We obtained a lot of new information so it’s going to take a month of reviewing it and focusing on building a “hot list” of FT domains that are in the forefront of maturing either now or very soon.  It seems that “cloud” adj/noun is a great for a domain, except that there aren’t any decent variations of this word as a phrase that is left for purchase OOTB. (I checked,      )

However, for my readers and FT samurai, I am giving specific info to assist you in what areas to focus on for “fast sales”. Successclick.com is getting four figure offers daily on several of our solar domains. The buyers are “reaching” and hoping to get them cheap, but all FT domainers know that Solar domains are actually here, and I’d say were about 50% matured into the mainstream consciousness, both consumer and commerce.  This makes many of them at least low to mid level five figure domain names.

I want to thank those FT domainers who took the time to present their domains, include a bio with some relevant links, to allow us to build a nice PDF directory out of all the information that describes what the FT domains are, and will be, in the future.  After we analyze the results, we might send out an idea form for our members to email us on ideas they may have to make the auction better, easier, which categories they think we should focus on, or should we break up each auction to include at least five major FT trend categories:  Solar, 3D, Wind, Electric, Apps, Alt. Energy, and others.

In the meantime, to show those people we don’t just have FT Domains,  we’re cleaning house, and you might like a domain or two for the price stated:

PatientServices.net                                $199

KneeBoarder.net                                    $299

WebCompanies.net                               $499

NetMediaPartners.com                        $199

PersonalInjuryAssociates.com           $599

SamoaResort.com                                   $79

Traderville.com                                     $599

Verifree.com                                          $3500

JudgementCollector.com                    $299

CatherineOwen.com                            $299

GlobalTechCenter.com                        $199

Of course, any domain can be “negotiated” but the best way to buy domains here is to buy two or more and get an automatic 25% reduction on the combined price. Our domains sell quick, we require payments made through our Verified Paypal Account at: dotplanners@yahoo.com

All you need to do is email us with the domains you want, say “SOLD” and make a payment within 24 hours of our email acknowledgement of your picks.

AND, don’t forget, the Snapnames private auction on your domains runs for another few weeks. so your domain could sell still. If you had more great FT domains, a better, more organized versioon of the Future Trend Domain Auction™ will be held sometime in January 2012.  Don’t burn your shorts!  Let’s get everything ready, work together, and prove the naysayers —- wrong.

Have fun everybody!
Cheers!

Most large domain companies (no names need to be mentioned) have “switched it up” for us domainers, because everyone knows how soul-less corporations work. It’s “let’s get rid of all those employees who treat our clients well, but bend rules just a bit to make them happy, and although forming great bonds with those customers, large and small, they may not be making our company the extra dollar we would like based on possible penalties, mistakes, miscues, fines, additional fees, etc. that we can legally extract from those customers, and that will add profits to our shareholders bottom line..”

Most corporate financial analysts of the heartless kind (oops, that was redundant) know one thing:  EXCISE ANY EMPLOYEE THAT HAS CODDLING FRIENDSHIPS WITH CUSTOMERS WHO DON”T BRING IN REVENUE IN SIX FIGURES ANNUALLY. Warn them to keep kissing butt for those six-figure customers, but anyone less, they now have to toe the corporate line “because, that’s what the rules are, and the powers that be demand it.”  Then the next sentences you start hearing regularly are “Sorry, I don’t have the power to change this because upper management is bearing down.” uh huh.  (Translation: “I vaz only followink owrdaz”)

We all have our personal experiences in dealing with “new” employees who replaced those employees we became friends with and who bent over backwards to repair our stupidity and literally saved us tens of thousands of dollars or more in our relationships with the company even though yearly, we bring in thousands of dollars for them.

Things have changed across the board for most domain registrars and domain companies that provide multiple services, backed up with millions of dollars of venture capital and tens of thousands of expired domains they’ve captured from their customers who didn’t pull it together in time.

Ironically, we all make money from those domains that are put up for auction from this sad situation, but we still pay the companies who “nabbed” the deleted domains we buy from their own customers. The sad part is that the companies taking these domains from their customers is like telling your best friend that you are taking their $1500 stereo because that $100 they owe you hasn’t been paid, and you’ve given them enough warning. We’ll hear a “fake sorry”, but business is business.

