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?

 

[frank-germany]

biggest mistake:

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

 

[Hootsifer]

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

 

[Arpit131]

biggest mistake:

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

Omg.. How many did you hold on to?
Are they still with you?

 

[Arpit131]

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

Happens with every new comer in the beginning.

 

[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

 

[platey]

Laugh lol I made a domaining mistake today

I allowed a gtld domain I bought for £35 just over a year ago expire today

I've just seen the price it's being sold for

It's only being sold for £3800 ish and the best bit? it's so cheap even at that lol

Oh well lol

 

[dnk]

Don't deal with some indian domain registrars, they will take your hard earned money, defame without any proof, cheat, exploit you, falsely claim that their cheater girlfriends, relatives paid the money, to get their girlfriends, relatives lucrative R&AW/CBI jobs at your expense, effectively destroying your life
Names of indian domain registrars can be provided. In 2017, 10 google, tata sponsored fraud R&AW/CBI employees are getting a monthly indian government salary without doing any work, without investing any money, while I am spending my time and money, yet not getting any kind of financial help, being tortured, cheated, exploited daily.
Income tax retiurns, bank details will expose the financial, domain, online, fraud of NTRo, R&AW, CBI and the indian government, yet the indian government refuses to investigate the great online fraud wasting millions of dollars annually since 2010.

 

[Naveenraju]

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....

well said.

 

[Sushant21]

Don't deal with some indian domain registrars, they will take your hard earned money, defame without any proof, cheat, exploit you, falsely claim that their cheater girlfriends, relatives paid the money, to get their girlfriends, relatives lucrative R&AW/CBI jobs at your expense, effectively destroying your life
Names of indian domain registrars can be provided. In 2017, 10 google, tata sponsored fraud R&AW/CBI employees are getting a monthly indian government salary without doing any work, without investing any money, while I am spending my time and money, yet not getting any kind of financial help, being tortured, cheated, exploited daily.
Income tax retiurns, bank details will expose the financial, domain, online, fraud of NTRo, R&AW, CBI and the indian government, yet the indian government refuses to investigate the great online fraud wasting millions of dollars annually since 2010.

Woh this happens :O, this is very much disturbing

 

[frank-germany]

Omg.. How many did you hold on to?
Are they still with you?

thank you for your sympathy

I still own

rttp.com
wffw.com

which I think are really great domains

 

[frank-germany]

Don't deal with some indian domain registrars, they will take your hard earned money, defame without any proof, cheat, exploit you, falsely claim that their cheater girlfriends, relatives paid the money, to get their girlfriends, relatives lucrative R&AW/CBI jobs at your expense, effectively destroying your life
Names of indian domain registrars can be provided. In 2017, 10 google, tata sponsored fraud R&AW/CBI employees are getting a monthly indian government salary without doing any work, without investing any money, while I am spending my time and money, yet not getting any kind of financial help, being tortured, cheated, exploited daily.
Income tax retiurns, bank details will expose the financial, domain, online, fraud of NTRo, R&AW, CBI and the indian government, yet the indian government refuses to investigate the great online fraud wasting millions of dollars annually since 2010.

wow

you should consider to become an author

 

[dnk]

@Sushant21 , It happens , financial proof like bank details, income tax returns will expose the financial fraud online
Internet users worldwide should be aware of the great domain, financial fraud of NTRO, R&AW, CBI wasting millions of dollars of indian tax payer money annually since 2010 and older single women domain investors are ruthlessly defamed, cheated and exploited. It is this rampant corruption, nepotism and fraud of government agencies which is causing a financial crisis as the indian government refuses to investigate the great online financial fraud.

wow

you should consider to become an author

Bribed by google, tata, NTRO, the extremely corrupt, fraud and shameless indian technical intelligence agency refuses to even acknowledge the fact that I am writing, they are falsely giving credit to a well connected brahmin cheater housewife nayanshree , who looted me of more than Rs 1.1 lakh and others, allegedly getting her and others monthly R&AW/CBI salary falsely claiming that they are writing online,when actually she and others are not doing any work online at all.

 

[Omar Negron]

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.

This is a very important point.

I too have an excel spreadsheet that I continuously update when I purchase or drop domain names and also type in key metrics and prices with ROI formulas with a few other things. It's tedious work, but well worth it if your treating it like a business.

Thanks for sharing!

