discuss Starting with $500, how soon can one be a full-time domainer with $5k a month?

[abstractdomainer]

Talking about sustainable income here, which means, this could be seen as $60,000 per year also in another light.

 

[whoevencares]

So, now who wants $500?.....,

 

[maksimfa]

I would say the only way to do it quickly is by selling geo domains OUTBOUND, meaning you are on the phone or going door to door selling to local businesses. Sell them quickly for $500 to $1,000. 5 a month, a bit more than 1 per week. Will take thousands of phone calls.

Can you do it? Yes.

Will you? PROBABLY NOT.

Vast majority of people are introverted today and afraid to pick up the phone, despite that is how majority of business gets done and how I sold a domain today for $x,xxx. Instead of messing with the email, you call.

 

[bmugford]

I would say the only way to do it quickly is by selling geo domains OUTBOUND, meaning you are on the phone or going door to door selling to local businesses. Sell them quickly for $500 to $1,000. 5 a month, a bit more than 1 per week. Will take thousands of phone calls.

Can you do it? Yes.

Will you? PROBABLY NOT.

Vast majority of people are introverted today and afraid to pick up the phone, despite that is how majority of business gets done and how I sold a domain today for $x,xxx. Instead of messing with the email, you call.

The value there is having exceptional sales skills more than domain investing. The same could be done with any number of other products or services.

If that is the case the OP needs to ask themselves could I make more money selling something other than domains? It is likely.

At that point you are just working a job though. It is a little different than domain investing IMO.

Good salesman can make way more than $60K a year selling any number of items, either for themselves or an employer.

Brad

 

[maksimfa]

The value there is having exceptional sales skills more than domain investing. The same could be done with any number of other products or services.

If that is the case the OP needs to ask themselves could I make more money selling something other than domains? It is likely.

At that point you are just working a job though. It is a little different than domain investing IMO.

Good salesman can make way more than $60K a year selling any number of items, either for themselves or an employer.

Brad

Of course, but even a sales job, you need to be hired OR have enough capital to buy something yourself. Very few items will have as high of an ROI as buying cheap geo domains here in the bargain bin section for $1 or $2 and going to town on those.

I know of a few people who frequented this forum back in the day that did exactly that.

Selling geo domains you don't need to get hired by anyone, and you can be your own boss. Then you can use those skills to negotiate sales on bigger more valuable domains.

Getting hired for any major sales job will require experience, or costs to get licensed, such as realtors, financial services, or even car sales people, and even there, the first few years, you may not clear $60k your first few years. =)

 

[Bipul]

I don't see any hope!

 

[OpenSeaDo]

Very hard in my opinion, 5k/month - stable, hmm...

 

[spigiv]

Been reading a lot here but not sharing that much but thought this thread really hit home for me

I invested literally 500$ myself 11 months ago (as a newbie). I bought several .coms (mostly crap with focus on GD value 1800+), some nTLDs and then a few .online names. Too sum up that investment I managed to barely break even (mainly from selling one of the nTLDs silver.rocks for 250 and the .coms on GoDaddy for 25-45 on fixed prices each).

From then I have bought and sold names both here and on GoDaddy, SAV and NameCheap with the main focus on turnover, turnover, turnover making a few dollars here and there in order to buy more names and sell more and so on. I have by purpose focused on not having 2% portfolio turnover per year but instead a couple percent a week (I need to generate profits to build the portfolio and it will not happen unless I gain volume in the portfolio).

Now I have 39 Premium names on Squadhelp (5 owned and 34 SH owned) and roughly 160 other names (mainly .xyz but also some .coms and nTLDs) and some money in the bank.

I made my first SH sale today (will have roughly 50$ payout for 12 months now).

So in one year it is possible to at least learn a lot and build a small portfolio but to make this into 5K a month will take time. I hope I can be at 500-1000$ before end of year and build from there.

The main earning to date for me is knowledge which I expect to capitalise over the years to come. Free education (unless counting hours).

