How I became a domainer: investor on domain names

I’ve started investing in domain names when my friends and I had a great website idea, I was actually quite scared to buy (register) it as you really didn’t know what to expect and you’d be stuck with it for a year (at least). But after the initial purchase, I’ve started to research deeper towards domain names and found it actually fun and interesting. I somehow saw a similarity in investing in domain names …

… and investing in real estate, the difference is that you’re buying a intangible property in the internet world. As I did have quite a few website (web 2.0) ideas that I felt could dominate the internet world (Global domination, lol), I started to buy the domain names that I saw fit with my concepts / ideas.

– 30+ domain names is only equivalent to 8 to 9 domain names –

I never saw myself as a domainer at that time yet, I’ve collected over 30+ domain names but it was actually just around 8 to 9 domain names but with different domain name extentions, plural and singular and 2 word combination reversed (techfilipino and filipinotech). But as I was waiting for these projects to develop, I stumbled upon websites after websites on domain names which really got my interest.

– Almost all .COM domain names are taken –

I then decided to really invest my money on domain names, but as I was searching for .COM opportunities, there wasn’t much to opportunities as all 3 – 4 characters are registered and only a few left on the 5 characters (the available ones are not even good domain names). But one day, I was able to read about ccTLDs (Country-Code Top Level Domain names). At first, I hesitated because I thought $35 / year vs $7.49 for TLDs (Top Level Domain names) was way too expensive. Then I remembered how .COMs were before, it was also as high as $30 and look at how much they’re selling now.

– .PH domain names was naturally where I placed my money at –

I wanted to invest in ccTLDs, which I’m familiar with and being here in the Philippines it was quite natural for me to invest in .PH domain names. So I started buying in bulk and registering all the premium domain names that I could get my hands on. Today, I own about 100+ domain names which more than half are premium ccTLDs. I’ve really taken it very seriously now and I’ve even started .PH domain name for everyone to discuss their domain name investments. I’m planning to develop it all and make full blown websites.