poll I am at 5000+ now, how many domains in your "keeper" portfolio?

kite26 said:

Dangerous job especially during Covid 19 era. I am .io fan too, hard game but the days you took easily and cheaply an .io have ended.

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Yeah, I see all those great .io sales, but it still doesn't make it less risky. First, you need a strong keyword. Second, those are already priced high to acquire. Third, the renewal is 3x-4x of .com, so if you are holding 100 .io names, you need 1 sale to cover your renewals at $2.5k net, plus at least another one for the profit and you probably have spent $30K-50K acquiring those, then it is not really a great return on the investment for the amount of risk involved.

Similar logic for .tv too.

Furquah said:

Used to own hundreds of domain but now just 60. Saving money for a good domain name. Show attachment 157199

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I see ) You are also at the pruning stage getting ready to grow ) Most go through that phase. What matters is to apply what you learned in the second phase and do the iteration again.

shojib said:

i am starting 2020

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This might save you time, maybe few years and you probably seen it around the forum a lot: a) as a beginner, stick to .com, some do succeed with other extensions, but it requires specific knowledge, toolbox, method etc. b) don't just buy nice sounding names, but buy the ones you can visualize as a company name

Recons.Com said:

Yeah, I see all those great .io sales, but it still doesn't make it less risky. First, you need a strong keyword. Second, those are already priced high to acquire. Third, the renewal is 3x-4x of .com, so if you are holding 100 .io names, you need 1 sale to cover your renewals at $2.5k net, plus at least another one for the profit and you probably have spent $30K-50K acquiring those, then it is not really a great return on the investment for the amount of risk involved.

Similar logic for .tv too.

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Yes, I definitely don't recommend that strategy for newcomers. Don't forget Covid factor. And you remind me a $442.50 renewal fee I have to pay after some months for a single name

kite26 said:

Yes, I definitely don't recommend that strategy for newcomers. And you remind me a $442.50 renewal fee I have to pay after some months for a single name

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wow! legacy .tv?

Recons.Com said:

wow! legacy .tv?

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Vienna

I have ard 70+ domains in 2018 where I started domaining. In the past few months, I decided to relook into my portfolio, did some adjustments, and dropped some names. Right now, I have a growing portfolio of 30+.

The best bet is the good balance of quantity and quality. Quality is over quantity, as always.

I have less 200 names at present and I hope I can build bigger step by step. Now auction prices go up sharply and it is not easy to own high quality names. Good luck and I wish you success.

kite26 said:

The best bet is the good balance of quantity and quality. Quality is over quantity, as always.

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exactly

Recons.Com said:

But also remember, that most sales come from the names that have been in your portfolio for longer. At least, that seems to be the case for me.

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Thanks, this inspiring to hold long. I have about 5-10 sold domains yearly that I dropped and forgot to remove from marketplase in time. At that times I regret that I dropped them and they became registered by someone. But it comes down to classic question: what worth renewing, which is not simple to decide, especially for non-coms.

Started in mid 2019 and currently holding 100+ Domains mostly brandables and dictionary words .com
Good luck and I wish you all success.

Recons.Com said:

Sounds like you know what you are doing. Now the only question is if the recipe you have found for yourself is scalable and do you even want to scale up.

Presently, I am buying around 100 names every week. And I don't even expect to sell 15% within 3 years ))

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I definitely wouldn't say I know what I'm doing ) My main goal has always been "not lose too much money" through this experience, as there's so many things we just can't control.

So far I've gotten lucky and made a few sales so I try to focus on optimising the "process" of deciding what to buy, and only buying when I can answer "Yes" to two questions:
1) Is there a viable business model behind this name? (i.e Can I come up with 3 business cases? What's the industry status?)
2) Would I use the domain name for my own business?

I feel like if I follow the process, worst case scenario I will be holding quality names that I can use myself at some point in the future.

It's been a tricky market in recent weeks if I'm following only these rules, so I have been turning a bit more experimental, but if I'm being honest, I don't see my current model to be a scalable one, so I do need to try and figure out where to go from here.

It's been good fun tho ))

I have fluctuated between 50 and 500 names ... currently have about 100, all .coms. Have websites on about 10 of them, am working on making more sales this year, then re-invest. After I trimmed my portfolio last year, I maybe let one drop per month, so I'd say 90 are definite keepers.

