I am slow
it took me
over 3 years, and many $$ and $$$ sales, before the first $$$$. I did not start with a significant startup investment (less than$100 total), and only used revenue from domains to invest in other domains, so my growth profile was slow.
I started with a portfolio of about 25 in first year, but all low cost discounted acquisitions. As I made money with $$ sales gradually got more, and slightly better, names, but still only $$$ and less sales over next few years.
Without some digging I can't find the precise number of names I had at that time, but I suspect
around 250, but many were low quality experiments. It is somewhat sad that the name I first sold just above $1000 has gone utterly unused. The new owner did not even change the DNS settings, so it sits today with the registrar lander I had when I sold it. I am not going to release the name here, but it was a somewhat uncommon, dictionary word, plural .com.
For those starting out, I really support the view expressed by
@DrJacoby :
Success in domain investing depends on many subtle skills not all obvious or easy to quickly master. Build up in steps. It was only 2 months after the first $$$$ that I had another 4-figure sale, a short .org name, and the first $2500+ sale came within about a year of that, so
while it can seem slow and you doubt yourself reaching that 4-figure plateau, odds are once you reach it it will not be long until you have a number of sales at that range.
It can still seem like a long time between sales, but I have had 8 4-figure sales in the most recent 12 months, but now I have many more domains (about 450 'keeper' and around 800 shorter term one or two year trials). I am still learning each week, and keys to success are discipline, hard work, and always learning.
-Bob