poll I am at 27,000 now, how many domains in your "keeper" portfolio?

[Recons.Com]

I crossed 27000 domain milestone today. I meant to start the sequel of my "5000" thread when I was at 20k, then at 25k, but never got around.

I am curious how things have changed for all of us since mid 2020 when I had the first poll.

My portfolio is 5.4 times larger than 2.8 years ago, so growing probably around 80% a year. Not quite doubling, but still a decent rate.

Almost all my names are with Godaddy save for hundred or so with Dyna. This helps with reducing admin load.

 

[Jamor]

27k! That's a lot of domains, I'm still going under 100 hahahaha. On the other hand, congratulations for you and best of luck

 

[SnakeCase]

Congrats (:

 

[AbdulBasit.com]

Congrats my friend for sharing valuable information and reaching 27,000 domains and answering to all those many questions. It seems like this thread has turned into a mini AMA

Well, I have reached a little over 8,400 domains.

Thanks!

 

[November]

I have only 1500 domains

 

[GoKaizen]

Do you use any software to keep track of expenses and domains?

I know this is used by a lot of big portfolio owners.

https://domainpunch.com/wmdpro/

 

[Recons.Com]

Wow, 27K!

That's massive compared what I have - slowly growing only with 150+ names.

How do you manage so many names though? Or more specifically, what tools do you use?
If you ever get time, please consider writing a post on your domain management tools.

Best wishes
Fayaz.

My domain management tool is basically building the business the way that there is not much to manage.

Think about it. What is there to manage? Renewals? Those can be set on auto, if your names are "keepers". Now if you chose one-year-stand model chasing reg promos, making lists, dropping and re-regging, then yes, there is a lot to manage. What else? Transfers? Again, if you are not chasing those deals, there is nothing to manage. Listing and pricing? That is needed only once when adding a name to portfolio, unless ... again, you are not chasing transfer deals and have to re-add names to marketplaces.

If I weren't growing, I'd be fine spending 1 hour a week managing it.

Other than that, all I use is just excel when I do bulk pricing, uploading and data analysis. I am also not actively recording what I spent on a name, as for me they are all just the inventory and the data is there with the registrar or in the email if needed for some reason.

 

[Recons.Com]

What u mean, he does just like the rest of us. Wall of stick it notes.

Show attachment 234719

ps. that's incredible Recons. Suppose this isn't a side-hustle for you

Thank you! It is one of the businesses for me that I am growing. My original interest in domains came from my entrepreneurial nature when I realized that starting anything without owning the matching .com is very bad idea. So for any new idea I would get, I'd secure a name and people would contact me asking to buy it.

If you mean employment, my last salaried work was 5 years ago as Business Valuations Manager for an oil company.

 

[Recons.Com]

He counts everything

LoL. Yes, I actually do ) It is like a second nature. And honestly even for a complex business project I can do quick calculation in my head and say if it is worth pursuing. Of course, if needed, followed up by a spreadsheet.

I have friends who do multi-million investments only if I give a go-ahead )

 

[Recons.Com]

What`s your approximate net income?

The current portfolio should yield anywhere from $250k to $350k post commission and renewals over the next 12 months.

 

[Recons.Com]

Looking forward to see you reach 1M in a couple of years

Compounding is very powerful. but won't be couple of years. If I keep growing 50% to 100% a year, it might take 6 to 8 years to get there. It took me as long to get from under 1k names to 27k names.

 

[Recons.Com]

I used to have close to 3K names up until ~last year, but only 5-700 ”keepers.” I’ve scaled my time investment way back, and buy very very little on the aftermarket these days.

But 27,000 “keepers”? Sounds like hell to me I can’t imagine the time and cash it must have taken to bulk up that fast, and the energy and focus it takes to keep it up. But if it pays to grow that much that quick, it must pay real nice...

