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opinion My 5 Months of domaining journey

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I joined NP in 2007, and I don't remember why and how. I wished I was active in 2007, read a few posts here and there, but then, that's spilled milk, water under the bridge.
Sometime in July I tried to register on NP when I got a message that this email was registered. I did a forgot password and low and behold, I got a rest password. 13 years old dormant account lol

But I was happy to get it back. It felt familiar. Well, I have been very active on other Bulletin Board for 15-16 years, and most forums I was active on have died. This was like Nostalgia. I hadn't been active in a forum in 6-7 years.

So you can say I started domaining in July/August this year. That is also when I bought a bunch of crappy domain names.

But I am not new to domain names. In fact I am not new to after markets as well. My godaddy auction account is 14-15 years old, and I have always bought my domain names from godaddy auctions.
I have also been buying SEO domains for a long time.

And everytime I start a new website, I always buy from godaddy closeouts because of the domain age. .

But all this, and even though I have bought domains from "SEDO" **gasp**, I never knew there was a profitable business right under my nose, of people buying and selling domain names for 1k to 10-20K

I mean I knew about the sex.com sale and the likes. Who doesn't? But I never knew of the premium domain marketplaces. Despite having bought from SEDO (which I only recently discovered when I checked my emails)
It may seem strange to you, but I bought a domain because I needed it for a project and apparently it was via a SEDO lending page lol


All right under my damn nose.
I had a few domain names, and I did have a lot of offers, which I always though were spammers, so I deleted most and hid behind proxy and throwaway emails.

It was in July when I got a mail from a godaddy broker itself on a name I owned, that I managed to re-open this NP account here and asked about it,

And that opened a floodgate. I started reading, looked at other domains, and I got so excited,
I have sold 6 figure websites, but man it takes a lot of effort to create and sell a 6 figure website and then you still feel bad because they are income generating assets

And here I see you all buy a domain name for 500 bucks and flip for 5k and I am like what in the name of holy Moses.

And that is when I aggressively started reading about domaining, made lists of what the popular guys were buy, got through their portfolios, what kinds of names are selling at what range, get confused AF, go through Domain sherpa and old posts, and I think I started buying and buying.

Another thing I found is that the people in this industry are very helpful and eager to help. I made some great friends, and I hope I will see some success in 2021.

But 2020 has not been bad either.

July, I hand registered a lot of names on expired domains .net
Some single word names that were junked.
Many .org and .nets because I didn't know so many good .net and .org dropped lol
Not sure what i am gonna do with them. I paticipated in a few auctions and made some BAD decisions. I bought a domain for 2000 bucks because I thought it had development potential. It does, but it was a bad domaining decision

August same thing.. more hand regs

September .. Began to see a pattern in what sells and what doesn't sell. And started participating in a lot of auctions with a strict Proxy and only buy if I win. I also bought a few liquid domains, I thought of doing quick flips but paypal fees etc cut into profits. I still have them, but since they are liquid, i won't lose money. Like I bought 3 random LLLL for 85 bucks each. I bought some LLL.net and org.. LLL.in, LLL.co and what not
Oh well..

October, Still addicted to Hand reg, I need a deaddiction, but much lesser. Started winning decent names in Auctions.

November.. Lucky Lucky Month..
I sold 4 names. One for 3000, 1000+, and 6000 all bought in October and november. Really really fast flips. All inbound. I had so far spent about 10K on my own money, but I would say I spent more than half of that on Liquid names (LLLL.com, LLL.net, LLL.org, LNL.com) which I can flip any day here on NP for a little profit.. I boguth them as safe investments lol and also to guage the auctions. I won a few auctions here on namepros where I bought on BIN and I got messages to buy the names from me for a quick profit, so I would like to think my valuations have been on the right track. I also missed a couple names on such quick BIN when I was second guessing. One name had a 500 BIN.
I thought the seller will reduce the BIN to 450 so I put the thread on watch and waited for a few hours and someone else Binned 500. Lesson learned. That was an easy 10K name there. Some gems pop up here from time to time.


