Teach a man to fish - Co-creating Abundance

[Rob Monster]

You all know the famous proverb from Lao Tzu:

I think it also applies to domaining.

I believe in teaching people to become sovereign, so they can provide for themselves, provide for their families, provide for their communities and also have time to contemplate the meaning of life.

So with this in mind, I have sponsored a number of initiatives, which I will not name here because that would be promotional and the mods don't like that.

However, I do want to share something and invite input to it. About 6 weeks ago, Epik acquired 2 brands that had training products associated with them: DomainFlippa and Domain Graduate.

The Founder of Domain Graduate, Sean Stafford, and I have a shared passion for teaching people how to become successful domainers. This project fits my personal interest and calling: (digital) empowerment.

In the past, Domain Graduate and Domain Flippa were both paid courses. The existence of a fee implicitly meant that most people would never participate since there was a large toll at the entrance.

When Epik acquired these brands, it was with the specific goal of making the pie bigger. We want to help teach a lot more people to be good at domaining by tapping the wisdom of those who mastered it.

With this mind, I am sharing a living draft, of what is to become Domain Graduate 2.0. It is the collective wisdom of some professional domainers. You can download a copy here:

https://my.armored.net/index.php/s/dG7MkwJAp9H3L43

This document will continue to be iterated, so if you see issues or opportunities to improve, we'll use this thread to invite discussion about how to empower more people to become effective domainers.

As for the draft document, here is my ask:

- If you have time, review it and send any editorial feedback to @DomainGraduate.

- Comment publicly if you like to discuss or share some technique that you think belongs in the course.

- Feel free to invite non-NP members to visit this page to retrieve the draft course.

We will add an acknowledgement section collating the input and refrencing the attributed contributions. That section might get large, and that is fine!

In about one week, we'll have a final version and we'll publish it with a beautiful cover, and put it online at a new and improved DomainGraduate.com so anyone can download it.

After that, we plan to recruit translators to localize the document and where appropriate add local resource tips. Different countries will have different versions to reflect language, ccTLD, local laws and local customs.

Finally, for anyone who wants to contribute to the cause, domain name donations are welcome to the eRise Foundation, for which a latest update is described here.

So, that's it. Tell us what you think.

On behalf of the Domain Graduate Team:

Rob Monster, @Abdullah Abdullah, and Sean Stafford

 

[bmugford]

Rob,

Sorry, but I only got to the second line of text. I will read the full draft in time and let you know what I think.

"Tapping the Online Mines" - I feel that this might be a little insensitive in countries that have had or continue to have problems with land mines.

Kind regards,

Neil

I feel like that is a major stretch. Mines there is clearly not referring to land mines.
It is referring to mines, as in mining for gold.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

Thanks Neil. Good catch. This was some old copy from Sean. I think we can improve that wording.

I guess you could use a term like digging for gems, unless that is offensive to someone also

Brad

 

[karmaco]

I read the guide and the problem is its very generalized and slanted to his style of investing. He pretty much disregards “brandables” when many people starting out run to brandables. While I agree no one can tell you everything and you learn by doing a guide for beginners should contain more rudimentary things not pages and pages about typos and monetization.

The rudimentary things I am talking about is language,word positioning, how to know if the words go together (make sense) etc. A list of all the resources for obtaining a name besides hand reg. A list of places to sell your name, a brief discussion on outbound versus inbound etc.

I almost stopped reading when he said NetSol was a great registrar.

 

[Lox]

If you are in the early stages of falling in love with registering and selling domain names, and you feel a little crazy bull, don't worry: You kind of are. You are under the influence of dopamine ... in the PAST reported $1 million sale that are making you feel strong, smart and full of hope. Keep learning, keep going! You’ll make it ... step by step ...

Buy for $1, sell for $10
Buy for $10, sell for $100
Buy for $100, sell for $200 (What? Why?)
Buy for $200, sell for $400
Etc

Do not eat your profits.... no bling bling...reinvest. Avoid crossroads... they’ll make you confused. Before registering or buying domain name ... Study about the Industries, niches, specific business culture...

Study daily dropped domains, the history of domain (How many times was dropped or developed, sold or not, too futuristic or too boxed...

at the end

Rock solid, business able, ONE word domain name is your; golden egg
sit on it and wait ... it can take decade before someone recognizes t value.

 

[Rob Monster]

Quick scenario discussion, just for calibration, largely prompted by @Ategy.com.

I know there are some concerns about overfishing. Some of this has been relayed to me privately so I think the mindset is one of scarcity and competition is messing with people's perspective.

