Making a living with Domaining!

[Manteufel]

Hi Guys, this is a very honest post and i hope im not making a mistake by telling so much about me in a very business oriented forum but i thought it would be the best way to introduce myself. Havent been around so much in the domaining scene as a writer though i´ve been constantly reading posts and blogs. Reading and learning. Im from germany and am desperately trying to make a living with Domains right now. I have pretty poor health and the way i see things, domaining might be my only chance to be able to get along financially because i can do it from home.

Got into domaining like 2 years ago. Made some typical rookie mistakes in the beginning and registered insanely bad domains because some valuesite told me they were awesome. Long story short; all were crap and i´ve let most of them drop. Lost something like 1000 bucks that first year. Lesson learned. Spent next months reading all about domain prices and finally got an understanding of what can be sold and what not. Have a pretty big portefolio (200-300) with mostly generic domain names now but i am still not able to make the 300-500 bucks i need on a monthly basis to pay for my expenses like Health insurance. Since im really sick, this is a key point for me.

The problem with my portefolio is that i registered generic country code and other top level domains (some of them premium) instead of going pretty much for the .com. I decided to change that now but i still got some very neat generic domains that i would like to sell but havent found a place where i can get them sold on a regular basis without too many fees. Im sure at a certain point, i´ll have a larger sale but i cant wait so long. Got a few decent .de domains, some orgs, nets, coms, co.uk and other country code domains that sedo values for at least 5-10 k each but i just cant sell them as finding the right buyer sometimes takes some time. You know, i´d be more than happy to sell most of them for a few hundred bucks each but didnt find a reliable auction site where they actually sell. As i need to pay for my expenses regularly, i am looking for a reliable way to make a few smaller sales each month to get the 250-500 bucks i need until i can sell one of the more valuable domains. But i havent found a reliable system to get them sold on a regular basis yet. Do you know good Auction sites where i can sell country code domains and where the domains actually sell?

Registering some .com domains with word combinations that someone might be interested in isnt my problem. If i´d know where and how i can resell some decent domains in the 50-100 bucks each range fast, i am through, you know? So far, i´ve tried flippa a few times but could not sell any one of them. Problem is they werent .com domains though they were some pretty alright orgs and infos. Decided to stay away from everything but .com org and net like the plague for now but whenever i take a look in the domain auction results, some of them sold pretty good so maybe im doing something wrong. The large listing fee makes the risk of not getting the domains sold too high for me to try flippa again at this point until i have some .coms that i know will sell. Got two .net domains in sedo´s great domains auction this month but am not convinced that i´ll be selling them. Besides, sedo takes so much fees for selling them that i´ll probably end up with 30 bucks or so for each. And you dont find enough great domains every month for that to work regularly. Tried domainlore for a few co.uk domains that were valued by sedo at 2000 euros each but couldnt even sell them for 50 bucks. So far, domainlore and co.uk was a total failure for me though i had some good names in english language and i will probably not use it again. Saw golem.eu but i dont really think they sell very much but maybe im wrong. Have recently re-discovered godaddy auctions which is right now my biggest hope and just submitted three short and generic .info domains and one .org to the auction but am still doubtful they´ll sell for like 50-100 bucks at least. None of these were valued by sedo for less than 2000 euros so they arent shit domains per se.

Have decided to pretty much stay with the .com domains and simply come up with neat sounding brandable names and sell or let the other names expire but i have concerns thats enough. Some posts here made me curious about brandbucket and another site and i´ve decided to try that out next time by registering brandable .coms. But i am still looking for a recipe to earn a reliable income by domaining each month. Dont expect to make huge money with every domain but would appreciate every sale i make in the 50-100 dollars range and above.

Sorry for this whole long monster of a text but i felt like sharing the odysee i had in domaining so far because im sure many of you have been at that point in the past. So my question to the people who can make a living with this is: How do you do it and what would your suggestions or tips for me be? I appreciate every input in this and hope someone can give me some feedback about what to do next. Im not a complete noob when its about registering but i miserably fail at making the smaller but so important bucks. Whats your most important ways to earn money with your sites or domain names? Like the basis of your success. How do YOU flip on a monthly basis? Please give me an example of a business model around domaining that is really successful and that works by rather making a few regular peanuts here and there instead of waiting for the 10k sale after a few years. Like what is something that you know, you´ll be able to resell FAST to pay for the bills. I have a whole lot of domains that arent .com but would be great to be developed but i suck a lot in webdesign and cant afford to pay a lot upfront to let someone develope em till i can resell em again or make some money with adsense and such. I know there are some content writers who are offering cheap services but i am not sure if ill be able to afford to pay more than hundred bucks on a website and i have doubts that this will be enough. Are there cheap webdesigners that build you a site that you can reliably resell (on flippa for example) with a profit? What kind of websites earn some decent money with adsense and similar services and would you even bother do put work or money in a good .info name? Whats your procedure with domains that you register, have developed and resell again and how much money do you need to pay until you can make a profit on it?

