Learn from your domain investing mistakes and don’t blame others.
Last week I received an email from someone who was peeved at how he perceived some well-known domainers had responded to his domain portfolio.
Let’s be clear: if you send an unsolicited inquiry to a domainer with a list of your domain names, you need to be prepared for them to decline or to pass judgment on your domain names.
While I think you should take a hint from their response, I also don’t think you should get uptight if someone doesn’t like your domains. Instead, let the market judge them.
The best sign that you’re on the right track is if you frequently get unsolicited offers or sales of your domain names. If you’re doing something right, people will come to you.
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t also market your domain names to end users. But it’s a bad sign if your sales strategy is to just post a list of domains in a forum or to send a list to domain investors. It’s also a bad situation if you have to explain to another investor why your domain names are valuable.
Don’t blame those other domainers that don’t want to buy your domains.
Don’t blame Sedo or Afternic for not selling more of your domains.
Don’t blame an auctioneer or broker for refusing to represent your domains.
If your domains aren’t selling, the only person at fault is you.
If this is the case, the smart thing to do is to think about your strategy. Research and learn. Make changes.
Even the best domainers do this frequently. They re-evaluate. Many successful domain investors made a purchase (or sale) they’d like to undo.
As I sit here today, I look at many domains in my portfolio and wonder what I was thinking. But I don’t blame anyone else for my bad investing decisions. I wasn’t scammed or forced to do anything. Any mistakes I’ve made are on my shoulders, and any mistakes you’ve made are on yours.
AbdulBasit.com says
Very well said Andrew!
Chris Maurice says
Regardless, if you solicit your domains for sale, some so called Domainers are outright nasty, mean and say things out of their pie hole, a good bunch of them not knowing what good domains are anyways if you scrutinize their own personal portfolio.
There are thousands of good or even great names unsold since 1997. What would anyone qualify them or its worth? Can you say then good domains sell themselves. Owning good names does not mean there is a market ready and waiting for them. Your timing has to be right too. If I get approached by a domainer soliciting their names, I can either politely decline or take it one step further. There is no need to be mean spirited about it.
Andrew Allemann says
While I would just politely decline or ignore an email, how you approach people matters. If you’re tweeting domains at them, it’s going to piss them off.
Also, I’d look at it from a portfolio view. If you have domains that have never received an inquiry, that’s OK. If you have 1,000 domains and none of them have ever received an inquiry, that’s an issue.
maik says
There are some domains that, frankly, deserve to be criticized and stoned.
J.R. says
The majority of domain speculators have shitty domain portfolios. That isn’t a personal slight to anyone. I’d bet the best domainers have a higher % of worthless domains than high demand domains. The key is to keep learning, listening and improving your portfolio; without going broke. You could own 100 domains of which 99 are shitty domains but that 1 jewel could net you $5K+ that pays for your prior mistakes. And then you just build from there…
Steve says
Amen.
& I have many domains that are not exactly, er, gold. I plan to cull my portfolio from about 1000 to 750 this year.
At least 90% of my sales since 2012 have been to end-users, so it’s not easy to decide which ones to drop, which to renew. I had planned to drop one 5 weeks ago, then it sold on Afternic for 7500 to an end-user.
Domainers can be pretty brutal. Not all. But some. I rarely visit Namepros, but I saw a request for a crypto domain, which matched one in my portfolio. I submitted it to the person via PM: His response: “No thanks. Not worth anything.”
This domain sold for 2750 USD 3 days later.
I believe Rick Schwartz is one of the best persons at providing feedback. I’ve never submitted a complete portfolio, but I have submitted a list of domains, and he provided stellar comments.
Andrew Allemann says
I have decided to let some domains drop, turned off autorenew, and then ended up selling them in the interim. Any large portfolio holder will tell you they have domains that never receive an offer for years and then boom, one day they sell for a lot of money. That’s why I recommend people look at their domains as a whole, not one individual domain.
Nick says
When someone sends me a crap list I never respond. Responding in a nice was usually just has the crappy domain owner pick and choose the parts they want to hear. It is never hard to get someone to take the blinders off.
Nick says
oops meant very hard to get someone to take the blinders off.
Chris Maurice says
@Nick, your opinion holds water – that’s assuming you are an ultimate authority on domain name quality validation. Read Steve’s comment ahead of your own. The funny thing about (some) domainers is their hypocrisy. When they send spammy emails to potential companies and end users, it’s ‘outbound marketing’; yet, when they get emails from other domainers, it’s ‘spam’ and tend to make a mockery of their solicitations. In this business, the majority of them will kiss your ass only if you show your sales success as a measure of your domain value. They wouldn’t know anything much until then….
David J Castello says
There are basically only two types of buyers: endusers and domainers. I can’t remember the last time we sold a name to a domainer. Only endusers pay top dollar. Domainers are looking to flip. When someone asks me to review their portfolio, I can see in a heartbeat which audience they’re targeting.
Logan says
Domainer Best Practice: Never send anyone a list of the names in your domain name portfolio unless they contacted you first and asked that you send it to them.
Eric Lyon says
What Logan said! It generally starts communication off with a bad taste in ones mouth when you send anything for sale unsolicited (Including domain names). It’s one ting to start off a friendly conversation about someones business and share your own knowledge in their field, later to mention you have a fitting domain asset and a completely different thing (e.g. Spam) to open conversation with a sales pitch. One can easily shoot them self in the foot if they don’t initiate contact properly.