Anyway, my November sales put me in the black and I feel so good.

And, I Spent all the money from my Nov sales on several news names in 200-300 range, few in 500 range.

I also stopped hand reg, except for submitting to Brand Marketplaces. I have been able to get 50%+ approval on my hand reg. My closeout purchases have not been that lucky lol.

December... So far the lucky streak continues
4000 + 1399 + 299 so far.. And I used some of the proceeds to buy about 60 brand bucket names. Will see how my brandable play works out :)

I have also managed to sell several of the hand regs for 100-199 range between august and now, because I didn't know what to do with them to I put them at 199 on marketplaces..

My next plan to to stop buying the 200-500 range names and start buying in the 1500-2000 range to improve my portfolio quality but damn, the auction are so expensive. I guess, We all need to find out our own niche.




I don't have much advantage from my decade of online business. I have been a SEO and all I do to get traffic is rank on Google, create massive social pages, etc, so domain name was never important. So I am a bit biased and in fact my experience works against domaining, but domaining has helped me immensely in my online business lol. While studying names I have found so many new niche that I can dominate.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my Ted Talk. I don't know if I shared anything useful, but hey I am still learning. I like sharing stuff, so maybe in time, I will be able to articulate better. Right now, my mind is full of stuff from information overload.

I am not good enough to give advice or anything, but I do have opinions on a lot of things, which could be right or wrong.

Just wanted to share my short Journey which I started as a way to distract me during the Pandemic.
I don't know how else I would have spent this lockdown, had it not been for the rows and rows of pending delete names, rows of names sold by Nikul, Ammudamus, DNgear, Hiren, federer, the SH sales data, portfolio of the big guys like NameBuyer, BMugford, Rizm,.. the Sherpa interviews, brandable Insider podcast, josh.co podcast and so on... I didn't even realize how the time went by.

And I didn't lose money in the process while building out a 1000 odd name portfolio :)
(Well it helped that , 200 are 99 cent .realty and another 500 are 99 - 1.99 cent .cos)

I am doing everything, from .in to .io to .co to brandable marketplaces, to parking (made over 200 usd in december so far on Bodis). and I am enjoying the journey.


I enrolled with DNAcademy in november to improve my picking skills. The fact that Mike Cyger teaches a data based approach to domaining is what suits my style too.

While people regret that they didn't start soon enough, I feel blessed and grateful for all the tools and information that are readily available today. Other than the fact that I might have been able to buy some cheaper names, I think this is a great time to start domaining. My only regret is that I have enjoyed the journey so much, I missed not doing it earlier.





Everything you need to learn is out there. And excellent tools. I stopped buying names I like. I only buy names that other people will like.

Eat what you like. But only buy domains that other people will like :)

There are so many things to learn. I have so much raw data to study, lists to prepare, and so on and so forth.
........But I have promises to keep,. And miles to go before I sleep,. And miles to go before I sleep.

Keep learning.. And here is a fantastic 2021 to everyone.
 
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The views expressed on this page by users and staff are their own, not those of NamePros.
Just wanted to say that I really appreciate the depth and openness in your post @blogspotter and best wishes that the trend of good sales in the late fall will continue for you. I like the data driven approach you advocate, and lots of truth in what you wrote. Here are a few that particularly resonated with me!
people in this industry are very helpful and eager to help.
That is so true, and the best thing in many ways about domaining, in my view.

have been able to get 50%+ approval on my hand reg
Wow, that is impressive from what I have read.

We all need to find out our own niche.
So true, and sometime overlooked I think. I am a big believer in finding a niche in which one has expertise and a competitive advantage as a result. Also, imho, nothing wrong with the niches varying over time.

but domaining has helped me immensely in my online business
That is interesting, and I bet applies to others. I've made a note of it as a possible future NamePros Blog topic!

I didn't lose money in the process while building out a 1000 odd name portfolio
I think this is so critical. Until one has success, limit investments, and let your portfolio grow according to success you have had.

Thanks again for a superb post. And best wishes for continued success!

