Hi, I'm Twiki answering your questions today here on NP. AMA

[twiki]

I've just received a bunch of questions from another NP member via DM.

I thought it's more appropriate to reply to them in an AMA post as others NP members might have other questions. Never did an AMA before, here or anywhere else. Anyway, ask me anything below.

Before anything else, please note: I am really not a fan of the spotlight. So please don't put me on a pedestal - like a few folks wanted before. I really don't like / want / need all that. Just got a bit of more performance lately but it's nothing that uncommon I'd say. I'm just yet another domainer here on NP where I have learned a lot. There are many others here much better than me.

OK so here are the questions I've received, and the answers:

- Q: How long have you been in the industry?
- A: This is rather difficult to answer. I'd prefer to say 3 years, because these are the years during which I finally got performance. Which has been visible just as it went here on NP in the sales thread.

But I've been buying and selling domains on a constant basis since 2018. And I also had a few tens of short domains like 15 years ago or so. Unfortunately I let them expire an got out of domaining for a decade, would have been worth some decent money today. But I think it's never too late if you're willing to do the work.

- Q: What is portfolio right now?
- A: I guess you're asking about the size. I have 7400 domains right now, down from 25.000 historical max. I'm reducing the portfolio however and hope to go beyond 4000 so it becomes much more manageable.

- Q: How much would you say you have acquired in drop registered or closeout vs auction at GoDaddy/Dynadot etc?
- A: Again if you're asking about counts: I don't have a statistic, but probably 75% of my domains are drop regs, 15% are hand regs, and most of the remaining are closeouts. Auction buys, less than 1%. However I intend to develop that next but it is more time consuming for me to watch the auctions.

- Q: How much do you spend on average acquiring domains?
- A: If you ask about time, it varies. Sometimes a full day, other times I don't even work on domains. On average at least 2 hours per day. If you're asking about $, most domains are at reg cost OR closeouts which range between 5 and 50$ + reg fee. Auctions I only have bought domains worth $300 or less.

- Q: Looks like you are mostly focused on the dot com? Is that correct?
- A: Yes. I have a much better hand at .COMs. Like 99% of my domains are .COM.

- Q: Do you hand register domains also?
- A: Sure, but not every day. Sometimes I get an idea and will register some based on it. I've sold for example quite a few meta domains which are all handregs. I haven't sold any NFT domain so far. It depends. I tend to not go too deep in hand regs.

Please note that drops are also a form of handregs. Well drops I do daily, and sometimes several depending on the quality available that day.
------

I'm going to add a bit of more insight here as to how I get results:

What I do is simple, I'm working hard each day (really) and got a bit of luck as well. That's all, nothing out of the ordinary. I also try to help others when I can, here on NP and elsewhere (with some limits, of course). I am also a full stack developer and I build my own tools for domaining, that helps as well.

If anyone here on NP has another question to ask, please ask below. If there are none more, that's also cool with me.

Thanks!

 

[twiki]

Hi Twiki. I think once you mentioned you are based in Europe (EU?). If not, please disregard my question. I would like to ask something related to invoicing.

It seems the majority of your sales are coming from Afternic. How does invoicing (for accounting and tax reasons) work when selling through them? Do you issue an invoice with GoDaddy.com, LLC (U.S. entity) as a buyer?

Because if we are doing the transaction with any kind of GoDaddy entity in the EU it would change a lot of things regarding the VAT, necessary registration etc.

All our documentation, sales, communication regarding sales comes from GoDaddy.com, the US entity.

Furthermore when you are registered with them you need to have submitted the W8-BEN form as all EU entities need to disclose to the US for taxation purposes.

There is no transaction with an EU based entity although I know GD has a subsidiary in UK for example, where my account manager works for example (due to timezone being much closer to ours). If there was, that would be a problem and I think Afternic management is smart to understand it would be a problem.

But don't ask me. That's just what I do, it's not necessarily what you should do. Ask your accountant and your lawyer and decide based on their advice. I just explained what I do here, but this is not reliable professional advice.

I pay others (professionals in my country) so I don't have to have the hassle and headaches, and so should you and everyone else.

 

[twiki]

If you want to buy a domain TODAY for $100, what .com name, at least a keyword, you will choose?

I'm going to answer all those questions that make sense to me.

 

[Lox]

If you truly want to grow your domaining as a business, you have to streamline your operations. That's what I did. Decided what works, chosen my methods and stick to it. (apart from occasional testing.)

-Are your domains parked in make offer form, or BIN form, or maybe neither (contact form only)? > Only BIN. Make offer price is the same as BIN, so basically I don't have an make offer (fixed price).

