Should I become a domainer?

[BlackDiamond]

I've been posting here on the fence for months, reading as much as I can about domain names here and elsewhere. I still have much to read and learn, as I have been just studying the basics, trying to glean how different registrars work, and making one or two purchases based on my personal desires.

I have no illusions about this business. It's extremely likely that I will lose all my money and cry into my alcoholic beverage of choice, which is none. I also have no plans on doing this any more than a hobby or a side-quest (even if I may treat it as a business); while I know there is money to be made, I'm not risk-tolerant enough to throw my entire savings into this. I also know that even though a jack-of-all trades is a master of none, I am not secure enough to throw all my eggs into my potential domaining basket.

Before my barrier was money. It still is a factor, but I do have enough to set aside now to invest in what I would like. Since I plan to focus on development (read: "hoarding") a few quality domain names rather than flipping, it would also give me an excuse to reawaken and develop my long-forgotten Web design skills.

Yet I know I am a fool, and every time I try my hand at a task that involves a moderate amount of risk, I almost invariably come up on the losing end. That leads me to be very risk-averse. I also am not a business person by nature, as I lack that driven passion most people who are successful business people have. I'm more passive and reactionary, which is bad because it would lead me to deliberate when I should simply act.

So, should I really go for it and dip my toe into the water? I know many of you will say yes, since the more people who are in the business, the greater the number of suckers like me who are easily swayed. People who know me in real life have said that I need to take more risks instead of playing it safe, and this would be a calculated risk. Also, since I have recently stumbled into a *very small* business, adding domaining to the mix could allow me to consolidate my expenses.

My brain says no, but my gut says yes. My brain's been right more times than my gut, though...

 

[Krossat]

Go for it.
For one youve got some great writing skills. Why not start with content development? Unique content and reviews are a great asset in developing. You can certainly have ur blogs rrunning and updated with your content.

Welcome to NP tho
Kross.

 

[Ziggery.com]

BlackDiamond- Only you know for sure if you are ready and it's good to see someone venting their concerns before hand rather than complaining that they have 500 domains worth zero.

My simple advice is this, when you are ready, buy 1 domain, sell, it, buy another, sell it, buy another OR buy one develop it, sell it, buy another , that way your investment is kept at a minimal until you are comfortable and have built up a skill set that will allow you and your confidence to grow.

There's an old saying: You can't push a rope!

In other words, no-one is forcing you to dive straight in and its only you who can make the choice in the end.

Good luck with whatever your choice is.

Regards

 

[logion]

I hear you and I am much newer at this

hey BlackDiamond

thanks for your post......I am entering this web site out of curiosity after reading a cnn.com article about a master at domaining.....amd I am fascinated by it....but also brand new to this.....

so, keep me posted on your ideas and experience.....

also, about the content development....I also have writing skills and how does that work ?

DB

 

[ApeXX]

hey BlackDiamond

I also have writing skills and how does that work ?

DB

If you are a decent writer, you could develop a blog and talk about something you enjoy. Alternatively, you could write unique articles and sell them to website developers. :tu:

 

[SLL]

Follow your brain...or be very selective and only buy what you KNOW you can resell for more.

Be very disciplined and have a good knowledge of the marketplace.

I have not found the forums to be a good place to buy.

 

[notlikeyou]

set aside "X" amount of money only for Domaining (do not deviate from this). Since you are looking into more of the development route, do not allow yourself to purchase another domain until you have completed development on the first. Have a time frame for this to happen. Don't allow yourself to deviate from your initial plan. Once you have finished development on the first, now you have options, sell the site outright, or advertise/monitize, either of these will bring in some form of capitol that you can now use for the next project. Rinse & repeat.
Best of luck.

 

[Michael]

do not allow yourself to purchase another domain until you have completed development on the first.

wise advice

 

[advaita]

If you don't need the money I don't see why you would bother. I may be wrong but as far as I can see people get into domaining in the hope of making money - if you don't need the money there are lots more exciting things you could be doing.
If you do need the money then decide how much you can afford to lose/spend and use that and no more. The risks are not great unless you are thinking of buying something like vodka.com for a few million or domains worth thousands.

 

[-REECE-]

I started out as a WM, turned into an Adwords arbitrageur, came to domaining as a hobby, then part-time, now full time, and now I'm looking to go back to where I started
as a WM -- working for myself now instead of others though :tu:

Lots of opportunities on the Internet... I don't regret anything I've done or tried, however domaining has been far more profitable than anything else I've ever done online (including development so far).

