discuss List your domaining failures!

[Arpit131]

Hello everyone..

If you haven't yet read it, here is an account of Nikul's almost 10 years journey in domaining

Having read it, I've created this thread where you can share your failures/experiences as well.
Domain Sales Thread shows a rosy picture at times. It's necessary to be realistic at times and we must know where we are making mistakes and going wrong.

So have the courage to come out and share your domaining failure stories, just the way you share your success stories, if you have one.

Looking forward to your response on the same.

 

[Dave]

Way back in early 2010 I took a look into Bitcoins again (after doing so briefly in 2009 too). One of my contacts at the time urged me to look into them again and to reconsider investing in them (they were really cheap back then) or to even search and buy domain names related to Bitcoin. I strongly considered it and decided not to bother.

Out of curiosity I did check what domain names were available at the time and was surprised to see nobody had yet picked up BitcoinWallet.com. I vividly remember this because to satisfy my contact I was going to buy it. Instead, due to my naivety and stubbornness at the time I decided not to buy any bitcoins or invest in any Bitcoin related domains, I honestly thought they would never be widely adopted and would remain a very very small niche group of geeks circle jerking over this radical new technology. I mean most people were less technical back then, I thought if most people are struggling with a word document they'd have no luck with Bitcoin, that was my naive thinking anyway.

Well, we all know what has happened since then. BitcoinWallet.com went on to sell for $250,000+ and Bitcoins went from a few cents each to $16,000+. Possibly the worst decision I've ever made but all I can do is learn from it and move on. I'll try not to be so naive in future and really listen to my peers.

I also turned down 2000 Bitcoins in early 2011. I had 3 chances between 2009-2011 to invest in Bitcoin, with more than one person trying to convince me. After that I didn't look into or think about Bitcoin again until 2014-2015. Having been a member here since 2007 and taking a risk on domains (albeit terrible names at the start), one would think I'd have been more interested.

As they say though, life is one long lesson. We all keep learning and I'm still healthy and doing well. That is what is really most important after all.

 

[Dave]

Come on guys, would love to read some more stories.

 

[Sami Ketolainen]

I registered one new TLDs at september 2015 with price 349$ and renewal was the same. I made some research before buying and I thought it can go for a nice amount if someone could be interested.

I listed it immediately for sale at Sedo with "Make An Offer" and started to contact potential end-users but nobody didn't replied to my emails. Well, I decided to keep it only for sale at Sedo and made some advertising almost year.

Then we go to August 2016 and there was only 1 month to expiry date and I decided that I will invest renewal fee amount (349$) for bunch of .com domain names because I didn't have more at my budget at that time. Then after 2 weeks, I got email from Sedo that you have an offer from your domain name. I log in to my Sedo account and I was like wow, offer was xx,xxx for this domain what was going to expire. And of course I did not have money to renew it and xx,xxx amount just laugh to me. My feeling was then that I need couple of beers now.

 

[Amzymayor]

@OP we'll like to read your story too.

My own was an offer of $1k that afternic received and didn't tell me for a domain like that. All I received from their rep was to update my domain name from "make offer" to a "BIN." Since I didn't know there was an offer on the table, I rushed to put $5k. That was the end of the deal.

It was after 1 month that I noticed that an offer was indeed received by afternic. How bad!

PS: I was just starting my domain business then so I didn't know about their platform.

 

[Arpit131]

Way back in early 2010 I took a look into Bitcoins again (after doing so briefly in 2009 too). One of my contacts at the time urged me to look into them again and to reconsider investing in them (they were really cheap back then) or to even search and buy domain names related to Bitcoin. I strongly considered it and decided not to bother.

Out of curiosity I did check what domain names were available at the time and was surprised to see nobody had yet picked up BitcoinWallet.com. I vividly remember this because to satisfy my contact I was going to buy it. Instead, due to my naivety and stubbornness at the time I decided not to buy any bitcoins or invest in any Bitcoin related domains, I honestly thought they would never be widely adopted and would remain a very very small niche group of geeks circle jerking over this radical new technology. I mean most people were less technical back then, I thought if most people are struggling with a word document they'd have no luck with Bitcoin, that was my naive thinking anyway.

Well, we all know what has happened since then. BitcoinWallet.com went on to sell for $250,000+ and Bitcoins went from a few cents each to $16,000+. Possibly the worst decision I've ever made but all I can do is learn from it and move on. I'll try not to be so naive in future and really listen to my peers.