-Do you use fast transfer (not always possible)? > If available, but I don't stress over it.


-What do you do if you let a domain expire , when it has a price. Do you remove the domain right away?
Because otherwise you may have to sell domains you don't own. > Yes, the same day it has expired. Besides Afternic disables your listing at the same time (detects domain has expired) so there's no such risk.

-Do you also list elsewhere? > No. I tried everything else, and in the end Afternic works for me best, even though their commission is 20%. But even with that, this simple setup (parking everything at Afternic NS5/6) is bringing me the best results (thanks again @AbdulBasit.com ).

- Maybe not listing anywhere may work the best, as long as there is a good honest place park with contact form,
so we can avoid lowballing/nonpaying agents/marketplaces hiding behind anonomity, and prevent others from stealing your leads first, and domains later.

> This actually tells that you still need to learn and haven't reached your domaining let's say maturity phase. You stress too much and focus on the wrong things. Here's my advice below:

- Maybe not listing anywhere may work the best, as long as there is a good honest place park with contact form, > No, definitely not. Unless you have a precise method for not listing your domains at all, and doing outbound to high roller companies, like @Lox has. But that's a high end and difficult one I must say (I admit I'm not able to do that yet).

- so we can avoid lowballing/nonpaying agents/marketplaces hiding behind anonomity > Once I raised all my prices to the right BIN and keeping it, all that goes away. You get your bin price, no more lowball, no more nonpaying etc. I only get like a payment error once per year at Afternic.

Don't put low min if you don't want to be lowballed. It's that simple.

- and prevent others from stealing your leads first, and domains later. > Same advice. Learn the right prices for your domains. Put a BIN price. Then forget about all the hassles etc.

If your domain is valuable, you'll get offers anyway via Afternic/ GD brokers. But overall BIN will sell most stuff.

In my opinion make offer is only good in the following situations: 1) You don't know exactly what your domain is worth; 2) You have a top-tier 5-fig domain or more, and don't want to put a price on it; or 3) You have a domain that you know will be worth much more later so you're just testing the market by accepting offers but declining all of them.

BIN price trumps everything else. With the sole condition, has to be the right price for your domain. Too low or too high and you're killing the sales ratio and/or profits.

Edit: Abdul Basit for example has a min offer, but that offer it's at say 70% of the BIN price. It tells there is room for negotiation but not much. It's a safe way to use min offer and I would not use anything lower today. But in my particular case, nobody ever took that min offer so there was no point to have the same. In the end I gave up on min offer completely.

The biggest part of my domain selling model is identifying 2-3 prospects; because it would be foolhardy to have a model that attempts to attract everyone. After identifying, you should have a general sense of who your ideal prospects are and the ideal time to put it on the market (with or without NS) .... I’ve briefly covered how here .

Regards

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

If you truly want to grow your domaining as a business, you have to streamline your operations. That's what I did. Decided what works, chosen my methods and stick to it. (apart from occasional testing.)

-Are your domains parked in make offer form, or BIN form, or maybe neither (contact form only)? > Only BIN. Make offer price is the same as BIN, so basically I don't have an make offer (fixed price).

-Do you use fast transfer (not always possible)? > If available, but I don't stress over it.


-What do you do if you let a domain expire , when it has a price. Do you remove the domain right away?
Because otherwise you may have to sell domains you don't own. > Yes, the same day it has expired. Besides Afternic disables your listing at the same time (detects domain has expired) so there's no such risk.

-Do you also list elsewhere? > No. I tried everything else, and in the end Afternic works for me best, even though their commission is 20%. But even with that, this simple setup (parking everything at Afternic NS5/6) is bringing me the best results (thanks again @AbdulBasit.com ).

- Maybe not listing anywhere may work the best, as long as there is a good honest place park with contact form,
so we can avoid lowballing/nonpaying agents/marketplaces hiding behind anonomity, and prevent others from stealing your leads first, and domains later.

> This actually tells that you still need to learn and haven't reached your domaining let's say maturity phase. You stress too much and focus on the wrong things. Here's my advice below:

- Maybe not listing anywhere may work the best, as long as there is a good honest place park with contact form, > No, definitely not. Unless you have a precise method for not listing your domains at all, and doing outbound to high roller companies, like @Lox has. But that's a high end and difficult one I must say (I admit I'm not able to do that yet).

- so we can avoid lowballing/nonpaying agents/marketplaces hiding behind anonomity > Once I raised all my prices to the right BIN and keeping it, all that goes away. You get your bin price, no more lowball, no more nonpaying etc. I only get like a payment error once per year at Afternic.

