discuss My mistakes in domaining by blowing over $30,000...

[Arpit131]

Looking backwards into my domaining journey, I realized that there were mistakes that I made.
Here are some of them:

1) I always knew the potential of hand registrations. However, I failed to classify my investments into short term liquidity investments, medium term investments and long term holds. As a result, I ended up selling some of my best names for very very cheap and some of normal ones were held only to end up expiring.

Lesson Learnt: Classify your investment. It will help you hold onto good investments.

2) I did not fix the proper amount of money I would reinvest from the profits that I make on my investments. As a result, a lot of it was spent unnecessarily without being reinvested properly.

Lesson Learnt: Plan a proper reinvestment strategy otherwise you wouldn't know where you blew the profits.

3) Maintaining an excel sheet of all the domain names that you own, their date of registration, acquisition price, renewal date and classifying it as short, medium or long term investment is important. I lost a lot of good domain names because I forgot to renew it in time.

Lesson Learnt: Maintain an excel sheet of your portfolio with expiration date. This way, you know when and what to renew, what to hold and make an informed decision.

4) A strict track of your investment, returns, profits, losses is very very necessary. I made over $30,000 in 2 years of domaining only to realize later that all that money was spent without reinvestment, having no track of where I blew up the whole $30,000 - $40,000 living a good lifestyle, partying and so on.

Lesson Learnt: Keeping a track of your cash flow is necessary. It helps you plan better, maintain a budget and strategize your future.

What are your domaining mistakes and what did you learn from it?

 

[deez007]

Mistakes:

Don't drink and domain!.....Not Good, bad...very bad.

 

[alcy]

mistakes are part of the learnign process. think of your losses as paying for a course or class to learn domaining of course you don't wanna pay too much for a course.. but.. in most cases, the classes won't be free

 

[biggie]

in domain world

i learned that..... if it's too good to be true, then it is.

and i should walk away

that type of bait is still being used today,
so when it presents itself... better get to steppin,

cuz you're about to get played

imo....

 

[pokainc]

When receiving decent offers, wait 1 day at least to think it over before accepting or countering.
Often countering is always the instinct, but more and more some buyers are not interested in negotiations these days.

Lost quite a few potential sales due to this.

Also imagine the physical cash in front of you, sometimes $1000 will have a different impression.

Also you may turn down a 500-1k offer for a name, but waiting 1-2 days, if you get another $500 offer for some other names, then you just look at the total and it's worth accepting all the offers in a cumulative sense. Hindsight....

 

[ivey]

@Arpit131

I can relate. I don't distinguish my names for short term sale(the more average names that keep money flowing) so I end up waiting for incoming offers on the better names. By that time.. I am in debt. I then make a good sale and have to use that money to pay off the debt. Not getting to truly enjoy the sale.

In some cases I make money and I invest in a bunch of things online.. and don't have much money left and nothing to show. I need to organize and plan and invest with a purpose.

There is also the risk to sell great names at cheap prices out of desperation in order to create some cash flow.

 

[Willox Perez]

This shows how important it is to keep track of all your investments, expenses and profit. This way you can tell where to focus your attention and what makes your profit. The same thing can be applied in marketing because you can track your advertising tactics and are able to know which ones are working and which ones are not.

You are always learning from your past experiences and mistakes and this is one of the best ways to improve in anything you decide to put your time into. Great read!
- Will

 

[Cannuck]

mistakes are part of the learnign process. think of your losses as paying for a course or class to learn domaining of course you don't wanna pay too much for a course.. but.. in most cases, the classes won't be free

Time is of the essence. I spent too much $$ up front while leaving good domains on hold while life got in the way. Like a garden, it takes time to grow - to research, generate stats and understand the investment potential. Definitely a learning curve in the world of domaining.

 

[Name Trader]

biggest mistake:

not selling 4l.com CHIPS at $1900 USD
when a newcomer offered bulk buy

I know 1 domainer who sold his entire portfolio (of about 500 4L chip domains, IIRC) for $2500 each. Making him a millionaire overnight. Sorry. Can't reveal his name. I wish I'd had the same foresight. I probably had about 50-100 4L chips at that time Now I get Chinese Offers of about $500/domain, on my very best individual domains, If I'm lucky.

 

[J.R.]

Mistakes:

Don't drink and domain!.....Not Good, bad...very bad.

Thought I was the only one that made that sucka mistake

 

[DeliDomains]

Don't be in hurry to sell even if you get 10x the offer. Try to research who the buyer is and to what use the domain is been bought. I have sold 2 domain in Low xxxx where as I could have got xxxxx.

 

[Naveenraju]

"don't spray and pray"
- Don't invest on the things that you don't know.
"don't sell for cheap"
- every domain suits to an ass in the world. do research and find out the right ass for your domain
"invest some money on liquidable domains"
-liquidate the domains if you need money rather than selling quality domains for cheap.

thanks to all for sharing your experiences

 

[WatchDogue]

The OP asked:

" What are your domaining mistakes and what did you learn from it?"

Declining several perfectly reasonable mid/upper " four figures " offers to purchase several of our domains some years ago while holding out - maybe a bit greedily - for retrospectively too high
five figure purchase offers.

All of the five figure offers must have been lost in the mail as I didn't see 'em arrive.

Lesson learned re reasonableness of offers in hand, frequency of solid offers, seller ( me ) stubbornness and, over valuing names.

And how quickly decent offers can evaporate.

