A few weeks ago, I was in Hawaii with my wife and we ate in a restaurant surrounded by a huge Koi fish pond.
There were 15 tables around the water and we were all throwing food in to the water to feed the fish.
Here is what I noticed, 14 of the tables just dropped the food down into the water’s edge.
The vast majority of the fish collected right at the edge and fought each other for the food.
We did it differently.
We threw food out as far as we could, away from the edge, to feed the fish that decided to stay out of the crowd.
Here’s what we discovered.
The fish that stayed out, wound up getting more food each, than the ones that joined the crowd at the edge.
Some of the fish at the water’s edge got a lot of food, but those were generally the biggest ones.
Some of the fish swam back and forth trying to get the food thrown far out by us and then back to fight the crowd at the edge.
They got the least.
This past week there was a silent auction held at Moniker.com from the TRAFFIC show.
I read comments on this blog and others, from people who said there were just too many names to go through.
They didn’t want or didn’t have the time to go through a list of 4,000 names to find the bargains.
That’s was a mistake.
If you want a bargain you have to hunt for it.
That is why they call it bargain hunting.
To find the gold you have to dig in the mine.
If you want to find a great designer outfit, at a bargain prices hit the outlet shops.
Sure you have to dig through a lot of crap, but then you’ll find that Armani suit at 70% off.
If you want to pay top dollar for clothes, shop on 5th avenue in New York.
5th Avenue, that’s where the crowd’s at.
5th Avenue, that’s where you don’t have to wade through the crap, to find the gems, but expect to pay full retail.
At the silent auction held this past week, we bought these names all of which we believe are worth many times what we paid:
freeinstantbackgroundchecks.com $ 300.00
WOOLCARDIGANS.COM $ 360.00
swatunit.com $ 360.00
makebutter.com $ 360.00
hydratingshampoo.com $ 360.00
randomaccessmemory.com $ 556.00
greatinterestrate.com $ 400.00
seasonallabor.com $ 450.00
jointaccount.com $ 400.00
ZIPLINETOUR.COM $ 360.00
soundslikeaplan.com $ 300.00
shiatsumassagecushions.com $ 300.00
lightluggage.com $ 367.00
POLISHEDGEMSTONES.COM $ 360.00
MILDSHAMPOO.COM $ 360.00
HANDSCULPTED.COM $ 360.00
autorentalinsurance.com $ 500.00
GLOSSYLIPSTICK.COM $ 360.00
frequentheartburn.com $ 300.00
profoundhearingloss.com $ 360.00
WOOLPADS.COM $ 360.00
SWORDFISHSTEAK.COM $ 360.00
readonlymemory.com $ 300.00
canadianfishinglodges.com $ 300.00
spenditwisely.com $ 300.00
sheetsandpillowcases.com $ 300.00
So how do you feed the fish?
How do you shop for domains?
spenditwisely.com $ 300.00
says it all 🙂
thanks
funny i was going to point that one out.
I totally agree.
Also, I’ve noticed alot of domainers suffering from “list fatigue”.
Try going through a list of 30,000 per day by hand is hard but the bargains are in there 🙂
John
http://unplain.com
Awesome post, and I’m annoyed that i didn’t get a few of those….
handsculpted.com hits me as awesome. many good ones in the list, but this one is it for me.
We human-read over 5000 names a day still, just to get the ones we like. Somedays, we scan even more, as well as use tools to cut mass lists down to the 5000 or so…but we actually read 5000+ daily. There are good names out there if you are willing to search.
Great post.
Brilliant post. I’ve been thinking about this topic lately and you nailed my thoughts square on its head. If you want to find a bargain, you will need to *work hard* scanning lists and researching. Don’t expect to find a great deal on a domain that has a giant spotlight on it.
So knowing what we all know about auctions and how they are most beneficial to the spec buyers. My question is why would any domainer sell his valuable name at a large auction?
Awesome post! The silent auction for the Affiliate Summit is still going on and the domains are great! I think that a lot of people are missing out…but it makes it easier for the rest of us. Imagine what they would cost 5 years from now!
Thanks to all for your comments
Jeff
You ask a great question which actually deserves a p0st to answer as I will do in a couple of days.
They are abysmal domain registrations, the sum total might have bought one with some potential.
Empedocles
All I can tell you these are the same types of domains we have been registering and buying for 10 years.
If you missed it we were named by Fabulous.com as having one of the top 5 privately owned portfolios as measured by domains people were trying to register and the leading registrars.
I am not disputing your undoubted success as an early visionary who risked a great deal to amass a large portfolio, however, in my opinion the economies of scale you now have inplace affords you strategic options and philosophical comments. If you want to feed on the outside make direct approaches and pay more for one strong keyword / words domain, the caveat to my comment is that you are far more successful than I am.
Empedocles
I do agree with you, that very good deals will be found contacting owners directly.
Empedocles:
“the sum total might have bought one with some potential” says enough in itself.
Thousands of domains fall in this category that are resold for profit, which is just the tip of the iceberg with potential.
Add into that successful businesses that have and will be built around these names.
If there are domains that sell for 50k and 20k, to imply that ones that fit in this category are worthless is ridiculous.
When bringing up “economies of scale” you contradict yourself by suggesting to spend more money. Just because one does not have the budget to buy up all the bargains does not mean they can get one now and then.
It appears a major point is with hard work you can find bargains. People in the industry were to busy complaining about the system to get them.
This goes much beyond being an early visionary (I wasn’t on the scene then, so it could have been more luck then vision, not to take away from anyone’s intelligence).
This appears to be more visionary to me, and opportunities are slipping right through the hands of people who thought they were all in the 90s and I would not blame it on budget.
Even many McDonald’s employees can save up $500 and in this business, with hard work, sky can be the limit with that.
I agree 100% about bargain hunting; if you can stand the self-inflicted pain of searching through ebay with their faulty search engine that can’t “see” words inside the domain name, then there are ridiculous deals.
Case in point: my auction for CheerleaderStrippers.com just ended 10 mins ago; I contacted a dozen adult webmasters and had 17 people “watching” the auction. The name sold for $2.25. I was predicting$250 minimum.
Curious – what % of these acquisitions you bought for parking revenue potential, versus % for future development and/or resale? Thanks.