What country are you based in?
UK.
Do you feel your location has an effect on your domain investing?
With the domain industry being very US focused in terms of time zones, that can cause a few issues with some auctions ending well into the night or socials/meetings scheduled for well into the evening. I usually have about 4 brain cells left by the time the evening rolls around so it’s not ideal.
How long have you been involved in domains?
It’s just about 2 years since I started looking into the industry but 18 months of taking it seriously.
Are you a full time domainer?
Soon but not just yet.
How did you find out about domain investing?
As a web designer I deal with a fair few domains. About 10 years ago I sold a couple on Flippa for low XXX but after that I had a few that didn’t sell and gave up (a 50% STR was not enough for me 🤣). I revisited the idea in 2020 and there were a lot more resources available so I went down that rabbit hole and haven’t come out.
How many domains do you currently hold?
I have around 1400 keepers and around 500 experimental (that I’ll keep if it goes well) and churn domains (names I got cheap that I’ll run for the year then drop). I also have a whole bunch of others on a churn experiment but I’ll hold off including those as I’ll do a deep dive post when the experiment is over.
What's your favourite non .com tld/nTLD/gTLD?
I like .co .xyz and .io but I also love .id, it’s pleasing to the eye and nice to say.
What's the best advice you've been given by another domain investor, either directly or through something they've said on twitter or in an interview?
Alvin Brown told me early on, in terms of my domains stats, to keep that up and it’s evolved into Crunch, which is nice. Keith DeBoer was also really supportive in general in my early days.
As for specific advice, I heard Jason Sheppard say on a podcast once that when you’re first learning it’s a good idea to go through the drops on Expired Domains and add names you think are good to your watchlist. You can then revisit a day or two later and see which ones have been registered and that will show you which of the names you picked out were also thought to be valuable by other investors.
What kind of goals do you set yourself?
Continued growth. It’s not something that is achieved month on month as it’s a very unpredictable industry but I like to achieve growth each quarter. I’ve only had one quarter where that didn’t happen but Q2 of 2022 could be the second.
Who are your top 3 domain investors?
For business models I look up to Nikul Sanghvi, Logan Flatt and Mark Levine. They’re absolutely where I want to be.
For education I look up to Mike Cyger, Braden Pollock and Josh Reason (and the whole Sherpa team).
What's the toughest part of domain investing?
Never knowing when a sale is coming. I think if I can add another 1000 names to my portfolio I’ll start to see some predictability.
How do you structure the domaining part of your day?
I check the drops, pending deletes, auctions and my watchlist (to see how many names have been snapped up by others). I put my proxy bids in (as mentioned above, some auctions end well into the night) and my backorders.
I then do the Crunch stats, read Twitter and business newsletters.
How do you manage your portfolio?
I use Airtable, which is an online spreadsheet tool that also makes it relatively simple to analyse the data with charts.
Do you also have any NFTs or Crypto in your portfolio?
I have some crypto that I mined 10 years ago and 1 NFT (Rap Off).
What's the most you've ever spent on one domain?
$500.
Have you ever done outbound? If so, were/are you successful?
Yes, I did outbound on geo names last summer. I only got about a 10% STR but it was still profitable and the sales allowed me build my portfolio and start getting inbound sales. Once that started I stopped outbound as it’s hard work and I wasn’t looking for another day job.
You're given $10k to spend on domains, how do you spend it?
I’d get a few premium hand regs and boost my portfolio size with the rest using my usual model of hand reg, drops, backorders, closeouts, low end auctions.
Outside of domains, what other business/wealth/personal growth figures do you look up to?
I like Tony Robbins for motivation, Tara Brach for mindfulness and Joe Pesci for everything else.
What do you do when you're not domaining?
Freelancing, seeing friends and family, listening to a million podcasts, volunteering.
What advice would you give to people just starting out in domains?
Before you spend a single penny follow lots of industry people on Twitter, listen to podcasts (Brandable Insider, Josh.co, Domain Sherpa, Kickstart Commerce, Domain Name Wire) read NamePros and all the industry blogs. Over the weeks and months, if you enjoy what you see and understand that it’s an industry that takes a lot of time and money (you’ll usually only sell 1% – 2% of your names) then save some money and take DNAcademy. Once you come out the other side of that, start investing and make sure you’re in a position to reinvest every penny for the first year or two at least.
