Those three Canadian’s got 1 million domains worth over a billion dollars and you got shit…

This “blast from the past” blog post is being re-published. It was originally posted in early 2009 on Wanna Develop. I hope you enjoyed it and learned a new thing or two.

Frank Schilling, Kevin Ham and that mysterious $164 million man who is otherwise known as Yun Ye managed to snatch up close to 1,000,000 of the best domains in only a few years… But what do you got?! You got all the shitty names and leftovers! Yep… Those three amazing genius domainers pretty much did a clean sweep right around 2001 – 2004 while everybody else was too busy with god knows what. Some of the others who invested in domains managed to do OK back then but those three in particular went at it like there was no tomorrow. Yun Ye sold his domain collection to publicly traded Marchex for $164 million a few years ago. Cha-Ching !!

Yun Ye’s Name Development Ltd. portfolio had over 100,000 generic keyword domains. Going by that valuation… Combine Frank Schilling’s and Kevin Ham’s domains today, and they are worth somewhere around $800 million. Not bad… Hehe. We should also factor in that internet penetration has grown by at least 50% since early 2005. There are now 1.5 billion internet users… Yup! So, Frank Schilling makes around $20 million per year parking his domains and Kevin Ham does something like $50 million per year parking domains as well. Not bad at all! They were very aggressive with domain acquisitions and I am sure if they coulda went after more domains… They would without hesitation.

The funny part is that all three were just ordinary hard working guys. They weren’t rich to begin with. They weren’t part of some elite investor’s club who got tipped off before everybody else. They recognized an opportunity and went with their gut. They took many risks and worked their asses off…. Big time. Here is Yun Ye, a chinese man, who gets in the domain biz and something like 5 years later cashes out to the tune of $164 million… Sweet! Then we got Frank Schilling and Kevin Ham for whom all of the best is still to come. It really is. Either a VC firm is going to buy em out or one of the media conglomerates.

There isn’t too many other people or companies who have domain collections that can be valuated at over $100 million. There is a bunch of other companies that each own hundreds of thousands of domains and so on… But Kevin Ham and Frank Schilling got the best of the best domain portfolios in the world that without a doubt will sell for hundreds of millions of dollars one day. They don’t need to sell them right now and who knows if they ever will?! But I am pretty sure that if they are approached with the right amount of zero’s to make them happy and feel good about themselves… They will cash out and move on.

They all talk a big game where they say on their sites something like “next generation media company” or “out to reinvent the internet” and all that good stuff. But yea, ok… I personally don’t believe one word. I think it’s BS and they won’t do much.. Ever… Why should you?! When you are making millions monthly and don’t even have to lift a finger?! It’s all on auto-pilot and a done deal. Doesn’t make much sense for those guys and we all know it… But I’d love to be proved wrong on this. Domains should be developed! So, we’ll see.

Those few guys got the best dot com’s… It’s fine though, because there is many .net/.org domains still available that can be turned profitable easily if you put in the hard work just like those guys did. There really isn’t any easy money anymore in the domain game in 2009 because the best domains are long gone, but there is still a huge amount of inventory of those targeted exact match keyword domains that are available to register.. If you develop them and have the right game plan in mind they can become standalone businesses.

It is about time to get into the development mode. Forget parking… It is over-hyped and soooo 2005. Old news. Not too many of the newer domain investor’s domains will ever get any type in traffic or make enough passive income or at least to cover the renewal costs. It’s why you have to get aggressive and make additional investments in the good domains. Gotta build those out if you are serious about getting somewhere. If you just park them, well, it’s a big waste of time. Lost opportunities. The sooner you realize this, the better. You can get on the fast track to success only when you understand this clearly.

I wrote up an article titled The Art of Domain Sales a few month’s back which was a big hit… I received a lot of positive feedback and countless thank-you’s… I still receive feedback about it a couple of times per week. I am thinking about doing another kinda related article where I would like to discuss what types of keyword domains are good investments for the future because there is a lot of people who still don’t clearly understand… Even the basics! I get approached all the time by potential clients who want to mass develop their domains but all they have is crappy .info .biz .mobi domains… Can’t help em!

So what are some of the good domains worth renewing/keeping or hunting for and investing in?! Well, they are those domains that are important to you. It’s those domains that can be developed into something meaningful. Something that makes sense. All of the best keyword domains within a niche that is important to you or somebody else… You should own. If you are a real estate agent in Brooklyn, you should have BrooklynRealEstate.com BrooklynHomes.com BrooklynRentals.com BrooklynNewYork.com BrooklynApartments.com and so on. This is the types of domains that are always in demand and very good investments… Simple use. Clear purpose.

So the .com is outta your price range or not avail for reg fee?! It’s no problem. Go for the .net/.org because they are just as good… That is if your end game is development. If it is reselling, well… It’s a bit more tricky, but a keyword domain is a keyword domain!!! It’s still worth a lot of money. So this is basically the types of domains that you want to secure and control. Smart businessman should control as many domains that are related to their businesses as possible. Frank Schilling and Kevin Ham went after just random domains… It was an OK strategy back then. Right now though, it would be stupid to go with it. So, you really have to zoom in on one niche at a time.

There is a lot more to be covered with this topic.. I’d love to go over in detail about all of the important stuff for all of my domainer virgins and struggling domainer so called veterans who just can’t make sense of things anymore. The rules of the game have changed drastically.. If the domain doesn’t make anything while it’s parked or isn’t able to sell itself… It’s useless! Waste of time and money. Get rid of it.