Bob
 
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Just wanted to say that I really appreciate the depth and openness in your post @blogspotter and best wishes that the trend of good sales in the late fall will continue for you. I like the data driven approach you advocate, and lots of truth in what you wrote. Here are a few that particularly resonated with me!
That is so true, and the best thing in many ways about domaining, in my view.

Wow, that is impressive from what I have read.

So true, and sometime overlooked I think. I am a big believer in finding a niche in which one has expertise and a competitive advantage as a result. Also, imho, nothing wrong with the niches varying over time.

That is interesting, and I bet applies to others. I've made a note of it as a possible future NamePros Blog topic!

I think this is so critical. Until one has success, limit investments, and let your portfolio grow according to success you have had.

Thanks again for a superb post. And best wishes for continued success!

Bob
Thanks for the Kind words Bob.
Means a lot.

I am not a very prolific nor a very organised writer so I like to ramble on without coming to the point. I will add more as I gather more thoughts. This has been overwhelming few months and I have a learnt a lot and a lot of what i am not good at too.

And This has also been a humbling experience.
In my corporate life, I started my career as a management trainee, I have always been great at delegating things, and usually a good judge of character so I could figure out the strengths of my team members and subordinates, so I always delegated all my work to a great success for the team, which continued in my business, but, I have not been able to figure out anything to delegate in domaining. In other words, I have been working as an Individual contributor, rather than a team member or a manager, and somehow it felt refreshingly good. Unless I start outbound sales, i still don't have an SOP that I can use to delegate or outsource some work :)
Next couple months, I will at least try to organize some things into repeatable processes.
 
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If any newbie thought domaining was a get rich quick scheme, this is just a glimpse of how I study names. This is part of my research for .TV niche. What kinds of names sell and what kind of names the successful TV sellers were buying.

I have done the same for brandable names, short names, long names, different CCTLDs,, Crypto, Gaming and so on..
And yet so much more to study.


notes for NP.jpeg
 
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If any newbie thought domaining was a get rich quick scheme, this is just a glimpse of how I study names. This is part of my research for .TV niche. What kinds of names sell and what kind of names the successful TV sellers were buying.

I have done the same for brandable names, short names, long names, different CCTLDs,, Crypto, Gaming and so on..
And yet so much more to study.


Show attachment 176875

Wow, that's quite interesting, possible to share more on it? Like if you jumble, mix already sold names or get ideas from sold names and create your own similar name?
 
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Anyway, thanks for listening to my Ted Talk. I don't know if I shared anything useful, but hey I am still learning. I like sharing stuff, so maybe in time, I will be able to articulate better. Right now, my mind is full of stuff from information overload.

Apologies for being the only ignorant dude in this thread (and forum), but what TedTalk?

If any newbie thought domaining was a get rich quick scheme, this is just a glimpse of how I study names. This is part of my research for .TV niche. What kinds of names sell and what kind of names the successful TV sellers were buying.

I have done the same for brandable names, short names, long names, different CCTLDs,, Crypto, Gaming and so on..
And yet so much more to study.


Show attachment 176875


That looks soo much like my notepad too!

Thank you so much for sharing. It is such a good thread.
 
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Wow, that's quite interesting, possible to share more on it? Like if you jumble, mix already sold names or get ideas from sold names and create your own similar name?
I just use it to develop my instinct to understand what kind of names, the successful domainers are buying and what are being sold to end users, for a particular ccTLD, or a niche. What sells in .TV won't be popular in .com, WHat is popular in .io won't be popular in .co etc

Why would I mix and match already sold names. I analyse the names and try to understand why they are buying what they are buying. Not to emulate. But I do get a fair idea when I see a name that that this is a name that "he/she" won't buy. That is important to know because otherwise you end up with lots of Junk.


Apologies for being the only ignorant dude in this thread (and forum), but what TedTalk?
Ignore it. It is a figure of speech.
TedTalk is series of motivational talk on youtube. I was just trying to be funny
 
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thanks for sharing...@blogspotter
 
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thank you for sharing @blogspotter interesting read.

most people would have given up right after a few month not selling anything, I am glad you bounced back in the last few month. Hard work, focus and persistence are key in domaining.

