The domain industry is made up of a diverse group of people with vastly different backgrounds. I’ve always found it interesting hearing about how domain investors became familiar with domain names and ultimately decided to invest some (or all) of their money in these virtual assets. Beginning today with my domain beginning, I will be posting stories from industry veterans, so you can learn how they became involved in the domain industry.

When I was in graduate school studying direct marketing at NYU, I wanted to earn some extra money – New York City is very expensive!  One week, a family friend was contracted to clean the theatre curtains in the Empire State Building, and since I lived next door, he asked for my help.  For 3 days, we cleaned the curtains, and I got some sage advice from him, an entrepreneur who has built a very successful business in California.

I was told I should find some type of unique product to sell online – maybe using a venue like Ebay. Since my apartment was small, the product would have to be compact, so the inventory didn’t take up too much space. I spent a few days looking on Ebay for products that were selling, and I saw that some domain names sold for hundreds of dollars.  I looked into this some more, and I found unregistered names that looked similar to ones that were commanding big bucks.

After a few hours, I made my first purchase at Network Solutions.  It was something related to the legal field, and I remember that it had a hyphen.  I still have the receipt packed away somewhere, but I forgot what the name was.  I do remember that I tried to sell it a couple of days later for a few hundred dollars to no avail.  I eventually broke even on the name and found Godaddy, where I could buy names for much less.

I spent the next several months buying and selling domain names on Ebay, reinvesting almost all of my profits along the way.  I continued to learn about what makes a good domain name, and had some good luck along the way.

An anonymous donor auctioned the domain name LifeInsurancePolicies.com at the TRAFFIC auction, netting $15,000 for the Internet Commerce Association. I didn’t notice this auction benefitted the ICA until this morning, and I wanted to make sure others know about it.  Among other things, the ICA is currently assisting domain owners in reversing the Kentucky gambling domain decision.

The domain name VYK.com, which sold for $8,000, was also a donation to the ICA.