I also turned down 2000 Bitcoins in early 2011. I had 3 chances between 2009-2011 to invest in Bitcoin, with more than one person trying to convince me. After that I didn't look into or think about Bitcoin again until 2014-2015. Having been a member here since 2007 and taking a risk on domains (albeit terrible names at the start), one would think I'd have been more interested.

As they say though, life is one long lesson. We all keep learning and I'm still healthy and doing well. That is what is really most important after all.

Could have been a regret for a lifetime for me, had I been in your place. I am happy you are this positive! Great things coming your way bro!
Cheers to that attitude!

 

[Arpit131]

I registered one new TLDs at september 2015 with price 349$ and renewal was the same. I made some research before buying and I thought it can go for a nice amount if someone could be interested.

I listed it immediately for sale at Sedo with "Make An Offer" and started to contact potential end-users but nobody didn't replied to my emails. Well, I decided to keep it only for sale at Sedo and made some advertising almost year.

Then we go to August 2016 and there was only 1 month to expiry date and I decided that I will invest renewal fee amount (349$) for bunch of .com domain names because I didn't have more at my budget at that time. Then after 2 weeks, I got email from Sedo that you have an offer from your domain name. I log in to my Sedo account and I was like wow, offer was xx,xxx for this domain what was going to expire. And of course I did not have money to renew it and xx,xxx amount just laugh to me. My feeling was then that I need couple of beers now.

Well big loss! You could have asked someone for a loan and split the profits maybe!
Anyways an experience though!

 

[Arpit131]

@OP we'll like to read your story too.

My own was an offer of $1k that afternic received and didn't tell me for a domain like that. All I received from their rep was to update my domain name from "make offer" to a "BIN." Since I didn't know there was an offer on the table, I rushed to put $5k. That was the end of the deal.

It was after 1 month that I noticed that an offer was indeed received by afternic. How bad!

PS: I was just starting my domain business then so I didn't know about their platform.

Didn't have a sale for a year after I started out! And I kept registering what is called "pigeon-shit"
Later I got to know about geo-domain names, something clicked and that's where it took off!
But that one year, I was about to fall for the appraisal scam and tried several other things which never seemed to work.
That is when I took to mentoring from one of the champs and learned things I never would have maybe, otherwise!

 

[Sami Ketolainen]

Well big loss! You could have asked someone for a loan and split the profits maybe!
Anyways an experience though!

Yes I could have from my relatives, but here at Finland people thinks that something like this is a scam. I think I'm only domain investor from here (never heard fron nobody else). I really needed money at that time because my wife's cancer treatments was really expensive.

But you can't always win.

 

[Arpit131]

Yes I could have fron my relatives, but here at Finland people thinks that something like this is a scam. I think I'm only domain investor from here (never heard fron nobody else). I really needed money at that time because my wife's cancer treatments was really expensive.

But you can't always win.

Sorry to hear about your wife's illness.
About networking and finding people from Finland, how about posting something in the Introduction part of the forum and see if there are more domainers in the area.
Considering that we are in the internet business, I am very sure there must be some others too.

 

[Sami Ketolainen]

Sorry to hear about your wife's illness.
About networking and finding people from Finland, how about posting something in the Introduction part of the forum and see if there are more domainers in the area.
Considering that we are in the internet business, I am very sure there must be some others too.

Tried that here on NamePros and no responses. Finnish people has big group at Facebook where you can post available jobs, experiences from different jobs etc and I posted there a post what I'm doing and they were really surprised. I got questions how to do this, how difficult this is and so on.

 

[domeen]

Yes I could have from my relatives, but here at Finland people thinks that something like this is a scam. I think I'm only domain investor from here (never heard fron nobody else). I really needed money at that time because my wife's cancer treatments was really expensive.

But you can't always win.

Even I have seen at least 3 so called investors from Finland. You need to do more work.

 

[Sami Ketolainen]

Even I have seen at least 3 so called investors from Finland. You need to do more work.

Yes they are ACA "investors" who has 1-2 names. Not serious investors and you can't call them domain investors

 

[domeen]

Yes they are ACA "investors" who has 1-2 names. Not serious investors and you can't call them domain investors

No no. At least 100+ domains. One has all the best .com, .net in finnish language since 2000 I think.
Other ones invests in 2 letter .fi-s and everythign else.

I am not speaking about 2-3 domain owners.

 

[Sami Ketolainen]

Really strange. I have done lot of research finding another domainers from here without results. Then I could be wrong and take my words back (People make wrong speculations).

Where did you find these information? It coule be really good if I could connect with them? Can you share these details via PM?

 

[Arpit131]

@SamiLotvonen @domeen and that is how networking is done and we build contacts.
Get in touch guys. maybe he could connect you with someone you can work/partner/learn from.