I started to sell names as well when I listened to more experienced colleagues, I dug myself into data, investigated other people sales etc.

Keep up the good work and share how it goes!
 
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Thank you for sharing. This kind of stories is the one we newbie can learn a lot.
Good luck for this 2021!
 
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Wish we would get another update soon from the OP!
 
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Wish we would get another update soon from the OP!
Nothing Life Changing yet happened in the 2 weeks since I posted :)
but I am still buying
 
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I joined NP in 2007, and I don't remember why and how. I wished I was active in 2007, read a few posts here and there, but then, that's spilled milk, water under the bridge.
Sometime in July I tried to register on NP when I got a message that this email was registered. I did a forgot password and low and behold, I got a rest password. 13 years old dormant account lol

But I was happy to get it back. It felt familiar. Well, I have been very active on other Bulletin Board for 15-16 years, and most forums I was active on have died. This was like Nostalgia. I hadn't been active in a forum in 6-7 years.

So you can say I started domaining in July/August this year. That is also when I bought a bunch of crappy domain names.

But I am not new to domain names. In fact I am not new to after markets as well. My godaddy auction account is 14-15 years old, and I have always bought my domain names from godaddy auctions.
I have also been buying SEO domains for a long time.

And everytime I start a new website, I always buy from godaddy closeouts because of the domain age. .

But all this, and even though I have bought domains from "SEDO" **gasp**, I never knew there was a profitable business right under my nose, of people buying and selling domain names for 1k to 10-20K

I mean I knew about the sex.com sale and the likes. Who doesn't? But I never knew of the premium domain marketplaces. Despite having bought from SEDO (which I only recently discovered when I checked my emails)
It may seem strange to you, but I bought a domain because I needed it for a project and apparently it was via a SEDO lending page lol


All right under my damn nose.
I had a few domain names, and I did have a lot of offers, which I always though were spammers, so I deleted most and hid behind proxy and throwaway emails.

It was in July when I got a mail from a godaddy broker itself on a name I owned, that I managed to re-open this NP account here and asked about it,

And that opened a floodgate. I started reading, looked at other domains, and I got so excited,
I have sold 6 figure websites, but man it takes a lot of effort to create and sell a 6 figure website and then you still feel bad because they are income generating assets

And here I see you all buy a domain name for 500 bucks and flip for 5k and I am like what in the name of holy Moses.

And that is when I aggressively started reading about domaining, made lists of what the popular guys were buy, got through their portfolios, what kinds of names are selling at what range, get confused AF, go through Domain sherpa and old posts, and I think I started buying and buying.

Another thing I found is that the people in this industry are very helpful and eager to help. I made some great friends, and I hope I will see some success in 2021.

But 2020 has not been bad either.

July, I hand registered a lot of names on expired domains .net
Some single word names that were junked.
Many .org and .nets because I didn't know so many good .net and .org dropped lol
Not sure what i am gonna do with them. I paticipated in a few auctions and made some BAD decisions. I bought a domain for 2000 bucks because I thought it had development potential. It does, but it was a bad domaining decision

August same thing.. more hand regs

September .. Began to see a pattern in what sells and what doesn't sell. And started participating in a lot of auctions with a strict Proxy and only buy if I win. I also bought a few liquid domains, I thought of doing quick flips but paypal fees etc cut into profits. I still have them, but since they are liquid, i won't lose money. Like I bought 3 random LLLL for 85 bucks each. I bought some LLL.net and org.. LLL.in, LLL.co and what not
Oh well..

October, Still addicted to Hand reg, I need a deaddiction, but much lesser. Started winning decent names in Auctions.