In the retrospective: Should I have put all money (500) on 1-2 good names and crossed my fingers to sell them for 2-4K? Yes, it would for sure have saved me a lot of time BUT I would not have learned anything and not been able to reinvest a lucky shot success. So this process with high transaction volumes, interacting with many persons here and seeing which names sell to other investors and which don't - that have made me learn a lot.

Will see how I close this first 12 months within the next couple of weeks and hope to improve even more the next 12 months

 

[bmugford]

Been reading a lot here but not sharing that much but thought this thread really hit home for me

I invested literally 500$ myself 11 months ago (as a newbie). I bought several .coms (mostly crap with focus on GD value 1800+), some nTLDs and then a few .online names. Too sum up that investment I managed to barely break even (mainly from selling one of the nTLDs silver.rocks for 250 and the .coms on GoDaddy for 25-45 on fixed prices each).

From then I have bought and sold names both here and on GoDaddy, SAV and NameCheap with the main focus on turnover, turnover, turnover making a few dollars here and there in order to buy more names and sell more and so on. I have by purpose focused on not having 2% portfolio turnover per year but instead a couple percent a week (I need to generate profits to build the portfolio and it will not happen unless I gain volume in the portfolio).

Now I have 39 Premium names on Squadhelp (5 owned and 34 SH owned) and roughly 160 other names (mainly .xyz but also some .coms and nTLDs) and some money in the bank.

I made my first SH sale today (will have roughly 50$ payout for 12 months now).

So in one year it is possible to at least learn a lot and build a small portfolio but to make this into 5K a month will take time. I hope I can be at 500-1000$ before end of year and build from there.

The main earning to date for me is knowledge which I expect to capitalise over the years to come. Free education (unless counting hours).

In the retrospective: Should I have put all money (500) on 1-2 good names and crossed my fingers to sell them for 2-4K? Yes, it would for sure have saved me a lot of time BUT I would not have learned anything and not been able to reinvest a lucky shot success. So this process with high transaction volumes, interacting with many persons here and seeing which names sell to other investors and which don't - that have made me learn a lot.

Will see how I close this first 12 months within the next couple of weeks and hope to improve even more the next 12 months

I appreciate you sharing. Examples like this are far more representative of the average new domain investor.

You make mistakes, and you learn. It is not a get rich quick scheme, it can be a bit of a slog that takes a long time learning, improving, fine tuning and then you reach a tipping point.

I have been in this field for a long time and learn something new daily.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

In the retrospective: Should I have put all money (500) on 1-2 good names and crossed my fingers to sell them for 2-4K? Yes, it would for sure have saved me a lot of time BUT I would not have learned anything and not been able to reinvest a lucky shot success. So this process with high transaction volumes, interacting with many persons here and seeing which names sell to other investors and which don't - that have made me learn a lot.

Will see how I close this first 12 months within the next couple of weeks and hope to improve even more the next 12 months

I agree with this...you are not just losing money, you are also gaining experience and knowledge.

You can't build a business on outlier sales and need something that is repeatable.

With a budget of say $10,000 I think you are far better off with 40 - 100 domains in a $100 - $250 range.

With a $500 budget it is rough because you normally need quality and quantity to make sales, and for that budget you really only have the option of one of those.

If you buy (2) $250 domains you can hit a dead end capital wise really fast. If you buy (50) $10 hand regs they might never sell and you have way more in future renewals. It is balancing act.

Brad

 

[NameBuyer.com]

Really, if $500 was the budget, I’d only attempt Rick’s suggestion.

Take the $500, spend it on 1 domain. Sell it for $1,000. Spend the $1,000 on 1 domain & sell it for $2,000.

7 Sales Needed:
$1,000
$2,000
$4,000
$8,000
$16,000
$32,000
$64,000

Not a high likelihood of success, but if you are smart enough with the purchases and pick domains with ultra high demand, it could get you a great domain. Again, not likely to happen within a year without perfectly choosing the domain and and getting lucky with the purchasers looking to purchase at that exact moment.


