question Have I really failed?

[bekind]

Been trying to sell a long held 5-letter brandable name: Truho.com.
It is a surname in the United States.
I tried all sort of price range. Nothing worked for me.
It was a distress sale.
It was a huge failure.
So it goes.

 

[bekind]

I own truho.com, honestpage.com, foodglad.com, etc.
Manage two edtech websites: fatskills.com, skillthing.com and a news website.

 

[bmugford]

why so dramatic?! on that basis everyone on the forum failed. We all have unsold names

I agree.

The last 3 domains I sold I owned for 14 years, 8 years, and 11 years.

That is more the reality of domain investment.

If you want end user prices, and passive sales, the formula is -

1.) Buy decent to good domains.
2.) List them on popular venues, with asking prices in relation to domain quality.
3.) Wait.

The more domains you have, the more likely sales will come.

That is assuming the quality is there and pricing is realistic.

Brad

 

[bekind]

Why would someone pay for a service they can get for free?

Good luck.

I didn't say I was going to run honestpage.com as a service. Just trying out something. Will sell the domain.

 

[bekind]

I agree.

The last 3 domains I sold I owned for 14 years, 8 years, and 11 years.

That is more the reality of domain investment.

If you want end user prices, and passive sales, the formula is -

1.) Buy decent to good domains.
2.) List them on popular venues, with asking prices in relation to domain quality.
3.) Wait.

The more domains you have, the more likely sales will come.

That is assuming the quality is there and pricing is realistic.

Brad

Thanks.

 

[Future Sensors]

I like your username.

 

[bekind]

Why would someone pay for a service they can get for free?

Good luck.

Boss, I didn't say I was promoting the service. I use that domain to test out things. Will sell the domain.

 

[bekind]

I like your username.

Thanks, boss.

 

[alcy]

Thanks, boss.

hope u didnt get it from elena degenerate cause that trueho had no focking clue what it meant

 

[nlitenme]

Have I really failed?

You didn't fail, you made a mistake.

Here's a recent article by @Sully with a question answered by @Bob Hawkes about making mistakes that might help you going forward - https://www.namepros.com/articles/bob-hawkes-the-odds-the-data-the-method.1373780/

Look for their other articles (as well as ones from members like @Eric Lyon and @Future Sensors) to learn more and get better.

Good luck!

 

[bekind]

hope u didnt get it from elena degenerate cause that trueho had no focking clue what it meant

Haha. Good one.

 

[Joe drake]

Did a google right now. Lots of people with truho surname.

NOT

 

[kmanX7]

I have another domain honestpage.com. Have built a one-page maker website on that.

So TruHo.com and honestpage.com. You go to extremes

I think there is not a domainer in world that buy few domains and sell them in few months.

So this is hard to say you failed.

 

[enterscope]

I have had 45 end-user sales and my average hold time is 2 years.

 

[Yanosh]

Yeah
As we all did.
It doesn’t matter , go on !

Good Luck

 

[Mkt Sales Leads]

There are a total of 11,881,376 5-letter combos.

So, that in itself is nothing too impressive.


A very, very uncommon one.

There are really no stats for the name as it is so obscure. LinkedIN only has a few people with the name.


The domain has a very small potential buyer pool. That is the main problem.

Brad

Yep.
The rule of thumb is to first check the buyer pool on dotdb.com, then (in no particular order):
Google
Crunchbase/TechCrunch
Linkedin
Open Corporates
And even Namebio

If after checking all those places your buyer pool is nonexistent, then so are your chances of a sale.

 

[CashproofAi]

Questions for you:
Did you list it and wait?
Park it and wait?
Did you do any outbound?

Helpful Outbound articles and tools

• eMail Marketing Best Practices for Domain Outreach
• List of FREE tools for outbound domain sales
• Outbound Domain sales Tips

Show attachment 291823

Thanks for your insightful advice. Useful for all.

 

[CashproofAi]

Been trying to sell a long held 5-letter brandable name: Truho.com.
It is a surname in the United States.
I tried all sort of price range. Nothing worked for me.
It was a distress sale.
It was a huge failure.
So it goes.

This is not a setback. Take it easy and keep moving forward. Every domainer experiences this at some point; some accept it readily, others need more time, and that is perfectly fine.

 

[Vertibox]

@bekind Everyone on this forum had to start from scratch and along the way to getting where they are now, many of them will have bought some names that weren't great, or they bought names for a niche that didn't work out/didn't work out the way they thought, some gambled on junk extensions (shockingly, lots of people are still doing that for some strange reason (SMH)).

So many people have scars from bad decisions/bad luck, but those who could kept on and got better and better at this. You can do that too.

I don't know how long you have been buying domains, but if it has been less than 10 years, you must remember that there is a finite number of useable words as domains and the available pool of such domains is getting close to being very small. This is because the golden age of domain names was over more than 20-25 years ago.

