Finding a Niche

[doggyowner]

Everyone is saying you have to find your niche in domaining. I guess my own niche would be 4 letter .com. About half of my "portfolio" are LLLLs. With LLL going strong I hoped that would affect LLLL as well so I started collecting LLLL. I also try to always be on the lookout for nice geo domains.

Would be great to hear your input on your niche, how you "found" it and how successful it is for you?

Also,

Which niches are popular and successful right now? Would also be fun to know what niches big players, for example Frank Schilling, Sahar, Sarid, Kevin Ham, had when they started (not now when they can hoover anything they want?

Thanks for looking!

 

[-REECE-]

My niches are health-related names, .mobi, and LLLL.coms. I first gained interest in LLLL.coms in 2005, however eventually became a LLLL.com naysayer... 2007 comes around, LLL.com prices are up 500% and I say to myself, LLLL.coms don't look so bad anymore... 1500 LLLL.coms later, I find myself typing this today.. Happy as ever and looking forward to a bright future

I first found out about .mobi in 2004. I actively followed it until pre-launch, but due to certain actions taken by mtld (reserving 5000+ names, delaying the landrush, seeming unprofessional at the time), I chose to skip it. December 2006 came around and I was looking for something to "risk" a little money in. I found out about the success .mobi had at October's T.R.A.F.F.I.C. and decided to put a little money in there.. which eventually became a sizeable XX,XXX investment.

I think the two (.mobi and LLLL.coms) make an excellent hedge on each other and am glad I didn't miss the opportunity to invest, although I wish I wouldn't have opted out of the opportunity to invest in them early on (I have a bad habit of doing that..)

I've always been a big "health" fan, mainly because I don't believe in this genetics BS about why we're all getting cancer, diabetes, etc. So it really has to be health or the environment, or some combination of both, right? I've put together a nice collection of health names over the last couple years, mainly in .mobi, but I do have 1 prized health-related .com (epicatechin.com) which I think we'll be worth a pretty penny someday.

I'm not a very large domain name seller -- rarely ever sell names and anything I do sell gets invested in more names -- so my return is automatically negative (renewal costs paid out of pocket, any names sold invested in more names), but I think I'd be sitting on a 200-300% profit if I were to liquidate my entire portfolio. No complaints there... :wave:

 

[Alex]

When I entered domaining, I wanted to focus on cctld's. I had some success with them, as my first cctld was sold quite fast for a good profit, but eventually did not further invest into them.

I got some LLLL.com's, and I had the chance to flip them for a good profit. Then I reinvested that money in them, and currently own about 230 LLLL's. All bought from previous LLLL sales.

For one month I try to refocus myself on MyKeyword domains. That is how I got MyMenstruation dot com, MyPolarBear, MyOnlinePharmacy etc ... And I plan to buy 100 more MyKeyword domains and try to sell them to end users.

 

[Malaysia]

My niches are health-related names, .mobi, and LLLL.coms. I first gained interest in LLLL.coms in 2005, however eventually became a LLLL.com naysayer... 2007 comes around, LLL.com prices are up 500% and I say to myself, LLLL.coms don't look so bad anymore... 1500 LLLL.coms later, I find myself typing this today.. Happy as ever and looking forward to a bright future

I first found out about .mobi in 2004. I actively followed it until pre-launch, but due to certain actions taken by mtld (reserving 5000+ names, delaying the landrush, seeming unprofessional at the time), I chose to skip it. December 2006 came around and I was looking for something to "risk" a little money in. I found out about the success .mobi had at October's T.R.A.F.F.I.C. and decided to put a little money in there.. which eventually became a sizeable XX,XXX investment.

I think the two (.mobi and LLLL.coms) make an excellent hedge on each other and am glad I didn't miss the opportunity to invest, although I wish I wouldn't have opted out of the opportunity to invest in them early on (I have a bad habit of doing that..)

I've always been a big "health" fan, mainly because I don't believe in this genetics BS about why we're all getting cancer, diabetes, etc. So it really has to be health or the environment, or some combination of both, right? I've put together a nice collection of health names over the last couple years, mainly in .mobi, but I do have 1 prized health-related .com (epicatechin.com) which I think we'll be worth a pretty penny someday.

I'm not a very large domain name seller -- rarely ever sell names and anything I do sell gets invested in more names -- so my return is automatically negative (renewal costs paid out of pocket, any names sold invested in more names), but I think I'd be sitting on a 200-300% profit if I were to liquidate my entire portfolio. No complaints there... :wave:

Very interesting to read such stories of how domainers started off..
i do started off similiar wif you.. mainly on LLL.coms 1.5 years back.. when 110000 @ 25% LLLL.coms are still available to register.. and from sales of LLLL.coms i register more LLLL.coms so my LLLL.coms can considered as free since its all purchased from the sales revenue of LLLL.coms ..and going tru LLLL.com news in namepros discussion threads has always been my favourite passtime , checking on how many % available LLLL.coms left and awaiting for the buyout and now dat the buyout is here...the work n effort is simply rewarding...

Of course in between i also did purchase some crappy domains which eventually i dint renw also but a very small percentage of my portfolio...
so its a lesson learnt as part of the process for a domainer..

Then L-L-L.coms when i wanted my initials domain n i reg a few extra coz i see 3 letter dictionary words are still available..so just reg some but very lil compared to LLLL.coms coz i dun really like dashes domains.. but now its paying off..

Its fun to go tru long available list and find valueble gems in them..but its a rewarding field because sales are normally at least 100% of ROI n normally much higher XXXX%

 

[VURG]

My niche is .com domains with less than 5 or less characters.

Includes:
LLLL
L--L
N--N
L--N
N--L
L-L-L
LLLLL

My favourite domains are the fake words like VURG and THUZZ.

 

[onewordonly]

My niche is travel, shopping and hotel .infos and a few sets of .com's with a certain keyword included.

 

[Mike]

Generally aviation, business, finance and psychology/philosophy. The latter doesn't pay squat...

IB

 

[HcDomains]

Interesting topic

I am in domaining for almost 14 months and have 300+ domains currently. I don't focus on which nice market yet but I agree that it is important to find your Niches for health business.

My current plan is to clearout my .INFO, (I have droped about 10+ infos and still have 7 or 8 for sailing), then would try to sale my Mobi's and TV. My goal is to keep .COM/MET/ORG only (My idea status would be 50% .COMs and 25% .NRTs/ORGs in my portfolio )

 

[npcomplete]

I think my main niche (religion) found me, but that is a matter of the "doctrine of selection" (who chooses whom). I started obsessing on religious domains in 1996. While I am a physicist/mathematician by trade, these are not big fields for domaining so I had to reach out to other fields. For domaining you want things that reach out to the general public, so overall I do a lot of shopping in the following areas: religion, law, loans/credit, stocks/commodities/markets, gambling, entertainment, health/medicine/nutrition, real estate, news, politics, geo, science/technology, sports, travel, weddings... while it looks fairly broad, I really do focus in these areas.

Marc

 

[sashas]

I've been domaining for about 5 months...I started off with ccTLDS, .in especially, then moved onto LLLL.coms. But now I want to build a portfolio of primarily 'fast movers' - LLL.coms, LLL.nets, LN.net/.org/.com etc, along with some strong generic .com thrown in. I know this is hard, but it can be achieved if tackled with the right approach. I really don't have the patience to wait for name values to mature (hence I missed out on the L-L-L.com trend lol