Over the past few years I’ve come to the realization that domaining has made a lot of my domainer friends very dysfunctional (myself included to a certain extent). They have simply got used to the easy money that they can derive from domains and their dark brain matter slowly starts deteriorating away. They lose their motivation and if they stay long enough in this phase, there is no way out. From this point of view domaining is a double edged sword – it brings piles of cash but also completely destroys a person’s enthusiasm to do other things – because to make money in other businesses you have to put in so much more effort to make the same amount of cash. Frankly, a lot of domainers ask themselves “why bother and put in the extra effort?”.
That’s why, I believe, the vast majority of domainers tend to be unsuccesful when they try to branch out into other businesses. They simply lose their sense of reality. Even if you look at the big guys, they’ve undergone something similar. Kevin Ham has blown millions on his mythical project of the “semantic web”, only to axe it altogether. Sahar hasn’t been to fortunate with his Bido or Assista ventures. Even our great idol Frank Schilling hasn’t managed to build a media empire out of his top notch portfolio. Why? Because the sheer amounts earned from domains simply crowd out enthusiasm, drive and skill. Something similar to the resource curse most resource rich countries are plagued with. Enter domainer disease!
So I’ve diagnosed myself with accute domainer disease as well. I always wanted to build a passive income and live off it. But once I’ve done it I’ve noticed all the negative aspects of it. That’s the reason I’ve been so vehemently trying to get into other businesses before it’s too late a drop out of the domain game.
