Success & Failure

[Gusto]

So I’ve quit my job and I’m ready to support my family by means of the domain industry!

OK, perhaps that’s an unrealistic expectation and I will keep the day job for a while… I have spent a good amount of time researching the industry via dedicated websites and forums and I am beginning to grasp the basics. With that said, I was hoping some of you would share your thoughts on your overall successes and failures in the industry. Everyone has their own goals and expectations – so there are different opinions and degrees of what they could be. I’m not necessarily looking for the ‘silver bullet.’ I understand this is a business that requires hard work, diligence and possibly a little luck now and then.

What worked for you and what did not? How are your portfolios weighted? (tld/tdl types, parked, developed, typo, hold and wait, etc.) What was your biggest surprise good or bad? How has the industry changed? Paper, plastic or both? :hehe: Any other advice?

 

[evenflow]

The thing I would recommend is to begin with an overall strategy based on what you would like to get out the business. What is it that excites you about the industy... In my opinion you have to enjoy some part of the business in order to be successful because it takes time, patience and faith in your investments. If you are strictly looking for an immediate income opportunity it is extremely difficult because most of the low-hanging fruit has been picked. I still think there is a huge opportunity in the industry, however now it just involves more than just waiting for good names to drop like the good ole days. In my opinion, the real opportunity now is for long-term speculators. I gave up trying to find names that will cash flow and have focused on finding good names in fast developing industries. I still only buy .com because if you look at the Fortune 500, how many of these companies have anything but .com. From a traffic approach, other tlds may be good but from a quality standpoint, I think .com will always be preferred. So I buy quality names that I forsee having future development potential. My domains bring in little income but occasional sales offset some of the annual reg fees. Over time, I develop some of the sites and am slowly building up some traffic. With such a strategy you have to be comfortable with negative cashflow and have patience for a long-term hold. If you want to go the traffic route, I suspect you have to be very selective and be willing to pay more up front for dns in the secondary market. Unfortunately any strategy in this business likely requires a some costly trial and error experience.

I've only been doing this a couple years so I would be interested to hear what other pros think? Good luck!