I know thats a whole lot of questions and im sure many of you wont be willing to give away your sectrets but i would greatly appreciate every input i can get because i need to make this work and im extremely adaptble and as soon as i found a good solid way to get around, i can repeat it all over and over again. Just havent found that yet! So please share some good namepro knowledge with someone who can really really use it right now. bye Manteufel

 

[alien51]

So what "helpful" advice have you gotten so far? Can you share it here?

 

[Manteufel]

Some people told me about the critera they use to register domains, their sales, what can be sold and what not, whats a realistic figure to earn and what not, good websites and tools to use and such. Will certainly not post specifics from pm´s though. They are called personal messages for a reason.

 

[alien51]

Ok, so come back here a year from now and let us know how those advice have panned out.

 

[Manteufel]

Will certainly do. Like i said, i will constantly improve what i do and what i register. What i´ve taken from this Thread is that i need to get much better with Webdesign and that i might be able to get a few websites going that might earn a few bucks each month. You know, with hard work it should be possible to earn 300-500 bucks a month with websites and thats all i need. And the better of a webdesigner i get, the higher will be the website sales on flippa and such. At least in theory.

 

[spamclinic]

hi,
the golden rule-

never own domains you can not own for few years.

the domaining is illiquid market and never make it your bread earning.

be a quality owner than quantity owner.

the accumulation period is over for domain industry and now it is dustribution period though good domains are still possible to form.

never have faith in automated appraisal.
ther are total crap even expert manual appraisal have personal grudge.

Never set a goal in domaining that you must earn few xxx every month. You will be disappointed at the end.

there is nothing pristine, i.e. perfect name in this industry. there are a lot of examples when a domain bought for reinvestment by next domainer but has to sell it a significant low rate thus making loss.

now let me tell you about myself--

once during 2001-2003 i had more than 2000 domains in my portfolio.
my top selling includes- inr.com, nifty.com, gigolo.com and few 4ls which were common to get that time. i am in this industry since 1996. i am lucky that i am in this field from earlier days and i was able to get good xxxx from my investment but never make it my bread earning tools.

now i have only 63 domains in my portfolio and all are novice one. now i have enough time to explore the blogs and website like namepros.

now having more than 15 years of experience and having great network of friends it is not difficult to me to sell the names but again i never suggest a name which donot have a merit and to look out the merit you must have experience or atleast should utilised the other person experience.

the key thing is to minimise the buy price of your domains for the domainers like you who yells when they find to hold large portfolio.

it can seem a little bit unethical but the few domainers use several accounts to register domains via Godaddy at 1-2usd using promo codes and then transfering it to their main account thus making the domain purchase very cheap.

you can use this method to cut the cost of your domains most by 80% and it gives enough leverage to you to hold those names for next year or atleast save your xxxx.

But the most important thing to have quality names in your portfolio.

it is true that no one can have 100% quality names but he should try to recognise the quality and should have enough time and capital to hold that quality as economy state is also play a major role and the failure candidates must removed from the portfolio.

always try to stick to Dot com extension only unless and untill you have more than one COMMERCIAL reason to have that name.

the key thing is Commercial and if you are able to recognise the commerciability in the name than you are the absolute winner in the Domain industry.

Here is one example of my recently sold domain.

we all like cakes and you will not find a one word domain for that . after going and doing hard work i got jumbal and jumbals.com it has all the qualities of domaining like radio test etc and i got those names and sold those names in good xxxx.

thanks

 

[decades80]

Hi there is my part. If you want to mess up with domaining, you need some other sources for living, cause you will have to reinvest all the profits. So my suggestion is that you gain a knowledge in antiques and rare collectibles (you could browse Ebay all day long) and after some months, you visit the local Flea markets. You can easily find precious items any time on flea Markets. I was buying some rare old PEZ items in the 90s for a 0.50 USD per piece and now the prices are up in the sky.

