Is your time worth anything?

[william]

It's a simple question. But one that you probably don't ask yourself that often. You'd probably jump to say "Yes!" But in reality, how many of us price in our time in domaining?

When pricing your domain names, you may want to include your unpaid time as a cost. You may want to consider the times it takes you to do the following:

• Finding & researching names
• Purchasing the name
• Setting up NS
• Submitting to Marketplaces
• Setting up Marketplace
• Designing logo / Giving instructions
• Updating excel sheets
• Making adjustments
• Sale communication
• Transfers
• Renewals

Given all these factors, how much time are you spending for each name? How about names that you didn't even end up buying or registering? Take an hourly wage that you'd be happy to work for and see how much time you are giving away.

Many of us are quick to get excited when ANY sales comes in. Whether it's $500 or $5000. But when you start looking at your portfolio as a whole, and subtracting commission fees, our unpaid time, taxes, transaction fees, renewal fees - how much is left?

Additionally, think about it from a buyer's perspective. They are saving the time to do most of these tasks. They are getting a (relatively) rent-free space to conduct business directly to consumers. They don't have to pay for rent, equipment, keep-up costs, etc.

So next time you plan on pricing your names $500, $999, or even $1500 - do the full math. Don't just calculate a sale as all profit. Your time is your most precious and limited commodity. Your lives are ticking down before your eyes. 120 names could be 240 hours of your time. That's 10 full days of your life. 10 days that you probably worked for free.

I think this is especially relevant to brandable domain investors, who spend countless of hours researching and buying low-quality names. When they do sell, it's like winning in the casino. You think, "wow, I spent $10, and I sold something for $1000!" But after you look at the overall picture, did you really just make $990? Or are you actually in the red? Could you have spent your time more productively?

Here's an example:

Take a portfolio of 123 hand registered brandable names. If you listed AND sold all of these names for $999, you could potentially make $122,877. But in reality, the industry average is 2% STR. Given they are hand-regs, it will probably be worse. That's also assuming you have a sales venue that can actually sell these brandables, as most will be declined from most marketplaces.

$122,877 * 2% STR = $2,457.54 potential profit in a year.
$2,457.54 - yearly renewal fees (assuming you pay the lowest $8.47/name) = $1,415 potential profit in a year.
$1,415 - your time (123 * 2 hours per name * $10/hour = $2,460) = -$1,045 per year.

That's not including commissions, taxes, and transaction fees. That's also not including your registration costs. That's also assuming all of your names are hand-registered and not after market. After first year the expenses will be only your renewal fees and management, but what's to say that your name will sell at all?

Value your time. This is not just a friendly reminder to you all, but to myself as well.

 

[NickB]

The majority of my time is spent on my job, website and family....domains are a side hustle/hobby and I work it on a profit and loss basis.......Not rocket science.....

I said it in another thread this obsession with some trying to calculate an hourly wage in domaining is actually a waste of time.......

The bottom line is all that matters, no matter how many hours you put into it......

 

[Mimo83]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this, very enlightening

 

[bmugford]

The business model in your example is definitely not ideal, but education is not free. It takes money and time.

Ideally you would use what you learned and keep building. It will make the time already invested more valuable.

I put in far more time years ago than I do today. That work in the past is still paying off now.

The time you put in now, can also pay off far into the future.

Brad

 

[william]

-

 

[biggie]

When pricing your domain names, you may want to include your unpaid time as a cost. You may want to consider the times it takes you to do the following:

Hi

i've spoken about how "time" affects domaining, in the long run...
but the "time" you are referencing is more about a "BOM" or "SOP".

a BOM is a bill of materials, needed to produce a product or an SOP, that's used as procedural format in office settings, to execute services.

that list of items that you refer to, would all be contained in an SOP for domainers.
the "cost" of that time, which shrinks to "unmeasurable", over time for the experienced is value-added in the quality of their portfolio.
the efficiency, is measured in the ROI's per sale from their respective portfolios'.

that is the payoff of the "time invested", as well as the reduction of time spent now, as @bmugford alluded to in the quote below.

when it comes to an "hourly wage", you might expect that if you work for a domain related service, like a bodis or sedo, or one of the registrars.
but, as a domainer, you're like an independent manufacturer or service provider, so it depends on how you set up your operation.

you can create a company, and the company pays you a salary and that's your hourly wage.
or
you stay as a one man/woman operation, all expenses on you, but you get to sow all the fruits from your efforts

imo....

