New domainers...can they succeed?

[Keith]

It's hard enough to make a buck with domains after years of experience. Do newbies have a chance? The possible success rate has to be a single digit percentage!

 

[Horizonconcepts]

That is a very,very good start Nitindomains,your better then me,my first year was horrible,couldn't sell sh$t,then the learning curve went right up.

I get you DKN,no worries Mate.

 

[venturefile.com]

They can succeed but not with hand regs.. Sure some hand regs can still get you a nice amount, but these can take a lot of time.

If you have an $x,xxx budget then you have a good fighting chance. I would suggest to them to go after a niche, study it inside and out, become an expert in the field and then make only 1 or 2 purchases in the $x,xxx range and flip those.

EDIT: A good quote that I read not so long ago.. You don't make the most money when you are selling something, you make the most when you are buying it.

 

[carob]

The possible success rate has to be a single digit percentage!

Step back and look at it globally. What is the total amount spent in the world on domain registrations each year? Assume that it is true that 80% of domains are held by domainers. That means 80% of all registration fees are for domains for sale. Do annual domain sales total more than that huge sum? No chance.

 

[Name Trader]

@Nitin -If you are spending 18-20 hours a day doing domain research, how much time do you spend on your main thing Also, don't get addicted to your domains, because the renewals can come back and bite you in the a**.

 

[Nitindomains]

@Nitin -If you are spending 18-20 hours a day doing domain research, how much time do you spend on your main thing Also, don't get addicted to your domains, because the renewals can come back and bite you in the a**.

@stub I am not spending 18-20 hours a day at present, but i were doing it when i started out reading and researching about this industry.
Also, i stumbled upon domaining just because i was looking for a better way of monetization for our mobile applications.

I devote anywhere about 2-4 hours now to domaining. And it has started to pay off really good.

I have about 10-15 offers currently, which i am either negotiating, or have rejected. And i am sure to trim down some of my portfolio as and when the renewals come, but the objective remains to sell off that i pick at expected price range before the renewals begin to haunt.
A good 7+ months left for most of my names to be renewed.

Just wanted to emphasize that if we research good, and listen to the experienced folks on here, we surely can succeed. And, i am ever as willing to learn more, from the community, and at the same time share back, all that i can, with the community.

 

[Blake]

I think a lot of times when people are stating their profits they lack to incorporate the time invested and used in the process. I don't know about others but my time is valuable to me and to quote a great saying: "A poor man trades time for money and a rich man trades money for time"

After all we all have a price for our time that needs to be factored into our profit margins...just my thoughts

 

[matrigaldo]

@Nitindomains you started with handregged domain names or bought them from reseller market?

 

[Nitindomains]

@Nitindomains you started with handregged domain names or bought them from reseller market?

@matrigaldo I have dealt in both, and sold both types.
The maximum profits have come from the ones i picked from the reseller market.

 

[TotalWebsites]

They can succeed but not with hand regs.. Sure some hand regs can still get you a nice amount, but these can take a lot of time.

I absolutely hate hearing this.

Yes, I agree there is more money to be made in aftermarket domains. But there is also thousands of dollars to be made off hand regs. They have gotten me to where I am in domaining, and I will continue to handreg as long as I domain..

Regarding the OP, New Domainers can 100% succeed if they put in the effort. I'm in the exact same boat as @Nitindomains

I'm still somewhat of a "Newbie" domainer, and sure I've hit some speed bumps starting out, but instead of continuing with bad newbie habits, I spent my free time fixing those mistakes, researching, and finding new "outside-the-box" approaches to domaining.

From handregs alone I'm XX,XXX in the green, and I will continue to advance my strategies and learn as I see fit.

I just spent a lot of time writing this post in another thread and sharing some helpful insights if anyone wants to check it out. https://www.namepros.com/threads/ha...-domainers-and-end-users.834625/#post-4708000

But specifically this part:

2. For e-commerce, web based businesses, and blogs there are very different criteria for registering domains. Contrary to what people like to spout, hand regging domains to resell to endusers in this market is far from dead. If an enduser is naming an online business, they're more than likely going to choose a "brandable" domain name. And to be clear, a "brandable" to me is anything that is not an EMD - namely keyword+word.

So when I hand register a domain to resell, I look at past sales to find a popular keyword, and then attach it to all of the most popular suffixes. (I made a tool to simplify this, but believe me there are tons of good domains available out there.)

Here's an example of what I mean from a few days ago:

I saw that MerchantCard sold for $2,000, so I checked out other sales using the word merchant. I found that in the last year MerchantGuard sold for $3,000, MerchantSquare sold for $4,000, and MerchantConnection sold for $3,000.

