Probably done with "domaining", I suck...

[Clover]

I have most of my domains listed on Dan, Epik, GoDaddy, and Afternic, I've never made a sale on any of those platforms, well, I did for $100 once but I had sold the domain + 2 other matching ones all for their reg value 2-3 days prior

I get many complements on my domains and my ability to find good hand regs upon request, I was making $100 sales and was doing good at getting my money back for the ones I started with, but the past couple months I've not had any bites, not a buyer in sight, due to the markets and inflation I presume, but still, I feel like I'm holding on for a fantasy sale that will never happen, even a low $xxx offer would give me some hope. So far, this journey has given me a small profit, but with much research, and take a lot of time... Just not sure if things are balancing out.

Thanks.

 

[johnn]

Good names are always sell - sooner or later.
Many people making a mistake by buying cheap names and hoping they can get a big return.
Domain business is not easy as it may look. I am in the business more than 20 years and I am still learning.
There are so many ways that you can make money from this business so there is no straight answers to the question how can you make money in this business.
Many people spend the time to learn the wrong things and end up getting crap names: Appraisal, EDM, How many extensions are taking, volume search results, etc...

I use only one simple technique: Ask yourself what you can do with the name?
I don't care about Estibot, BB or SH approved or not - It means nothing to me.

Good luck!

 

[bmugford]

It's not an easy field. There is really no set path to follow.
There are probably better uses of time and resources for most people.

I am not sure how many successful domain investors could start from scratch now and be that successful in the modern world. It is a different world buying domains today than many years or decades ago.

I was not in super early compared to many others, but it is a different world than 5-10 years ago. You could get decent quality .COM on the aftermarket daily for low $XXX range. The same domains are in the mid $XXX to low $X,XXX range now.

Also, when it comes to hand regs you are buying in a market with around 170 million .COM already taken.

While end user demand might have increased, it has not as much as reseller prices.

When it comes to a standard sell-through rate the math does not make sense on most reseller prices.

I am portfolio investor in the sense I always believe it is a quality + quantity game. Without both it is easy to hit a dead end capital wise.

I personally never worry that much about sales; I worry more about inquiries. If you get inquiries the sales will come. If you are not even getting inquiries though it is normally a quality issue IMO.

Brad

 

[NYJimbo]

I get many complements on my domains

Sorry, but you do not have a good portfolio, not even a fair one. Too many names don't have a real use. Your "Featured Domains" does not have one strong name in it. Your portfolio is tiny and too random.

Don't feel bad about quitting, there are hundreds of other things you can try to make money online.

 

[johnn]

You can see the problems in the appraisal section. Most of them are crappy names (No offended) because many members are not native English speaking and come up with names that don't make any sense at all.

 

[Joshh71390]

It's tough, thats for sure, but the feelings are everywhere... Doming is good imo because of the fact that it's hands off... Register a name today... list it on sedo tomorrow, send out some outbounds on wednesday... theres no EXTREME URGENCY as long as your not like buying names with like a week left hehe...

Anyhow sometimes when we get that next sale it causes us to want more quick quick quick... but thats just not how its gonna happen... unless your portfolio is huge...

The issue is youve already invested that time to learn the info you currently have... so theres no sense quittin now, because, Unless you have some massive portfolio where everyday you have a xx renewals to chose from then sure... cutting it is an option at that point.. but if you just have a few names, and at the expense of the time taken... Your really not going to unlock some major chunk of time in your schedule , becuase you will find that ... a major ity of the time spent domaining is not actually effectively used..

maybe your could try to LIMIT time spent per week. 30 min max a week... get in get out.. thats a good way to bring the kind of profitable hustle into a highly profitable hustle... then your hundred dollar says turn into 1 or 2 hours over the course of a year

... Waiting for sales kind of sucks... but if you dont look at it like something you have to do , but instead something that might or might not happen.. .then when they do happen you will be happy you didnt all togeaterh quit.

If you searched domains every day for 5 hours... you could spend some time trying to work on your filters and such and maybe search once a week... and get it down to 30 minuites per week... and you can prob still get 9 out of 10 of the domains u reged the day of...

not poking holes in your routine just trying to bring up the fact that a semi profitable hustle is better then no hustle at all... scaling back but keeping in business can be a lifesaver because when the market rebounds your here for it... instead of missing xyz years of sales because of this one poor performant year...