Learned To - Sell when the road is paved with silver as you might not get to the intersection of
domain names and gold.

 

[Nikul Sanghvi]

4) A strict track of your investment, returns, profits, losses is very very necessary. I made over $30,000 in 2 years of domaining only to realize later that all that money was spent without reinvestment, having no track of where I blew up the whole $30,000 - $40,000 living a good lifestyle, partying and so on.

Thank you for creating this post - it's brave and admirable of you to share your experiences so that others can learn.

If you made $30k to $40k on your first few years of domaining, you actually did pretty well compared to most domainers. Your core mistake isn't related to domaining itself, but rather in the mismanagement of your personal finances. This could have happened even if you were selling vegetables on a market stall, or working in a 9-to-5 job... it's not specific to domaining.

I also had this same issue when I started. The capital going in/out for domain trading wasn't clearly separated from my personal finances. I didn't have separate accounts or sufficient bookkeeping. This meant that I couldn't have a clear vision on my returns, expenses or cashflow. I was also prone to wasting 'business money' on unnecessary personal things. I solved it by initially creating an imaginary entity (just for bookkeeping) that I later formalised into a limited company.

Having distinct accounting/entities for both personal finances and business finances cleared up a lot for me. I quickly learnt that the more seeds I eat from the business, the fewer are left behind for replanting. Without becoming astute in the management of our own personal finances, it is near impossible to create the long-term perspective that nurtures these 'seeds' into trees that bear fruits.

 

[DT13]

I lost a lot of money because i was too greedy.

 

[platey]

Mistakes:

Don't drink and domain!.....Not Good, bad...very bad.

Domain in while tired isn't good either pressing different keys while falling asleep

 

[J.R.]

When receiving decent offers, wait 1 day at least to think it over before accepting or countering.
Often countering is always the instinct, but more and more some buyers are not interested in negotiations these days.

Lost quite a few potential sales due to this.

Also imagine the physical cash in front of you, sometimes $1000 will have a different impression.

Also you may turn down a 500-1k offer for a name, but waiting 1-2 days, if you get another $500 offer for some other names, then you just look at the total and it's worth accepting all the offers in a cumulative sense. Hindsight....

You make a great point.

I lost a sell on a two word domain in June 2017. I GoDaddy.com broker contacted me on behalf of the client. I value the domain at $5-10K, turned down the $1K. I countered with $5K, broker said the buyer wasn't interested. We ended negotiations, I refused to sale for $1K but had I been in a more desperate financial situation I'd have taken $1K. Though I wouldn't be surprised if the buyer returns before the end of December. Too often, I don't hear/see domain speculators telling newbies to fully assess their financial leverage/bankroll before turning down less than ideal offers on low-demand domains.

...be careful with counter-offers.

 

[Arpit131]

in domain world

i learned that..... if it's too good to be true, then it is.

and i should walk away

that type of bait is still being used today,
so when it presents itself... better get to steppin,

cuz you're about to get played

imo....

Well said Biggie!

Mistakes:

Don't drink and domain!.....Not Good, bad...very bad.

Lol.. Very very true!! I once registered like 20 domains getting high on whisky. All pigeon shit!!

 

[Arpit131]

mistakes are part of the learnign process. think of your losses as paying for a course or class to learn domaining of course you don't wanna pay too much for a course.. but.. in most cases, the classes won't be free

Well, that is another way of saying "Grapes are sour". But since I did not manage the money properly, I now know how to spend it properly. If you learnt something without paying too much for the lessons, it should be used as a plus and to your advantage to shorten the curve and try more things.

Don't be in hurry to sell even if you get 10x the offer. Try to research who the buyer is and to what use the domain is been bought. I have sold 2 domain in Low xxxx where as I could have got xxxxx.

Happens every time. Everytime I make a sale where I quote the price and the buyer agrees, it feels like I left some money on the table. It is only psychological. However, who doesn't like more moeny :p

 

[DotKing]

Back in 2002 I wanted to develop Banner Exchange Network (they were popular) so I end up with domain B a n E x .Net (also when I was checking com, it was free to register).
I never developed that site. In 2006 I was offered $5k for that domain and refuse (wasn't in domaining back then) with impression that domain will worth more in the future.
Fortunately, I sold it 2 months ago for 1200$ (com is listed for 15k)
My regrets are not registering com extension back then, and refusing 5k offer

 

[Marshall]

Mistakes:

Don't drink and domain!.....Not Good, bad...very bad.

Drinking brings regrets and remorse
but
It also may be the only thing that helps to survive 'em.

-Marshall (Drunk) Quotes

Peace! ✌

 

[888domainsale]

Great insights @Arpit131 . Thanks for sharing your experiences.

 

[dordomai]

I blew up the whole $30,000 - $40,000 living a good lifestyle, partying and so on.

No mistake here.

 

[Hootsifer]

Beginning falling for estibot, thinking some lousy early hand reg were going to be worth huge amounts.

 

[Criterion811]

Like you said, "its worth the risk." It all boils down to bankroll, leverage, and personal balance sheet. Too often newbies base their negotiations on general 101 rules that apply to those with lots of experience and capital. Before turning down legitimate offers, you should always assess your risk aversion and know your buyer to the extent that you can.

Fully agree, I've only just started out and the way I see it right now is as long as I'm in profit, that's money I can invest in better names. There's a few I'm holding on to, but I want steady turnover to invest more. I guess I have the luxury of domaining not being an income I solely rely on however.