So I used my method to find what "merchant" domains were available and tried to find similar domains to ones that have sold in the past. One of the available domains was MerchantCube/com. It fit the criteria I was looking for, keyword+cube names have sold very well in the past, so I regged it for a whopping $1.99.

Using systematic methods and doing quality research before regging a name goes a long way. Now that I've built up my domain profits I'm looking more into aftermarket domains, but regardless, there is plenty of room to be successful if you put forth the effort.

 

[Soofi]

Living example of new domainers can succeed in the domain name industry, provided they have done the right research and read right threads on this forum.

A good friend, met and hung out quite a lot with Nitin in New Delhi and he accompanied us to the India's first domain name conference; DOMAINX 2014 where we spent a lot of good time discussing domain names.

I started about 3-4 months back.

Have sold domains worth $16k in total as yet.

Hold about 250-300 domains, so i am about 3k invested.

That still gives out a net profit of $12-$13k.

But i have worked very very hard for this. In the beginning i researched for about 18-20 hours for continuous days.
I am still learning, and it isn't my main thing.

 

[matrigaldo]

It's just a business. You can't join a business like domaining and expect to "win" if you don't do the right researchs and if you don't manage your budget and your money in order to guarantee a way out without having any kind of "real-life problem" .

Anyone can handreg decent domains and close nice sales, this forum has many examples of that, many stories. But It has to be done in the right way.
There are too many domainers (experienced and not) looking every day through the dropping lists. It makes this more harder than in the past. But it's still possible.

 

[000]

Sure of course a new domainer can succeed, if they understand what makes for a desirable domain name.

Just this week I hand registered a domain (it had been sitting available a while) for $2.17 and sold it 18 minutes later for $395. I'm no newbie but anyone with a couple bucks and internet access could have done the same thing.

 

[AEProgram]

Sure of course a new domainer can succeed, if they understand what makes for a desirable domain name.

Just this week I hand registered a domain (it had been sitting available a while) for $2.17 and sold it 18 minutes later for $395. I'm no newbie but anyone with a couple bucks and internet access could have done the same thing.

congrats but please realize that tens of thousands of people with internet access tried doing the same thing, the following month they needed to borrow money to pay for their internet access.

 

[000]

congrats but please realize that tens of thousands of people with internet access tried doing the same thing, the following money they needed to borrow money to pay for their internet access.

True, and I realize most will fail, due to not understanding what makes a domain desirable, etc. I'm just saying that it is entirely possible, without any elaborate or expensive strategy. It's not too late to get in the game, and it never will be, as long as domains hold value.

 

[kemjika11]

Alot of smart and wise advice given to the new domainers.

My advice(based on my experience)- read and study domain stuff in general and what draws you in....then find your niche. People try to generalize domains but there are niches- some are drop specialists, some are flippers, some are ccTLD experts, some are hack experts, some are new trend domainers. Once you find your niche, its only a matter of time before you start making money.

The advice about not handregging is correct IMO. That poster didnt mean to say dont hand reg. He meant to say that when you hand reg, you have so much freedom, and a newbie with alot of freedom is way more likely to reg names that please them rather than a real end user and i agree with that.

 

[TotalWebsites]

Alot of smart and wise advice given to the new domainers.

My advice(based on my experience)- read and study domain stuff in general and what draws you in....then find your niche. People try to generalize domains but there are niches- some are drop specialists, some are flippers, some are ccTLD experts, some are hack experts, some are new trend domainers. Once you find your niche, its only a matter of time before you start making money.

The advice about not handregging is correct IMO. That poster didnt mean to say dont hand reg. He meant to say that when you hand reg, you have so much freedom, and a newbie with alot of freedom is way more likely to reg names that please them rather than a real end user and i agree with that.

I definitely agree about the niches and love the way you described them. I'll handreg and flip .com domains like nobody's business, but I would never even think of registering anything else for resale purposes.

I do believe there is opportunity to excel in multiple niches, which I've been gradually working on shifting to the aftermarket now that I have the funds to invest, but just like with every aspect of domaining I'm doing my research and taking it slow before diving in head first. It would be reeeeaally easy to fall into the red with a few poor aftermarket purchases, but that's also where the xx,xxx sales are found.

Regarding the handregs, what you said is perfectly true, but I don't see how you got that from "They can succeed but not with hand regs.."

Obviously every newbie domainer will reg a nice list of chickenshit domains when they first get started, but can anyone truthfully say they didn't do the exact same thing? For a newbie without a significant budget, I personally think handregs are their only path to success. Because if you feel like newbies can't handreg anything with value, how in the world could you expect them to be successful putting all their funds in 2-3 domains.

