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When it comes to making money on domains I thank the good lord everyday that I have all these .com’s I got years ago, they can really take the edge off, but after I grabbed bunches of expiring domains back in 2000 and 2001 I kind of dropped the ball, it was hard for me to spend all day and night on the internet when I had other stuff going on that I enjoyed doing so much more, most notably playing and recording music, buying and selling rock memorabilia, and running my herb company, I was really passionate about these things, finding domain names all day not so much.
I was not oblivious to the fact that domains were where the money was, more than my rock and roll career, but as much as I love money I loved getting out and performing better, and after my band played at Woodstock ’99 our manager had us booked 7 nights a week, we got to pick and choose gigs, personally I liked Aspen lol, Aspen is really fun, anyway we were busy having a blast, doing some things that money can’t always buy.
After I got in the car accident a few years back I couldn’t do these other things anymore, I was physically challenged, but I could invest in domains and it was something I knew, something I had experience with, so I started domain investing full time, and after being paralyzed for almost a year and not being able to do much of anything, getting online and finding domains to invest in and blogging about it was fun and fulfilling all of the sudden, not to mention I was so glad I could do something to make a living in my condition, if I had been a mechanic or construction worker or surgeon it would have been over.
My real challenge to myself was could I get domains now, in todays market, that I could make money on, sure I had an edge, I had some pretty good domains I got years ago, but if I didn’t and I had to start now (2011) could I make it in domain investing, most don’t, it’s not as easy as it sounds sometimes.
I definitely went through a 2nd learning curve, besides the obvious mining expiring lists and auctions for .com’s, I started investing in .tv and .me domains, this was new to me, I got more .tv and .me than I should have but once I had a better idea of what sold and got offers I trimmed my portfolio and started better targeting what I got.
I have not gotten rich on the domains I got in the last few years but I have made more than I invested, enough to make an above average living. It requires spending alot of time looking through expiring lists, lots of bidding on domains I don’t get, lots of backordering domains I don’t get, and lots of emailing offers on domains I don’t get, but if I just keep plugging away I do get a few good investments here and there, and those are the ones I make money on.
In the last year I have sold more than $50k in .tv names and more than $50k in .me names, all of these were recent acquisitions (since 2011), I also recently sold a .com for $10k that I got in January of this year for about $50 in a pre-release (NDA so I can’t post the name), I turned down $5k yesterday on CannabisUSA.com that I picked up for a $50 BO last June, I am pretty sure I can get more for this one, I know that sounds greedy but just because cannabis is legal doesn’t mean it’s cheap and $5k won’t do much for my smoking habit lol, I recently turned down $1500 (3rd offer) for NewFarming.com that I picked up in the Sherpa Challenge for $50 in December.
In the Sherpa Challenge I only had $180 to spend so I just listed the first $180 in names I got, I also posted a follow up 5 days later that I had found other names when I was looking around and I got a few more after the fact, what’s funny is I posted where I was finding names for the Sherpa Challenge, where I got NewFarming.com for $50, and there were some other good names available, I waited a few days and nobody took them so I did, WeedBomb.com, ItalianFantasy.com, MensBeachCruiser.com, HomegrownCannabis.com, etc, I guess I was hoping maybe Serry got them, but nobody did so I did, and I just sold WeedBomb.com for $1500 that was just sitting there for $30 a few months ago, this one sale paid for all the Sherpa Challenge names and all the rest I got when I was looking around.
I also sold HempFarmer.net for $700 a few months back, I hand reg’d it in June last year, it was not an expiring name it was just available, as you can see I am bullish on the cannabis related domains and they seem to be paying off, I expect this trend will continue.
I have also reinvested some of my money in some new gTLDs, I have been doing that for a few months now and have not sold any, I did get a few offers on Cannabis.today, Drone.zone, and a few others but nothing significant enough to sell, I think I am still in the learning curve for new gTLDs, I will keep you posted on how those go.
I should also mention I have turned down lots of offers on my .tv domains in the last year, and with all these recent sales I am asking more for them now than I was a year ago, unfortunately I sold a few for $5k that I should have kept and held out for more but you live you learn.
The moral of this story is you can make money on domains even if you are just starting today, you have to be smart but no smarter than me and I am only average smart, I dropped out of high school in 10th grade and ran off with my girlfriend to play rock and roll, so that is encouraging, and I only posted a few of this years success stories, I have more but I just drank some cannabis and snorted some alcohol so I can’t remember them all at the moment lol, just kidding, powdered alcohol is not available yet.
I will also mention since I started writing this I sold a .tv domain that I got last year for a $50 BO for $1800 and a .me I got 2 years ago for an $8 reg fee and a renewal for $750, like I said I am not getting rich but it pays the bills…
Here are the domain picks dropping on May 10th 2014:
AllAboutCatsAndDogs.com – It’s long but everybody loves cats and dogs
AnchorageCove.com – Sounds cold
ArtSlam.com – The net is a site and they have a TM on “Art Slam Live”?
