Are you the kind of person that is willing to forgo good money for the chance to make great money? Are you willing to take nothing now for the chance to make fantastic money down the road? Todd Phillips was. Phillips is the director of ‘The Hangover’. Philips was insistent on casting his actor friends Zach Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper, and Ed Helms, none of them big names, and was forced to take his salary from the eventual profits, making him an investment partner in the film. It is estimated that he exchanged 15% of the revenue for his usual salary as a director. He figured if it did ‘Old School’ type money he would at least break even and he felt confident he had put together a good cast so he had a good chance to make more. The film took in another $8 million this weekend for a total of $235 million. He looks like he should take in $35 to $40 million for his efforts and with Hangover 2 coming out in 2011, he stands to make at least $60 million from the series.
So how does this relate to domaining? To me it says two things. One, believe in yourself. As long as you are confident in what you are trying to do, don’t let others tell you it won’t work, it’s stupid, or a bad plan. It’s your money and if you make a mistake, you are the one that’s going to lose it or make it. Two, always measure the risk reward. Don’t gamble but measure. Figure out what kind of money you can make if you invest in development as well as the effort and risk that are involved. The rewards could be great and if you are confident go ahead and risk it. Sometimes the pay offs can be huge.
Even total failures sometimes eventually turn out to be successes over the long-term. Example: I tried to launch a local magazine several years ago, failed miserably and lost about $10k (which was almost all of my savings at the time). Instead of just crying into my beer, I bought a cheap domain to publicly document my experience and to connect with others with similar experiences. Well about 6 months later, I was contacted by someone who was interested in the domain name. Instead of simply selling it, a friendship blossomed into a business partnership, and I’ve made back many multiples of the money I lost (not to mention many priceless connections). As long as you keep moving forward and adapt quickly, failures can turn out to be great investments with huge ROI. But you can only connect the dots after you’ve made the journey.