Domaining MBA Monday: Think Of Each Domain As An Experiment

Domaining MBA Monday

The topic I want to discuss today applies well beyond Domain Investing and really applies to anyone that is running a business. That being said, as Domainers it is easy to fail quickly, and often, which means there are lots of lessons to be learned!

One of the best ways to learn is by doing, and in doing you’ll find a lot of failure, which is fine, as long as you learn from each one. Here’s an example from my early days in Domaining.

When I first started buying domains I would buy in series. Names like HotelIn<CityName>.us or <keyword>online.us. My logic was, “if I own twenty of these all I need to do is sell one! The problem was selling even one and I quickly learned that .US names were pretty darn hard to sell.

It’s one thing to admit when you made a mistake, it’s another to change your behavior because of it. The best way to learn from your mistakes is to actually define what you’re going to count as a mistake. Set conditions for success and failure and be clear with them. For me early-on the goal was to make over $2,500/month and this great over time. If I would fall below my goal one month I would look at my portfolio and what I was doing and understand where I had fallen short.

You can then shift your focus away from what is not working and towards what is. Of course, if you’re completely new to Domaining then nothing may be working yet, so where do you focus? Focus on one thing at a time and treat each domains you buy as an experiment. Write down why you bought the name, how much you paid, and how you plan to use it to generate a solid profit for your business. Last, but not least, put down your timeline.

This last step is what most Domain Investors leave-out if they’re keeping a list similar to this. You need to have a timeframe that you expect your investment to pay-off. Is it next week? In three months? In three years? If you make this clear to yourself you can also detect failures that might not be as apparent.

For example, suppose you bought a batch of names that you decided you would sell based on inbound offers and you had a timeline of two years. If, 18 months in you still haven’t had a single inquiry you can immediately start learning. The idea is to really treat each domain as an experiment and learn from it.

Celebrate the times you are right and use those profits to make more investments. Just don’t forget to learn from every failure, because in Domaining, you’ll have many, but it only takes a few big successes to turn everything around!

Morgan Linton

Morgan Linton