I'll start giving away my domain names, it's all over. (1.Viewing)

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I'm getting a sense of that in a lot of places right now. I've never seen so many domainers giving up both in the .com and the .ca world.

Domaining is for those who can renew large catalogs and have the patience to wait.

In my mind domaining has the investment quality of lottery tickets..
Never won on 6/49. Won a couple of times with domains!

If you're actually looking for make a consistent profit and have domains sales entirely support your business model (and are not just collecting domains for the future using wages and/or investment income to finance it) then this is a really tough day-to-day business to keep profitable.

And this is especially true if you're just starting out, as you can easily find yourself behind the 8-ball and without an aged portfolio to fall back on. Plus. you need to put a ton of work into it to make a profit. which is the real Catch-22 IMO.

Look at Twitter Tony (https://twitter.com/TonyNames) I don't think he sleeps more than a few hours a night and he's always looking for a new angle to try and beat the competition.

Domain investment is a true case study on how you need to both outwork and outsmart the competition, but it's tough to equate the financial returns with the work sometimes. And no matter how smart you are, or how much time and effort you put in, domain sales have an inherent "luck factor" built right in.

I count myself as an educated and intelligent person, and I don't think there is any field I would make less money at, with the same time investment, than in domains. That's just cold, hard fact.

But I enjoy the game and find the TBR mentally stimulating.

From what little I've seen, I think domains are far more valuable as a longterm investment. If not grueling day to day to make immediate profit, then you need to have patience on the scale of decades. Demand is low now, true. But the economy is still growing, population's still growing, new businesses sprout up every day, and good domains are finite. The internet's still in it's infancy, it has plenty of time to grow. I think I'll build and maintain a portfolio of 100 or so and just hold it. Maybe I'll only get one sale a year, so be it. I think that, even if it takes 50 years, eventually it'll yield a small profit.

It's a competitive field now, and has been for many years.

I did not get in crazy early like some others. I just consistently grinded over the years.

I get several offers daily. Many of the domains I bought 10 years ago have 4x-5x the end users as when I bought them.

Domains with obvious potential end users tend to go up in value over time while random combos are a complete crap shoot.

Brad

InsidiousCynic said:

From what little I've seen, I think domains are far more valuable as a longterm investment. If not grueling day to day to make immediate profit, then you need to have patience on the scale of decades.

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Exactly. There are two types of domain investment buyers: a) those who want to create a business that consistently pays for itself and b) hobbyists investors looking to amass a portfolio using their income to pay for it.

One needs to make an annual profit, while profit is not an immediate consideration for the other.

There is no good or bad way to go about it, these strategies are just different, but more importantly, require a far different level of capital expenditure. A lot of these guys leaving domains were not spending "an extra $100K they had laying around" but were at the other the end of the scale, scrabbling to make a buck, which is tough with this economy.

It's good to have a few potential income buckets, because if you have a few then usually at least one or two are working for you.

I have job income, domains, social network usernames, stocks, private company shares (through sites like Frontfundr or StartEngine). Rental income would be another good one but I don't have that. Buying and holding crypto like bitcoin might pay off big one day (I wouldn't trade it due to the risk but dollar cost average). A bonus from work, some domain names sales, a username sale, or share prices going up have made big differences for me over time. If you get a period where all or many are working for you at the same time, all the better, like late 2020/2021 where almost all assets were going up. Having a good side hustle aside from your regular job is also good to develop other skills and bring in some income.

DataCube said:

I just consistently grinded over the years.

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If you want to make a consistent profit, you have to grind, as like you said there is a LOT of competition out there and the number of saleable domains available on the expiry lists is extremely finite.

domains said:

It's good to have a few potential income buckets, because if you have a few then usually at least one or two are working for you.

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That's right, and it's also why I view domain investment as something that needs to pay for itself.

I know the history of domains. Times change and what's hot now won't necessarily be hot in 10 years so I would be very hesitant to put a lot of $$$ into what's red hot right now and then hope it gets even hotter. I try to buy value over anything else, as you make money on the buy.

What am doing now is purchasing domains I think businesses might want in the future, and if I make a sale, I put that money back into even better domains that I think more businesses would want to buy, all the while keeping a close eye on STR, P&L, the price I'm paying for each domain, and the price I think I can get for it.

And so far it's worked, but it's also requires RPG-level grinding to pay off.

That's domains, but I passively invest in other areas, such as depressed blue-chip stocks (easiest way to make money is in a recession) and real estate.

domains said:

It's good to have a few potential income buckets, because if you have a few then usually at least one or two are working for you.

I have job income, domains, social network usernames, stocks, private company shares (through sites like Frontfundr or StartEngine). Rental income would be another good one but I don't have that. Buying and holding crypto like bitcoin might pay off big one day (I wouldn't trade it due to the risk but dollar cost average). A bonus from work, some domain names sales, a username sale, or share prices going up have made big differences for me over time. If you get a period where all or many are working for you at the same time, all the better, like late 2020/2021 where almost all assets were going up. Having a good side hustle aside from your regular job is also good to develop other skills and bring in some income.

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Domain investments are good. The lack of liquidity and subjective pricing is what provides the potential upside.

However, they also pair well with traditional more liquid investments.

If you are 100% in domains that could be rough as revenue is normally streaky, even with large portfolios.

I bought a multi-family rental unit last year and it is generating over 1.2% of the purchase price per month in rent.

One good thing about domains is you can make money from work you put in years ago.

Brad

Domain investing is an easy way to make a hard living! When done right it can be a profitable hobby / side hustle but I can't imagine doing it as a full time job. Having a separate source of income makes it WAY less stressful.

clarkemarketing said:

Domain investing is an easy way to make a hard living! When done right it can be a profitable hobby / side hustle but I can't imagine doing it as a full time job. Having a separate source of income makes it WAY less stressful.

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Of course you should have a job and do this as a side hustle, and my comments only relate to whether you are trying to turn a profit on said hustle, or whether you passively invest using your own wages and other income.

Making a consistent profit on domains is tough sledding these days and it's why I think a lot of people are jumping ship.

I know how they feel, as I have enough expensive hobbies as it is and I hardly need another.

If you're eager to sell you're going to have to pull your pants down low to move the domains. Make sure you list at every marketplace and set your BIN pricing for maximum exposure. It's all about the right person seeing the right domain, with the right price at the right time.

Danto said:

In my mind domaining has the investment quality of lottery tickets..
Never won on 6/49. Won a couple of times with domains!

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The lottery is never an investment whereas domains are capable of being an investment and

MacMan said:

If you're eager to sell you're going to have to pull your pants down low to move the domains. Make sure you list at every marketplace and set your BIN pricing for maximum exposure. It's all about the right person seeing the right domain, with the right price at the right time.

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I'm switched to wearing skirts to streamline the process