Most Registrars and Multi-Purpose Domain companies have become:

1) Acquisition monsters
2) Removers of customer-favoring policy executives
3) Shifters or removers of “favorite customer service reps”
4) And with #1 above, very suspicious of any executive or customer representative who have built up a large list of customers who like working with the company thanks to that one representative working there.

(From what I’m told and what I have experienced, only Fabulous.com does NOT snatch up their customers’ domains when they expire).

But the new corporate dickwads running these domain companies don’t consider that, they only consider “bottom line” and the “stockholders” where each PENNY counts. Long gone are the friendly connections many of us domain pioneers built up over the years.

I can’t tell you how many times each major domain company I’ve worked with have eliminated the people I worked with who saved my ass when I needed it, who spent an inordinate amount of  time on issues I needed fixed, who bent the rules that saved me big profits because I screwed up, or who were receptive of new suggestions and ideas to make their company’s business run better.

None of us can say that our business sense has been perfect, or that we’ve been on top of every detail of our game when it was imperative. That’s when our customer representative and upstairs executive came in and showed that real people still worked in this secretive, burgeoning industry.

For all that I know, and my experience in many businesses throughout my life, I would give the ultimate reward for best customer/client representation for their company to Mike Robertson, formerly of Fabulous.com, and now of DomainGuardians.com.

Mike Robertson has risen above any other customer service rep that I’ve worked with since 1999, and truthfully, 20 years before that.  He has saved my portfolio many times, and from discussions with some of my high-powered domainer friends in this industry, there’s no denying this.  They have had the same favorable experience with Mikey.

So, in my Viking Bonfire Awards, I give Mikey the “Giant Bollars” Award of the Century. (“Bollars” means “balls” in Swedish… yeah, I give it a Viking term because Vikings were MEN. and it’s the title of a MAN who is bigger than the company he works for.)

Mikey “Giant Bollars” Robertson.

For everyone submitting FT domains for the Future Trend Domain Auction™, please remember this auction is not only about 3D/HOLO domains. The auction also covers energy, cellphone, lifestyle, and other new technologies you believe might become popular trends “in the future,” near or far.

Additionally, the Future Trend Domain Auction™  is not meant for any FT domain investor looking for a “killing” right away on the sale of their domains. Unless you own a one word lockdown premium .com, you’re probably not going to sell a domain and retire next door to some sanctimonious Florida chest-beater.  It’s a new frontier, and we’re testing the interest, not only within the domaining industry (as a strategic OOTB and even low-priced aftermarket purchase for future upward value), but also in the New Media marketing sector, outside the domain industry.

That latter part is extremely hard, as every domain auction company has discovered. Significant education is needed for the players in the New Media marketing sector, and all of us involved in promoting future trend domains need to give more information outside our circle other than a quick offhand comment on domain blogs. We need to push into New Media marketing forums, tech marketing news sites, and new tech company providing prodservs that advertisers turn to in order to get that “sudden burst”of marketing advantage ahead of their competitors online. For those of you really wanting to see a massive change in corporate buyers attitudes towards these domains, would you invest $200 for a PRwire announcing the sale of your domains, also promoting the genre of your domains?

Sure, you can leave it all up to SuccessClick and Moniker to try to reach all the potential buyers, and you’d think Moniker would do all that for their 15% commission. Your domains are so great, they’re lucky they have them to sell, right?

Wrong. Domains, good and bad, still need massive promotion.

We’re now at this crossroad where a common interest, ultimately augmented by thousands of comments on blog articles, can seriously galvanize a large group of domainers to work more at pushing their domains and their genre to potential buyers, instead of posting quick comments on blogs stating how lucky they are to have “nabbed” a certain domain. Think your domains are valuable and the next “big thing”? Then prove it. Get involved with the Future Trend Domain Auction™ by signing up on every marketing website and making your sales pitch. Over 150 people have submitted domains in this auction.  Imagine that amount of feedback daily flooding the comment section of top marketing websites for the next 30 days.  Imagine.