I always wonder why to scale back, unless a) your overall portfolio is losing money b) you have done a proper analysis and identified which portion of your portfolio is not pulling its own "weight" (i.e. renewals).

I mentioned above few times, keeping doesn't take time, but yes, growing does take a lot of time, energy and money. Thankfully, money comes from the sales if everything is done right. And time-wise, I estimate that I have spent 5000 to 6000 hours of my own time so far. For most, that wouldn't be signficant, if their alternative is $5-20 per hour job, but for me, if I spent that time as an employee or consultant, it would be $100-$200/hour. So from my perspective, besides the buying cost, I need to factor in at least $500k in the opportunity cost of my time. That is another reason I don't engage in buying names I am not sure about or using cheap promos for buy-drop-buy type of activities.

 

[Recons.Com]

That's really impressive! As someone that previously worked at GoDaddy, I can confirm you are in the top 1% of domainers at GD.

You focus on quality is very similar to my strategy; I focus on brandability as well as liquid domains for safe investments (3L, 4L, 5L in rare cases) as well as top paying keywords from a landing page perspective. I'm sitting at roughly 200 names right now; large majority are 4Ls.

Keep up the solid work!

Thank you! I am wondering how many domain investors were there by GD's count? I'd estimate that 27k would probably be top 100. I mean, Afternic shows only 24 million domains listed for sale, so 1 in 900 domains there are mine and if you exclude top 10 portfolio holders like HD, BD, NF, DM etc., then probably 1 in 300 names.

Regarding liquid domains, I probably had around 10-12% of those in my first 5000 names, but for the next 22k I probably did less than 1%. Mainly, because I had to choose and prioritized size growth. I don't think I sacrificed quality, as I still make sure that a name is investment-grade, but not liquid per se.

I currently have around 400 4L domains, including the likes of akur.com dobb.com tekh.com elix.com siet.com tuth.com teip.com jehu.com adei.com qend.com belg.com nuvr.com eeqo.com jaiy.com rioo.com etc. And still buy 1-2 a month. But, my buying budget would need to go from current 15k+ to 50k+/month to be more active with those.

 

[Recons.Com]

I have only 1500 domains

That is not bad. I had 1500 in 2018 or 5 years ago.

 

[Recons.Com]

Do you use any software to keep track of expenses and domains?

I know this is used by a lot of big portfolio owners.

https://domainpunch.com/wmdpro/

Just excel.

 

[Recons.Com]

Congrats @Recons.Com

Its must be not easy to manage a portfolio that size. Even being in domaining for 15 years, I havent crossed 1000 at my best level. I'm always triming down due to increased $ cost when exchanged to my local currency and also hard to manage with my main job. It must be very hard to look after 27k domains for their renewals, managing offfers, setting prices and so on.

Anyway. Congrats on your achievement. Hope you will pass 30k within next couple of months and I hope good offers will flow on and on.

Thank you, Lakshan!

It seems to be the recurring theme with the foliophobia )) My advice would be to trim it to the level where you are confident and can get sustainable profitable result quarter after quarter. Once you achieve that, you are ready to scale up.

Managing 27k names doesn't take any time at all. Yes, I do renewals manually still, but that is by choice as I am trying to still fine-tune my by "brand senses", understand what I was registering and if it is good idea to keep. I am dropping less and less and eventually the value of time spent will be higher than the cost saving benefit, so everything will go to auto renewal. In short, that is for now 5 minutes a day on average. Doesn't have to be daily either.

Offers: I have chosen to have everything on bin. Of course, on you still get offers here and there, but I'd say responding to those is under 1 hour a month (mostly comes from brokers, so just give them the floor). Setting prices is done once when a name is being bought and listed. I have around 1000 names I need to price and list (the ones bought in the past month), so will take about 3 hours to price, make list for sedo, dan and afternic.

 

[Recons.Com]

Mine is set up with woo commerce and the escrow payment gateway. My plan was to put all my domains on my site, but it’s stalled due to time. I’m also unhappy with the design. I hope to get there someday.