If you find a name that is available, you should stop right there and ask yourself why no-one owns it already.
Ask yourself;
1. Is is because I am so great that only I could have come up with this name?
2. Is the name available because it is not desired by anyone?

Which answer do you think is more likely to be correct, in 95-99% of cases?

Because domain name investors generally operate alone in front of a screen, it's very easy for some of them to think they have found a name that is good/great and convince themselves that they will sell it easily or soon.
The risk of self-reinforcing delusions is very real risk with domain name investors.
As Brad above said, even great names takes years of waiting for a buyer to come along.

Unfortunately for the names you have, they are very poor and not worth even the renewal fee. I would let them go when they come up for renewal.

I would suggest you learn from this experience but don't let it be what defeats you. Spend some time (at least 6 months I woukd suggest) to learn what a good domain name actually is. This site has resources on this and there are other resources you can find on the web, YT, etc.

You may not be able to find great names that are unregistered, but you might be able to find some good ones for $xxx which you can then resell for much more.

 

[Future Sensors]

I don't know how long you have been buying domains, but if it has been less than 10 years, you must remember that there is a finite number of useable words as domains and the available pool of such domains is getting close to being very small. This is because the golden age of domain names was over more than 20-25 years ago.

That's true. Even with two-word combinations, it's very difficult to find good available domains in 2026.

Recently, for another reason, I compiled a dataset of 1,334,536 two‑word .com domain ideas from a list of popular prefixes and suffixes. Of those, 983,488 domains had active DNS delegations, which means that they are already registered.

 

[Mkt Sales Leads]

@bekind Everyone on this forum had to start from scratch and along the way to getting where they are now, many of them will have bought some names that weren't great, or they bought names for a niche that didn't work out/didn't work out the way they thought, some gambled on junk extensions (shockingly, lots of people are still doing that for some strange reason (SMH)).

So many people have scars from bad decisions/bad luck, but those who could kept on and got better and better at this. You can do that too.

I don't know how long you have been buying domains, but if it has been less than 10 years, you must remember that there is a finite number of useable words as domains and the available pool of such domains is getting close to being very small. This is because the golden age of domain names was over more than 20-25 years ago.

If you find a name that is available, you should stop right there and ask yourself why no-one owns it already.
Ask yourself;
1. Is is because I am so great that only I could have come up with this name?
2. Is the name available because it is not desired by anyone?

Which answer do you think is more likely to be correct, in 95-99% of cases?

Because domain name investors generally operate alone in front of a screen, it's very easy for some of them to think they have found a name that is good/great and convince themselves that they will sell it easily or soon.
The risk of self-reinforcing delusions is very real risk with domain name investors.
As Brad above said, even great names takes years of waiting for a buyer to come along.

Unfortunately for the names you have, they are very poor and not worth even the renewal fee. I would let them go when they come up for renewal.

I would suggest you learn from this experience but don't let it be what defeats you. Spend some time (at least 6 months I woukd suggest) to learn what a good domain name actually is. This site has resources on this and there are other resources you can find on the web, YT, etc.

You may not be able to find great names that are unregistered, but you might be able to find some good ones for $xxx which you can then resell for much more.

Very good points

Also it's important question to realize and accept that there are different levels to domaining that make it a very hard (but possible) endeavour to be outright successful:

1. Knowing what a good domain is and taking the time to throughly research without being distracted by sales that bring out the FOMO and dollar/ pound signs (or the kerchingg sound) in your eyes. This is the foundation upon which everything in domaining is built
2. Being able to price correctly / well enough
3. Being patient enough to hold the good names for as long as necessary
4. Knowing when to be flexible in negotiations and take the money
5. Having the cash to manage a growing portfolio and the criteria for why a domain should be renewed / dropped
6. Being disciplined and clear-headed about dropping when they don't meet your criteria
7. Selling domains consistently (over months, then years)
8. Selling domains consistently AND being profitable (initially as a side business)
9. Selling domains consistently AND being profitable to the point you can live off profits not just now and again, but for years / decades
10. Selling domains consistently, being profitable to the point you can live off profits for years / decades AND either not needing to buy another domain again, or able to renew every single domain (even if you own thousands) like @AbdulBasit.com

As you can see, all this is a huge skillet to develop requiring years of focus, commitment, patience, trial and error, learnings and money management, and there are a small number of domainers succeeding at steps 8 to 10 (with step 10 being arguably the pinnacle of domaining success).

Most endeavours require a huge amount of work for one to succeed and inevitably, the trajectory will never be a straight upward curve. That's ok.

Start with achievable goals like putting together a spreadsheet of keywords that are commonly found across retail sales (using Namebio) and highlight what keeps cropping up more than others.

Good luck