 

[VadimK]

If you decide to stay with domaining, I'd say the main point (at least for the first 3 years) is to think about domaining as an investment, not a business. This is a big mistake a lot of people make - they think about profits and selling names relatively fast and for lots of money (who hasn't heard about XXXXX sales?!). Even those who understand the complicity, still take it as a business opportunity. It's not. It's really an investment, and you have to master it a lot, too. At a later stage you have a chance to convert it to business, but it's a loooong way (I am not there myself, for example).
Just a write mindset is what is necessary, imo.

Good luck!

 

[bmugford]

The acquisition part is the tricky one today also, buying on the aftermarket/auctions you will probably overpay 3-5 times more than 15 years ago for the same domain and the end user sales are mostly the same. Of course you will receive more inquiries for domains bought at 1k on average, than for domains hand regged for $8, but at the end of the day, it's easier to sell a good hand regged domain 100 times more than you paid for it and repeat comparing with selling a 1k domain for 100 times more and repeat it again and again. Also, at the end of the day, what's more important is the ROI, profit, if you can repeat the sale over and over. Of course, the value of an aftermarket bought portfolio will be more valuable, but the risk, the knowledge needed, the access to cash, the waiting time for a profit is also higher/longer.

Yeah, I am not sure I could enter in today's market and really do that much in all honesty.

As I said before I believe end user interest has increased, but reseller prices have increased far more.

The value proposition is often not there as an investor. Having an existing portfolio that was accumulated over years to generate capital and reinvest is very helpful.

It took a long time to get to that point though.

The main problem with hand registrations is there are already 170 million .COM taken. It is not like amazing domains are just sitting out there.

While $10 beats say $250 for a .COM on the secondary market you can easily acquire $250 in marginal hand regs and then be stuck with far more in renewals that just buying the one higher quality domain to start with.

This is not an easy business.

Brad

 

[zomainhacks]

Domaining is an exponential game, if you keep learning and you really love it, money will find a way to reach your bank account.

Don't be discouraged about your current ROI (both about money and time), it's your first year and it is not very realistic expectation making good profit at this stage.

but the past couple months I've not had any bites, not a buyer in sight, due to the markets and inflation I presume, but still, I feel like I'm holding on for a fantasy sale that will never happen, even a low $xxx offer would give me some hope

Market conditions have changed dramatically in the last months, IMO stick with XXX BIN which usually gives the highest STR which is crucial if you have a small portfolio of low quality domains.

There will be time for the fantasy sale, when one starts with low budget and little knowledge there are 2 main goals:

- Surviving ( i.e making a portfolio able to pay for itself without the need to inject more funds)

- Learning

 

[bmugford]

What becomes clear with each passing month / year is that there are layers of hurdles to overcome in domaining in order to truly master (or at least understand) it well, e.g.
- The name itself and various criteria (length, TLDs including those on sale and those owned by end users), companies using part/all of the words in names, traffic, CPC, etc.
- watching auctions, doing the research for a possible acquisition name, then setting a bid amount, and hoping not to be outbid
- filtering on various sites like expired domains, Namebio
- reading various
These are tasks that are demanding, time and eventually money wise. Not everyone has the patience or temperament to do these every day/every other day for weeks and months on end.

No wonder beginners want the quick fix with handregs - it's an alluring way to circumvent the time and money demands of domaining.

I think many of the most successful people really enjoy the business.

I have always been doing something entrepreneurial even if it was buying and selling things on eBay.

I have always enjoyed the hunt whether it is for collectibles, domains, or anything in between.

I also like learning new things, and there are not many better fields for research than with domains. You learn so much just when it comes to looking at random terms.

I also enjoy being my own boss, negotiation, and other things that go a long with the field.

If you enjoy it, your odds to succeed are far higher.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

If you decide to stay with domaining, I'd say the main point (at least for the first 3 years) is to think about domaining as an investment, not a business. This is a big mistake a lot of people make - they think about profits and selling names relatively fast and for lots of money (who hasn't heard about XXXXX sales?!). Even those who understand the complicity, still take it as a business opportunity. It's not. It's really an investment, and you have to master it a lot, too. At a later stage you have a chance to convert it to business, but it's a loooong way (I am not there myself, for example).
Just a write mindset is what is necessary, imo.