This means everyone who is informed that one or more of their domains are accepted into the Future Trend Domain Auction™ will be required to put a bit of their gray muscle to work in order to educate the market and participate in this auction. We aren’t just “throwing domains into the wind” and hoping they do a Forrest Gump feather-float while pretty music is playing in the background.  It means, everyone who has been posting on Successclick and our friend Michael “Embee” Berkens’ award-winning blog article at http://www.thedomains.com regarding their wonderful domain finds, can instead push this information outward - cool future trend news, questions, answers, commentary and more — direct all your energy now to describing YOUR domains that have been accepted into the Future Trend Domain Auction™ to every relevant marketing and news location online.

There will be more articles forthcoming here, but before I end this one – a revealing tip for selling your FT domains:

1) Don’t price your reserves at mid to high five figures, or anywhere in the six figures, YET.  So submit domains you’d like to see pay off nicely with a good profit because you sold the domain at a very low reserve. If you want to make a FT domain pay off BEFORE the FUTURE, you’ll have to settle for much less than it will be worth five years from now. If that doesn’t make you feel good, then do NOT put those domains in the auction.

2) Continuing the “reserve price” strategy, I’ve seen how both the Successclick team and the SnapMon team selecting AMAZING FT domains with NO RESERVES. The domainers submitting domains as “sacrifice” investments by selecting “no reserve” are putting up their domains to see how the market reacts. It could bite them in the butt, but on the other hand, a domain bought at $10 could be offered for “no reserve”, and bring in $10,000.  Or $250.

Either way, lower reserves in this auction…

1) defines the direction of value for the domain name subject matter
2) reveals the overlying new strategy of buying FT domains on an educated gamble that the domain will be a major winner.
3) exposeswho your demographic is by the bids and purchases of the domains’ relevance to prodservs. You can find this out even with purchases by other domainers (who obviously did their homework).

So look at this first Future Trend Domain Auction™ as a “loss/leader” kind of auction, where you price out some great domains very low, and then watch the buyers and their money.

In other words, if you don’t think you can come up with another fantastic FT domain, then do NOT put your domains in this auction. Wait it out. However, if you feel this is your genre, and it excites you to do research on discovering new prodservs that “may” emerge as “FUTURE TRENDS”… then throw some of your domains, like chum, into the “Auction Sea” and watch which “fish” come in to swallow them up. Bingo… you’ve identified the buying pattern, at least for now!

The Future Trend Domain Auction™ is not for the faint of heart, it’s for winners.

(With Honors To Michael (EmBee) Berkens, and support from hundreds of novice and professional domainers. Everything here is a conglomeration of many domainers assisting me, and preparing me for this event. Thank you to ALL!)

The following information regards the participation of buying/selling domains in the Future Trend Domain Auction™, and the importance of these domains in the near future.

Innovation. Technology. Future Trends. These are the building blocks of New Media marketing through keyword descriptive domains of products and services, many that are already maturing.  This is the first-ever category auction in this niche, and this is what you’ve read and heard about for the last four months: the Future Trend Domain Auction™.

The Auction Date Has Been Officially Set, and the Production information is below:

DATE: June 21 – June 28, 2011

AUCTION HOST: Moniker Showcase

ADMINISTRATIVE OPERATIONS: Powered by Snapnames.com

PROMOTION: Successclick.com

After the record-breaking comments replying to the blog article written by Michael Berkens about 3D domains being “the next big thing” less than a year ago, it was time for me to break out the big guns and start introducing the area of domain investing that I initiated back in 2003 – buying “Future Trend Domains”.

The topic of Berken’s blog article was so fascinating and full of promise that over 2,650 comments have been posted to date on his blog. This feat has never been done before in the history of domain investment discussions and it stands alone as the pinnacle of domain topic interests, equal to that of geo-specific domains, and beyond any new TLD being introduced.

Because of the impact Michael Berken’s “3D” article has had on the domain community (truckloads of opinions, a literal “Fort Knox” of domains presented for “acceptance”, and thousands of questions answered, with amazing new technologies revealed), Successclick.com decided that the time for producing the Future Trend Domain Auction™ had clearly come.

