We are the idiots ...

[TheBaldOne]

That's right 'we are the idiots'.

Why is it that the vast majority of us do not develop our domains into websites.

- Is it cost?
- Is it time?
- Is it lack of knowledge on the domain subject?
- Is it not knowing where to start building a website?
- Or is it because of laziness and just after a quick buck by reselling the domain name without doing any work?

Of course there is another option that should be added to the list, or is it because we do not think our domain names are not as good as we try to convince others that they are and 'they' should develop them into a website?

Of course we all know that a developed website with visitors is worth far more from affiliate income or even the sale of the website than just the domain name by itself that might be able to be turned into such, but very few domainers actually go on to develop websites on their domain.

Even if you cannot develop a website yourself through lack of knowledge on the subject (which can be learned anyway), or lack the ability to build a website (there are loads of programs to help you on the web), then you can hire people to do it for you from website designers to content writers they are all available for hire.

Come on be honest. Why do you not develop the domains you own? ​

 

[otismo]

yes, we do not develop because we are NOT idiots

 

[ThatNameGuy]

yes, we do not develop because we are NOT idiots

Interesting....here is a quote emailed to me by one of the most successful domainers over the last 25 years;

"I learned early on that developers have no concept of sales and marketing.
However, they will build you a beautiful, gorgeous site that will not generate revenue.
Technology will always come first to them and no matter what you tell them to do, they will try and pull it their way. I've always said that if developers were paid solely by how much the site generated, 1000X more sites would've been profitable."

This is EXACTLY why I won't pay a developer a dime up front. If they don't want to partner with me in some capacity or are willing to put in some sweat equity, it speaks volumes.

 

[MadAboutDomains]

"I learned early on that developers have no concept of sales and marketing.
However, they will build you a beautiful, gorgeous site that will not generate revenue.
Technology will always come first to them and no matter what you tell them to do, they will try and pull it their way. I've always said that if developers were paid solely by how much the site generated, 1000X more sites would've been profitable."

This is EXACTLY why I won't pay a developer a dime up front. If they don't want to partner with me in some capacity or are willing to put in some sweat equity, it speaks volumes.

Thank you for sharing that, it's very interesting. As a developer myself it is hard to always concentrate on the money making instead of the tech.

I always find that fellow developers fail to launch. They want everything perfect before they go live. Ship it!!!

 

[mpls]

....

This is EXACTLY why I won't pay a developer a dime up front. If they don't want to partner with me in some capacity or are willing to put in some sweat equity, it speaks volumes.

This is so disrespectful.
Do you pay your doctor only if it heals the disease?
Do you pay the restaurant bill only if you have eaten well?
You are a businessman and you know that if you want a service you've to PAY.
Period.
Developers are not clowns.

 

[otismo]

Thank you for sharing that, it's very interesting. As a developer myself it is hard to always concentrate on the money making instead of the tech.

I always find that fellow developers fail to launch. They want everything perfect before they go live. Ship it!!!

After youtube, I had to scrap newpix ( and started all those "tube" jokes ).

When it's time to shoot, SHOOT. Don't talk. Don't fiddle around until Rome burns to the ground.

I had to have everything PERFECT. Especially Social. There was a site called Cherry Tap ( now Fubar )

that billed itself as an "internet bar for drunks". They had the best, the cutest Social and I was going to

copy/integrate it all. But Google wanted to be there NOW ( then ). So a bunch of kidz in a loft above a

pizza place in CA with a five-month-old start-up that had NO sales, NO earnings, etc. gets the $2 BIL

from "Great Googly-Moogly", which may be dropping the ball - why I just bot, on this very site, findingg.com -

"Find In GG" ( see above ).

 

[otismo]

This is so disrespectful.
Do you pay your doctor only if it heals the disease?
Do you pay the restaurant bill only if you have eaten well?
You are a businessman and you know that if you want a service you've to PAY.
Period.
Developers are not clowns.

I am no clown either; I am a CMS Specialist. I can install Joomla on a domain ( if YOU want ).

But I will NOT be a hostage of Joomla Code Gods. I could not even get in Joomla Day, and I LIVE

in Chicago. So I had my own Joomla Day at the Dunkin Doughnuts in the basement food court in the

building next door. Because of Joomla, and to a lesser extent Drupal, but mostly due to the vulnerability

of databases, we have seen the rise of Flat-File CMSs ( Grav ). However, while I was busy learning CMS,

BOX achieved 70% penetration of the Fortune 500 and needs to make a new high over 30 before I buy.....

meanwhile, there's Nokia, GE, and Xerox ( who just might get Hewlett-Packard ) - but I digress...

 

[ThatNameGuy]

Thank you for sharing that, it's very interesting. As a developer myself it is hard to always concentrate on the money making instead of the tech.