Don't put low min if you don't want to be lowballed. It's that simple.

- and prevent others from stealing your leads first, and domains later. > Same advice. Learn the right prices for your domains. Put a BIN price. Then forget about all the hassles etc.

If your domain is valuable, you'll get offers anyway via Afternic/ GD brokers. But overall BIN will sell most stuff.

In my opinion make offer is only good in the following situations: 1) You don't know exactly what your domain is worth; 2) You have a top-tier 5-fig domain or more, and don't want to put a price on it; or 3) You have a domain that you know will be worth much more later so you're just testing the market by accepting offers but declining all of them.

BIN price trumps everything else. With the sole condition, has to be the right price for your domain. Too low or too high and you're killing the sales ratio and/or profits.

Edit: Abdul Basit for example has a min offer, but that offer it's at say 70% of the BIN price. It tells there is room for negotiation but not much. It's a safe way to use min offer and I would not use anything lower today. But in my particular case, nobody ever took that min offer so there was no point to have the same. In the end I gave up on min offer completely.

Always good to see different strategies working for every other investor.

I tried ns5/ns6 on a reasonable number of domains but it didn't impress me much so I got back to ns3/ns4 which is what I prefer the most. But I'm happy to know ns5/ns6 are working better for you.

I agree with you that BIN pricing trumps everything else.

Coming back to asking you something so here is my question to you:

I read that you're lowering down the portfolio size and I was wondering why don't you scale up like before which will increase the probability of sales. I've believed that both numbers and quality together makes it a perfect combination. So what's your thought process behind this?

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

As my Afternic rep said to me: NS 5/6 work best for domains with a retail price below 5k. Above that, NS3/4 is the right choice.

Your domains are of higher value, therefore the difference is clear. Plus it's a different sales process, negotiations etc. The bulk of my domains is valued between $1.5K - 3K, therefore NS5/6 fits best.


The answer here is more complicated as there is more than one side of this decision.

Indeed, the more good quality domains you have, the better your sales obviously. That's fairly easy to understand for anyone. But there is a catch, or actually more of them.

1) There are limits on how many domains you can have. There are financial limits, and also workload limits. I've realized that I cannot properly manage a portfolio larger than 4 to 5 thousand names. It gets to mostly skimming over some domains, which in turn hurts profit. Edit: My current model depends on pricing precision, well if I cannot allocate enough time for that towards each domain I'm not going to make a good ROI. Too high or too low priced, the overall profit is greatly reduced.

So it makes sense to not only reduce the financial load but also the work load and focus on best names. This gets you less work and more money.

2) In these times, during which it has become obvious for everyone (or should have) that sales are going down and will continue to go down as this global recession is settling in, it is too risky to stay at pre-recession investment levels. That's valid for many of us including myself.

I am aiming to reduce my renewal footprint at less than half ( ideally not more a third ) while maintaining the highest sales ratio by selecting the best names I have and letting others go.

3) I've been doing a volume domaining business in the past. But, as I've said multiple times on NP already, I've moved recently moved from volume to retail. The reasons are several (see above as well) but the most important factor is that this are NOT the right times for a volume-based business.

Sales are getting lower and margins will be squeezed; therefore you need to stay as liquid as possible (small footprint; less renew overhead; cash in bank) and have the highest margin (few but top quality names) so whatever you sell it still brings you a decent ROI and financial stability.

If I'd be in a volume, discount or wholesale business right now (domaining or else) I would not be comfortable at all because these are hit first when sales dwindle and margins get squeezed. Which is BTW (or should be) a no-brainer anyone who know a bit about buying/selling stuff, be it of domains or whatnot. (Edit: I know stuff in this line as I've been doing a bit of business all over the board, online and also brick and mortar and certain things are fairly common in the bulk vs. retail kind of business).

Edit: @AbdulBasit.com , you're doing top retail domaining, that's the ideal one to be in at this time. If one is able to secure enough great domains and also having the financial weight to do that. I'd advise you to focus perhaps less on profit during this recession and more on buying. Great quality names will eventually hit the market and it's time to buy them for less and hold for better years when they will sell for top dollar.

Thanks for sharing everything in detail. I appreciate it


I agree on ns5/ns6 part where AN broker says that it works better for domains having BIN under up to 5K.

On answering my question, I agree with you. The type of model you're running your business may require you to lower down the portfolio size. Also I understand that such difficult times are good for getting great deals if one has the cash like you said.

Thanks again!

 

[twiki]

I dont know what is wholesale, i only sell at correct price lol

Sedo is used mostly by other domainers today (wholesale pricing), while on Afternic there are more end users (retail pricing).