CatStats.com – Post facts and figures about cats, cat lovers are passionate
ChineseLeader.com – Post nice things or you will probably get banned in China
DesignDirections.com – Nice name with a $5k Estibot value
Farmu.com – Nice short name, sounds like a place to learn about farming
GardenOfBeauty.com – I am getting my garden of beauty going, beautiful fresh food
HotDogClub.com – Did you miss out on HotDog.club the other day, how about a .com
JavaBus.com – A girl I know has a Java Bus, she sells coffee at Taos tourist sites
JLPS.com – It’s got PS in there, maybe something having to do with Palm Springs
OONU.com – Kind of an interesting kind of pronounceable 4L?
SequenceClothing.com – You should have seen me when I was with the band 😎
SilverCommodity.com – Here’s a good name, the term gets ads and has a $6.5k Estibot
Agrisystems.net
BitcoinRate.net
CallCenter.net
Draped.net
ForexInvestment.net
GreenGallery.net
GreenGold.net
HealingEarth.net
MyWhois.net
PromotionalVideos.net
StretchJeans.net
YourTurn.net
Cardiologists.org
CasinoGold.org
FoodFeed.org
Grandios.org
MyInvestment.org
SocialMediaGroup.org
SolarPowerPlant.org
Bancos.me
Corina.me
Retiree.me
UZO.me
3dConcert.tv
Annette.tv
CancunMexico.tv
Confederate.tv
Journey.tv – Premium
Pats.tv
Patsy.tv
DomainNameServer.info
Flipping.info
MotorScooter.info
Make sure you also check out Domain Shane’s Big List of names and Domaining.com for some other great domain blogs and domain name lists.
Domain of the day: Bongloads.com – Make me an Offer!
Thanks for reading…
That is why I visit this blog.
Thanks Mark.
😎
Thanks for sharing your domain career graph. It’s really motivating to learn how you do domaining.
hi Mark,
just wondered how many names you have?
fatih.
Hi Faith,
I have about 2500 .com, a few .net and .org, and I’ll have about 1000 .tv and .me when I finish trimming, and a few new gTLDs…
Mark,
Life is a cyclical learning curve, everyday you can learn new useful things 😉
And I agree with Kosta, that’s why we like your blog.
Here’s my Domain of the Day:
VoiceComputing.com (Voice Computing)
Make me an offer!
Wow, just as your writing this blog, you sold two domains.
What kinda weed are smoking, i need to get my hands on some of that..lol.
It’s not what I’m smoking it’s because it took me a year to write this lol, I was actually negotiating the deals for a few days and they paid while I was writing this…
Darn,i thought it was some kushie wooshie or some of that good ole thai stick dipped in magic oil..lol.
But it turns out it was working deals and negotiating.
Well i’ll just keep looking for that magic potion.
Good job mark.
Great blog from a pro. Thanks.
You should be writing a book- Domains for Virgins-how to be rich trading domains.
I got so many offers on my marijuanadomain.com that I just don’t bother responding.
SEATTLESMOKESHOP.COM
POTLABEL.COM
POTREPORTER.COM
and more
No need to sell because I have no bills to pay.
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Thanks, Mark.
You’re such a cool dude!
I love visiting here — Last year, I snagged ahji.com by reading your blog.
Plus I’m entertained…
“Better living through chemistry.” (LOL)
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Very entertaining. Thanks for sharing your wisdom acquired through years of investing. I see one word keeps popping up when I read between the lines: persistence. It’s a number’s game, as the saying goes.
“the fact that domains were where the money was” What convinced you that the opportunity was not temporary but of long term nature? What made you go against the crowd during the dot com bust period?
Rick Schwartz, I have to credit and thank him for his consistent message which has always been “get good generic .com domains”
Seems now you buy generic domains in other extensions like .ME and .TV and have done pretty well. Am I wrong?
You are not wrong…
Thanks for sharing Mark!
May I ask you if you go after endusers yourself or only wait for offers?
I wait for offers, I am not aggressive enough to solicit sales…
Thanks. Having so many domains, I guess it’s a good strategy.
I am not so sure about that Jeroen, quality over quantity is the best strategy, I was scoring lots of good .com’s years ago and I just got everything good I could get, that ended up being about 3000 names, I got my first .me one night and sold it 12 hours later for $500 so I got more and sold a few of those right away, nothing great just short words, so I just started getting more and more, a few people dropped all their goldrush names in the last few years so I just started snatching them up, now I have quite a few but I sell a few every week…
So true…of course domains have to be of decent quality at least and yours are good.
I trimmed my portfolio down from 200-300 domains to about 40 or so. But having only a few domains also means having limited inquiries, I’m not making a living out of it but it’s still profitable.
Very interesting and good to know about your past life Mark. Good to see the encouragement for newbies as there is life in domain business if someone is willing to start off now.
Thanks for sharing
Great post Mark!
This was a great read Mark, thanks for sharing.
Definitely the best domain blog around. Thanks for sharing your knowledge, Mark.
As Ms. Domainer says, you really are one cool dude!