Good luck!

Well said.

I spent my first several years basically focusing on acquisition only. I still focus far more on that than sales, where I am relatively lazy.

I think if you buy the right domain, at the right price, you are already in the money (long term).

Unfortunately, there is really no great way to expedite end user sales. There is simply no substitute for time and it can take a long time to turn the corner as a business.

The problem then becomes how do you know you are buying the right domain at the right price? It is difficult without a real proof of concept.

If you go into registration showcase threads on NamePros it is largely people with low quality registrations telling other people with low quality registrations that their domains are good. That doesn't really mean anything.

To me the real proof is do you get inquiries?

If you get inquiries, you will make sales.
If you don't get inquiries, you don't have that many opportunities to make sales.

Brad

 

[karmaco]

If you do continue— stick with dot com. Your portfolio is all over the place. Focus on niches you are familiar with imo. Even with great names, a year is not enough to learn everything or be an expert. The learning goes on forever.

 

[johnn]

He is more confused now with 256 different suggestions!

 

[Sam1234]

I have most of my domains listed on Dan, Epik, GoDaddy, and Afternic, I've never made a sale on any of those platforms, well, I did for $100 once but I had sold the domain + 2 other matching ones all for their reg value 2-3 days prior

I get many complements on my domains and my ability to find good hand regs upon request, I was making $100 sales and was doing good at getting my money back for the ones I started with, but the past couple months I've not had any bites, not a buyer in sight, due to the markets and inflation I presume, but still, I feel like I'm holding on for a fantasy sale that will never happen, even a low $xxx offer would give me some hope. So far, this journey has given me a small profit, but with much research, and take a lot of time... Just not sure if things are balancing out.

Thanks.

In my opinion domaining is not for everyone. It is like poker, in that there are chance elements to it so that you can go for a very long time without figuring out you just aren't very good at it. You know yourself best, and if you think it's not for you then you might be doing yourself a favor by investing your energies in more profitable things. I think in most people's personal value systems "believing in yourself" and "not being a quitter" are more important than understanding one's own limitations and knowing when to quit. However, they are equally important and complimentary. You need the first two to initiate and sustain actions, to give yourself the best shot at success, and the latter two to stop you from taking things too far and ruining your life.

There are no right or wrong answers in life. We make the best decisions we can in life with no guidance but our heart, experience mixes of good and bad luck to random degrees, and then we move on from this world.

 

[boker]

Well said.

I spent my first several years basically focusing on acquisition only. I still focus far more on that than sales, where I am relatively lazy.

I think if you buy the right domain, at the right price, you are already in the money (long term).

Unfortunately, there is really no great way to expedite end user sales. There is simply no substitute for time and it can take a long time to turn the corner as a business.

The problem then becomes how do you know you are buying the right domain at the right price? It is difficult without a real proof of concept.

If you go into registration showcase threads on NamePros it is largely people with low quality registrations telling other people with low quality registrations that their domains are good. That doesn't really mean anything.

To me the real proof is do you get inquiries?

If you get inquiries, you will make sales.
If you don't get inquiries, you don't have that many opportunities to make sales.

Brad

The acquisition part is the tricky one today also, buying on the aftermarket/auctions you will probably overpay 3-5 times more than 15 years ago for the same domain and the end user sales are mostly the same. Of course you will receive more inquiries for domains bought at 1k on average, than for domains hand regged for $8, but at the end of the day, it's easier to sell a good hand regged domain 100 times more than you paid for it and repeat comparing with selling a 1k domain for 100 times more and repeat it again and again. Also, at the end of the day, what's more important is the ROI, profit, if you can repeat the sale over and over. Of course, the value of an aftermarket bought portfolio will be more valuable, but the risk, the knowledge needed, the access to cash, the waiting time for a profit is also higher/longer.