It differs of course, not always like that but there is a clear difference between the users on the two platforms.

Note - correct price, that can be one of several things.

 

[blogspotter]

Retail sales, 4-fig? Thanks

The 07.01 is a June end sale, so 2 in June.

 

[twiki]

@twiki

I like this idea. I might do one of these.

Brad

Thumbs up. I believe you'd have way more experience to share than me.

Looking forward to it.

 

[twiki]

Hi twiki,
Can you please tell us about your portfolio size , and extensions in percentage if possible,
Thanks

Sure no problem. ( Although I've posted about this many times but NP is large I guess. )

I currently have 6200 names and looking to reduce below 5000 soon.

I've had max 25K names and it was a pain to manage.

95% are .COM. I guess I have less than 100 in other TLDs, a mix of .xyz, .org and just a couple .co and .cc .

 

[twiki]

where you from?

Romania.

I also lived in the UK on and off over the years. Having family there and a side business.

 

[twiki]

First, thanks twiki for this thread.
Would you share which type of domains you buy in cc : 1 word, exact match or with most tlds count ?

I only have 2 keeper domains in cc tld, single word. Related to credit card transactions.

(You're welcome, and thanks)

 

[Venkatesh Jadhav]

All BIN. I have frequent sales up to $2.5K and $3k, but perhaps you haven't seen them.

No I don't get Afternic broker negotiations, most of those never resulted in a sale for me. BIN is what works.

NS3/NS4 didn't work for me. BIN lander works (5/6).

Thanks !! Sorry to hear about your loss !!!

 

[twiki]

Thanks for the info.
Dan's nameserver is
ns1.dan.com
ns2.dan.com
What is the Nameserver of Afternic?

I suggest you to ask this question in the beginners sections, thank you.

Or, even better, make use of the free search function at the top of the page. This has been discussed 10.000 times on Namepros already.

 

[sellian]

Nice initiative Twiki, your insights are always inspiring!

I have a question. What's the highest price you've ever gotten for a freshly regged domain that's only taken in 1 extension (dot com)? Also, do you have a maximum price tag (not to be exceeded) for this type of domains?

Thank you!

 

[accuname]

bahaha co a fluke and xyz to stay... I cant believe u have nerve to claim u kown something about domains.. parhetic

I have a couple grand invested in .co and his comments on the extension don't bother me one bit. His experience or opinion isn't going to change if someone drops 20 or 30k on my best .co.

yes correct..so same as twiki here basically making his ego mighty threads and talking about pedestals while really peddling nonsense for amateurs like u to clap at

If you are as or more successful then he is in sales and portfolio size then by all means let's hear about it. Plenty of room at the top for egos in domaining.

 

[ZeroVariance]

@twiki I am reading through these posts and answers, and I appreciate you're taking the time answering.

For me ,my core business is finance (vc and private equity), secondary is digital publishing /media.

You need a lot of commercial and business acumen to combine logic and math in order to accelerate and grow in this industry. Which you pointed out in a previous reply.

your answers in this thread gave me a better perspective on how to improve my current domains I am selling and expanding my portfolio.

Thanks!

 

[twiki]

Thanks, Twiki. What do you have to say to those that believe quantity is as important as quality in domaining? Is it achievable to have both nowadays?
As far as I understood you have been mostly a 'quantity" domainer, because you have dropped most of your domains?

I think I've been quite clear so far.

The more great quality domains you have, the better your income.

 

[twiki]

Why should you create this thread?

For those who asked me many questions already.

There's a reason they ask.

 

[topdom]

Maybe answered somewhere, but let me ask more..
here my second list of questions:

You park at AN / NS5/NS6.

-Are your domains parked in make offer form, or BIN form, or maybe neither (contact form only)?

-Do you add prices (almost) always, or do you add them
after an offer, or price request?

-Do you use fast transfer (not always possible)?

-What do you do if you let a domain expire , when it has a price. Do you remove the domain right away?
Because otherwise you may have to sell domains you don't own.

-Do you also list elsewhere?

BTW, I never parked at AN. Many of my domains are parked at Epik, and not even listed anywhere.
After Dan and EPik screwed their own parking systems intentionally,..looking for a new place to park.
Maybe not listing anywhere may work the best, as long as there is a good honest place park with contact form,
so we can avoid lowballing/nonpaying agents/marketplaces hiding behind anonomity, and prevent others from stealing your leads first, and domains later.

 

[frank-germany]

Hi Twiki. I think once you mentioned you are based in Europe (EU?). If not, please disregard my question. I would like to ask something related to invoicing.