After talking with every reputable domain auction site we determined it always came down to who we trusted the most: The Moniker Showcase and Snapnames. With almost a decade of experience, and tens of $millions in domains sold, we believe that Moniker (a company of Oversee.net) is a continuing force behind domain promotions and sales in our industry.

There are going to be new ways in marketing these Future Trend (FT) domains. Important responsibilities will be expected from every domain owner whose domains have officially been accepted. Every person wanting to get involved in this auction (we’re looking to go directly to end users, but domainers are also welcome) will receive a detailed catalog description of every domain, so as a potential buyer, you will be able to read and follow the media connected to the domain, showing the power of each domain’s potential to be an easily recognized “consumer/business” trend. As a seller, your responsibility in this auction will be to let them know exactly what you have, and why it’s worth big bucks.

To get your domains reviewed by the Moniker team next week in the first submission of FT domains (we have already over 500 domains to appraise), please submit them before Monday this week at midnight PST.  Don’t fret if you don’t make it, because the deadline for submissions officially is May 22.  But if you get them in today, you’ll get a jump on competitors because on Tuesday, the first “FT FILE LIST #1” will be submitted for review by Moniker and Successclick.

NOTE: If you’ve already submitted your 10 domains for initial review, you may switch them out if you feel an absolute need, but the administrative cost will be $25 for this changing of your domains and resubmitting them in the main list. We suggest not doing this, since there most likely will be another Future Trend Domain Auction™ later this year.

RULES TO SUBMIT YOUR DOMAINS FOR REVIEW:

1) Send NO MORE THAN TEN (10) DOMAINS that cover these areas of future trends:

• Solar Energy
• Cellphone Technology
• Alternative Energy (wind, wave, thermal, water, other)
• Robotics
• Green (any domain with the adjective “green”)
• 3D – (all areas of 3D technology)
• Holo- (Holographs, Holograms, Holographics)
• Virtual – (manufactured reality, visual, audio)
• Medical

DO NOT SUBMIT MORE THAN TEN OR WE WILL NOT REVIEW THEM – (If we have to respond to you to give you directions, it will cost $25 for administrative costs)

Please submit the ten domains of your choice in an Excel sheet with two columns:

Column #1 = “Domain Name” and  Column #2 = “Reserve Price”

You can submit the domains in a CSV file if you prefer (Comma Separated Version)

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT:  Please give a RESERVE PRICE for EACH domain. If you want to open up the bidding on your domain at any price, (No Reserve), please write either “ZERO” or “No Reserve” behind the domains you want listed this way. Warning: If you don’t give a reserve price, or a low price, your domain could be bought for much less than you expected

PLEASE include your NAME and EMAIL address INSIDE your domain file.

NOTE: Title your file of domains with your LAST NAME and the current month and year, which looks something like this:  “LASTNAME_4_2011.xls”.  This way we can locate your file quickly.

By the first week of June or earlier, you will be notified if your domains have been accepted into the Future Trend Domain Auction™.   That notification will include further processing on your part, where you will have to enter into an agreement with Moniker/Snapnames and meet their requirements to have your domains listed. You can decide at that point if you want to continue with the auction.

NOTE: There WILL be an exclusivity clause, so we recommend you DO NOT list your domains elsewhere BEFORE you participate in this auction. If you have done that already, you must “delist” your domains at other sites in order to participate in the Future Trend Domain Auction™ to avoid confusion for our buyers.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our team at:  EMAIL BELOW!

SUCCESSCLICK – (at) — gmail.com

Because of the high level of submissions and interest, expect up to 72 hours or more for a response.

We’re very excited about this event, as it has been over eight years in the making!

REQUEST TO MY POWERUL DOMAINER FRIENDS: Please help support this auction if you feel there is a “future” to it. Many of the domains are slamdunks, and we feel will sell for very reasonable prices. You will get great domain names, but also help in promoting a new sector of domains to the New Media market.  I’ve already received quite a few supportive emails from some of the biggest domainers, and that is very appreciated, so thanks! Your connections and power can make this auction a love fest, and that’s something that could be groundbreaking on its own! Isn’t it time domainers stop bickering and start promoting their industry?

