What worked before might not work in the future.

Business changes. So does domain investing. What worked before might not work now or in the future. That’s why domain investors need to constantly evaluate their approach and make changes.

The simplest example of this is to go way back in time. To the mid-1990s, when you could hand registered valuable domain names. Or the late 1990s, when you could figure out the drops and land fantastic domains for standard registration fee. Or the .com bust, when you could do this again.

Obviously, these options are no longer available.

For the past many years, many of the domains I’ve acquired were expired domains in auctions that landed around $100-$200. I’d turn around and sell them for $2,000-$5,000. These same domains are now selling for $300-$800 in auctions. When I run the numbers with sell-through rates, it’s hard for me to make the math work. So I’ve had to adjust in the past year.

Many other strategies of the past decade have also been rendered difficult. Reaching out to end users to buy their domains? Yeah, that was easy about 10-15 years ago. But now these domain owners have been inundated with offers. Using APIs to snap up GoDaddy closeouts at $11? Now it’s $50.

This doesn’t mean that the old strategies no longer work. But you have to get creative and work harder. Constantly analyze your business, look for trends, and adjust accordingly.

Two people who have done this are Mark Levine and Nikul Sanghvi. They shared their latest tactics on recent episodes of the Domain Name Wire Podcast. It might also be valuable to listen to my podcast interview about strategic planning with Warren Coughlin.

The message is that you can’t rest on your laurels. Look forward and around the corner.