It seems the majority of your sales are coming from Afternic. How does invoicing (for accounting and tax reasons) work when selling through them? Do you issue an invoice with GoDaddy.com, LLC (U.S. entity) as a buyer?

Because if we are doing the transaction with any kind of GoDaddy entity in the EU it would change a lot of things regarding the VAT, necessary registration etc.

Afternic is the seller - you sell to afternic
no VAT included

 

[twiki]

Twiki, which would you say is the ideal portfolio size that combines quantity and quality and could provide a reasonable annual income from domaining? I don't know if there is an answer to this question but if you could make an estimate.. Thanks and hope things will get better

No there is no such thing.

Can be 10 domains or 100,000 ....

It all depends

 

[twiki]

In my experience Sedo mls-premium, is a mess. Why: you can't add or remove domains easily, things may remain in pending state and you will never know what will hapen next. Your price may not be shown everywhere on their network. I mean tested on a few domains only, but all possible bad scenarios happened already, and I had to work hard to reset everywthing, maybe including removing domains from my account, or transfering domains to another registrar.
It may not be Sedo's fault, and it may be purely registrar's fault.
But anyway it is a bad system. And because of this I don't try Afternic's system either. For example, a domain drops, someone registers it, and the old price is shown to the public. Who knows, maybe your domains can be stolen this way as well, how can we know, if both the marketplace and registrar are evil/or/incompetent.
Fixed price without mls?: prices are extremely difficult to remove (unless you manage domains offline and upload csv everyday).
Why insist on stupidity/or/evil.

Afternic is not like that.

The moment a domain enters expiration it goes into review and no longer for sale on Afternic. That is basically instant on Afternic, never saw a domain that just expired and is still listed.

Furthermore if a domain changes hands its whois changes and Afternic will instantly either remove it or put in review. Also when relisted by someone else it will show as "listed by another seller" so yo have to ask for a manual review which takes a bit but makes sure there's indeed a new owner (my account manager does this fast for me though).

 

[twiki]

@twiki Thanks for your thoughtfulness in sharing your experience and knowledge.

Please how do you handle issue of 60 lock for drop reg ?

Since you use Afternic, do you wait till after the period before listing or is there a Registrar you use that Afternic will allow for a push if the domain sales within the 60 days reg lock period?

There's no such issue for me. I mean I don't see it as an issue.

The only drawback is, you get paid later once the domain has transferred. That's all. It doesn't matter much to me (I focus on yearly sales/ bottom line most of all, whether I have to wait 1 or 2 months it's not a problem).

You just wait until the lock expires and then you transfer the domain. I just let Afternic folks know and they always message me once the domain has gotten OK status.

Edit: I don't know about such registrars ignoring the lock rule, AFAIK this is a registry requirement but tbh I haven't dug deep into it. Maybe there is such registrar that I don't know about.

 

[blogspotter]

In my experience Sedo mls-premium, is a mess. Why: you can't add or remove domains easily, things may remain in pending state and you will never know what will hapen next. Your price may not be shown everywhere on their network. I mean tested on a few domains only, but all possible bad scenarios happened already, and I had to work hard to reset everywthing, maybe including removing domains from my account, or transfering domains to another registrar.
It may not be Sedo's fault, and it may be purely registrar's fault.
But anyway it is a bad system. And because of this I don't try Afternic's system either. For example, a domain drops, someone registers it, and the old price is shown to the public. Who knows, maybe your domains can be stolen this way as well, how can we know, if both the marketplace and registrar are evil/or/incompetent.
Fixed price without mls?: prices are extremely difficult to remove (unless you manage domains offline and upload csv everyday).
Why insist on stupidity/or/evil.

In my limited experience, SEDO has the best add/remove feature.

SEDO verification is a Pain in the ass but it works in my favor.

Nobody can add the name without proof if it is in my account.

Also, Sedo deletes expired names on its own like clockwork for me.

I think Sedo needs a bit of getting used to in your workflow as well as a few sales to keep you motivated

All my names are pointed to sedo lander and where possible I have a DNS template with the txt for quick verification.

Once verified I point to DAN and be done with it.

In fact SEDO verification has helped me several times. I found out about names that never came to my account ot that got deleted from my account due to registrar error, from the email that Sedo sends out when they can't verify the whois.

Now your concern about FT is valid if you want to manually transfer names, in which case all you have to do is never approve the MLS approval.

PS: Sorry for the thread Hijack Twiki. Just wanted to share my experience

 

[LiamWallace]

@twiki do you set filters to select names from the droplist? If yes, how?
do you pick names manually or use an ai/bot ?

If this feels like you're revealing alot, that's okay.