advice You’re not Rick Schwartz. So don’t try to emulate him

[News]

Assuming you did not get in early and don’t have millions in the bank, you shouldn’t try to emulate everything he does.

When you have money you can pass on deals that other people would accept. It puts you in a great negotiating position. Your BATNA (Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement) is to just skip the deal and move on.

If $50,000 is a lot of money to you, you’re not in a position to turn down a $50,000 bird-in-hand to pursue a $75,000 offer that might not materialize. (You can substitute the numbers in this example, of course.)..

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[JoeE]

Even with the opportunity and funds he had people ignore few important facts, 1) Internet was hardly in its starting days 2) Registering domain was expensive 3) It was a huge gamble.
If you put yourself in his shoes, I doubt most of us would have acquired domains considering internet was in its early days, domains involved a lot of speculation and money required to put into it. Despite that, markets keep changing, you are never late to the party. There's still room in market to join in and make decent profit, the difference might be a big one though.

Great point Umer. I was there (Late95-Mid98), and as a matter of fact, I was probably in a better position than Rick himself because I was a part owner of a local ISP and I was in charge of registering domain names. I actually got a lot of companies their first domain names. The registration fee initially was free then raised to $70 for 2 years. Networksolutions had recommendations for the 3 famous TLDs (along with .gov .edu etc) .Net was for network and infrastructure service companies, .org was for organisations of all kinds including non-profits unions, associations etc. and the .com of course for commercial websites. I was BLINDED by the .net and it showed in the types of domains that I registered. I knew a lot of people in the industry and almost no one predicted what will happen to the dot com and the explosive growth and value it gained. So, it was not just me, I was there and no one talked about it. My preference was for .Net because it captured the true meaning of the Internet, which is the NET part. The name was cool and just felt right. People like Rick saw something different because Rick was into the 800 number business and that influenced him to look at the new technology with the same eye. Vanity numbers and vanity domains that are geared towards the commercial side of the still baby Internet. His view prevailed and proven to be on point. But his registrations were a gamble too. If you bought 100 domains at the time with a registration fee $7000 (plus renewal few and upkeep) without any clear potential of ever selling them, you are taking a HUGE gamble. But he and a few others did just that. Most people like myself registered a handful of domains and were happy with it. My choice was mostly .nets and a few .com some with a dash because it separated the keywords and looked more readable (commerce was not even on my mind, just connecting the world). Now If I knew even a tiny fraction of what will happen in a few years I could've easily registered 100 top notch domains and called it a day. But it's easier said than done. People/domainers today keep saying "IF ONLY" I was there, I believe the great majority would've done nothing about it if they only knew what we've known then, hindsight is always 20/20. And you just can't go back in time and do things differently.

 

[dordomai]

everyone can be rich if they know the future.

 

[UmerK]

Great point Umer. I was there (Late95-Mid98), and as a matter of fact, I was probably in a better position than Rick himself because I was a part owner of a local ISP and I was in charge of registering domain names. I actually got a lot of companies their first domain names. The registration fee initially was free then raised to $70 for 2 years. Networksolutions had recommendations for the 3 famous TLDs (along with .gov .edu etc) .Net was for network and infrastructure service companies, .org was for organisations of all kinds including non-profits unions, associations etc. and the .com of course for commercial websites. I was BLINDED by the .net and it showed in the types of domains that I registered. I knew a lot of people in the industry and almost no one predicted what will happen to the dot com and the explosive growth and value it gained. So, it was not just me, I was there and no one talked about it. My preference was for .Net because it captured the true meaning of the Internet, which is the NET part. The name was cool and just felt right. People like Rick saw something different because Rick was into the 800 number business and that influenced him to look at the new technology with the same eye. Vanity numbers and vanity domains that are geared towards the commercial side of the still baby Internet. His view prevailed and proven to be on point. But his registrations were a gamble too. If you bought 100 domains at the time with a registration fee $7000 (plus renewal few and upkeep) without any clear potential of ever selling them, you are taking a HUGE gamble. But he and a few others did just that. Most people like myself registered a handful of domains and were happy with it. My choice was mostly .nets and a few .com some with a dash because it separated the keywords and looked more readable (commerce was not even on my mind, just connecting the world). Now If I knew even a tiny fraction of what will happen in a few years I could've easily registered 100 top notch domains and called it a day. But it's easier said than done. People/domainers today keep saying "IF ONLY" I was there, I believe the great majority would've done nothing about it if they only knew what we've known then, hindsight is always 20/20. And you just can't go back in time and do things differently.