Let me offer the counter-argument:

- More domainers means more people holding domains which means less hand-reg options for retail investors who cannot even find a passable domain to hand-reg since they are occupied. This forces potential buyers to focus on the after-market. For the folks that have been sitting on PPC landers for 10 years, this is actually good news. We are just there already in cloud, crypto and cannabis, for example.

- More domainers who know how to make money means more folks introducing new people about the importance of having a viable digital brand. Consider in particular, emerging markets. Some folks here made a fortune when the Chinese entered the market, for example. How much new liquidity entered the domain industry in the last 5 years, just because of that? I don't know but it was life-changing for many.

I know there are folks here who are concerned about having too much competition in expiry auctions because a bunch of new emerging market speculators will be bidding. Sure, the prices in auctions might go up but let's face it, there is a tremendous amount of inventory that still needs to be placed, including inventory that the old-timers have been sitting on forever. If the prices rise, everyone will be fine.

 

[Samer]

Only other credible one i kno, cost hundreds ($499 lifetime)

Great, updated, but yu cant go wrong with free

Give credit, where credit’s due.!! Cant wait try!!

Samer

 

[Ategy]

@Reddstagg .. as @bmugford pointed out .. he's referring to "mining for gold"

I guess you could use a term like digging for gems, unless that is offensive to someone also

As long as it's not mining for booger nuggets!

You can pick your friends ...
You can pick your nose ...
... But you can't pick your friend's nose!

 

[bmugford]

Brad - I know you think this but I do think you are thinking too small. I said it before.

I would say I am factoring in the intricacies of the field. I have been doing this long enough to know there is no one size fits all solution to achieve success.

I prefer to take a practical view. If it was that easy everyone would be successful.
They aren't, so it can't be that easy.

I don't think an online course is likely to change that. It might create a certain foundation though so you have a slightly better chance to succeed. That is better than nothing.

Brad

 

[Rob Monster]

https://www.namepros.com/forums/promotional.15/

JB - I disagree. This is straight up co-creation of something we are giving away for free. Why do you want to keep people ignorant? What's up with that?

 

[JB Lions]

JB - I disagree. This is straight up co-creation of something we are giving away for free. Why do you want to keep people ignorant? What's up with that?

I'm actually doing the opposite. Understand you're not the only one here with a marketing background. I mean sometimes it's just so blatant. I won't name my other projects...........then links to 6 different projects/threads. Quote something specific in my post you think I got wrong or disagree with. What you call co-creation, I call free labor for yourself. Just hire some people to spruce it up, update it.

 

[Rob Monster]

Here is that cover, by the way. Document is still draft so keep those edits coming. Thanks!

 

[bmugford]

Sure, we'll teach people to fish with high quality fishing poles so we can give stuff away for free. There is an economic model here. Crazy, right?

I think the issue people have is you are trying to act like some altruistic force, while at the same time doing obvious self promotion. People are not stupid.

Brad

 

[Rob Monster]

The eBook could a massive upgrade on the weekend.

We are still open to submission of content/contributions. The entire book will be free for anyone. The folks who contribute will also have the opportunity to sponsor a chapter in each book.

Early preview of site:

http://demos.epik.com/review/dg/

Initially it just features a downloadable eBook with translations as they come available. This is going to get a lot of exposure so if you want to teach, here is an easy chance.

Here is the outline in case anyone spots obvious sections where they want to contribute some expertise e and teach some folks to fish:


Foreword

Preface

Introduction: Domaining


Getting Started: Understanding Domains

Chapter 1: Domains as Virtual Real Estate

Chapter 2: Buying a Domain


Making Your Money Work for You

Chapter 3: Investment and Reinvestment

Chapter 4: Typo Domains

Chapter 5: Traffic Monetization and Domain Tasting

Chapter 6: Development: Monetization Beyond Parking

Chapter 7: The Domain Name Aftermarket


Parking and Monetization

Chapter 8: Parking Your Domains


Buying and Selling

Chapter 9: Best Practices when Buying and Selling

Chapter 10: Being a Savvy Buyer

Chapter 11: Selling Domains and Interesting Ways to Do it

Chapter 12: Domain Appraisals



Advanced Techniques

Chapter 13: Brandable Domains

Chapter 14: Shooting the Moon – Selling for big amounts

Chapter 15: Domain Leasing and Financing – Baiting the hook



Working Smart

Chapter 16: Domaining Tools

Chapter 17: Domain Estate Planning

Chapter 18: Scams and Ethics

Chapter 19: Final Thoughts

 

[JB Lions]

Continued suggestions are welcome. Thanks to the co-creators!

I timed myself, 10 minutes. Not sure what I would find if I spent more time, but some of the same issues haven't been corrected.

