Sweetmantra: Domain Name Strategy

Want to Be a Successful Domain Speculator? Start with these Seven Key Steps.

Almost every day I get approached by would-be domain speculators (a.k.a. domainers) wanting me to sell their domains or give them feedback on their domain portfolios. Sadly, 99% of the domains that come across my desk are mediocre and have zero chance of being re-sold. In fact, most of the domains I get sent shouldn’t have been registered in the first place. Yes, they’re that bad! It pains me to have to tell people that they’ve wasted their valuable time and hard-earned money on buying this crap, but they deserve a reality check.

While there are many people and companies that have made a very good living from the speculative buying and selling of domain names, that doesn’t mean this is an easy field to break into and that hard work isn’t required. Frank Schilling didn’t make his millions by accident or dumb luck; he’s worked seven days a week for two decades to build his successful domain empire. The same can be said for many of his peers.

The common thread I have noticed with the newest generation of people who have been successful in this field, the folks that have emerged in the last five years, is that they didn’t just dive in and register a whack of domain names – anyone with a credit card can do that. These people did their homework first.

Your goal shouldn’t be to amass the largest portfolio of domain names. Your goal should be to really understand what types of domain names can be re-sold for a profit. Then, and only then, should you start building your domain portfolio.

One of the cool things I admire about the domain speculating industry is that a lot of the professionals in this field are willing to share their expertise with newcomers. This means that you can avoid making the same mistakes that they did. There are numerous excellent blogs where professional domain speculators share their wisdom on a daily basis, plus a wealth of other resources and tools to bring a newcomer quickly up to speed.

Because I don’t have the time to individually help every aspiring domain speculator that approaches me, I usually recommend that they take the following essential steps to learn more about what works, and doesn’t work, in this field.

1. Do not register a single domain name for potential re-sale until you have completed the remaining steps. (From what I have seen, this is the hardest step for people to take!)
2. Purchase and read Sean Stafford’s excellent eBook, “Domain Graduate”, which can be obtained at http://www.domaingraduate.com. For the price of registering two domain names, you will learn a ton about what kind of domains to register, what kind of domains to avoid, and where to sell your domains. I insist that everyone who works for me read this eBook because I consider it the definitive guide to this field. Lots of eBooks have been written on this topic, but Sean’s eBook is the best one I have ever read.
3. Purchase and read David Kesmodel's excellent book “The Domain Game” (available at http://thedomaingame.org/), which is an entertaining and informative read about the birth of the domain speculating business. The Domain Game features excellent profiles of some of the pioneers in the space including Scott Day, Garry Chernoff, Frank Schilling, and Mike Mann.
4. Spend at least a week reading current and older posts on as many blogs by professional domainers as you can, starting with DomainInvesting.com (Elliot Silver), The Domains (Michael Berkens), Rick’s Blog (Rich Schwartz), plus check out DomainShane, Domain Name Wire, and the weekly Domain Sherpa Review show on DomainSherpa.com (Michael Cyger). For even more domain speculating blogs, be sure to visit Domaining.com.
5. Join a domain speculator discussion forum such as DNForum or NamePros and read as much as you can. Tip: spend your first week reading and getting to know the lay of the land before you start posting questions.
6. Analyze the weekly domain sales reports published by industry tracker Ron Jackson on DN Journal and for each domain ask yourself, "why did someone buy this domain?"
7. If possible, attend a domain name conference such as NamesCon or TRAFFIC or a local domain investor meetup.

Once you’ve completed the seven steps above, you will be ready to register (or buy or trade) your first domain name for re-sale. Best wishes to you and your domains as you embark on this exciting new venture!

 

Believe It or Not, This is What I Do for a Living!

While attending the NamesCon domain name conference last month, I had the opportunity to sit down for one-on-one meetings with a variety of industry colleagues. Quite a few of them asked me what I was up to these days, and I realized that if my domain industry buddies don’t know what I am doing for a living, then folks outside of the industry definitely wouldn’t know.