 

[Traderas]

In my opinion there is no right or wrong approach to domaining. It depends on what suits you more. I don’t believe that investing is more profitable than flipping. If you have some money that you wont need in the near future, and a lot of patience, investing may be a good for you. if you are willing to work hard and study for many hours, flipping may have faster and better results. I believe the best is a combination between these two.
I started domaining 7 months ago, I had very little money to spare, so I tried flipping domains to resellers. I got advantage of the market trends for fast sales. The outcome was a ROI of 80% per month, for the first 5 months. Now that I grew some liquidity I m trying to approach domains as an investment to. The good thing with flipping is that you can reinvest your profits and increase your outcome exponentially. The only limit is your time.

I agree that XYZ as an investment may be a joke, but for flipping it is a great opportunity, because it has a very high liquidity. Flipping is possible only if you follow the trend of the market. You can’t expect to flip fast two words net or org domains… Also cheap 3L or 4L domains may be good for flipping because in many cases are working like a currency.

Also I don’t agree that domain market will keep going up forever. It’s true that the need for domains will increase in the future, but every market has a fair market value. Every market can be cheap or overpriced, regardless of that future demand.

imo

 

[VadimK]

If you sell fast, is it business and if you don't, is it investment ?

No. Domaining is a business when it's your primary source of income (or can be made as such at any given moment and you just choose not to for whatever reason). In all the other cases it's an investment.

What is the definition of fast or slow? 10+ days, 7+ months, 2+ decades?
If there are, what are the other differences between business and investment?

There is no definition for ''fast-slow'' in this sense and there are no other differences between business and investment from a domainer's point of view, besides the one mentioned above.

 

[NameBuyer.com]

I went through your portfolio. After 18 months in domaining (part time) , I am still not sure about what sells for how much but got a fair idea on what won't sell.
I usually write down all the names popping up in mind every now and then. Also handregged some of them out of "FOMO". But often when I look back at my list after some months, they were not as sexy as they seemed once. I hope after one more year of listening and takings notes from domaining podcasts, my domain appeal might get even better. Start listening to podcasts of Domain Sherpa, Brandable Insider, Kickstart commerce, Josh.co , DN wire etc. Read and stick to what experienced nameprosers post here - Bob Hawks, Twiki... to name a few. Good luck my friend .

I think this is how a lot of domain investors feel when starting out. When I first started, I'd have website/software or product ideas and that's how I bought my first couple hundred domains.

Whether it's domains, or any other business, it's important to build upon your branding skills and business sense, and engage in Accurate Thinking regularly.

Rick had a post a couple years back and I thought it was a good way to classify the domains you own or are thinking of purchasing. The types of domains at the bottom 3 of the list are worthless domains.

If you stick to the 3 highlighted above, and in particular Commercial Domains, you'll have a much higher chance for success. How do you do that? Just check Google for any of the domains you bought. If there is not a single business, facebook business page, marketing campaign, commercial project, or significant social media account running under that name, what do you think your chances are of selling it? The world has billions of people and the internet has been around for decades already so if you are not seeing some usage out there on the exact terms the domain is made up of, for a large percentage of your domains, your chances are pretty bleak.

Years ago I bought ASliceAbove(dot)com. I'd consider it one of my lower quality names and I bought it as a budget domain at $13.50 in 2013. When I bought it, it sounded like it would be a good name for a pizza place. I looked, and it used to be owned by a cake business, and the name "A Slice Above" was currently used by several pizza places. At the time I was trying outbound again (bad idea), and none of the current businesses wanted the domain even when it was in the low $xxx range. Does it matter that none of the current businesses are interested in the domain? No, doesn't make a difference at all. If the name is already in use in 2 different states, it is just a matter of time before a new store, or chain of stores opens up in a different state or location.

So the most simple advice I can give if you are starting and want to be successful is ONLY buy names that have some real usage by either an existing business, an existing marketing campaign, or commercial social media usage.

Anything else is really speculating, and you shouldn't be doing that until you have more experience. If you do speculating in the future, I would track those separate from your main portfolio and stats. Then if those are dragging the rest of your portfolio down, you can more easily drop the bad ones out of the bunch.

If you've found some domains with current usage for that exact term, then personally, I would price them no less than $1,450 each. You can attain a decent sell-thru rate at that price range and $1,450+ will go a lot farther than a $250 sale.