The good thing to this approach is that if you are getting decent deals when purchasing, you have the chance of other investors purchasing in this price range, entrepreneurs, startups or corporations if it is within 2x of a “good deal” for the domain.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1275370852272439297

 

[Jason Baudendistel]

My advice is know business and psychology and comb expired domains for gems that others missed. Remind yourself while searching that 95% of these names are available for a reason and only buy if the value is there. I've spent about a 1,000 on my portfolio. I even have a couple I think have future five to 6 figure potential but I had a decade as an entrepreneur when I started. Imo that helped.

 

[Jason Baudendistel]

I personally think the income you want is going to take a minimum of 5 years to generate.

 

[bmugford]

Really, if $500 was the budget, I’d only attempt Rick’s suggestion.

Take the $500, spend it on 1 domain. Sell it for $1,000. Spend the $1,000 on 1 domain & sell it for $2,000.

7 Sales Needed:
$1,000
$2,000
$4,000
$8,000
$16,000
$32,000
$64,000

Not a high likelihood of success, but if you are smart enough with the purchases and pick domains with ultra high demand, it could get you a great domain. Again, not likely to happen within a year without perfectly choosing the domain and and getting lucky with the purchasers looking to purchase at that exact moment.


The good thing to this approach is that if you are getting decent deals when purchasing, you have the chance of other investors purchasing in this price range, entrepreneurs, startups or corporations if it is within 2x of a “good deal” for the domain.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1275370852272439297

If only it were that easy.

Why not just sell a $500 domain for $64,000 and do it in one step?

Sales don't usually work in a linear direction like that, especially with low liquidity items.

It is also a lot easier to double your money on $500 than on $32,000. As you scale up it becomes harder.

Brad

 

[NameBuyer.com]

If only it were that easy.

Why not just sell a $500 domain for $64,000 and do it in one step?

Sales don't usually work in a linear direction like that, especially with low liquidity items.

It is also a lot easier to double your money on $500 than on $32,000. As you scale up it becomes harder.

Brad

I didn't mean to imply easy. I even mentioned it was not likely to happen.

I just mean that the quality that you can buy along the way is usually much higher.

When I was brokering an exceptional single word domain name, I received 2-3 offers of $200k-$300k just from other investors within a 1 year period. I would have also bought it for that amount as well if the seller would have been open to it. Yet, the domains I've sold in the $15-$25k range are never purchased by other domain investors.

This is because domain investors will pay a percentage of the objective price, and usually very little of the subjective price. A domain investor who is also an entrepreneur will pay more of the subjective price. Entrepreneurs or startups will pay either a percentage or the full amount of an objective price, and usually a larger portion of the subjective amount. The larger companies or well funded startups are the ones that would pay the highest subjective price.

I've seen many great deals in the $30-$70k range that I would have done had I better prepared to be in that position. For example, I like cars and would love to setup a garage one day whether realistic or not, so I purchased ClassicRides(dot)com. When I purchased it, I was ready to pay more than double what I did for the domain, which was what most domain investors would pay for the domain. I wouldn't pay $15k for it unless it was a "for sure" thing that I'd set up a shop one day. But if the opportunity to buy ClassicCars.com, I definitely would in the $30-60k range.

 

[alcy]

what ridiculous question from newbies looking for quick easy cash in domains ..when domains is opposite of quick easy

 

[Nametree]

If the objective is to turn $500 into a $5000/mo revenue stream, domain is probably not in the top 10 ways to do it.

Best bet would probably be spending it on learning coding or Web3 programming. In a year of learning you can start producing decent income, either freelancing through the likes of Upwork, or finding a job. Yes, it takes time, but so does domaining - the illusion that domaining is somehow passive income is just that, an illusion.

Other ways to go from $500 to $5k/mo?
If you have specific skills you can translate to an online course or info product, that’s one way.
If you have a shtick/niche and know how to make cool videos, get on TikTok.
Hell, in a couple of years of constant output you’d be more likely to get to $5k/mo on YouTube than through domaining.