The business model in your example is definitely not ideal, but education is not free. It takes money and time.

Ideally you would use what you learned and keep building. It will make the time already invested more valuable.

I put in far more time years ago than I do today. That work in the past is still paying off now.

The time you put in now, can also pay off far into the future.

Brad

Hi

i agree.
the work done in the past, pays off today, like a present.

and now it only takes a few couple of hours at best, to do the maintenance and reviews.

imo...

 

[redemo]

I said it in another thread this obsession with some trying to calculate an hourly wage in domaining is actually a waste of time.......

According to Godaddy, domaining includes domain name development with ads. Developing domain names to gain correct amount of traffic to get correct amount of clicks to earn correct amount of income takes time. I value my time at £ 8.91 / hour. It's the U.K. national minimum wage. $ 11.79 / hour although U.K. and U.S. are not comparative economies. Let's suppose that I know 100 visitors to my developed domain name equals 4 % sales rate ( 4 sales ) each worth £ 10 ( $ 13.23 ), and let's suppose that it takes me one hour to write the blog that will rank position 3 in Google.com and attract 100 visitors. That hour is worth £ 40 of revenue and after all deductions surely £ 8.91 profit in my pocket during the course of 30 days. This is why I prefer to develop instead of selling. Nothing is guaranteed but at least you can make fairly accurate financial forecasts and calculations. If you don't like blogging just outsource it for £ 10 ( $ 13.23 ). Simples.

 

[marijuanadomain]

The majority of my time is spent on my job, website and family....domains are a side hustle/hobby and I work it on a profit and loss basis.......Not rocket science.....

I said it in another thread this obsession with some trying to calculate an hourly wage in domaining is actually a waste of time.......

totally agree- it is just a BS stress free hobby and I do it while I am taking a sh**&it and I do it very well.
when you are doing it for fun, time does not matter---it is a pleasure

 

[biggie]

I do it while I am taking a sh**&it and I do it very well.
when you are doing it for fun, time does not matter---it is a pleasure

Hi

so, which do you do very well, and which is for fun?

domaining or 'n


imo...

 

[inforg]

Don't fall into that "hourly" trap. I deal with this during meetings with some of my sales group (non-domaining business). Most people have been conditioned to think that way. Ask yourself why...

Poor people get paid by the hour, wealthy people are paid for their value.

Create the value first, the money follows. I would rather work 70 hours a week for 10 years and have lots of money forever, than work 40 hours a week for 40 years to be broke.

Your "hours" are most likely ones that would be spent watching Netflix or playing video games anyway. That time is effectively "free". You are just using it to create value instead of tossing the time in the trash.

Sleep less.

 

[marijuanadomain]

Hi

so, which do you do very well, and which is for fun?

domaining or 'n


imo...

Hookering

 

[HotKey]

You could account for time invested when calculating DN resale pricing, to a degree, depending on DN raw value. Calculating it down to an exact science however is next to impossible. And just because you've invested time into the never-ending methods of what the investor has done with the DN doesn't necessarily make it that much more valuable, it is more of a necessary evil that gets absorbed into the price if needed.

Becomes a moot point in the long run really, a low value domain like in high $xxx amount you can't just add 5 hours charged at say $80/hour and you've put 5 hours doing whatever with it thus bringing it to an $xxxx amount for resale, it makes it overpriced. And on higher-value domains selling at 4 or 5 figures that 5 hours you put into it becomes almost negligible anyways, now we're just bargaining with the buyer unless you're stalwart on those hours and the fixed price.

Buyers won't take into account an investors personal time put into the price of a DN, nor should they. That's our prerogative and we have to get creative on how to properly calculate the offering if using one's time as part of the value.

 

[Corey]

IMHO when you sell your labour, time has a value, an hourly rate,
when you sell a product like a domain name, the value is normally based on Past Sales.

