shorty out and brought stupid in - you are NOT STUPID !

KISSS now "Keep it Short and Sweet and Simple" better than new !

mpls · Jun 7, 2020

bmugford said:
That attitude kind of explains why he has been searching for years now for a development partner.

I could see someone working for sweat equity if you brought something highly valuable to the table. Marginal domains are not highly valuable.

Otherwise, people want to be compensated fairly for their time and effort.

Brad

He does not need a developer.

In 2020 startups don't need developers, need TEAMS.

To succeed with a website / IT project companies need several people with several, deep and unique skills.

Development team to build front / backend of the site,

Database administration,

Server maintenance and configuration,

Online and off line marketing specialists,

Content creators,

Web designers and creative people,

administartion.

Legal.

Management and so so on.

Every IT start up start with angel investors (not equity..........), in order to be paid DURING the project development and then.

These times are finished:

Recons.Com · Jun 7, 2020

otismo said:
just sharing my experience, for what it's worth...

I will tell you what I am NOT

I am not a quitter

and I will not give up

it will take some time, but I will succeed eventually...

I meant the style of writing ) with a one line paragraphs ))

otismo · Jun 7, 2020

TEAMS - or angels put you in an "incubator"

ideas are SATURATED

GOOD IDEAS are RARE - and the domain name doesn't matter...

mpls · Jun 7, 2020

otismo said:
TEAMS - or angels put you in an "incubator"

ideas are SATURATED

GOOD IDEAS are RARE - and the domain name doesn't matter...

You can have the most strong and powerful idea on this world but without MONEY NOW you'll stay with your idea and NEVER succeed.

And, in order to have MONEY NOW, or you've your own money (5 figures per month in order to pay your employee and all expenses for 12/24 months AT LEAST) or you look for investors.

It's 20 years I work with IT companies and startups and you have NO IDEA how competitive and how much money you need in order to succeed.

Even with a GOOD IDEA.

Have you seen the movie about FB? Without investors (found by Sean Price) that put on table 1 million in order TO START, the mere idea would have gone nowhere.

Or someone else with the money NOW would have stolen it and developed it.

otismo · Jun 7, 2020

MONEY

it helps if you know how to SELL SELL SELL ( I mean close )

some kid raised two billion dollars for a crypto, and ALL crypto is hackable by Quantum Computing

unless it has Quantum Encryption - excluding BTC which is now a creature of Wall Street.

MONEY

the top twenty money managers - the top twenty funds - have all the money I'll ever need -

and I don't need any ( body else's money ).

STOLEN

sure why pay if you can steal - put an end to theft and then get on with developing -

but then you had better have a team you can

TRUST

it just goes on and on and it never ends

and that is why

we do not develop because we are NOT idiots

golan · Jun 8, 2020

otismo said:
and that is why

we do not develop because we are NOT idiots

Brilliant summary

ThatNameGuy · Jun 8, 2020

otismo said:
TEAMS - or angels put you in an "incubator"

ideas are SATURATED

GOOD IDEAS are RARE - and the domain name doesn't matter...

"GOOD IDEAS are RARE - and the domain name doesn't matter..." how true Otis, and due to costs and development nuances associated with developers, many a "rare idea" never get off the ground.

I agree too that a domain name doesn't matter. but like a "logo", it can either enhance or distract from the idea.

Thanks again for your free insight

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