Time Capsule September 2000

Morning folks!!

In 2000 the following exchange took place between a fellow board member and myself. As you can see he is feeling sorry for himself. How many of you wish we could rewind back to 2000 and get those GREAT domains at really cheap prices? To give you some historical perspective, the poster that felt defeated wrote this about the same time that Frank Schilling bought his first domain name. So if you REALLY want to see the future, you MUST look into the past.

The exchange is a true classic and starts when I say "I don't like takers that don't give back!" referring to people reading my board, reading my posts, getting valuable info and then never sharing and giving back.

Rick,

No offense intended. But it is VERY easy for you to say this considering the position you're in. Yes, you DO give TONS to this board. And for this we are all appreciative (at least I am). And I think we all try to give back as much as we can. But there are just certain things that can't be shared with the masses. Not at this stage of the game at least.

As for you, you can go out and divulge ALL your nitty gritty methods to the public and be secure in the fact that NOBODY can touch you. You don't have to worry because NOBODY will ever be able to recreate what you've done. You said it yourself, that window of opportunity has all but closed. But not all of us are that lucky or didn't get in the game as early as you did. So we need ALL the edge we can get... it's just business. I believe the same goes for hoping Netsol has auctions. That WOULD be great if all of us had deep pockets. But most of us don't. Hence, what I perceive as a totally unfair advantage. But of course, the person with the money would see it otherwise.

That's just my opinion.

My response in September 2000.

Folks.....

If you want to make it BIG in domains......I'll tell you the VERY most important thing.

DON'T BUY A DOMAIN UNLESS IT GETS TYPE IN TRAFFFFFFFFIC!!!!

If the FIRST domain you buy does not have this type of traffic.....you are on the WRONG path. The BEST way to GROW your business is to make sure that your BUSINESS pay for your domains.

I ALWAYS hear this SILLY shit about it's too late and You were lucky to get into it then......BULLSHITTTT!!!

Work SMARTER not HARDER.

In 1998 I sold ALL my traffic for about $1.5 million a year. I had nothing to do and having retired a few weeks earlier from my other business in my early 40's I had no real motivation to do anything. But I did.

I SIMPLY repeated the process and did EXACTLY what I had done before except this time it was MUCH harder but I was MUCH smarter cuz I already been there and done that.

Point is ANYONE can do this and do it good IF you point yourself in the right direction.

Many of you NEW faces don't realize how lucky you are. There are SEVERAL people in this forum that ARE millionaires and have become that thru the net. Now maybe I am silly but if I had my choice of listening to folks that made millions on the net or those that lose millions on the net......I know what my silly choice would be. :-))

There are an INFINITE amount of .com domains. It will NEVER run out.

#1 advice......stop registering 100 $15 domains and buy ONE $1500 DOMAIN with typeins! That's the path folks......if you elect not to take it....all I can say is I gave you the road map....

Have a GREAT day!
Rick Schwartz

So there you are. A guy who looked at me and CHOSE to defeat himself. Just look at how many (Most) folks came to the domain industry AFTER September 2000. There is some SCHMUCK saying the same thing right now. They said it in 1996 and in 1997 and in 2001 and 2003 and they were ALL wrong. They will say it tomorrow and next week and next year and they will ALWAYS be wrong. Every entry point will have a different way to be successful but you will NEVER EVER run out of entry points. Unless of course you defeat yourself before you begin. Human nature controls us, to be successful you must control human nature. The secret is really no secret at all.

Have a GREAT day!
Rick Schwartz

Comments

[Frank Schilling]

I remember reading that post.. Thanks for the advice ;)

[Dale]

You can't argue with success but the opportunity is always there in any industy. Domain people are many times very negative in nature, negative toward people or toward new ideas. Why waste time b's..ing with one another share common goals and relate how and where you could use others help to further your process

[Lawrence]

it took 17 investors to acquire the cowboys.com domain name?

that's too many people. no one is that confident, that it took 17 people combined to pony up that price?

[DomainerPro]

I love where he says, "But not all of us are that lucky..." As if you just found the domain names lying on the ground in a parking lot, or something. I would love to join your private forum. I only have 1,000 domains and I'm still struggling but I'm a positive thinker and I would contribute whatever I can.

[John Motson]

I think he was completely wrong. You were not lucky at all. You were smart and ahead of the times.

All of us knew about the internet in 1995. Did any of us by ass.com, voyeur.com, porno.com or any of the other domains you bought at the time? NO! Most were happy with their 194.12.145.23 IP.

There is always a new trend, and there is always a new opportunity to GET INTO DOMAINING.

I bet a few years back when SMART domainers were buying LLL.coms, or even more recently when folks were getting CVCV.coms for cheap, there was a lot of naysayers saying those names suck.

Look at them now, most LLL.coms won't sell under 10k. And the CVCV.coms are getting there rapidly.

Honestly, I have never been to your site. But having read your post here, about how you started in the industry, it didn't make me jealous at all. I didn't think you were lucky. I thought you were SMART. And I am inspired. I am inspired to think outside the box and to get out there NIKE it.

Thanx Rick! And yes, I would love an invite to your private forums!

[J]

This posting is the reason some people think the way they do about you. You're right that there still is opportunity in this business. With that being said it's not exactly your way or no way at all. Prom my profitspective. A newcomer into this busines buying a $1500 name is most likely going to make the buyer a first and last time buyer or at least until he/she sees some sort of return and the seller $1500 richer to continue on.

Let's use a few examples for my reasonings. This time last year I bought a 2 char .net for $2600. I might add that I got it below the market values at that time. If I took this name back to the same market I bought it from today based on recent sale sightings and asking prices I would probably get $3250-$3750. I'll go with a nice profit of $1000. Now from a traditional standpoint of "a good investment." I did make one. No one would complain about a nearly 40% return.

Now I'm small potato's so lets say I just bought three of those last year for $7800. Selling them within a year for a profit I make $3000 for the year. Last year I invested less than $7800 in lots of reg fee names and had 500+% ROI from the names sold within the year. Thats with all reg fee's and renewals included. I've had these averages for many years now not just this one year. Each year I'm improving my ROI's. Now lets say I spent $7800 my way within a year from today I could expect to see around $39000 in sales and a profit of $31,200. I don't know about you but that extra digit looks much nicer to me. I have a nice diverse portfolio and money continually coming in. IE I don't have to sell a "heavy hitter" name to get my hands on a few hundred dollars. Instead I can sell a reg fee name for several hundred dollars to some of those people I've turned down in the past if I so choose.

Now as far as traffic type-in names. If I go out and buy a type-in name I'm likely to pay anywhere from 4-8+ years revenue. Lets make things easy on my calculations and go with 6 years revenue purchase price. Were going to stick with the $7800 investment. That would mean the name/s would make me $1300 a year. So in 6 years if I'm lucky and revenues stay the same I can actually make a profit. Again for the comparison your purchase suggestion makes me -6500 for the first year and mine makes a profit of $31,200.

Now as far as the name I may have purchased your way selling for my average returns. The odds of it happening within a year is extremely high and the odds of it happening consistently for years to come is likely as high as winning the lottery.