The site did not open for me. But, yes, unless everything is done to the perfection, own site will always perform worse than, e.g., Afternic landers. Especially, with the new commission % discrimination (15% AN, 25% your own), you need to convert way better. I.e. at least 50% of your sales have to come from your own site and your combined STR and average price shouldn't suffer.

 

[maya-zir]

I crossed 27000 domain milestone today. I meant to start the sequel of my "5000" thread when I was at 20k, then at 25k, but never got around.

I am curious how things have changed for all of us since mid 2020 when I had the first poll.

My portfolio is 5.4 times larger than 2.8 years ago, so growing probably around 80% a year. Not quite doubling, but still a decent rate.

Almost all my names are with Godaddy save for hundred or so with Dyna. This helps with reducing admin load.



Show attachment 234614

manat.com and azerbaijani.com
Azerbaijan is my motherland
and manat is the currency of Azerbaijan

 

[Recons.Com]

...

 

[Recons.Com]

manat.com and azerbaijani.com
Azerbaijan is my motherland
and manat is the currency of Azerbaijan

Here we go I am from AZ originally too

Sizə uğurlar diləyirəm )

 

[Recons.Com]

I'm mostly dropping hand-registered two word .net .org and .co domains. For example: I had a bunch of TokenKeyword .org BitcoinKeyword .net CryptoKeyword .co types names that I registered in 2018, that I'm not convinced are profitable to keep renewing. I'm also dropping some three word .com's I hand-registered in 2020 because they're geo and have a very low STR. DebtConsolidationJacksonville .com DenverMortgageAgents .com that sort of thing. I'm replacing them with much higher quality .com domains... today I acquired GreenDolphin dot com which is a great brandable.

That makes complete sense. I have decided to focus on .com long time ago. 98% of my portfolio .com, the rest being mostly .org (for names relevant to the extension) and .us and still contributing positively.

I have handful of .cc, .co, .tv., net, me, but they are so few that they are not affecting the portfolio performance.

I also don't do geo, unless it is straightforward two worder for a large enough city.

GreenDolphin is great )) Although, hard to imagine ))

 

[Recons.Com]

Hope the sales market can resume growth this year, best regards.

That would be awesome for all of us, but probably the turbulence will continue for 1-3 years more.

 

[Recons.Com]

CONGRATULATIONS FOR HAVING A HUGE PORTFOLIO OF 27, 000 NAMES. With these names' Sale proceeds, definitely, you can feed your coming 7 generations.

Thank you, Haroon )

Depends what I want to feed them ))

US is pricey. If I want a kid to go to an Ivy League school, just getting through the college would cost around $300k per each.

 

[Recons.Com]

Hi,

may I ask how MUCH you pay in renewal costs?!

Is godaddy good for such a big portfolio; does it offer any incentive / attractive discounts?!

(or dynadot).

Thanks

Renewal costs are currently at around 27k *~9.5, roughly 260k$ for the next 12 months.

GD, imo, is good. Dyna pricing can be similar for large portfolio, but I personally prefer GD.

Generally, once you are with reputable good registrar and pricing is near the bottom, it is not good idea to chase further savings by either using promos from shaky registrars or chasing transfers every time. It is better to focus on improving your portfolio and increasing sales.

 

[Recons.Com]

27k! That's a lot of domains, I'm still going under 100 hahahaha. On the other hand, congratulations for you and best of luck

Thank you. 100 is a good start )

 

[Recons.Com]

Congrats my friend for sharing valuable information and reaching 27,000 domains and answering to all those many questions. It seems like this thread has turned into a mini AMA

Well, I have reached a little over 8,400 domains.

Thanks!

Thank you, dear Abdul!

Yes, mini-AMA it is )) 8400 names is awesome, given your stringent criteria for entering this glorified portfolio )))

It is just a proof that there are so many paths to get there.