I'd never recommend jumping into domaining... Take your time, read everything on the subject you can... I could have made a lot more money domaining had I bought a whole bunch of domains in the late 90s instead of working as a WM, but I probably would have bought the wrong ones and lost a lot of money instead. There will always be new opportunities when it comes to domaining. Important to only become a domainer when you're ready and willing to take the risk.

 

[bmugford]

This is basically the exact same advice as playing the stock market. The most important thing, and I can not stress this enough, is Research.

You win some, you lose some. But as long as you win more than lose you are fine. Even if you lose more than you win, if your wins are big you are fine. You have to understand your risk tolerance level.

1.) Be selective
2.) Look for opportunities
3.) Set aside $X amount of extra money. Don't put up any money that you need to pay bills.

 

[R9V.com]

hey BlackDiamond

thanks for your post......I am entering this web site out of curiosity after reading a cnn.com article about a master at domaining.....amd I am fascinated by it....but also brand new to this.....

so, keep me posted on your ideas and experience.....

also, about the content development....I also have writing skills and how does that work ?

DB

WOW CNN did an article about me???? Link Plz

LOL just playing...

 

[seven]

reply

My short answer is no, you should not get into domaining. I think you already answered your question.

I'm not risk-tolerant enough to throw my entire savings into this.

This is good.

I also know that even though a jack-of-all trades is a master of none, I am not secure enough to throw all my eggs into my potential domaining basket.

Nor should anyone be.

Yet I know I am a fool, and every time I try my hand at a task that involves a moderate amount of risk, I almost invariably come up on the losing end.

With domains, it depends if you're buying domains from resellers or you're just hand registering (though even hand registering can be a slippery slope). If you start buying domains from resellers, that can start getting risky as you purchase more and more. If you limit yourself to 2 hand regs a month, you can just write it off as a night of entertainment and there will be virtually no risk.

I also am not a business person by nature, as I lack that driven passion most people who are successful business people have.

I don't think you have to have a business mind to know a good domain, but if you want to sell, buy from sellers, negotiate and everything that goes into it you do need to have some good business/commen sense. (ie when to walk away from a deal, when the market is inflated, when to sell, etc.)

I'm more passive and reactionary, which is bad because it would lead me to deliberate when I should simply act.

This is not a good trait for domaining. You wait and you can lose big time with domains in a variety of ways (when to buy, when to sell, when to hold). Also, for purchasing domains now, if you want the big return, you have to have foresight and believe in that foresight. Someone, I think it was Reece, said something very profound the other day in response to pizza.com being sold for $2.6m. To paraphrase he said something to the effect of:

-

A lot of people say oh I wish I was domaining in 1995 and lament on how they missed out but how many people would have even had the domain in 2008? It takes a lot of determination and patience to register a domain 10 years ago when the Internet was just something "computer geeks" were doing and then keep paying the renewal fees for 10 years and not sell it when offers of $50,000 and $100,000 were coming in.

-

I think that is very true. I can't say that I wouldn't have sold it myself. Look at Beer.com. Some college kid sold that for $80,000 in 1999*. Who wouldn't have been tempted to sell something you bought for $20-$30 bucks a few years earlier and sell it for $80k?

Anyways, the point is with domaining you need to be acting instead of reacting. If you react, you better be able to react fast.

So, should I really go for it and dip my toe into the water?

My brain says no, but my gut says yes. My brain's been right more times than my gut, though...

I don't think you should and I encourage people to domain all the time, but given what you have just said, you don't sound like you want to have an excel spread sheet of tens, hundreds, or even thousands of names with renewal fees coming at you every month of the year.

You'll hear and read a lot of domain glory stories, but usually no one tells you the ugly side of domaining. If you want to see the ugly side go look at an expired domains site. Look at the millions of dollars people have thrown out the window over the years. And I'm not saying it's all a bad thing - it's better to let a domain expire than to keep renewing something that will never be worth $1, but still there are a lot of people that flat out suck at domaining.

To me you sound like someone who should hand register a maximum of 3 domains a month. 1 name that you personally like as well as think it's inherently a good name and want to develop and the other 2 for pure speculation/domaining purposes. This way you can be in the world of domaining, but limit your risk to about $200/year which is pretty fair if you consider how much money people spend on dvds, news stand magazines, movies, and other more trivial stuff.

Just like most things in life, there are a few people who are successful and a lot that aren't. A lot of the rhetoric you read on this board may be from those who are successful as it's evident many NamePros members are profitable domainers, but just remember for every one of them there's 30 that aren't/will not be profitable (as of now I'm in that group - hopefully not in a few years).

Your post resounded of honesty so I thought I'd give you my truth. There's nothing wrong with being risk adverse. You won't become a millionaire that way, but you probably won't go broke either. Now that you have read the preceeding sentence think about the percentage of people are millionaires.