I always find that fellow developers fail to launch. They want everything perfect before they go live. Ship it!!!

Luke....and thanks for acknowledging. I can share a few other experiences that drive this point home. While not a developer, my "technical" partner in a medical billing business I started in 1978 would always warn me, "if the software I wrote works right the first time, there's probably something wrong". Keep in mind he was a "partner" and not a paid contractor.

Then I had an experience while building an office building where we made a group of architects and designers partners who were challenged to help us bring the building costs in $100,000 under budget. They were to be tenants in the building, but it was their desire to keep tweeking the plans such that it came in $100,000 over budget. Collectively the partners had to come up with the 100K because the lender wouldn't lend us anymore money. We didn't have the money, but we were fortunate enough to find another lender to give us a second loan.

Finally Luke....a partner and myself are starting a business and a site; DiscoverScotch.com. I'm the business guy and my partner is the star (scotch aficionado), and in order to pull this off on a virtual global scale, how would you go about finding a developer or sweat equity partner? Your thoughts are appreciated. Thanks.

 

[ThatNameGuy]

This is so disrespectful.
Do you pay your doctor only if it heals the disease?
Do you pay the restaurant bill only if you have eaten well?
You are a businessman and you know that if you want a service you've to PAY.
Period.
Developers are not clowns.

I'm not a clown either, and I'm not about to have a developer make a clown out of me. Ever hear the expression "takes two to tango"? Just read Luke (developer) response to see where I'm coming from.

 

[RogueWriter]

Just as an update to my previous post, still trying to get OwenCounty.com live, waiting on a lot of content, primarily. But 7/1, I should be good to go.

 

[pteracuda]

My ideas are always too big and I always kill out the server resources so I could have a site with 100,000 posts on it, but then it would be slow and I'd have to rebuild it after it gets that big (1-2 months for an automated site)

 

[bmugford]

This is so disrespectful.
Do you pay your doctor only if it heals the disease?
Do you pay the restaurant bill only if you have eaten well?
You are a businessman and you know that if you want a service you've to PAY.
Period.
Developers are not clowns.

That attitude kind of explains why he has been searching for years now for a development partner.

I could see someone working for sweat equity if you brought something highly valuable to the table. Marginal domains are not highly valuable.

Otherwise, people want to be compensated fairly for their time and effort.

Brad

 

[otismo]

development is a pain in the butt, and a full-time/overtime job with a really successful site

and it requires just as much work for a highly successful website with NO REVENUE/PROFITS

as it does for a site with decent sales&profits - so it makes NO SENSE to develop unless you can see

THE $$$MONEY$$$ COMING IN.

what I am is a conceptualizer ( also called dreamer, hippie etc. )

I can conceive WAY faster than an army of teams can implement

AND I have acquired a "knack" for finding what I think are good

names that I feel fit very well with my entrepreneurial ideas -

so being in the domain "business" seems like the natural

thing for me to do. I imagine most domainers are a lot like me -

and you need to start thinking of yourselves as conceptualizers

and conceivers of entrepreneurial "actionable" ideas - which you

ought to be able to include at least a thumb-nail-sketch or even

a brief business plan for the millions with lotsa energy but who

do not seem to be able to think straight - otherwise, in the

richest country in the world, there would be no excuse

for being poor. 'nuf said. Cheers!

 

[otismo]

wait - there's more !

when my focus was development

the big problem was finding decent affordable domains

so most of my names were "placeholders" like mynewpix.com instead of newpix.com

which was always no-way affordable to buy the best name, even if that best name was even available

so I spent hours and hours and hours combing thru lists of the most complete and total garbage,

in the hope of maybe finding something decent, at an affordable price. I eventually enjoyed

some success, and had inquiries on some of my names. this prompted me to think

I might be able to make money buying and selling domains -

current scorecard :

thousands bought

thousands dropped

exactly three sold -

dreadful but getting better

but I am still a cheapskate

Cheers !

 

[ThatNameGuy]

That attitude kind of explains why he has been searching for years now for a development partner.

I could see someone working for sweat equity if you brought something highly valuable to the table. Marginal domains are not highly valuable.

Otherwise, people want to be compensated fairly for their time and effort.

Brad

Sorry Brad, but this went over your head. I was quoting directly from an email I got from one one of the top domainers in the world...and since I got that email, here is another email I got from the same individual advising me to stay away from developers;

"Over the last 20 years, my brother and I have tried over 20 outside development/monetization deals.
Every one of them failed. With great names. With great developers. That's a 100% failure rate.
If we like a name we develop it ourselves.
Keep in my mind that I am not a technical person, but Word Press is fairly easy once you get into it.
I built several of my sites entirely myself.
So, when you ask me to suggest an outside developer, there are none.
The reason we make money is because I understand sales and marketing.
Therefore, our names are built with that intention SOLELY in mind.
We no longer do outside deals because I lost my temper with the last developing company.
I gave them what we wanted and they called us into their office.
They said, "We know what you wanted, but we think this is much better."
It was beautiful. It was state-of-the-art. And it couldn't have sold a life preserver to a drowning man.
Pick a up a magazine like Robb Report or Esquire. Study the full page ads.
There's some great Mad Men advertising stuff right there.
That is the same marketing philosophy that should be on a web site's pages.
A webmaster/developer will never intuitively go in that direction, but I will."