I started in 2016 with $3K (though it took me a year and more to start tracking spending and revenue properly, and I probably spent another $10k of non-domaining related money over the first 2 years). Through rinse and repeat I’ve reached your target on average for the past 18+ months, only counting four figure sales and smaller (had a couple five figure outliers but they’re just that, outliers). But there are still months when I don’t hit $5K. And it’s only been about a year since I’ve been able to spend less than 10 hours/week on domaining-related activities.

Am I grateful to be where I am? Sure. Do I wish I had spent my time doing something else? Absolutely. If I’d put the exact same time into coding I’d most likely have made more money by now than I have from domaining. I also missed the boat on crypto or NFTs. Had I just put my money into bitcoin/eth in 2016-17, I’d have been better off by now.

I would absolutely not start over again today.

 

[william]

Really, if $500 was the budget, I’d only attempt Rick’s suggestion.

Take the $500, spend it on 1 domain. Sell it for $1,000. Spend the $1,000 on 1 domain & sell it for $2,000.

7 Sales Needed:
$1,000
$2,000
$4,000
$8,000
$16,000
$32,000
$64,000

Not a high likelihood of success, but if you are smart enough with the purchases and pick domains with ultra high demand, it could get you a great domain. Again, not likely to happen within a year without perfectly choosing the domain and and getting lucky with the purchasers looking to purchase at that exact moment.


The good thing to this approach is that if you are getting decent deals when purchasing, you have the chance of other investors purchasing in this price range, entrepreneurs, startups or corporations if it is within 2x of a “good deal” for the domain.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1275370852272439297

I guess in these scenarios we assume taxes and fees are non-existant. Otherwise take the profit from each sale and subtract about 30-40% depending where you are.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

Such a specific question

 

[NameBuyer.com]

Am I grateful to be where I am? Sure. Do I wish I had spent my time doing something else? Absolutely. If I’d put the exact same time into coding I’d most likely have made more money by now than I have from domaining. I also missed the boat on crypto or NFTs. Had I just put my money into bitcoin/eth in 2016-17, I’d have been better off by now.

I would absolutely not start over again today.

It is a rough road indeed. Many don't realize the time it takes to acquire domains unless you've been through it. Even if it only takes you 20 minutes per domain name to find the right one, 1,000 domains x 20 minutes each is 20,000 minutes, or 333 hours.

 

[likemike]

Wow really seems like someone doesn't read much....

 

[Mkt Sales Leads]

If the objective is to turn $500 into a $5000/mo revenue stream, domain is probably not in the top 10 ways to do it.

Best bet would probably be spending it on learning coding or Web3 programming. In a year of learning you can start producing decent income, either freelancing through the likes of Upwork, or finding a job. Yes, it takes time, but so does domaining - the illusion that domaining is somehow passive income is just that, an illusion.

Other ways to go from $500 to $5k/mo?
If you have specific skills you can translate to an online course or info product, that’s one way.
If you have a shtick/niche and know how to make cool videos, get on TikTok.
Hell, in a couple of years of constant output you’d be more likely to get to $5k/mo on YouTube than through domaining.

I started in 2016 with $3K (though it took me a year and more to start tracking spending and revenue properly, and I probably spent another $10k of non-domaining related money over the first 2 years). Through rinse and repeat I’ve reached your target on average for the past 18+ months, only counting four figure sales and smaller (had a couple five figure outliers but they’re just that, outliers). But there are still months when I don’t hit $5K. And it’s only been about a year since I’ve been able to spend less than 10 hours/week on domaining-related activities.

Am I grateful to be where I am? Sure. Do I wish I had spent my time doing something else? Absolutely. If I’d put the exact same time into coding I’d most likely have made more money by now than I have from domaining. I also missed the boat on crypto or NFTs. Had I just put my money into bitcoin/eth in 2016-17, I’d have been better off by now.

I would absolutely not start over again today.

That's what the bitcoin / Nft people proclaiming the end of domaining suggest - that the grass is greener.