Do you believe in hand regs?
As for me, that is the only way I invest in domain names. I never bid on auctions or buy from reseller market(unless it is for self-development).
What is your opinion on hand reg?
Thanks Arpit131. Despite my being
berated (not my description, but another members) for hand registering domains, I thought I would share a little about my strategy. I'll mention again that I've started,
NAMED, managed, succeeded at and failed at dozens of businesses since college in 1970. For anyone who cares to see
names of some of the businesses I've started just go to my Linkedin bio that's attached to my profile here on Linkedin.
Over the last 18 months I've amassed a portfolio of approximately 1,500 domains. The out of pocket cost of amassing this portfolio is between 12K and 15K or less than 50% of the cost of the"average" new car in America. However, the amount of time spent doing this is over 2,000 hours when considering time spent learning about all aspects of the domain industry. I make a point of immersing myself in everything I do, and domaining is no different. Before critics claim that I'm a hypocrite by denouncing so called "hoarders" and "scalpers" (term used by Verisign to describe domain investors), my strategy in accumulating my domain portfolio couldn't be further from the truth.
I'll start off by sharing why I hand registered over 20 domains just yesterday. I live in a region of the US that has been referred to as "Hampton Roads" for decades. If you look at a map, my area is best identified as southeastern Virginia where the Atlantic Ocean merges with the Chesapeake Bay, one of the most prolific estuaries in the world. There are seven different cities that make up Hampton Roads with a total population of 1.7M people. My city, Virginia Beach has 500,000 residents, and Virginia Beach is considered one of the largest resort cities in the world.
Recently, a group called Reinvent Hampton Roads was formed, and in coordination with our regional Chamber of Commerce and our Economic Development Council, it's been challenged to come up with a new
name for our region. For those of you that have gotten to know me, this is right up my alley. While so much of the re-branding of this area is political, I do my best to stay away from the politics. Currently I own about 100 domains associated with this region that are
ALL hand registered. My out of pocket expense for these names is less than $1,000. Here are six of the 20+ names i registered yesterday, all of which are .com's; SeaVaRealty, SeaVaHomes, SeaVaHealth, SeaVaNews, SeaVaSports and SeaVaKids.com.In case you didn't notice,
SeaVa Virginia meaning either Southeast Virginia or Virginia by the Sea is one of the names I'm supporting. In addition, I own other similar domains for other names I'm supporting.
The point I want to make here is my portfolio consists mostly of names that are "niche" and "industry" specific. I accumulate domains for the real estate industry, the mortgage and lending industry, the healthcare industry and other domains with valuable key words such as "incredible" valued at $5,000, as in IncredibleVegas, and "Lifetime" valued at $2,000 as in LifetimeGolf.
Finally, my strategy differs from the "average" domainer due to my business experience, and my unwillingness to listen to
old school strategy. Have a nice weekend everyone