Let’s have fun with this!  (and if you read this whole blog, you obviously have a good attention span and a high IQ!)

Good Luck to All!

Stephen Douglas (Successclick.com)

As a domain investor and consultant, an environmentalist and a businessman who believes in responsible and ethical business practices, I feel the need to write this article. It might be unpopular, but it might also encourage some professional domainers to find the courage to stand up and comment here in support. Let your morals dictate your responses (NOTE: I don’t publish anonymous comments. You can use your handle if I know you and I will publish your remarks.)

A few weeks ago, a successful domain investor known to most domainers wrote an article disparaging domainers buying domains that he labeled “pigeon shit”.  I’m not sure how he knows who’s buying what and how he used a scale for measuring domains to be “pigeon shit”, or even which domainers he’s referring to. To me, it seemed odd for someone who’s made millions$$$ in this business (especially as a producer of top-level domain events that many domainers paid to attend) to take the time to write a broad affront to so many domain buyers.

I don’t have to mention his name, but I am worried that hundreds of domainers may buy into his misguided advice, or even worse, the domainer-haters will use his rhetoric to fight against domainers to continue making the domain industry look like a place filled with soul-less opportunists. (Not implying that this domainer has no soul)

This issue has to do with this famous domainer’s claim that there are still “typein” or “PPC” domains to be bought as new registrations (OOTB – “Out Of The Basket”).  I agree with him on this point, but where we differ is the type of domains being purchased.  This important domainer’s assertions as I perceived them was: “Those who don’t agree with me are buying “pigeon shit” domains,” if I read his blog article correctly.  It’s hard to fight against his comments, because he is clearly experienced, successful, and correct in some of his assessments of the financial world, including domain investments.

However, when you read these types of missives from this writer: “Don’t argue against PROOF just to argue! Time to LEARN!”, you have to wonder what the newcomers to the domain investment business are thinking: “Should I speak out? I need to make money, I don’t want to make enemies in this business, maybe I’ll just follow along and agree with this commentary, even though I have some against-the-grain questions.” Then, these new domainers, or even seasoned domainers, may make a mistake that ruins them, as El-Silver points out in one of his latest blog articles.

Many stories and comments regarding “pigeon shit” domains were discussed on this domainer’s blog in the last week or so, and there were unkind references by the blog owner about the “morons” who dared question him. Wow. Okay, I can appreciate his passion. But then this domain celebrity showed us the great domains he bought as OOTB’s for an example of what he was trying to prove regarding new PPC domains. Here’s two of the domains he bought and displayed for us:

BPSPILL[dotcom] and BPOILSLICK[dotcom]. He lists them on his blog, along with the less than $25 revenue he earned in typein traffic from those domains.

Unfortunately for his readers and domainers in general, the domains he purchased and displayed were, in at least 1 – 3 ways, very wrong choices based on simple “Do Not Do” domainer rules:

1) His domains included a clear reference to the trademark of a company “BP” (British Petroleum). This is a big no-no in our industry because we are working extremely hard to avoid being called “cybersquatters” that infringe on any company’s trademark. The stigma from this label is still prevalent, even among experienced internet experts and media tech writers. Additionally, if you are blatant in your domain registrations infringing on some company’s TM, you could be sued for $100k on each count. Ouch.

2) His domains are “time-sensitive”, which means that the domains refer to news which is limited to a certain scope of time that the domain name will be relevant. (Granted, this oil spill is the worst in history, and will be talked about for decades, if not for generations – so he might “luck out” on this no-no).

3) His domains are based on tragedy, catastrophe, suffering, sadness, horror, and so many other negative adjectives and nouns that you probably already feel. If you have no conscience making money on suffering, then go ahead and make your $100 a month off of domains that “spell out” disaster.

The above are just a few of the rules new domainers need to know when they buy a domain. Always.

Ironically, this oil spill disaster may harm some several very successful domainers because of the location of the property they own. If that happens, these domain purchases by this (in)famous domainer are not going to seem like “pigeon shit” purchases, but more like elephant feces. God forbid, if oil starts seeping onto the beaches and dead animals and ruined economies start appearing in Florida, some domainers in the area aren’t going to appreciate the exploitative domains callously purchased by this influential domainer. Imagine if you owned a house on the beach in Pensacola, Florida right now, and you knew some domain investor was making “$50 a day” off of a domain name that described the disaster that was destroying your investment and your beautiful home.