Last thing. When I was reading your post I thought of a great quote from one Stewart Gilligan Griffin:

Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right.

*He was smart enough to maintain a 20% stake in it

 

[MJ]

BlackDiamond - Honestly I'd say no. :notme: IMO the market is very inflated at the moment and will soon crash. The only reason zxyq.com's have any value right now is because other domainers bought out LLLL.com's. Wether end users have use for such rediculous domains is another story. Now LLLL.net's are being bought out, and soon .org. People are not buying these... these are domainers hogging domains to increase the value of others.

Not to mention new extentions are coming out left and right, .tv, .mobi, .asia, .info, .me, .museum, .jobs, and hundreds of others. Isn't it logical to see that if someone wants Mike.com but its taken they will just go for some other extention that is available? With so many extentions.. IMO we will eventually get to a point where we can get anything.anything.

Those were just LLLL.coms, take 1 word domains... say guitars.com for example. (this is just a random domain I have not even visited it to see if it is a site). Sure it will be worth some money. But you have to look at where people find information now. Sure back in the day and even today people randomly type what they are looking for .com, like guitars.com. Honestly most people find sites now through Google... and dwindling Yahoo, MSN, AOL etc. Most people search. Now we have a web2.0 where tags are being integrated, and users are organizing information. Links are being formed. We are teaching the computers how to learn.

My point is, in a couple years, the main source of traffic wont be based on typing in your domain name or even remembering the domain. Look where technology is going.. It is going to blow all our minds. Emphasis on the domain name itself will be less and less... and unless all these domainers develop their sites and have original ideas, their domains will be garbage imo. Lots of people will be sad. "What's in a name?" not much in several years. Thats my opinion.

Also, the growing number users on Youtube, Flickr, Myspace, Blogger, etc - people dont even need a domain anymore and it's pointless for most of them to get one when making a free website with google is much easier.

Google is getting smarter by the day too, they just got their domain reseller liscence (even though they aren't planning on selling domains). Why do you think this is?

In short... Just look around, technology is growing. The emphasis on "names" will decrease imo... especially with digg, favorites, etc. You can have faSFaweFJIFwei.com and get millions of visits soon just as easily as AA.com.

PS: check out this motivational video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g

These are just my opinions, I am not looking for an argument, so all of yall I dont care if you dont agree I dont plan on arguing with any of you.. just trying to share my opinion

Good luck with whatever you decide to do! The big money is in developing new and creative ideas that users will love.. and there is alot of money out there to be made. The only thing stopping me from making a million $ tomorrow is myself. And I dont think that can be done by selling a couple of domain names.

 

[seven]

mike123106,

All I'm going to say is they can launch all the .me, .name, and .museum they want, but they better not let .web out of the closet.

 

[esatyrical]

These are just my opinions, I am not looking for an argument, so all of yall I dont care if you dont agree I dont plan on arguing with any of you.. just trying to share my opinion

Excellent post, mike, one of the best I've read on NP. (rep added)
I believe it's essential to develop these alternative perspectives, whether they are our beliefs or simply a 'devil's advocate' exercise.

 

[Marck]

mike123106,

All I'm going to say is they can launch all the .me, .name, and .museum they want, but they better not let .web out of the closet.

Truer words...

PM sent with some advice

 

[1NiteStand]

Wow, very nice post mike123106.. A lot of facts there

 

[sirengirl]

I don't think there's any single one way to get into domaining. There are inherent risks, I liken it to investments, some names more liquid others.
I knew one person in the 90's who owned many LLL.coms, generics and the like. I was completely oblivious to the world of the net. when all of a sudden my first name reg was for more personal reasons, I fell upon domaining by chance.

I went on a date with someone who paid his way through college by regging movie names then selling them to the studios. eventhough it was our one and only date, his story stuck. Then came Sedo, and soon thereafter, NamePros.
One persons angle may not work for someone else. Reece through trial and error had good instincts and bought a gazillion LLLL.coms. One can anticipate future trends hand regging names, or by expired names. Sometimes its a rol of the dice.

For me despite limited resources I have built up a modest portfolio, sometimes getting lucky (thanks sedo) went through my ridiculous domain regging bonanza early on (choosing between a VCVC.com and a LLL.name I chose the .name

My suggestion is start with a sum of money, say $500 and build up a balanced portfolio, when you earn monies parking, selling, reinvest those monies. I've always done best when I see a name, an idea sparks, and I can visualize a site or its potential. I've come out ahead 99.99% of the time. when I push against, or catch trends, it never works.



Just my 2 cents...

 

[theuniverse]

select a field whichever you like.
your content is good,you can become a content writer.
don't leave work at the end.