Recons.Com said:

Thank you ) Why change a working formula? ))

I have an aggressive pricing on my favorite names too, maybe top 10% of all. The ones I perceive are hard to replace. Or I have my own development idea. Those happen to be my best sales as well.

Your portfolio name is perfect

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just out of sheer fun curiosity question.. when did you start to domain and how long did it take you to make any profit? was it slow at start? the profits i mean...

for most people domaining is very hard.. with long learning curve.. and often months or even years of negative balances... before they start seeing some profits. and thats only if they do things right and persist learning through the negative balances... which is not obvious to keep at something with much passion when you see negative results!

bad regs add up fast.. .so do renewals.. its super easy to eat away all profit and sales through new bad regs and renewals...

but we basicaly all start off in same bad way.. its just human to need to experience stuff on our own.. good and bad...instead if relying on others experiences and advice.

i started to domain 5 years ago... made tons of useless regs.. even if most i did not really renew.... i kept regging things that never sold.. tons of money wasted.. all sales profits wasted.. i was in negative for long time.. but kept at it.. then started to see some profit.. with all the mistakes and wasted money..... after all expenses and sales, i now basically sit at +50k since i started.. which makes for a pretty low annual avg of profit i know... but i am nonetheless proud of the progress i made and of this number because it represents to me much effort and work and ups and downs.. and most importantly i now know it can only get better.. because the knowedge i gained thru all errors is something no one can take away from me... nor really teach with words if we do not put the time and effort ourselves ... and domaining and picking good names has become a feeling intuition and instinct now.. like second nature... which in my view is the aim of domaining.... that kind of intuiution... same way that this experience and intuition is priceless in many other jobs or areas of life..
i have much left to learn.. but i feel the path is right and the experience and knowledge gained priceless going forward.

happy sales and domaining to all!

Thank you for the post. Currently holding 12 keepers, will be dropping 5 other names in a couple month. Just started developing my domain site a couple days ago.

I'm at about 1100 domain names. Everything with just 3 registrars. Everything set to manual renew. Once per month I pay renewals, review quality and traffic, and decide on drops. During the month I add names, sometimes 30-50 in a month, sometimes 0-10. Just depends.

I sell two ways. Passively through Afternic and by quarterly scheduled auctions. This year, I skipped my 1st qtr auction because of what I perceive as problems at NJ.

I'm very happy with right around 1k domains.

Some nice names there..

I have just over 500, Mostly keepers..

@Recons.Com you have very nice domains in your portfolio!

I have about 100 names, but approx. 50 intend to keep.

I have a personal problem that keeps me haunting: I am still unsure of the quality of my domain names, I don't know yet if I'm buying nice domains (closeouts and expired domains, some handregs).

Let me know your opinions if I'm on the good track:
https://dan.com/domain-seller/magna...ice=600-100000+&results=50&order_by=relevance

Thanks for sharing the details about your business model!

Recons.Com said:

Whichever works. I reduced mine from 3k to around 1200 pruning bunch of .orgs and .us in the process. And then started growing from there. It is also about portfolio management and scalability. I keep most names on GD, although getting fed up with the bugs, so that helps with the management aspect.

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Managing thru Godaddy has become very difficult in terms of transfer outs, Whois changes, load times, and just general error outs. Only 6 million more names to go before you give Huge a run for their money, Congrats.

Around 1200

approx

50% - .com extensions
30 % - .in xtensions
15% - xyz
5 % - the rest

and i am keeping most of them .. probably dropping 40-50 this year

Started 2020 year at ~1.6K
1K+ as of now and trending down...
No sales = no renewals.

kite26 said:

Vienna

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Very nice name. It is about the opportunity cost though. I assume you held it for quite few years and spent already mid $xxxx renewing it? Then you might also be spending similar amount before sale. Then the fact that the buyer is committing to paying that annually makes it a harder sale. You'd probably need $20K-$50K sale to make it worthwhile.

Maybe, try an aggressive outbound to find an end user? And then based on your experience, decide if you want another year of that.

Sophia Alice said:

Around 1200

approx

50% - .com extensions
30 % - .in xtensions
15% - xyz
5 % - the rest

and i am keeping most of them .. probably dropping 40-50 this year

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Nice! How does your experience with .in compare to the one with .com? Similar costs of acquisition and returns?

Jurgen Wolf said:

Started 2020 year at ~1.6K
1K+ as of now and trending down...
No sales = no renewals.

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So, if a name doesn't sell you drop or that your sales are down and that means less renewals?