1. When did you become a domainer?
2003
2. How?
Had a handful of websites running maybe (5) and someone offered 1k on a domain I hadn't put to use yet. Got me thinking reg fee into 1k sounds good so sold it and stocked a portfolio of expired reg fee keyword .coms as liked the idea of reg fee turning into x,xxx. Over the last 14 years almost all my sales have been reg fee expired .coms into x,xxx-xx,xxx or basically nothing into something. Don't do a ton of sales but don't need to as the profit margin is insane. Today I run around (50) websites which provides my income which makes being a passive seller much easier as don't need the money. I still hold hundreds (currently 442 at this exact moment) of aged keyword .coms at all times for domain sales. So basically I started as a developer and then added domaining with the majority of domain profits being reinvested back into my developed projects as I'd rather run websites bringing in income when I'm sleeping so I'm not pressed to make a domain sale.
3. What one advice would you give to Newbies? (the more specific the better, but general is great to)
Common sense+Follow the numbers
Keep statistics on anything you do and adjust to what is working. Advice from others is nice but common sense and being able to analyze your own statistics and learn from them and adjust is really all you need as numbers don't lie.
4. Shout out the person(s) you are most thankful to for guidance in your domaining career.
I try something, analyze and adjust. Some things work great, some need adjustments and some I abort as they need too much work to justify the income they bring. The ones that don't work I don't consider a loss I consider it a tuition fee to learn not to touch that category again or find someone that knows how to handle that category better and form a partnership.
So wouldn't say any one person drew me a blueprint to success as was more of I wanna make money while I'm sleeping, while I'm out driving around etc... so I basically throw money at something and give it a shot. If I'm giving props to anyone would say various forum members over the years, good handful from NamePros along with other forums, maybe not so much for "how do I do this" but more for bouncing ideas back and forth with each other and learning together. Would also give props to some of the old timer domainer blogs, maybe not so much for teaching me but more for reinforcing ideas I had in my head or giving me the push I needed as they were in agreement. Since 99% of my domain sales happen direct through my own site I've also had extensive conversations with end users direct to learn their thought patterns and their businesses.
So in 2016 I'm managing/advertising/creating my websites and domain sales are basically just waiting for emails to arrive from my own sales landers direct and negotiating from there. When one sells majority of income goes back into my website fund as my goal isn't massive income today it's continually increasing my monthly income and then when I decide to retire I'll have a portfolio of income generating websites and domains to hand down to family or sell off.