I hope sincerely that this never happens. And I hope that all domainers avoid the lure of buying any domains that make money off of suffering.

I read this article tonight written by Mark Morford of SFGate.com that summed it up for me:

“There is, you have to admit, a sort of savage grace, a tragic and terrible beauty, to the BP oil spill…

“…Like any good apocalyptic vision of self-wrought hell, the greatest environmental disaster in U.S. history has its inherent poetry. You see that creeping ooze of black, that ungodly wall of unstoppable darkness as it slowly, inexorably invades the relatively healthy, pristine waters adjacent, and you can’t help but appreciate the brutal majesty, the fantastic, reeking horror of this new manifestation of black death we have brought upon ourselves, as it spreads like a fast cancer into the liquid womb of Mother Nature herself…

“…Really, it’s not just the incredible photographs of the spill that are, in turns, heartbreaking, stunning, otherworldly and downright Satanic in their abject revulsion. It’s not just the statistics that tell us how many millions of gallons might ultimately be spilled, or the stunned scientists who can only hypothesize how this unprecedented catastrophe might affect the fragile food chain and distress the ocean’s ecosystems at the very root level.”

“It’s not even the endless, heartrending tales of livelihoods lost, industries destroyed, coastlines ravaged or wildlife killed. The fact is, any one of these aspects alone is enough to poison your soul for as long as you wish to wallow in that murky state of fatalism and doom. It is nothing but bleak.”

Then the author sums it up with a telling statement of how we domainers should act:

“Finally (and a bit shockingly), I’m not hearing Pat Robertson or any of his cretinous cult of apocalypticans blame the gays, or voodoo, or anal sex, or reality TV for what’s happening in the Gulf. Oil is, after all, completely non-denominational. It mocks all religions equally — except, of course, the only one that really matters: capitalism.”

Nobody will argue that it’s “bad capitalism” as we’ve seen it in the last few years that has put us into a war based on a lie, ruined our economy by greedy Wall Street cretins, and allowed safeguards to protect Americans to be removed. I am not putting myself above anyone here. I’ve made these same domain mistakes in the first of my 11 years of domaining, but I learned and changed. We domainers can and should be responsible capitalists, with ethics and at least an apparent moral center. I’m not perfect, but I hope to follow these responsible rules in buying domains. I hope you do, too.

Pray to whatever god you worship that this oil spill ends soon. Don’t worry about those domains that this influential domainer bought and tried to convince us were “good domains” – if they lose money, we’ll know it’s easier to clean up his pigeon shit than remove oil off of a pelican.

So, out of respect, I’ll start with Rick’s domain purchases first… although I’m leaving out a few picks he made that are questionable to me… of course, I can be mistaken, and it wouldn’t be the first time.

Here’s Rick Schwartz’s Top Picks:

HotProducts.com – $9k  Incredible buildout retail site… major branding! This one domain alone owns all  other buys at the auction for the price. Invest $500k in this domain, you have a killer brand website touting the best deals on the internet, and a pickup acquisition at about $5mill or more in 2 years. This is the one domain I really wanted to bid on. Congrats on this one, Rick. My appraisal value at minimum – $80k
_______
NetMarketers.com $1,250
This is a nice domain for the price. Now if Rick can get the ignorant old school marketers to respond to the reality that a great domain name is the beginning of any company’s prodservs… My appraisal value at minimum – $25k
_______
AsianFlu.com $3,000
Hopefully this flu won’t appear, but if it does, Rick will make a lot of money off people getting sick, scared and dying… which is not something weird or bad, we have pharmaceuticals doing that daily. It’s just business, and I have some domains that have this unfortunate “quality”.
Appraisal value at minimum – $25k
______
AffiliateAdvertising.com $5000
This domain is a category killer. Unbelievable that Rick bought it at this price. This domain can own CJ and other affiliate “sources”, so they better think about making some offers to Rick to pick this baby up.  Appraisal at minimum value – $75,000