 

[Kate]

Hi Manteufel,

I know that a large part of the good sales arent handregged domains. But i dont have that budget. If i make one good sale in the 10k range, i know what to do with the money though.

I like this quote very much, because many newcomers to the industry think exactly the same. But in the end they accumulate hundreds or thousands of domains, that cost a lot to renew, don't sell easily (because they are regfee domains) and when they sell they don't fetch a lot of money. So instead of buying 10 domains you should buy only one on the aftermarket. I am still finding nice, aged domains for $20 or $69 - depending on the source. I know these names will be easier to sell than a 2013 regfee domain.
The 10K sale is unlikely to materialize statistically. You should not base all hope on a sale that will not come. Instead focus on making smaller sales often. The small amounts add up. Save save save. Spend a little, reinvest. Lather rinse repeat. That's how it's done.

Like i said, i only kept domains that sedo values over 2000 euros. I know its not reliable but a domain that one of the leading companies on the market suggests to sell for XXXX should at least bring a hundred bucks. If not, they should go out of business asap because they obviously dont know what their talking about.

Sorry but you are not getting it yet. You are basing your future on sheer luck and automated appraisals that are worthless. If YOU don't know which domains to keep and why, then you are not understanding domains. Then you'll lose. It's that simple, you don't know how to value domains yet.
Do you realistically think any of those domains can be liquidated at short notice for a few bucks at least ? Because this is what you want. Cash in hand. Liquidity.
Domains don't sell because they have nice appraisals. There must be a buyer willing to acquire it. An appraisal is not something you can turn to cash immediately.
You think these domains will ultimately sell but when ? You want some cash every month to pay the bills. I am now very concerned for you

I am trying very hard to see trends before they happen and register domains about technologies that are new. I honestly think that i´ve registered a few pretty good domains for the future. I might post my portefolio again. I took the names out as i was concerned this Thread might actually be hurtful for my selling attempts if someone else is googleing the names.

You are talking about predictive domaining here. The problem is that these names will take years to mature, if the trends ever take off. Most of the time, the domains will turn out to be worthless. Check out the cloud or 3D threads for example. There are plenty of threads like these on NP.
Anyway, you say that you want to build a regular income stream so you cannot afford to hold on to these names for years like an investor. Flipping sounds like your plan instead.

Right now i dont have high expectations.

Your expectations actually are very high Because very few few people are making a living from domains Even if you are not greedy and not even hoping to make €1000 every month.
Many members here have been doing this stuff for years and still have a day job. Granted, they are not all dedicated like you.
It's normal you are not getting a lot of tips and uplifting advice because domaining is not a real job, and most of us aren't making a lot of money honestly.
The problem is that 1. domains are very illiquid, 2. the best domains are long gone, 3. you have ruthless competition. Domaining is easier as a hobby than a profession.
BTW I'm not saying I have a stellar portfolio. I just happen to sell enough to offset the cost of the dogs We all have bad domains. The problem is when the amount of bad domains in the inventory is disproportionate. There are also plenty of nice domains that don't sell, because nobody needs them.

Your portfolio IS important, it is the only thing that matters in this business.
Good luck.

 

[biggie]

:talk:


lot of "IF's", in this thread

and,

an "IF" can go either way...

a lot of words being typed,

but what did they really say?



imo....

 

[ezcoms]

------> Originally Posted by Manteufel View Post
Like i said, i only kept domains that sedo values over 2000 euros. I know its not reliable but a domain that one of the leading companies on the market suggests to sell for XXXX should at least bring a hundred bucks. If not, they should go out of business asap because they obviously dont know what their talking about.

If you think SEDO doesn't know what their doing then why are you failing and they are succeeding?

Everyone on here is giving you $1000s of dollars in advice and you are in disbelief that your domains are going to turn heads. Everyone, including myself has been butt-hurt because they wanted a domain appraised and it was chicken scratch. Did I gamble the family house or skip payment on my credit cards to waste money on domains? No. Get expired domains that are of value to others and not just yourself. Don't fall in love with each and every domain you buy. Get coupons, register, and put them up for sale (cheaply) and have a good time doing it.

Don't quit your day job.

 

[Name Trader]

I would say (trying to be positive) that you should dispose everything other than your .com domains by selling them in NP auctions, asap. There must be a german equivalent for your .de domains.