So, with that in mind, here’s a brief summary of what I am doing work-wise. My main focus is running Name Ninja, and what we (yes, there’s a team of us) primarily do is help clients acquire a specific domain name they want that is already owned by another party. Technically, the term for the role that we play is Domain Buyer Broker, meaning we represent the buyer in the transaction. Our clients range from serial entrepreneurs to early-stage startups to marketing executives at larger companies. Acquisition budgets for the domains we get asked to acquire are all over the map, and sometimes have no logical correlation with the size of the company wanting to buy the domain – or fair market value! I will probably do another blog post about the harsh realities of startup and corporate domain acquisition budgets, but let’s just say that not every company wants to, or can afford to, spend five, six, or even seven figures on a domain name. Even some Fortune 500 companies balk at paying more than $1,000 to acquire a domain name, as crazy as that may sound. Naturally, I provide a lot of ‘reality checks’ to clients who are under the impression they can buy a one-word .com domain for a few thousand dollars. Sadly, it’s not 1995 anymore.

Although Name Ninja is based in Canada, the vast majority of our clients are in the US and Europe, although we are delighted to work with Canadian clients when the opportunity presents itself. Most of the domains we help clients acquire are one and two-word .com domains, but we’re TLD agnostic and will help clients acquire any domain in any extension they desire. In addition to lots of .com domains, we’ve helped clients acquire .net, .org, .TV, .co, .biz, .ca, .fr, plus a smattering of new TLD domains. Interestingly, it’s been a year since hundreds of new TLD domains have publicly launched and I can count on the fingers of one hand how many times a client has expressed an interest in one of the new TLD domains. For them, and for now at least, .com is still king.

A common reaction I get from people when I tell them what I do for a living is that they are surprised to hear that someone, let alone a team of people, can make a viable living just focused on acquiring domain names for others. “Surely that’s not your full-time job,” they ask with a puzzled look on their face. Yup, it certainly is, and here’s why: There are thousands of startups, new businesses, and new products being launched every single day by entrepreneurs around the world, and most of these new companies are going to need a domain name at some point. Not surprisingly, in many cases these entrepreneurs’ first choice of domain name is owned by someone else. Some of these entrepreneurs realize they need help acquiring their ideal domain name, and that’s when they seek out the help of a domain name buyer brokerage like Name Ninja.

I love what I do, and nothing gives me more pleasure than seeing one of our clients get a domain name they’ve been wanting for months or even years. I should add here that not every domain acquisition we do for clients is a purchase from a third party. Sometimes we’re able to scoop up domains for clients during the expiry stage (here’s a great case study of one such project) and other times we’ve been even able to get domains donated to our clients.

One of the things I love about my job, even though most of the time it doesn’t feel like a “job”, is that every domain project is different and comes with its own set of challenges. No two projects are identical, and each is like a new puzzle waiting to be solved.

People often think that the hardest part of domain acquisition projects is the negotiation, but in my experience the hardest part of what we do is identifying and contacting the domain owner. We love it when we discover the domain is owned by a domainer, because most domainers want to be found and are interested in selling their domains. I wish the same could be said for some members of the general public, and don’t get me started about large corporations that are just sitting on some killer domains. Sometimes it’s really obvious who the owner is and it’s relatively easy to reach them, but other times it can take weeks or months of detective work to track down the real owner of a domain name and convince them to talk to us. We’ll go to just about any length – as long as it is legal and ethical – to find a domain name owner and get their attention, even if that has meant doing some pretty crazy things. Without wishing to give away any trade secrets, I can say that some of our projects have involved helium balloons, mint tea, and an undercover agent who speaks five languages.

I’ve also done a number of pro-bono assignments for individuals and companies whose domain names have been lost or stolen, and these projects are the most rewarding assignments of all.

So that’s what I do for a living, and I feel blessed that it’s something I really enjoy. Life is far too short to be doing work that you don’t find interesting or fulfilling. I am also deeply thankful to my Name Ninja team and amazing clients and industry partners for making my unusual “job” a wonderful reality.