The Rick Schwartz Domain Name and Traffic Blog: RicksBlog.com – Home of The Domain King®

Morning Folks!!

Forget domains, forget crypto forget about all the businesses of today and focus on the businesses of tomorrow. You are not alone. Get those elbows ready. Nearly 2 BILLION searches for "The Next BIG thing" on Google alone. That represents 1 out of every 4 people on earth looking for the next big thing. Looking to get rich. Looking to find something life changing. Why do they do that? Because they see a parade of examples every day of their lives of people that have done exactly that and become filthy rich. Some at a very young and tender age. They have a GREAT NEED, WANT and DESIRE to join that group.

BUT.......

Many will look and will never find it.

Many will look but have no clue what to look for.

Many will chase every single shiny object.

Many will look and not recognize it if they find it.

Many will look and discount it even if they do find it.

Many will look and fail to act on it.

Many will look and say coulda, shoulda, woulda.

And a few will dare to be wrong, dare to lose time and money, dare to be criticized and laughed at, but will act on and seize what they can when they can and where they can.

Many will then laugh at their failures as they sit on the sidelines and keep searching for the next big thing but refusing to get into the game and take a risk themselves.

Whatever the "Next BIG thing" is, always look at the audience. How many, who they are and their buying power. Along with DOZENS of other questions. If you don't do that, your chances of failure are assured.

Don't talk about how many billions the industry does unless you own 1 of those billions. To me, that is the same as some idiot waving a domain appraisal in my face and thinking it has validity. Tell me how you plan to grab your market share and you do that by current and past SALES not BLAH, BLAH, BLAH!

NO NEED + NO WANT + NO DESIRE + NO VALUE = NO SALES = NOTHING =$0 If you want to run with that equation you would be a fool.

99% of finding the NEXT big thing is by discounting all the NOISE of those that want to convince you that what THEY HAVE is the next big thing. Your job is to try and find every pitfall you can find, not painting a blue sky picture. BE CRITICAL!! Try to DESTROY the idea. If it survives, it MAY be a very good idea. If not, ABANDON SHIP!!!

Domainers should have learned that FIRST HAND with the new GTLD debacle. But domainers still defending them may not be the brightest bulbs in the basket or just have a financial motive. Like they are stuck with them and still need to DUMP them to other less "sophisticated" domainers.

What's the next BIG thing? Here it is  The next BIG thing

Rick Schwartz

Morning Folks!!

When I first suggested that 90% of all domainers should DROP 90% of their domains and start over again most laughed. I have now suggested it multiple times. People aren't laughing so much anymore. Now they actually see my point and some may be considering it.

During the last days I have asked for domain submissions to sell and then appraise. Do you folks understand now?? What is posted is better than the ones I get emailed to me. I see crap all day long. What the hell were they thinking?

Even worse, you guys got some really ugly domains! The value is just so limited. Let me give you a couple examples of that limitation. First, one commenter yesterday wrote this:

Hi Rick,

Here’s my best old-school domain:

United-States.org – Is it worth anything?!

Similar name: united-states.net was sold for 760 USD in 2009-04-25 on NameJet

Thank you.

So Let's break this apart and look at the flaws in thinking.

First thing that jumped out at me was comparing a sale of nearly a decade ago for a measly $760. Really? That's not aiming very high.

The next thing is his domain actually has MORE VALUE than the .net. Albeit marginal. In this case the .org is superior to the .net.

The next thing of course is the dash. Obviously without the dash the domain would have some real value and be very meaningful.

So then I investigate UnitedStates.org and it's basically "Coming Soon" so that does not help the value. That hurts the value. I go to UnitedStates .com, it's a redirect. I go to United-States.com and it is a holding page from Godaddy.

The ONLY thing that can make that domain valuable is an IDEA! Content! Something real. Or if "Dashes" become popular. (Longshot)

But I keep getting back to that $760 comparison. Why aren't you looking for a $76,000 or $760,000 comparison? How many years do you want to wait for chump change IF you can find anyone to give you that chump change?

And the worst part, this domain was better than MORE THAN half of the others posted!

Then we have the brandables. I like brandables. But that's a really tough game to play and there are way too many variables and choices. I have brandables in my portfolio. But they are more like a topping and not a focus.

ALL Domain appraisals are a SCAM! PERIOD! ONLY FOOLS and DOMAINERS believe them. The only appraisal that counts is your own. If you want to show your rookie status, just go waiving one of these appraisals around. Not worth the paper they are written on.

There are ways to relaunch a domain portfolio. If you have 1000 names that's $10k a year or $100k over 10 years. Go make a deal and buy a $100k domain with 10 year financing and you would be in better shape! 1 GREAT domain has more value if you are not making it than 1000.

Most so-called portfolios are not portfolios at all. They are recurring bills. Recurring bills put more folks in bankruptcy than any other thing. You and ONLY you can decide which domains are assets. But I will continue ti maintain that most domain portfolios I see have no value whatsoever. NON! NAHDAH!

Let's take another domain posted. TrentBridgeHotels.com

So here are the problems.

1. Trent Bridge is a tiny town with 47,000 population. Never heard of it before yesterdays post.


2. Trent Bridge only has a handful of hotels.


3. The domain with value would be the singular and that would only be valuable to Trent Bridge Hotel if there is one. That value would have limits. Maybe a few hundred or a couple grand at most to only ONE potential customer on EARTH. Not a good investment!


4. TrentBridge.com itself has low value and is listed for sale. So a superior name w/o much value.


5. Point is if you do this, focus on larger cities that actually have a lot of hotels.


6. It's all about population centers. This domain has virtually no value for the reasons listed. It's a liability not an asset!

1. Laugh Hard!


2. Laugh Harder


3. Laugh Hardest


4. I can't get off the floor


5. I am dying to catch my breath from laughing way too hard


6. ok, deal!