poll What is your participation level currently in the domain industry?

[equity78]

What is your participation level currently in the domain industry, are you full time, part time, hobbyist?

 

[Bob Hawkes]

Thanks for the poll and I will be very interested to see the results. Hope it gets enough votes that it will be significant. I expect we will see a fairly wide mix in responses, but we will see. Thank you for being one of the most thoughtfully engaged people on NamePros @equity78 ! Always come up with news, insights, historical look backs or great poll ideas!
Bob

 

[NickB]

Said it before and I will say it again........
Hobbyist got my vote

 

[Mister Funsky]

What are you saying??? There are people making money doing this??? I am strictly a collector/hobbyist. (These names are like my children...how could I sell one and live with myself???)

 

[Steven McEvoy]

What are you saying??? There are people making money doing this??? I am strictly a collector/hobbyist. (These names are like my children...how could I sell one and live with myself???)

Haha Ive sold a couple for pretty cheap and then months... NOOOO I loved that domain i want it back! and try and buy it back... Ive gotten about 2 out of the 5 ive wanted back.. stupid addiction. They might not even be that great of a domain but oh well.

 

[d-e-x]

* Part time - Domaining throws off some income but I could live without it

 

[BradWilson]

For me it has changed over time and I expect it will continue to do so in the future.

 

[Avijit Roy]

*
Part time - Domaining throws off some income but I could live without it

 

[J Sokol]

I reluctantly cast my vote for Part-Time, running at a loss. For the last several months (as my one-year renewals come due), I've been stuck in the near-profit range. It will only take one good sale to move me to the other side, but it seems like a long wait.

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

FT over decade...

 

[Jurgen Wolf]

I reluctantly cast my vote for Part-Time, running at a loss. For the last several months (as my one-year renewals come due), I've been stuck in the near-profit range. It will only take one good sale to move me to the other side, but it seems like a long wait.

Q3 is always weak from my experience. Including Q3 2019.

 

[J Sokol]

It has been for me. Now that I think about it my first big sale was last October (Q4), and April was a great month (Q2). Hopefully sales will pick up for us all in a few weeks.

 

[CJ6]

None of those.
I get an income and tend to reinvest it (as well as buy some stuff for me)

 

[DaveX]

I marked hobbyist. But....I plan to do this full-time when I decide to retire in roughly 12 years. I do make money now domain investing, but mostly learning and building a solid portfolio. My portfolio has come a long way over the past 4 years.

I dont do too much domain flipping but I do run quarterly auctions on large platforms. For me, its organized, and I not only cover renewals, but I profit pretty well.

I do use this as a tax write off. I actually report my domain business.

I am planning/hoping by the time I do this full time (retired), my hand regged domains from now, will be 10-15 years old!

 

[D Haynes]

Hobbyist. I am in profit over all in the 8or so years I've been buying. Only own 30/40 names. I enjoy going through the expired list and then getting beaten at auction by HD. Strange way to get your kicks lol.

 

[Federer]

FT over decade...

Same here.

But "full-time" (in my case) equates to working 2.5-5 hrs/day.

There is no need to work more than that when you have grasped and mastered the fundamentals.

 

[Sheogorath]

Well, I sold domains but I could definitely improve in promoting my domains to end users.
It's wrong to completely rely on passive inbound offers(though it is convenient & lazy ).

Sometimes it feels that I'm sitting on a gold mine, but I just don't dig hard enough
So I fit in "Part time - Domaining throws off some income but I could live without it" category, well until I will make an high value domain sale or more.

 

[J Sokol]

I dont do too much domain flipping but I do run quarterly auctions on large platforms. For me, its organized, and I not only cover renewals, but I profit pretty well.

Silentptnr, I'm curious to know more about your auctions. Do you have some kind of listing strategy that works well?

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I debated between one of the part-time choices or hobbyist - I do this not primarily to make money but rather because I find it interesting, challenging, and fun, like most good hobbies. I try to never put significant funds into it, but I put everything I make back into other domains and renewals, so at least until or if I change that, I don't in a sense make a profit. I view my approach as bootstrap - start with tiny startup funds (literally a few tens of dollars), sell some at low but profitable prices, use that to buy more and hopefully a bit better quality, and so on.

I am not surprised that there is such even divergence of responses. People have very different goals and we should all be careful of trying to influence others to go into what is the right fit, or domaining approach, for us.

Bob

 

[Bob Hawkes]

my hand regged domains from now, will be 10-15 years old!

This is an interesting idea - I should have started domaining 15 or 20 yeas ago! Seriously, it is smart I think to build your portfolio while you still have a regular income, and then look at it as income generating in retirement.

Bob