I would give up my faith in Sedo to value any domain. All appraisals, manual or automated, are worth zip.

I wouldn't register any more hand-reg domains. Do as others have suggested. Scour SnapNames/Namejet/GoDaddy pre-release auctions (anything after pre-release is often just garbage).

Stick with one or two word .com domains. List them on Sedo, Afternic, GoDaddy auctions. Wait. Buyers will come if your domains are desirable. You could have a small portion of your portfolio in brandable .coms. Don't buy any non-commercial .coms. The risk/reward is too great.

If you cannot wait. You have to be proactive. Research potential buyers on Google and other industry focused journals. Send them emails. Place them in the domain conference auctions. Give them to a broker.

You would have been better (in hindsight) to take the money you have spent and invest that on under 5 .com domains in the aftermarket. So this is what you should be trying to evolve your portfolio into. Quality, not quantity.

 

[Manteufel]

You know what, this is pointless. Thanks to all the people who have been really trying to help me. And thanks to the people who gave serious advice.

 

[alien51]

The only reason i am attracted to this thread, is because i've been waiting and waiting for years for someone here at Namepros to tell me exactly how you would earn 300-500 bucks on a regular monthly basis. Yet no one, nobody, as in Nada, Kaput, Zero, nobody has ever told me exactly that such a thing is even remotely practically possible. Maybe stub can do it, but stub owns the White House so i'm not betting my odds that a new guy who knows nothing and won't take any advice will be able to replicate it.

I've searched the threads, people talk about this exact same topic over and over again in the past, very long replies from domaining experts, YET NOBODY, as in ZERO, has ever mentioned that you can rinse and wash this business model and live a sustainable life. This is not the first time this topic has been discussed here. Countless repeating times already.

I thought this new guy comes along, maybe this time, someone will really post the magic formula. But alas, yet another one of those disillusioned ones. I seriously think the Domaining circles are partly responsible for cultivating a culture of FANTASY surrounding domaining. We always talk about sales, we never talk about losses. So new guys come here, and say look i regged a really PREMIUM DOMAIN, can you appraise it? You look at it, and they are worth less than reg fee. They get mad. Fight starts, Mod deletes thread. Then you start over again with another new guy. Same "i have a premium domain" thing. It's so sad......

 

[Manteufel]

Hi Alien51, glad you feel great now. Glad you could help beating up the newbie who was asking for advice. Fuck me, right? How dare they asking the crop of the creme for help. You already had your opinion about me, even before hearing any domain name i own. Because you are sick of all those newbies coming here asking for advice`about getting along, right. Right, fuck them. Yeah, its really sad. Its a lot easier to tell people how stupid they are but about how they can make it right. Makes you feel a lot better about yourself when you can point out all the mistakes the newbie makes, right? But thats fine, enjoy yourself for being so helpful and successful. It takes a real man to beat up a dead horse. But you know what, i will not get mad. I was always friendly to you and will certainly not change that now. I will not delete my profile. I will keep on doing what i do and will come back here to let you know i made a good sale. Until then, stay healthy! There´s more to life than this. Maybe you fucked with my week but you will not get to decide if i have the right to be in domaining or not.

 

[alien51]

Have you watched Inception? Leonardo DiCaprio needs to be beaten up so he could wake up from the dream he is in. They finally threw him in a bathtub to simulate drowning. That woke him up.

But dude, if it's any worth mentioning to you, i have 3 domains that are full-blown websites that earn me $800 US Dollars per month on Adsense alone. During peak season like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and other holidays, i just sleep and wake up to see $100 already in my account. I don't do the Inception thing like you do. This is real. And i own more than 700 domains myself. I am not even mentioning affiliate sales and other direct merchandise sales.

I own Facebook stock, man. Purchased the stock when it was down. Now it's worth twice my initial investment. I don't have bitcoins, though. I earn money from the stock market just wearing my pajamas. It doesn't even need half the effort to flip stocks, than flipping domains. I really don't know why you are stuck in your rut. Your sickness is not even related to domaining, so im not sure why you even brought that up. You could have been a stay-at-home dad or a retired senior citizen, it doesn't make any difference.

 

[Manteufel]

Im happy for you if you are financially settled. Thats where i wanna be one day. If people would have treated you like the way you are doing with me when you were at a difficult point in your life, you may have never made it that far. I guess your posts say more about you than about me. Like i said, fuck me for trying to change my life.