How did you get into domaining?

[cav]

This may have been asked before (I cant find it) but how did you guys get into domaining?

Mine was by accident; years ago I bought a domain name as a hobby to have a go at setting up a website, then one or two more. Realised I was rubbish at it and then wondered what to do with the domain names. Then I discovered people traded these, lost loads on buying trash, learnt, researched and noticed that .org.uk was mainly being ignored by the players and I speculated on those and it went from there.

It was (and still is) like panning for gold.

 

[Edwin]

I was looking for a domain name for a project - I wanted to get something started, build my first website (this was 1996). Then I realised that it had taken me ages just to find out how to buy a domain name, what I could do with it, etc. (again, remember this was 1996!) so I gave up on whatever it was I was planning to build - can't even remember - and built iGoldrush.com, a site about domain names, instead... So I got into domains out of the frustration of not understanding domains.

 

[Bailey]

Indeed but, theres much much less gold in them there hills today.

As a middle aged fart now. I was tempted to go back to college to study Business and Computing about 20 years ago after getting a big redundancy payment from Thorn Emi. well I stayed at college for three years - guess it was all those young women running around (i married one) - anyway one of my tutors kept going on and on about the future of the internet and how it was going to occupy the world in every daily aspect - well i believed her and when the legal challenge requiring 'not for profit' sale of domains arrived instead of the then $70 charged in the ninties - I was in

 

[monaghan]

I came here by chance as well, I'd got a Nominet membership as I was fed-up with the quality and service for all the .uk domain resellers I'd used so did my own thing and wrote my own Automaton interface for my billing system.

I'd previously had an "excellent idea for a web site" but the ideal domain was taken yet not in use, so I contacted this guy E Hayward expecting to cover the registration fee and a few quid for his time and got a reply of many thousands! I'd also noticed other forum threads where people were offering domain names for sale several times over the registration fee and wondered why people would pay so much for a low cost product.

After a while I investigated further and found AD, read, added a DAC subscription to my Nominet account, coded a DAC / Automaton program as an intellectual exercise, caught a few and got hooked!

 

[chrisduggan]

I used to dabble in amatuer web development in college, late 90's had a few clients I did sites for using the old yahoo thing i forget what it was called but it was shocking. Frames and iframes and such like. Ended up in IT for 10 years or so. Now I am venturing back into domain names, brokering and development again professionally. Funny how life works. If only I had stuck with it from 1998. I would have some nice domains to my name, unfortunately despite the odd catch most are client domains. Now I live in South Australia with my family so looking at .com.au totally different to the .uk TLD

Chris

 

[Ashton]

Was interested in a domain, couldn't find details on owner. Did a few googles and came upon a whois thread on here. Line + Sinker.

 

[Bailey]

Know what you mean about the Aussie thing Chris. My youngest daughter married a very nice Aussie last year. As an aside the Inlaws gave them AU$500,000 house as a wedding present - certainly made the bar bill look small.

Anyway after a couple of trips to Australia I'm quite surprised how prevelant the .com.au is in Australia - almost as if nothing else exists, It's a shame that the population (market) isn't larger but, you get the feeling that most Aussies really only know their country code

 

[alex]

I was a relatively late starter, but mainly down to my age as I was at school when I registered my first in 2007 (skateboard-shop.co.uk). I had an eBay shop and wanted to move away to eCommerce so I bought a domain as close to my industry as possible then went a bit mad buying up related names (and it has to be said TMs as well) as a result of discovering SEDO and domain parking.

Unfortunately the domains I really wanted were registered so I contacted the owners and bought them (some at great prices, others... well we won’t talk about them!). It wasn’t really until last year, however, that I considered myself a ‘domainer’. I had bought others in the past with the intention of making a quick profit, but it wasn’t until about 18 months ago that I started taking it seriously and looking long-term. I still have a long way to go and can’t afford the best of the best, but I’m in profit, a Nominet member with my own tag and I’m finally moving away from eBay.

 

[disruptive]

A mathematician friend at uni got me hooked in the 90s. We still thought it might be a fad...and both of us were more interested in creating real businesses rather than collecting the URLs. I started a few businesses based around some prime .com's and began collecting from then on.

Domains were a dual interest. When I discovered a new area I was able to buy up the keywords and verticals which have stood me in good stead since and took me to thousands of domains.

Lately I've started to weed out the poor performers and develop one or two. I did see the hayday of parking when I was getting enough to live off from just parking. The market is a little different now...

I've sold a few domains along the way, met some great people and really do believe if you can sell domains you can sell almost anything! Its such a nebulous concept for most people to grasp.

 

[khalid]

Started building HTML sites after picking up my dad's course notes (he was taking a night course in it to complement his IT skills).

Did the odd "wed design" job as a teenager earning me pocket money.

When I was a student I built and sold adsense sites.

Rob Taylor and I met, he explained the .co.uk market, bought a generic gem for £500 and then started flipping exact match .co.uk names after developing them.