Domaining is truly an art and it takes time, research, and personal experience to be successful. Period. So giving newbies the advice to go all in on the aftermarket without having any first-hand experience with domain sales, negotiations, and doing their own trial and error sounds totally ludicrous IMO.

Research, get familiar, progress, try different methods, and find out if you really have what it takes to be successful. And if not, you lost out on a handful of reg fees and can move on to the next thing..

 

[infojunkie]

I have been registering domain names since the olden days, but I still consider myself a newbie. I mostly registered names I was developing, but I've always had a few dozen I've been renewing every year thinking about whether to build or sell. Only recently did I decide to seriously focus on "domaining." I've been absorbing info and podcasts and reading whatever I could and learning from the kind (and other) folks here at Name Pros. I'm mostly concentrating on getting rid of things like the sad, hyphenated .info and .org names and building out the ones with potential that interest me most. The nice thing about this business is that you get to choose which part you want to specialize in.

 

[Soofi]

I have been registering domain names since the olden days, but I still consider myself a newbie.

Been in this business since 2000 (part time back then), started full time in 2006.. however as you stated I consider myself a newbie as well who is willing to learn if taught right!

 

[McDuke]

Some say I'm just a newbie,
All I wanted were a few names to sell doobies,
I hand regged them all,
Iv'e got renewals in the fall,
In time my garnets may turn into rubys.

 

[TheWatcher]

In every business, you will succeed if you will continue to learn and work hard to get it.

 

[ImageAuthors]

I have sold a name for xxx that I bought for low xx and I'm currently still down a couple hundred dollars but have received a high xxx offer on one of my names that I have recently countered.

Do I think that I'll succeed in the long run? ... Yes.... Is it difficult? ... Yes, but I'm still learning.

Early on, what matters most is getting sales -- even low sales to other domainers. That's proof of concept.

The main problem I see new domainers facing is that they start off buying domains in the riskiest, most speculative, most expensive to hand-reg, longest-term category of domains: the new TLDs.

Those new domainers will explain their vision of the future all day long, and a some of them attack anybody who gently criticizes their prophecies. But what they're not getting, meanwhile, is proof of concept.

They will boast about not needing short-term turnover because they're thinking long term. But how do they learn about negotiations? How do they gauge their own buying strategy in terms of offers? How do they appraise the value and risks?

@Joshua,

You're right to start out selling -- even selling for small profits or at a loss sometimes -- just to prove that you can do it and learn how to do it better.

 

[GravityEleven]

Just to add some experience from my first year in the Domaining business (started October 2013)..

1. Specializing in niches and finding niche defining keyword domains has been the golden path for me so far.. (of course in my own interest i can't share which niches those are)
2. Active selling (instead of passively waiting) to endusers definitely pays off if you manage to hone your sales pitch over time to get a reasonable conversion ratio (it's dwarfing my success with passive lists such as Afternic, Sedo, GD, Aftermarket, Flippa, Domainagents and Bodis)
3. Success with handregs (like someone else has already stated above) is far from dead, but requires lots of research efforts

Started with the obvious bad domain name choices for the first 1-2 months until decided to read and study more about the whole domaining business until i found out what works for me.. now trying to streamline the whole process and it definitely takes up a minimum of 3-4 hours per day for me.
Make sure to use coupons where you can to minimize the expenses, find your own success formula, never stop reading up on the latest Domaining topics and trends (i visit Domaining.com and related blogs/sites twice a day)

Here my stats so far after the first year (5th Oct 2013 - 1st Oct 2014):
Domains currently holding: 430 (99% com, 1% net & org, 70% handregged, 30% purchased)
Domains sold: 31 (ca. 80% endusers, 20% domain markets)
Income generated: ~ $72000
Average domain sales price: ~$2300 (highest $11000, lowest around $500-700)
Most popular type of Domains sold (niche defining keyword + keyword)

So from my point of view i do clearly believe that new Domainers can succeed as long as Domain names have value.
Hope this helps other new Domainers out there.

 

[infojunkie]

Solid advice here. Now I need to move from understanding it to implementing it!

 

[artstar]

yo the op:

well it depends upon your definition of success, mais non?

 

[DU]

1. Specializing in niches and finding niche defining keyword domains has been the golden path for me so far.. (of course in my own interest i can't share which niches those are)

Drone, 24/360, Simply, Smart, 3dPrint.......with emphasis on Health and Fitness, perhaps?

Have sold domains worth $16k in total as yet.
Hold about 250-300 domains, so i am about 3k invested.

That still gives out a net profit of $12-$13k.

That's gross profit. Net profit would be after you do things like pay taxes etc.
I say this only because a lot of people think that this is a tax-free business/hobby.