Cheers
Corey

 

[DeniseDahmer]

Price is what you pay , value is what you get

 

[AEProgram]

When you come to learn that a big part of domaining to some domainers is a gambling addiction, you have much less questions.

 

[E-M]

It's a simple question. But one that you probably don't ask yourself that often. You'd probably jump to say "Yes!" But in reality, how many of us price in our time in domaining?

When pricing your domain names, you may want to include your unpaid time as a cost. You may want to consider the times it takes you to do the following:

• Finding & researching names
• Purchasing the name
• Setting up NS
• Submitting to Marketplaces
• Setting up Marketplace
• Designing logo / Giving instructions
• Updating excel sheets
• Making adjustments
• Sale communication
• Transfers
• Renewals

Given all these factors, how much time are you spending for each name? How about names that you didn't even end up buying or registering? Take an hourly wage that you'd be happy to work for and see how much time you are giving away.

Many of us are quick to get excited when ANY sales comes in. Whether it's $500 or $5000. But when you start looking at your portfolio as a whole, and subtracting commission fees, our unpaid time, taxes, transaction fees, renewal fees - how much is left?

Additionally, think about it from a buyer's perspective. They are saving the time to do most of these tasks. They are getting a (relatively) rent-free space to conduct business directly to consumers. They don't have to pay for rent, equipment, keep-up costs, etc.

So next time you plan on pricing your names $500, $999, or even $1500 - do the full math. Don't just calculate a sale as all profit. Your time is your most precious and limited commodity. Your lives are ticking down before your eyes. 120 names could be 240 hours of your time. That's 10 full days of your life. 10 days that you probably worked for free.

I think this is especially relevant to brandable domain investors, who spend countless of hours researching and buying low-quality names. When they do sell, it's like winning in the casino. You think, "wow, I spent $10, and I sold something for $1000!" But after you look at the overall picture, did you really just make $990? Or are you actually in the red? Could you have spent your time more productively?

Here's an example:

Take a portfolio of 123 hand registered brandable names. If you listed AND sold all of these names for $999, you could potentially make $122,877. But in reality, the industry average is 2% STR. Given they are hand-regs, it will probably be worse. That's also assuming you have a sales venue that can actually sell these brandables, as most will be declined from most marketplaces.

$122,877 * 2% STR = $2,457.54 potential profit in a year.
$2,457.54 - yearly renewal fees (assuming you pay the lowest $8.47/name) = $1,415 potential profit in a year.
$1,415 - your time (123 * 2 hours per name * $10/hour = $2,460) = -$1,045 per year.

That's not including commissions, taxes, and transaction fees. That's also not including your registration costs. That's also assuming all of your names are hand-registered and not after market. After first year the expenses will be only your renewal fees and management, but what's to say that your name will sell at all?

Value your time. This is not just a friendly reminder to you all, but to myself as well.

This has been on my mind a lot recently.

Years of grinding, research, pouring over threads, arguments, agreements, self doubt, highs and lows.

Good names don’t come easy, and great names often come with great sacrifice. A cross many Domainers bear without due recognition.

Overall, time has become a significant factor in my pricing strategy.

Great thread. Thanks to everyone for sharing your insight.

 

[Zilla]

ok, if u consider domaining as a "entertainment", the concnern will been perfectly fixed...but I fully agree, if u manage hundres/Thousands names, it is a "work", cost many time/efforts... we absolutely need put this into our pricing strategy..

 

[D Haynes]

I spend maybe 25 mins a week actively looking for domains so my time cost is minimal but if it was a full time job and I was spending say 35 hours a week buying, outbound, updating marketplaces etc I'd definitely want to earn a wage that justified the time.

 

[BaileyUK]

When you come to learn that a big part of domaining to some domainers is a gambling addiction, you have much less questions.

Surprised , many haven't yet agreed with this post. It is the underlying cause of many to continue in domaining with disregard to all the financial sensibilities. It can easily start as a bit of fun and then progress into almost an addiction.

Obviously many of us have things well under control but I'm sure it's not the vast majority.