-Omar

 

[obocar]

wow

you should consider to become an author

I wonder what China reistrar is like

 

[BaileyUK]

My mistakes include:
1 Spending good domain sales money as if it was a never-ending resource, then having to fire-sale some great domains to fund renewals.
2, The old classic of buying domains at 2am in the morning with a bottle of whisky to-hand.
3. Not anticipating, market changes and then irrelevance of past key-terms.

I have to add, It was from experiencing the good-times that allowed my domain investment focus to slip.and I'm pretty sure my positive domain moves still far outweigh all the negatives in the long-run. I hate to think what I spent all good sales money on. Wasn't unusual for me to spend UK£1,000 a day just on clothes

 

[ResoluteDomains]

Buying domains with an "idea" to develop them but never getting around to it for whatever reasons. Then having to renew these because at some point, I'll eventually develop!

 

[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.

 

[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.

 

[frank-germany]

@Sushant21 , It happens , financial proof like bank details, income tax returns will expose the financial fraud online
Internet users worldwide should be aware of the great domain, financial fraud of NTRO, R&AW, CBI wasting millions of dollars of indian tax payer money annually since 2010 and older single women domain investors are ruthlessly defamed, cheated and exploited. It is this rampant corruption, nepotism and fraud of government agencies which is causing a financial crisis as the indian government refuses to investigate the great online financial fraud.


Bribed by google, tata, NTRO, the extremely corrupt, fraud and shameless indian technical intelligence agency refuses to even acknowledge the fact that I am writing, they are falsely giving credit to a well connected brahmin cheater housewife nayanshree , who looted me of more than Rs 1.1 lakh and others, allegedly getting her and others monthly R&AW/CBI salary falsely claiming that they are writing online,when actually she and others are not doing any work online at all.

looks like you have even less humor then a german

 

[J.R.]

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

Very much a warning to the newbies with small bankrolls. I had a situation, where I purch

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.

In finance, they often speak of diversification of investments and asset allocation. In domain speculation, we can do the same; flip some assets to keep building that bankroll, hold on to some assets with long term potential, and drop pigeon shit from your inventory when you deem it necessary. More than anything, just keep learning, be skeptical of everything said by those in the domain speculation business, and try to apply basic business 101 principles to every decision you make related to buying and selling.

 

[toughdomains]

great learning to share with the members here....lots of wisdom in this post.

 

[DT13]

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

 

[Arpit131]

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

Thank you Willox. I have learned a lot from your blog OmarAndWill.com.

thank you for your sympathy

I still own

rttp.com
wffw.com

which I think are really great domains

rttp.com looks good to me. Don't know about wffw.com!

This is a very important point.

I too have an excel spreadsheet that I continuously update when I purchase or drop domain names and also type in key metrics and prices with ROI formulas with a few other things. It's tedious work, but well worth it if your treating it like a business.

Thanks for sharing!

-Omar

Absolutely. It is very important to do that. Info about where your money is invested, what return is it bringing, how can you make it better is what makes money attracts money.
If you do not pay attention to your business and organize your money, growing it becomes more tough!!

 

[Arpit131]

My mistakes include:
1 Spending good domain sales money as if it was a never-ending resource, then having to fire-sale some great domains to fund renewals.
2, The old classic of buying domains at 2am in the morning with a bottle of whisky to-hand.
3. Not anticipating, market changes and then irrelevance of past key-terms.

I have to add, It was from experiencing the good-times that allowed my domain investment focus to slip.and I'm pretty sure my positive domain moves still far outweigh all the negatives in the long-run. I hate to think what I spent all good sales money on. Wasn't unusual for me to spend UK£1,000 a day just on clothes

The mistake that you pointed out in the first point @BaileyUK , that I believe can be corrected by classifying your investment as short, medium and long term and maintaining an excel sheet for the same.
Let's look at the positive side of things that we are actually able to make money from the business. If it can be done once, it can be done yet again.

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.

Thank you for those kind words @Nikul Sanghvi . Yes, I understand that I get the domaining business and can make money out of geo-domains which is my speciality, any day. I need to understand wealth management better so that I keep track of my money.

The advice goes out to everyone in any business. This is like personal finance 101 which everyone should know.
Budgeting is important.

 

[Willox Perez]

Thank you Willox. I have learned a lot from your blog OmarAndWill.com.

Absolutely. It is very important to do that. Info about where your money is invested, what return is it bringing, how can you make it better is what makes money attracts money.
If you do not pay attention to your business and organize your money, growing it becomes more tough!![/QUOTE]


Glad to hear it bro!