Exactly my point, People think they would have done the same in 90s because they NOW know how .com boomed and what people like Rick sold them for. They ignore, time value of money, expensive nature of domains back then, very little popularity, difficulties and regulations as well, a sort of taboo back then lastly we are talking about time when internet has just been introduced some years ago and is still in early days - When you consider these facts, registering buying or even holding some domains back then was not only expensive but HUGE gamble. Obviously luck plays a part but going ahead with your gut feelings and sticking to it for years takes a lot and thus I take away nothing from Rick.

 

[UmerK]

2) It was not expensive - $100 x 10 years = $1000 = 5 years later LLL goes for 10K++
3) It was pre-calculated investment. (reserve ticker symbols, socialize around and wait for the end-user)

(5cents)

2) It was expensive registering domains, domains cost about $10 to register today and used to cost about $70 back then and if you take time value of money a lot more expensive than today. Back then you'd have invested $100 in something else rather than domains.
3) It was never a pre-calculated investment. .com might not have seen the boom at all? Internet might not have took off as it did? Perhaps .net could have been more used than .com? There are a lot of doubts, questions and speculation involved when you consider that.

 

[JoeE]

Exactly my point, People think they would have done the same in 90s because they NOW know how .com boomed and what people like Rick sold them for. They ignore, time value of money, expensive nature of domains back then, very little popularity, difficulties and regulations as well, a sort of taboo back then lastly we are talking about time when internet has just been introduced some years ago and is still in early days - When you consider these facts, registering buying or even holding some domains back then was not only expensive but HUGE gamble. Obviously luck plays a part but going ahead with your gut feelings and sticking to it for years takes a lot and thus I take away nothing from Rick.

Right! I actually saw first hand at the time when they started charging for domains. I believe it did start at $100 for 2 years and then dropped down to $70. We had people who had registered some good domains when they were free and refused to pay the new $100 fee and chosen to DROP them rather than renew them. If that doesn't explain and sum up the perception of the Internet then compared to what we know today I'm not sure what will.

 

[JoeE]

But to be fair about the whole thing of being there early, some people did come to the party later than some of us, (maybe couple of years after the value of domains start to show signs, like the famous Altavista.com sale which started part of what started the frenzy) and they managed to grab some good domains (2 words, exact match, and some decent domains by today's standards) because they saw the value and had some actual proof of the concept. I personally was out of the ISP business and was busy doing other things (still holding about 15 domains or so) but I was not looking at domaining as a business and they did and made some decent money at it. So there is always room to get into it but it's much more difficult today to find the large gold nuggets that were once available, but with some luck and new trends and new TLDS you can never know what will transpire in a few years. Those who cry about not being there early may start telling similar stories like I'm doing now about how they missed things because the direction was not obviously clear where things were heading.

 

[dordomai]

2) It was expensive registering domains, domains cost about $10 to register today and used to cost about $70 back then and if you take time value of money a lot more expensive than today. Back then you'd have invested $100 in something else rather than domains.
3) It was never a pre-calculated investment. .com might not have seen the boom at all? Internet might not have took off as it did? Perhaps .net could have been more used than .com? There are a lot of doubts, questions and speculation involved when you consider that.

i started looking into domain investing as early as 2001 i think and spent some time looking up available .com

Found that all good .coms were taken and I did not research it further. I think there was no or little information on domain investing available back then. If I had seen the opportunity and put in a lot of work I could have succeeded possibly beyond my wildest dreams. Probably would not even if I had tried.

I thought I was too late. I did not know about dropcatching.

I did the same in 2004, bought a couple of domains on the drops but didn't know the difference between a good and a bad one. I even realized that I needed to hold them for a long time and set them to Autorenew for many years. Let them expire because I forgot about them. would not have had much value due to lack of knowledge when buying them.

It always seems easy looking back but it wasn't easy or obvious.

It is easy to see someone else making money and just copy what they are doing.. seeing the potential when no one else does and taking a huge risk and executing your strategy while no one does it very hard to do.

 

[UmerK]

Basically we are more or less in same situation in terms of NGTLDS. There are always two point of views, if NGTLDS do achieve what .com did you will see Frank and people here on winning side and if they don't you'll see the opposite side as winners in 10 years of time. NGTLDS as still being in birth are seen differently by people, you could've said same for .com 15 years ago. On a personal note, I am of opinion that there's decent money to be made from NGTLD for us as domainers but biggest hurdle is renewal prices and some expensive registrations, If i can register a 2 word .com domain which I think i could sell why would I go for an untested and untried NGTLD?

 

[tranquillity]

There not real estate there more like rental property themselves and we are the renters.

*they're *they're

 

[Smiles76]

*they're *they're

Please don't be that person. You understand the point he's trying to make.

 

[ValleyRock]

It is easy to see someone else making money and just copy what they are doing.. seeing the potential when no one else does and taking a huge risk and executing your strategy while no one does it very hard to do.

Speculation vs Investment !