November.. Lucky Lucky Month..
I sold 4 names. One for 3000, 1000+, and 6000 all bought in October and november. Really really fast flips. All inbound. I had so far spent about 10K on my own money, but I would say I spent more than half of that on Liquid names (LLLL.com, LLL.net, LLL.org, LNL.com) which I can flip any day here on NP for a little profit.. I boguth them as safe investments lol and also to guage the auctions. I won a few auctions here on namepros where I bought on BIN and I got messages to buy the names from me for a quick profit, so I would like to think my valuations have been on the right track. I also missed a couple names on such quick BIN when I was second guessing. One name had a 500 BIN.
I thought the seller will reduce the BIN to 450 so I put the thread on watch and waited for a few hours and someone else Binned 500. Lesson learned. That was an easy 10K name there. Some gems pop up here from time to time.


Anyway, my November sales put me in the black and I feel so good.

And, I Spent all the money from my Nov sales on several news names in 200-300 range, few in 500 range.

I also stopped hand reg, except for submitting to Brand Marketplaces. I have been able to get 50%+ approval on my hand reg. My closeout purchases have not been that lucky lol.

December... So far the lucky streak continues
4000 + 1399 + 299 so far.. And I used some of the proceeds to buy about 60 brand bucket names. Will see how my brandable play works out :)

I have also managed to sell several of the hand regs for 100-199 range between august and now, because I didn't know what to do with them to I put them at 199 on marketplaces..

My next plan to to stop buying the 200-500 range names and start buying in the 1500-2000 range to improve my portfolio quality but damn, the auction are so expensive. I guess, We all need to find out our own niche.




I don't have much advantage from my decade of online business. I have been a SEO and all I do to get traffic is rank on Google, create massive social pages, etc, so domain name was never important. So I am a bit biased and in fact my experience works against domaining, but domaining has helped me immensely in my online business lol. While studying names I have found so many new niche that I can dominate.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my Ted Talk. I don't know if I shared anything useful, but hey I am still learning. I like sharing stuff, so maybe in time, I will be able to articulate better. Right now, my mind is full of stuff from information overload.

I am not good enough to give advice or anything, but I do have opinions on a lot of things, which could be right or wrong.

Just wanted to share my short Journey which I started as a way to distract me during the Pandemic.
I don't know how else I would have spent this lockdown, had it not been for the rows and rows of pending delete names, rows of names sold by Nikul, Ammudamus, DNgear, Hiren, federer, the SH sales data, portfolio of the big guys like NameBuyer, BMugford, Rizm,.. the Sherpa interviews, brandable Insider podcast, josh.co podcast and so on... I didn't even realize how the time went by.

And I didn't lose money in the process while building out a 1000 odd name portfolio :)
(Well it helped that , 200 are 99 cent .realty and another 500 are 99 - 1.99 cent .cos)

I am doing everything, from .in to .io to .co to brandable marketplaces, to parking (made over 200 usd in december so far on Bodis). and I am enjoying the journey.


I enrolled with DNAcademy in november to improve my picking skills. The fact that Mike Cyger teaches a data based approach to domaining is what suits my style too.

While people regret that they didn't start soon enough, I feel blessed and grateful for all the tools and information that are readily available today. Other than the fact that I might have been able to buy some cheaper names, I think this is a great time to start domaining. My only regret is that I have enjoyed the journey so much, I missed not doing it earlier.





Everything you need to learn is out there. And excellent tools. I stopped buying names I like. I only buy names that other people will like.

Eat what you like. But only buy domains that other people will like :)

There are so many things to learn. I have so much raw data to study, lists to prepare, and so on and so forth.
........But I have promises to keep,. And miles to go before I sleep,. And miles to go before I sleep.

Keep learning.. And here is a fantastic 2021 to everyone.
Thanks!
 
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Nothing Life Changing yet happened in the 2 weeks since I posted :)
but I am still buying
Maybe you can kindly share some of your recent buying regularly? We can learn a lot from that. Thanks.
 
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Maybe you can kindly share some of your recent buying regularly? We can learn a lot from that. Thanks.
I am still early in game and trying to see what works, experiments etc so It might be misleading. I have also been overpaying a bit as I want to have good names which I am not sure is a good idea... I mean I don't want people following my lead now...