Brad, this guy is telling me to learn to develop my own site(s), but that won't happen. I'm not discouraged however for I found a technical partner in my past business life who understood and respected what I brought to the table. Together we built a company Acsel (the name I created) that generated many millions of dollars over many years. So please don't tell me what I can and can't do. You sir, don't have a clue.

 

[bmugford]

Sorry Brad, but this went over your head. I was quoting directly from an email I got from one one of the top domainers in the world...

This is EXACTLY why I won't pay a developer a dime up front. If they don't want to partner with me in some capacity or are willing to put in some sweat equity, it speaks volumes.

You agreed with the quote.

Again, that attitude is why you are having a hard time finding a quality technical partner.

Best of luck.

Brad

 

[Recons.Com]

wait - there's more !

when my focus was development

the big problem was finding decent affordable domains

so most of my names were "placeholders" like mynewpix.com instead of newpix.com

which was always no-way affordable to buy the best name, even if that best name was even available

so I spent hours and hours and hours combing thru lists of the most complete and total garbage,

in the hope of maybe finding something decent, at an affordable price. I eventually enjoyed

some success, and had inquiries on some of my names. this prompted me to think

I might be able to make money buying and selling domains -

current scorecard :

thousands bought

thousands dropped

exactly three sold -

dreadful but getting better

but I am still a cheapskate

Cheers !

Felt like one of those FB ads or emails one you fall for one of those.

Are you a copywriter and/or funnel developer? )))

 

[frank-germany]

Time, money, content, management, development, oh and did I mention time and money.
I feel like it's the new era of cyber hoarding. Similar to a hoarder with a bunch of stuff (often junk), we all have big plans for each and every domain in our possession, but the probability of putting it to use is slim to none.

The era of domain hoarding​

it always helps
if you have a great
photographic memory

 

[frank-germany]

Ahhhh, the good ole days.

I had myself a network of over 400 restaurant sites, all on separate domains and my Google AdSense revenue was growing by about 50% per month. The sites were all keyword domains. When I could get a name like "CityName"Restaurants.com (for example SunnyvaleRestaurants.com) it would hit the first page of google in about a month, like clockwork. All of the sites were legit, I maintained the restaurant listings to be accurate and up-to-date, had reviews by users in each city and everything was humming along.

At the click of a button I could update the template of all 400+ websites.

At the peak I was above 10,000 real users per day, all bot traffic excluded. My revenue from AdSense alone was just starting to go over $1,000 per month. It looked like it was just a matter of time before it was at $5,000, or even $10,000 per month for very little ongoing maintenance work. Then Google's Panda update hit and by next month my revenue dropped to about $150 per month. This is after 100s of hours of work put into developing this. We had restaurant owners paying for advertising, and it's hard to keep them once you aren't in the top of the search engine results.

Once the revenue drops to this level and isn't growing, it is just better to abandon it than to have a half-maintained mess that is not very useful. Because the problem is, it isn't worth putting time into for a stagnant $100-$150 per month website. Once you don't put time into it, it doesn't even make the $100-$150 per month.

So my take is, it takes a large effort nowadays to make headway for just 1 website. If it's your passion, then great...go for it! But if it isn't, it's likely to not be a very useful site and at the same time will likely reduce your chances of selling the domain.

To me, a half-baked site just cheapens the perceived value of the domain. If someone has a $20k+ idea for a domain, then goes to the site to see a WordPress template with affiliate links, what kind of impression does that leave them with?






Here's my walk down memory lane. The actual site looked better because there are some images and other things missing now.


Main Site - Where we sold Ads

Show attachment 156099

Example of the Individual City Sites

Show attachment 156100 Show attachment 156101 Show attachment 156103



Then.....Panda

Show attachment 156105

here is my recommendation to solve these issues:

http://www.hypervre.com


that really works

( flash back of 2012 )

 

[Joe N]

I found a technical partner in my past business life who understood and respected what I brought to the table.

What kind of site is he building for you, Rich? Are you leaning towards focusing on the scotch business, or on selling domain names?

 

[Recons.Com]

What kind of site is he building for you, Rich? Are you leaning towards focusing on the scotch business, or on selling domain names?

I think both. Consuming scotch might definitely increase number of impulse buys for domains.