How Dumb of a Domainer are you?

At first read you may think this is a joke of a question but its actually quite serious since from what I can see we have such an incredible amount of dumb people in this industry.

With that statement made, its worthy to note there are (without question) some incredibly smart, talented and professional people but when you weed these out I can only assume many people buying domains are quite dumb.  Possibly even rich, dyslexic and easily inspired to order anything seen on a late night infomercial.

How can I say this?

Logical conclusion is the only way.

Have you seen the names that sell daily on drop lists?  How about those domains which have multiple bidders screaming to get in on the double hyphen auction or those “great” domains on NameJet’s most “active” auction list (this single email every day reassures me that even with an IQ of 70 its not hard to make money if you have a brain here)

Who are these people buying these awful names?

How much money do they lose before they realize all their purchases are worth less than the amount of toilet paper they used this morning?

We are talking about somewhere around 80% or more (in my estimate) of all names that get sold everyday while great names sit on buy it now venues such as Snap, Afternic, BuyDomains etc.

So whats the business plan here?

The more shit you buy the greater the odds the poop will turn to Gold. Maybe they are all part of a cult where the leader chants this mantra every morning. I’ve been confused since the late 90’s about this and expect to be so for another decade or more.

How about advice?

Why are people looking towards the names of this industry to see whats hot?

Most of these people who sell names are … oops… domain SELLERS – not your best friend, development partner or financial advisor. Just because a few names with an I or E in front of them sold for a pretty penny doesn’t make the whole freaking sector worth $500 or $1,000 per name or more.  In fact, they are pretty much all worthless yet people still listen or get excited to get a “deal” on a name that comes with a dream.

Stop right there.

“A name that comes with a dream”

Holy mother – listen to this quote and understand this

Every name has a dream. Every name has a story. Every name could be something.

The only thing that matters is what YOU DO WITH IT.

Doesn’t matter if I owned it, some cowboy owned it or Mother Theresa herself.

Once you pay the bill its yours – Mother Theresa is gone to say prayers, the sellers are back to selling names and you are alone.

So How DUMB are you?  Really dumb if you get caught up in the world of buying names from people and think they have a resale value for more than what you paid just because some “domain celebrity” owned the name before you.

You have to do something with the name to maximize its value.  Truth be told not everyone wants to maximize a name but rather just sell for a profit but if you buy a domain that has NO exact search, a stupid extension, a random collection of keywords that really make no sense used together, have i’s and e’s in front or back to sound cool or a number of other stupid valuation factors many domainers use to put their “pitch package” out for other stupid investors to buy then you’re pretty dumb for not learning how to advance faster in this industry

As for Development and SEO – why are you listening to people who blog day after day about domains and only have a few projects that have never transpired into anything more than Adsense sites.

How DUMB are you?

Pretty dumb if you are typing in a domainers blog to understand SEO when there hundreds of SEO blogs, forums and experts online dedicated to providing more knowledge than 99% of domain investors could ever give you.

Look – this industry is great with many great people like the Castellos, Michael Berkens, Chef Patrick and more

but if you are someone who wants to make a living, create something from nothing, supplement income and/or secure a piece of the internet you always wanted then its time to act smart and look for information from the sources who have resumes to back it up, invest in assets that provide value after the sale and in general – stop following the herd.

Just remember – those who are great sellers are many times not great builders.

Something to think about.