I bought about 80 names which were Squad Help and Brand Bucket approved as I like the idea of brandable market places.

And I regularly buy .io, co, that are brandable..
 
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I am still early in game and trying to see what works, experiments etc so It might be misleading. I have also been overpaying a bit as I want to have good names which I am not sure is a good idea... I mean I don't want people following my lead now...

I bought about 80 names which were Squad Help and Brand Bucket approved as I like the idea of brandable market places.

And I regularly buy .io, co, that are brandable..
Blogspotter,

Without giving away too much of your 'strategy', what resource, tool, online videos, etc would you say are the most beneficial to the new-er domainer primarily interested in making regular sales of Dot COM names?

Thank you!
 
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Blogspotter,

Without giving away too much of your 'strategy', what resource, tool, online videos, etc would you say are the most beneficial to the new-er domainer primarily interested in making regular sales of Dot COM names?

Thank you!
I am not hiding anything. It is just that I am doing all kinds of things and I have no strategy to give yet was what I mean, and having started only recently I don't know.

I use tools to shortlist and then apply my mind to see if the name will make sense..

I use expireddomains.net extensively. I simple love their filters and I would suggest you play around with the same.

I will give a brief example. But this is not for .com This simply won't work in dot.coms, because it a .com checks all the boxes, gthat name will cost in the thousands in the auctions, but you can get the general idea.

When I make a shortlist of names I see how many TLDs the name is taken in.
Now how many TLD taken is a great filter, but it is only a Filtering criteria.

Some people will point out that a name is only taken in one extension when they see an end user sale of a domain name that has no TLDs taken. I think they have a severe deficit in understanding how people use the TLDs taken. It is simply a shortlist.

When you are shortliting 10000 names, you need to get the list down to manageable numbers.

Now after you see the TLDs takem, you can google and see why the name is so popular. Most likely it is the name of a software tool or some trademark.. Leave those.

TLD taken works for popular non .com TLDs. i stay away from GTLDs

And then I check Linkedin and crunchbase to see if the name is popular among different companies.
I also use google images to see if I see a lot of different logos


It means it is a popular business name and thus has more potential of selling.

I also study list of names on Namebio, Squadhelp sales etc to understand what types of names sells the most and then imagine if this name will make a cut.

But studying what names sell is the most important.
So Dotdb, namebio, exprieddomains, crunchbase and google

For .com, simce you will mostly be buying two word names, understanding the synergy of the two word is important. I suggest listening to brandable insider podcast for the same..
 
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Thanks for this. Good learning for me.
 
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If any newbie thought domaining was a get rich quick scheme, this is just a glimpse of how I study names. This is part of my research for .TV niche. What kinds of names sell and what kind of names the successful TV sellers were buying.

I have done the same for brandable names, short names, long names, different CCTLDs,, Crypto, Gaming and so on..
And yet so much more to study.


Show attachment 176875
This really inspires me to keep learning domaining. Good to see people are learning domaining on notebooks as we were used to do during our colleges for our exams. :-P
 
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I haven't quit domaining yet!! In fact have come long way since then.
In the last 3 months, I have sold domains on Afternic, SEDO, DAN, SAV, even Dynadot, and I just made a sale on Squadhelp also a few days back.

It would be noice to make a sale on Brandbucket before year end :)

I have listed my names on Uniregistry also.
I have made 3 sales in Uniregistry too. Still no Brand Bucket sales even after 10 months..
 
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Thanks for the great post. I also got many valuable points from your tweets. You stated that you don't hand reg many names now. In you opinion, how much minimum investment will be required, if one targets sales worth 50k a year ?(Apart from all learning and time)
 
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Thanks for the great post. I also got many valuable points from your tweets. You stated that you don't hand reg many names now. In you opinion, how much minimum investment will be required, if one targets sales worth 50k a year ?(Apart from all learning and time)
I can't say for sure Man. You do need the money, which doesn't mean you need a deep pocket, But I spent 2-3K consistently every month before I started my regular sales. That said, let me also state that right now I am getting much better at picking names. And also that I made some 15 K sales after I spent my first 10 K or so and I had extra cashflow around the time when I was getting better at picking names which helped. Also understand that not many people become profitable in the first year. I was very lucky with a lot of things coming together at the same time.