The rest of the domains Rick bought, with the exception of “breakfastbars.com” for $1300, have no meaning to me or I can’t see where the value will come from. I won’t appraise them. Let them expire or sell them quick on Snapnames to try to recoup your money. Exhibiting.com?  $5k? Exhibiting what? What do you see this domain pointing to as a website? A museum? Heck, Rick could have picked up Supplications.com (Prayers) for one fifth the price and had a simple website or flip for 5x ROI.
—–
Now for the total damages for Rick:

Rick spends $42,550 for domains minimally appraised by me here as follows (I left the purchase price as my minimum appraisal on domains I wouldn’t have purchased, except for one where I lowered the value off the domain purchase price), and Rick gets domain portf value MINIMUM of:  $265,300.

So Rick scores nicely by instantly increasing his domain purchases at the auction about 5.3 times his investment, at the MINIMUM expectation of value for each domain. In other words, his purchases added about $220,000 of increased cash value to his portf. Free cash down the line. Pretty damn good…

++++++++

Now for Mikey-B’s picks:

CampingEquipment.com (Correction) hey, this domain was mentioned on other sites, but the real domain is “CampingSupplies.com” which Mikey B bought. No problem, maybe even better because it’s not a longtail -$16k Sweet buy and just $20k more to build a power directory on this domain to list every single camping prodservs retailer/manufacturer at $500 a year… hmmmm I’d say about 1000 potential directory advertisers paying chump change to be listed… half a mill a year. This was a killer buy.  This domain, built correctly, could be a pickup acquisition at $3.5 mill or more in 2 years.
Appraisal value at minimum – $100k
______
ImageConsultants.com for $9,500
Like Mikey said, huge business. A simple directory again can bring in EASILY a half mill a year within 2 years of development. Appraisal value at minimum – $150k

PhotoDeveloping.com -$3k for a service people will always use, even with digital cameras. Over 50% of digital camera users don’t know how to process their photos, and every photo outlet/drugstore has digital processing services. Very good buy. I was considering this one. Appraisal value at minimum – $50k

Redistribution.com - $3k for wholesaling and product placement, and other product flow management. Appraisal value at minimum – $10k

GlutenFreeRecipes.com for $6K – HUGE NEW MARKET IN FOOD RECIPES, EASY TO BUILD, EASY MARKET TO IDENTIFY.  Category killer for millions of people who are gluten intolerant. Appraisal value at minimum (even as a longtail) – $50k
—–

Now for the total damages for Mikey-B:

Mikey spends $37,500 for his five domains. No waste, picked cleanly, all domain purchases have excellent ROI potential.

By my minimum appraisals, I put Mikey-B’s ROI on his domain purchases at $360,000. This puts Mikey’s ratio on ROI at a whopping 9.6 times his investment, raising about $323,000 of free cash value into his domain portf.
_____

Bottom line from the Viking:

Both Rick and Mikey-B spent very little and gained a hell of a lot of potential ROI with their domain buys.

Kudos to both. I think more domainers should have let their b*lls hang low (including myself, shamefully I admit) like these guys and jumped in to bid (of course, having millions of dollars in cash reserves helps a lot, and these buys were woefully wimpy purchases amounts for both these power domainers). I would have bid on at least three of these domains, except excuse, wife “sell what you have”, excuse, wife “almost 4000 domains already”, excuses …”that money can go to building the deck walkway from our sunroom to the pond then over to build the cedar bridge across the creek and gazebo (about 60 yards)” aarrggg

Best story I try to tell my wife is how Frankie took his family finances to the edge of disaster to now control a portf worth hundreds of millions.  Every domainer should BELIEVE in the domain they’re going to buy, have a purpose for it, understand the market behind it, and then step up like a man and control the business online with a category killing domain.

I would hate to have to sell my domains at the bargain basement prices that Rick and Mikey swept up. However, even at those low prices, I bet the sellers made more money on those domains than if they had… gulp… invested in stocks or mutual funds!  Thank GOD for domain names!

++++++

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[UPDATE] I’m deferring back to Mike’s site in all fairness to his original article.