You always have to see things for what they are, if you are going to delve into a business or other opportunity, you need to know the rules or lack of rules of the road.
There is a lot of anger in the business, it ratcheted up over the summer from some conversations I have had with people and from things written all over the space.
I get emails from some I really don’t know well or sometimes even at all. These people just go straight into a rant, how the business is fixed, it’s dirty, it’s shady.
Yep, there are still many parts of the industry that is equivalent to the Wild West.
Some exploit those grey areas, others refrain and others sit back and lament that they would like to participate but really don’t have time, cahoneys or bankroll to participate in certain elements.
There are a whole host of other issues like:
Front running, shill bidding, lack of bidder id’s from the largest player in the space, new gtld registration inflation through cheap promotions, the fact that other domainers won’t pay end user prices for your domains, the isolation and loneliness, nasty replies to outbound marketing, Google trying to diminish the value of domains, spam, marketplaces charging high commissions for little effort, etc…
Certain topics elicit to strong an opinion sometimes.
New gtlds, reg or don’t reg who cares?
But there are some where it’s become a far too extreme position, where people are angered past the point of business. They have an absolute hatred, like new gtlds are going to prevent them from being successful with their .com portfolio, they’re not. They use language that far exceeds saying new gtlds suck. They feel that some in the industry should have prevented these vile extensions from every coming to light.
Newsflash, no domain investor has the power to do anything at the ICANN level. They can leave a comment like anyone else on planet Earth can, but no one was stopping the new gtld program.
Marketplaces
There are many who don’t like or trust the auction platforms, there are plenty in the biz from Schwartz, Berkens, Silver, Cultra, Zournas, myself and many others who point out mistakes made, potential shady behavior and other anomalies.
No one is going to catch everything and some things are just how the business functions. I have read many comments on blogs and Namepros and in emails with relation to the fact that many hate GoDaddy profits from the expired domains of their customers.
That’s the business, many others are thrilled they get the chance to bid on this inventory, some who despise GoDaddy’s windfall still use the auction platform.
Wholesale cheapness
People get angry at the cheapness of domain investors. Well guess what? A longtime member of Namepros posted they were leaving for a bit:
I will be away this Forum at least a while.
Nothing is going here. Too many non-sense chit-chat and “crappy”/”dictionary words” names.The only thing can be sold here is in the $1 section (may be not).
Good luck guys.
John
I get where he is coming from, because domaining everyday can be a tiresome and frustrating endeavor. But big deals at a wholesale marketplace like Namepros are going to be few and far between.
Outbound Marketing
People send me replies from their outbound marketing efforts, can you believe this person told me to F off? Can you believe this person called me a squatter, last week someone sent me one where the person hoped they would run into them at an industry event, the industry was related to the domain in question, they hoped to run into them so they could punch them in the face.
My reply to everyone sending those emails has always been yes. Yes I believe someone called you a scumbag, squatter or piece of trash.
When you get outside the domain bubble you realize that many don’t care anything about domains, and plenty of them are offended you tried to sell them one of your domains, no matter how much sense the name makes.
Add this into the mix, some people are doing outbound with lousy names, they are not upgrades, the domain investor can’t even explain the benefit to ownership, they simply want to sell a domain name and did a basic Google search.
The Biz
This is a hard business, the easier (never easy) money is gone, there are way too many people shaking the trees at all levels of domaining.
You need to have big bucks to compete against Taryn, the Huge Domains bot and 100 other deep pocketed investors for the best names.
Cheaper domains like those at GoDaddy closeouts have dropped in quality because those that have gotten priced out of the better names, bid up the lower level names.
Others are out there spamming everyone their crap, so when you send a proper, targeted, one off email to the perfect prospect, they have been poisoned to just reject all pitches because they have been inundated with crap.
For the most part this is a lonely or should I say business of isolation.
I thought Elliot Silver had some interesting insight here, the most interesting being,
I spend most of my time working alone. I might have 3 phone calls with other investors a week – and that’s a busy week
You go to a conference once a year and meet a bunch of your peers and that can be a fun time. For the most part you are doing this by yourself or with a partner, many days are spent doing boring things like combing over lists, reading repetitive diatribes that haven’t changed since 2010, getting outbid at auctions and transferring domains and dealing with all the other minutiae.
The flipside is you can make incredible returns if you are smart and or lucky. The key is to be able to rinse and repeat, anyone can sell a domain name or two, the key is to be able to sell year in and year out.
You either have to accept the following:
- less rules and regulations than traditional industries
- being a go-getter is required
- sitting back and being passive only works if you have an elite portfolio. (This just in 99.8% of participants don’t have an elite portfolio).
Or put your time into another business.
Ronald Smith says
Well said!
Raymond Hackney says
Thank you
Where is my yogurt? says
I wish the business had more transparency, I read Joe Styler on np all the time, but i still don’t trust godaddy without bidder id.
Vito says
Excellent read here on reality of domaining.
I saw that post of Elliots as well and i found it interesting considering he is who he is with a very respected and well read domaining blog. I figured he had partnerships all over the place and ran things by multiple people often. Reading what he wrote made me think it is probably the case with most.
Back to your post…
No nonsense.
No hyping up any hidden agenda.
No egotistical humble/bragging BS.
Lots of facts and observations about the behind the scenes of domaining.
Really great post Ray.
Raymond Hackney says
Thanks Vito
Mark Thorpe says
Pretty much sums up the domain Industry.
Konstantinos Zournas says
“Front running, shill bidding, lack of bidder id’s from the largest player in the space, new gtld registration inflation through cheap promotions, the fact that other domainers won’t pay end user prices for your domains, the isolation and loneliness, nasty replies to outbound marketing, Google trying to diminish the value of domains, spam, marketplaces charging high commissions for little effort, etc…”
Exactly. You are either with us, or against us.
Only thing I don’t agree with is “the fact that other domainers won’t pay end user prices for your domains” which does not seem logical. If you want end user prices you find an end user. Not a reseller.
Raymond Hackney says
Oh I agree, that was some of the emails of frustration to me, that domainers won’t buy their domain names for more than peanuts. From time to time Namepros has to remove posts in a thread when someone is looking to buy, and a member goes on a rant about you cheap S.o.B. increase your budget, or something else along those lines.
R P says
Great read. Please also note appears to be some disdain towards long term domain investors that refuse to sell, and anticipate passing digital assets (or deals that come along with them) to their kids. Shouldn’t be a foreign concept. It’s how the world works in the non-digital world. Assets passed on from generation to generation.
Raymond Hackney says
Thanks and that’s a good point.
Shane Cultra says
Nice post. Well said
Raymond Hackney says
Thank you
Eric Lyon says
I just wanted to let you know that Johnn did not leave NamePros and still uses it today. He’s posted as recently as today. Sometimes members get frustrated and post messages like that, and we understand they just want to blow off some steam about things that frustrate them in the industry. We’re happy he’s still on NamePros. 🙂