My advice would be to never stop buying. Looking at names everyday makes you better. Looking at auctions. I suggest making a list of 500 -1000 names that you would have BOUGHT if you had the money, and buy only as many as you afford by picking the best that you can afford. But making that list is important. DO that for 6 months, and you will have to get better, no doubts about it.

Avoid spending money if you have doubt about a name, or even worse if you are confident about a name without any experience :)
That is how I had my first 1000 crap names.
 
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Also I haven't taken out a dime out of my domaining business. I have a separate business entity for this business and I haven't taken out a single penny. Everything goes back to business. That helps.
 
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:) very nice story :) .. let me know if you wish to do a friendly livestream :)

Best wishes,
H
 
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I joined NP in 2007, and I don't remember why and how. I wished I was active in 2007, read a few posts here and there, but then, that's spilled milk, water under the bridge.
Sometime in July I tried to register on NP when I got a message that this email was registered. I did a forgot password and low and behold, I got a rest password. 13 years old dormant account lol

But I was happy to get it back. It felt familiar. Well, I have been very active on other Bulletin Board for 15-16 years, and most forums I was active on have died. This was like Nostalgia. I hadn't been active in a forum in 6-7 years.

So you can say I started domaining in July/August this year. That is also when I bought a bunch of crappy domain names.

But I am not new to domain names. In fact I am not new to after markets as well. My godaddy auction account is 14-15 years old, and I have always bought my domain names from godaddy auctions.
I have also been buying SEO domains for a long time.

And everytime I start a new website, I always buy from godaddy closeouts because of the domain age. .

But all this, and even though I have bought domains from "SEDO" **gasp**, I never knew there was a profitable business right under my nose, of people buying and selling domain names for 1k to 10-20K

I mean I knew about the sex.com sale and the likes. Who doesn't? But I never knew of the premium domain marketplaces. Despite having bought from SEDO (which I only recently discovered when I checked my emails)
It may seem strange to you, but I bought a domain because I needed it for a project and apparently it was via a SEDO lending page lol


All right under my damn nose.
I had a few domain names, and I did have a lot of offers, which I always though were spammers, so I deleted most and hid behind proxy and throwaway emails.

It was in July when I got a mail from a godaddy broker itself on a name I owned, that I managed to re-open this NP account here and asked about it,

And that opened a floodgate. I started reading, looked at other domains, and I got so excited,
I have sold 6 figure websites, but man it takes a lot of effort to create and sell a 6 figure website and then you still feel bad because they are income generating assets

And here I see you all buy a domain name for 500 bucks and flip for 5k and I am like what in the name of holy Moses.

And that is when I aggressively started reading about domaining, made lists of what the popular guys were buy, got through their portfolios, what kinds of names are selling at what range, get confused AF, go through Domain sherpa and old posts, and I think I started buying and buying.

Another thing I found is that the people in this industry are very helpful and eager to help. I made some great friends, and I hope I will see some success in 2021.

But 2020 has not been bad either.

July, I hand registered a lot of names on expired domains .net
Some single word names that were junked.
Many .org and .nets because I didn't know so many good .net and .org dropped lol
Not sure what i am gonna do with them. I paticipated in a few auctions and made some BAD decisions. I bought a domain for 2000 bucks because I thought it had development potential. It does, but it was a bad domaining decision

August same thing.. more hand regs

September .. Began to see a pattern in what sells and what doesn't sell. And started participating in a lot of auctions with a strict Proxy and only buy if I win. I also bought a few liquid domains, I thought of doing quick flips but paypal fees etc cut into profits. I still have them, but since they are liquid, i won't lose money. Like I bought 3 random LLLL for 85 bucks each. I bought some LLL.net and org.. LLL.in, LLL.co and what not
Oh well..

October, Still addicted to Hand reg, I need a deaddiction, but much lesser. Started winning decent names in Auctions.

