If I want an opinion, I can go up to any person in the world and get one. And they’ll always be right. It’s human nature to want second opinions. We all want reassurance that our initial thought is supported by someone else. There’s a reason that a plant at my nursery with a SOLD tag becomes the most sought after plant in the nursery. Heck, I’ll even play on this and put a SOLD tag on a plant that isn’t sold, just to drive demand. They want it because it’s hard making a decision sometimes and many feel that if someone else did their homework and picked that then it must be the best. But the Internet has led to a whole other level of advice. The only kind that has little value. Advice with being asked to give it. Opinions can be swayed by money and advertising. Past sales prices and stories of achievement and failure are facts.
In order to make a good decision I seek out information. If I want advice, I’ll email or call people that I feel have the experience and information to guide me in my decision making process. In domaining I want comparables. Getting an idea of what someone else was willing to pay for a similar domain is great information. I also love stories of past success or failures. You can learn so much from someone that has already tried certain approaches. There’s a reason that these are the most popular blog posts on the Domaining feed. I love reading the story of a guy making a $310,000 commission and how he did it. There’s no opinion in those articles. It’s a tried this and this happened story. For products I like reviews. They were asked of their opinions and most actually used the product, so they have real information to share. I take all with a grain of salt but if I go to Amazon and see that 100 people using a product generally have the same opinion, then it’s closer to the truth than not.
Then it comes to the unknown. The area that everyone speculates and picks sides. Defending a position of no wrong or right yet they dig their feet in and put up a fight despite it being impossible to be wrong or right at this time. The new gTLDs are a perfect example. The only people that really have any value to me at this time are those that have sold domains. Anyone can buy one but can you sell it? At this point Page Howe is my go to guy. But even Page has sold most of his names to one guy. So I exchanged emails with him to find out a little more from a guy putting thousands into new gTLDs. This is the info I want. Not “you’re missing out” and “follow the new wave” articles that basically are telling me I’m not smart because I am not following the same path. I’m not even sure the guy telling me to follow the path isn’t being paid by the guy that built the path.
I realize I am a hypocrite in many ways as I do a daily list of names that in my opinion may offer value. But with the list are results. They are names that 95% will sell for some value. You can see what they sold for. The price tells you if I am correct in my opinion. I don’t have such a following that I effect price that much. I may attract a bid or two but nobody is buying a name because I told them to buy it. I wish I had more time to write success and failure stories. I wish more of the ones I knew I could tell. I talked to Luc Biggs about his sale of OPO.com and would love to discuss the process of the sale, who bought it, and for how much. I think everyone would be interested, but at this point that’s between him and his buyer.
So if you want to start a blog that would be unasked for advice. Tell us your stories. Tell us your how you do things. Show sales and information, whether they are yours or someone else’s. Leave the advice for the super experienced or the newbies that don’t know any better.
I’m a numbers person myself.
You mentioned Howe, I see on his Domain Outlet site him selling some new gtlds for as low as $39 – $49
Somebody posted some Flippa sales today:
Investor.holdings – $80
SuperAffiliate.guru – $12
Somebody/a few posted updated new gtlds numbers, you can find them at Registrar Stats – low
Few days ago dealsxyz.com was auctioned on Godaddy. I was trying to acquire that name. However there was a proxy bid on it. With deals.xyz sold at about $8000, I was sure somebody was desperate for that domain. And I was not willing to put more than $1250 on it. We will be going to see this again and again. Matching dot Coms will go up in price.
“With deals.xyz sold at about $8000”
It was not sold at that amount. Brad posted this on another site:
From Daniel Negari –
“The auction winner is entering into a nonbinding option contract to purchase the .xyz domain name if he or she wants to once it is available in 2014.
If you win the auction then have a change of heart, that’s ok.
We don’t need a reason.
There is no termination fee, no contract, no agreement we will hold you to.”
That’s even worse.
“I also love stories of past success or failures. You can learn so much from someone that has already tried certain approaches.” Very much agreed.
True, keeping in mind that “data-driven” decision making approach is currently very trendy (and that’s for a reason) i also prefer to trust the numbers and unbiased analytics that i can buy or build myself. And even then, sometimes it’s quite hard to judge the sales as you don’t know the context or what’s happening behind the scenes..
I would also add that after reading hundreds of success stories the “fail” stories are proven to be more insightful (and harder to find) for me as there is less fact juggling going on.