Domainapps.com, is that still a thing? Could be temporary but it's not loading for me - https://www.isitdownrightnow.com/domainapps.com.html

Places to buy and sell, for some reason where I'm most active, Namejet, still lot listed. I don't know if there is some personal beef or something for not adding them.

Aftermarket section, still hasn't been touched/fixed. Complete mess.

Escrow section. Didn't mention the most used Escrow place, Escrow.com. I know you have issues with them but if you're truly into educating new domainers, you would list them.

Outbound marketing, unless I missed it, didn't see anything about CAN-SPAM.

Spelling mistakes like "Before making plans to market a bane"

I guess you mean name?

--------------
Let me just throw this suggestion out. You have so many projects going on at once. Have you ever considered just locking yourself in a room and just knocking this one out, finish it? Just take 1 day and get it done, go thru it line by line. It's not the type of thing where you're going to have new things pop up daily, weekly. Get it done, then maybe update once a year or something like that. But finish a project all the way thru.

 

[oldtimer]

Thanks to @Mod Team Bravo and other Mods for moving this thread out of the status of "Promotional" and to the more reasonable and benign category of "Free Stuff". We'll take it.

Quick update on DomainGraduate.com:

https://domaingraduate.com/

A big new section has been added for OUTBOUND. Thanks to @rohitgoyal for his input along with great input from @DomainGraduate founder Sean Stafford and @Riacontents. It might be one of the most helpful sections in the whole course. And it is all free!

Continued suggestions are welcome. Thanks to the co-creators!

I believe that once updated and that all the corrections are made this could serve as a good reference for domaining.

It might be good to put a list of all the chapters that are contained in this book on the main website so that people can know what is covered there before downloading it. ( just an idea)

 

[Ala Dadan]

Just noticed... index on RHS of website is missing "Chapter 4 - Typo Domains"

thank you will review and will add it,

More work is coming to DG, and the HTML pages still need better formatting

 

[Anne L.]

Here is an example of what I am talking about.

I am looking at a client who is in the process of dropping 100+ 5 letter domains ending in co.com.

Example: imkco.com

He did not get inquiries so he will drop them.

Show attachment 140189

However, outbound has never been tried. Emerging market people are well-equipped to do this work.

Yes, there are a lot of us who buy domains and just wait for inquiries on landers we post online. Yet how many of these landers get inquiries or visits?

It would help if there are domain sales experts who will market our domains and will deduct the payment from the selling price only when the sale is closed.

There are brokers who do this however the domain investor has to leave the domains in their hands, letting them market it for months, signing a contract that the investor can't sell it by himself while the domains are still with the broker.

In this set-up, is there a way for the investor to get an assurance that the domain is indeed being offered to the potential buyers and not just being parked (also just waiting for inquiries)?

Here's why a company focused on earning commissions from CLOSING domain sales (and not merely on broker fees which help them survive without actively marketing the domains) would raise the notch both for investors and end-users alike. They will have more motivation to educate end-users/buyers since their income would come from domain sales and/or after sale of domains (hosting, web dev, etc).

We already have a lot of domains in the hands of domain investors; we have to "breed" end-users to create an equilibrium.

Thanks for envisioning to give (provide) tools that teach end-users and domain investors alike how to develop our domains the easiest way possible (turn-key web solutions) .

Might help if in your signature, you'll include a direct link to a directory of all your projects so we can check the updates every now and then. Thanks.

 

[Rob Monster]

Do you have an existing web enterprise that taps that opportunity? May I ask for the domain name/link please if you already have such a business up?

Thanks.

There are two related developments:

1, Integrated brand marketplace to come online in Q1 2020:

https://www.namepros.com/threads/he...e-ultimate-digital-brand-marketplace.1167901/

2. CloudChase.com -- This is our answer to AWS/Azure, built on OpenStack. It is live already. and already being battle-tested by some Epik projects that use it like Armored.net and NameInvestors.com We are adding a suite of tools to make it easy to migrate sites into a managed cloud. This project is led by @Miao who came through the acquisition of Sibyl Systems in May 2019.

The goal is to make it easy for people with capital to buy sites that provide yield. I have a strong sense that this is the missing ingredient for a lot more new investor liquidity to come into the market. Domains need to have yield. Right now, for most domain holders, they are an expense predicated on someone else paying more. However, when it becomes a "business" a very different audience can buy it.

The end result is to create a model where people can buy, build, operate, sell, with maximum interoperability, e.g. through unified frameworks for single sign on and payments. If you think for a moment about the vast development capacity that exists in emerging markets to do the heavy lifting of building sites from the ground up, you can begin to see why this makes sense.