November.. Lucky Lucky Month..
I sold 4 names. One for 3000, 1000+, and 6000 all bought in October and november. Really really fast flips. All inbound. I had so far spent about 10K on my own money, but I would say I spent more than half of that on Liquid names (LLLL.com, LLL.net, LLL.org, LNL.com) which I can flip any day here on NP for a little profit.. I boguth them as safe investments lol and also to guage the auctions. I won a few auctions here on namepros where I bought on BIN and I got messages to buy the names from me for a quick profit, so I would like to think my valuations have been on the right track. I also missed a couple names on such quick BIN when I was second guessing. One name had a 500 BIN.
I thought the seller will reduce the BIN to 450 so I put the thread on watch and waited for a few hours and someone else Binned 500. Lesson learned. That was an easy 10K name there. Some gems pop up here from time to time.


Anyway, my November sales put me in the black and I feel so good.

And, I Spent all the money from my Nov sales on several news names in 200-300 range, few in 500 range.

I also stopped hand reg, except for submitting to Brand Marketplaces. I have been able to get 50%+ approval on my hand reg. My closeout purchases have not been that lucky lol.

December... So far the lucky streak continues
4000 + 1399 + 299 so far.. And I used some of the proceeds to buy about 60 brand bucket names. Will see how my brandable play works out :)

I have also managed to sell several of the hand regs for 100-199 range between august and now, because I didn't know what to do with them to I put them at 199 on marketplaces..

My next plan to to stop buying the 200-500 range names and start buying in the 1500-2000 range to improve my portfolio quality but damn, the auction are so expensive. I guess, We all need to find out our own niche.




I don't have much advantage from my decade of online business. I have been a SEO and all I do to get traffic is rank on Google, create massive social pages, etc, so domain name was never important. So I am a bit biased and in fact my experience works against domaining, but domaining has helped me immensely in my online business lol. While studying names I have found so many new niche that I can dominate.

Anyway, thanks for listening to my Ted Talk. I don't know if I shared anything useful, but hey I am still learning. I like sharing stuff, so maybe in time, I will be able to articulate better. Right now, my mind is full of stuff from information overload.

I am not good enough to give advice or anything, but I do have opinions on a lot of things, which could be right or wrong.

Just wanted to share my short Journey which I started as a way to distract me during the Pandemic.
I don't know how else I would have spent this lockdown, had it not been for the rows and rows of pending delete names, rows of names sold by Nikul, Ammudamus, DNgear, Hiren, federer, the SH sales data, portfolio of the big guys like NameBuyer, BMugford, Rizm,.. the Sherpa interviews, brandable Insider podcast, josh.co podcast and so on... I didn't even realize how the time went by.

And I didn't lose money in the process while building out a 1000 odd name portfolio :)
(Well it helped that , 200 are 99 cent .realty and another 500 are 99 - 1.99 cent .cos)

I am doing everything, from .in to .io to .co to brandable marketplaces, to parking (made over 200 usd in december so far on Bodis). and I am enjoying the journey.


I enrolled with DNAcademy in november to improve my picking skills. The fact that Mike Cyger teaches a data based approach to domaining is what suits my style too.

While people regret that they didn't start soon enough, I feel blessed and grateful for all the tools and information that are readily available today. Other than the fact that I might have been able to buy some cheaper names, I think this is a great time to start domaining. My only regret is that I have enjoyed the journey so much, I missed not doing it earlier.





Everything you need to learn is out there. And excellent tools. I stopped buying names I like. I only buy names that other people will like.

Eat what you like. But only buy domains that other people will like :)

There are so many things to learn. I have so much raw data to study, lists to prepare, and so on and so forth.
........But I have promises to keep,. And miles to go before I sleep,. And miles to go before I sleep.

Keep learning.. And here is a fantastic 2021 to everyone.
I only buy names that other people will like.
Can you give two-three examples?
 
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I only buy names that other people will like.
Can you give two-three examples?
Check my my reported sales on the sales report thread.
 
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