Also, only stick to .com in the beginning. Out of the top 100,000 websites in the world, about 64% are .com, .net & .org. The majority of the other 36% are made up of .gov, .edu, and country code domains.

Accurate Thinking

Below is a video from Dan Lok on Accurate Thinking. Some of his videos are a little cheesy and "salesy", but many of them are pretty genius in getting you to think differently.

 

[The Durfer]

you need to buy some domains that have sold before as well, not just hand regs. Check namebio and auction results and expireddomains.net and add some domains with history. Good luck.

 

[1Darko]

I have most of my domains listed on Dan, Epik, GoDaddy, and Afternic, I've never made a sale on any of those platforms, well, I did for $100 once but I had sold the domain + 2 other matching ones all for their reg value 2-3 days prior

I get many complements on my domains and my ability to find good hand regs upon request, I was making $100 sales and was doing good at getting my money back for the ones I started with, but the past couple months I've not had any bites, not a buyer in sight, due to the markets and inflation I presume, but still, I feel like I'm holding on for a fantasy sale that will never happen, even a low $xxx offer would give me some hope. So far, this journey has given me a small profit, but with much research, and take a lot of time... Just not sure if things are balancing out.

Thanks.

Don't give up. You're in the right place to be successful. You're surrounded with probably the best domainers in the world giving you advice for free. I'm sure that you will figure it out what fits the best for you. Have patience and work hard and sales with come sooner or later.

 

[comRaid]

I went through your portfolio. After 18 months in domaining (part time) , I am still not sure about what sells for how much but got a fair idea on what won't sell.
I usually write down all the names popping up in mind every now and then. Also handregged some of them out of "FOMO". But often when I look back at my list after some months, they were not as sexy as they seemed once. I hope after one more year of listening and takings notes from domaining podcasts, my domain appeal might get even better. Start listening to podcasts of Domain Sherpa, Brandable Insider, Kickstart commerce, Josh.co , DN wire etc. Read and stick to what experienced nameprosers post here - Bob Hawks, Twiki... to name a few. Good luck my friend .

 

[MadAboutDomains]

The post about investing in xyz is a joke btw.

 

[phantasmagoria]

Only advice I could give is to aim high, always look for the best, don't settle for low quality names. Don't register domains that we all know wont sell. I made the same mistake too, I currently have 16 domains for sale, and even I thought they were all above average, but I know now I'm not going to renew 10 of them, I could tell which one is worth it and which one isn't. The trick is to forget they exist until that day comes when someone gives you an offer, and that's what happened to me on several occasions, the highest one being almost 7K.

Also think long term, I had to register my domain for almost 6 years before it got sold, things that might be worthless now might be worth a lot in the future. What I like to do sometimes is go to tech websites and just ctrl a and ctrl c the entire site and then use a parser to parse them and feed it through a domain name checker, 100 times out of 100 id say its taken but you'd be surprised some of the names that are up for registration, you also have to be quick, always have domaining in the back of your mind so when something happens where a new trend starts or news, always check to see if its available for registration.

I had one huge opportunity few months ago that I let go with shiba inu domain name, saw it on a feed, checked to see if it was available, and it was, I was ahead of the curve for a brief few hours, before it blew up. I checked again later and the domain was taken, i checked registration date, it was just registered literally few hours after I checked it. You gotta be quick.

 

[poweredbyme]

If you fail in an industry you will likely fail in all industries, unless there is a downtrend in that particular industry. The opposite is also correct, billionaires operate in multiple industries successfully.

All industries have some most common things which are more powerful than industry specific common things. If you study well what are the most common things, rules, facts of business, you will likely success in any business. That's a kind of deduction/induction in logic. Changing industry will rarely help without fully understanding the most general things in business.

Some of those most commons things are resource allocation, market condition, macro economic variables, technological developments, productivity, etc. That list is long but every single thing in that list has an ultimate power over industry specific things.

 

[devma]

In my opinion, I think domaining must be a second job. to invest money.
it is not easy at it may look, also this domain will be more valuable, the market value is increasing .. as the internet users are growing by the time.
I make a good monthly revenue, and you should invest in existing domains.
You can hand reg domains, but only for trending domains not dictionary and liquidation .. domain names