One of my few strong capabilities has always been the ability to self reflect in any moment in time – make a clearcut judgement at where I am at any given time and thoroughfully evaluate the situation. What I’ve been thinking about lately is one thing – I think I’m losing the edge when it comes to domaining.
When I started out I had an immense thirst for success. I was willing to bet everything on one card – I didn’t have much, so it wasn’t that difficult. I was immensly focused. I was uber-creative, I basically swooped in, had a plan how to use immense leverage and it worked out. If I look after the last 3 years I’ve been in the biz, no single domainer has seen so much growth as I have, my ROI is in the thousands of per cent per anum.
But times have changed. I sort of have a feeling that I’ve accomplished all I wanted in domains. Like it was a game and I completed it. So it stopped being a challenge anymore. When it comes to the material side of things, back in the beginnings I was maybe living off $1k a month. Today I have 3 bling cars, an amazing apartment, a personal 5* french chef, fly private etc and make more money than I can spend. Since I’ve finally accumulated something I have hence become slightly risk-averse. I mean I’m probably willing to take on more risk than 95% of businessmen when the odds are right, but I simply am not in the absolute vanguard I used to be. However that’s probably enough to tip me off the edge. The crazy motivation is also gone. The focus as well – I’ve been spreading across to multiple other businesses. To be honest domains don’t entertain me much anymore – I have to find other things that do, for example I’m just producing a movie etc. When I was younger I recall learning about the Maslow hierarchy of needs in school – I suddenly feel materially secure and I’m heading towards the top of the Maslow pyramid towards the concept of self-actualization. I suddenly feel that I have enough and and becoming more interested in being more happy, being more nice to people, helping people, being more creative, enjoying simple things, doing some charity etc. I simply came to the point of asking what’s the point of making more if I already think I have more than enough?
It’s not that I will drop out of business completely. But the bottom line is that because of all these aspects I mentioned, I am slowly but surely losing the edge that I once had and that nobody could match. I think that all the well known domainers like Frank Schilling or Kevin Ham must have went through something similar. It’s just too difficult to stay on top forever. That’s also the reason I have been blogging less and less – I just think that I don’t have that much to say anymore. And I don’t want to become completely pathetic, like the grandfather to whom’s advice nobody listens to anymore – I prefer to leave that role to others (with all respect, I just think Rick is passed his time). The good news for everyone that is reading – suddenly there is a big opportunity to fill up the vacuum and take over the vanguard of domaining again…
Happy 4th of July everybody!
). You see, when I came into the domain business a little over two years ago, I saw it through a different lens than most people in the business. I simply saw domains as any other asset that creates a cashflow stream (predominantly from PPC). So there was a huge arbitrage opportunity.