As I write this, I am returning from a holiday in southern Mexico.There are tremendously talented craftsmen there who build beautiful things. They get paid peanuts, but the products they sell also sell for peanuts compared to Seattle where I usually live. The same pattern occurs with digital goods. A Nigerian might get $100 for the same work a guy in Seattle charges $5000 to do. There is a gap to close there.

My thesis is that a Nigerian will be able to build that site, and rather than sell it for $100, he might operate it long enough to get a bit of traction, and then sell it to someone who wants that type of site that used a good domain, has SEO traction, registered users, verified stats and verified revenue. This is what we are working towards enabling at scale in 2020.

The end-result is to empower a lot more folks to realize their full digital capacity for value-creation.

@DnFolk

 

[bmugford]

That being said .. when it comes to domains .. yes .. 100% you CAN go wrong with free. It all depends on the content. There are so many nuances to domaining .. and if someone only gets some of it but not enough of it, then it can be devastating! Look all the majority of horrible domains we see all over NamePros .. NamePros itself is the largest repository of domainer information in the world .. all free .. yet look at the results. The problem with teaching people about domaining .. is that it's fairly complex ... but in order to be a good domainer you also need outstanding language and marketing skills .. which obviously can't be taught as part of a quick domainer course (paid or free).

I agree with this. It sounds great in theory, but I think the domain industry is going to be a niche business for a long time. There is only so much room for people to make money on the domain investment side.

There is a reason so many people fail in this business currently. It is not from a lack of information; it is a lack of everything else. Some skills can be taught, some can't.

The more information the better, but it is not that easy to just follow an A,B,C template to make money in this field.

Brad

 

[Rob Monster]

I agree with this. It sounds great in theory, but I think the domain industry is going to be a niche business for a long time. There is only so much room for people to make money on the domain investment side.

There is a reason so many people fail in this business currently. It is not from a lack of information; it is a lack of everything else. Some skills can be taught, some can't.

The more information the better, but it is not that easy to just follow an A,B,C template to make money in this field.

Brad

Brad - I know you think this but I do think you are thinking too small. I said it before.

Reminds me of this famous Ken Olsen quote:

 

[Rob Monster]

Overall I would say there is some useful information, especially for a beginner.

It does need better formatting as the information kind of seems all over the place, not always in a logical order.

Still I don't think it would really help much with choosing specific domains, knowing what to pay, what to ask, how to negotiate, etc.

To me it would be like reading a basic book on stocks or options. It might help with a foundation, but when it came to actual investing there is still a lot to learn.

Brad

Will discuss with @Ala Dadan. This was still draft, partially laid out. There is a layout version with a very nice cover and more elegant styling. This draft was shared in a form that is easier for the writers to edit.

Thanks again for the input. Specific edits welcome, or feel free to submit entire sections if you want to be included in the Acknowledgements section.

 

[JB Lions]

Got me cleaning up my Domaining pdf folder. Found this other good one:

.Com Strategies by:
Chris Zuiker
Sr. Broker Media Options
MediaOptions.com - might know a little something about selling domains

There is a link on this page to download it - https://chriszuiker.com/podcast/

 

[Laguna]

I try to give more than I get. You?

I hear you are struggling with domaining and have mostly tosser domains. Would a course have helped you at the beginning versus blowing your nest-egg on stuff that nobody wants? Serious question.

Nest egg? Noooo, I've spent pennies Rob. Your right in one sense, I regged some rubbish but also did some homework too. I have a few that will cover all my costs in one go. I was forward thinking in a few of them and the time isn't here yet. Patience and I'll prove it

 

[garptrader]

While I still believe domains have great branding / marketing potential for promoting products and services, there are greener pastures than domain investing. On a regular basis I review payments to various vendors. So I see legal invoices, software license renewals, marketing invoices for video production, ads in industry publications, bills from Google adwords, invoices from agencies for permanent placement or IT contractors with specialized skills, all kinds of business travel including expenses for private planes, and on occasion have had access to compensation data including executives.. However, I am yet to see a payment made for an aftermarket domain. In the industry we see reports of the 1% portfolio turn but aftermarket sales are relatively rare. It is probably more valuable to teach programming, online marketing or design skills where there is much greater demand for those services than introducing newbies to an industry with hyper competition for inventory but tepid demand.

 

[bmugford]

There is no hidden agenda here beyond empowering folks to not fail quite as quickly or as often, but instead to have some folks do well and lift up others. I am not sure why some folks struggle with this concept.

The document has the term "Epik" 32 times in it. Just saying.
Almost every section mentions it at least once.

Brad