I’ve known GK for several years, and he has always been one to impart great advice when asked. Although I can’t reveal GK’s name because of other business interests, you can trust me when I say he is one of the “original” domain investors who is respected by all who know him.

GK and his partner purchased their first domain in late 1997 and have been mostly buying and sometimes selling names ever since.  He has seen the domain channel’s growth pretty much from its infancy.  He has been around several of the earliest of domain gatherings, including attending the very first TRAFFIC show, the first DomainFest show and the legendary gathering known as the Deanfest in 2002.

GK was the very first domain owner to ever win the bid and purchase a name at an official live domain auction at TRAFFIC Del Rey Beach, FL in 2005.  He has been on a speaker’s panel at two TRAFFIC shows and lists his favorite domaining moment as attendance in 2008 at TRAFFIC Down Under in Australia.

ES: How have your domain investment and monetization strategies changed over the last 5 years? (more…)

Similar to what I’ve been doing on DogWalker.com, Patrick Ruddell has been building a brand on the category defining domain name, ScienceFiction.com. I read about the remarkable growth of the website on Domain Name Wire, and I was very interested to learn that Braden Pollock was getting involved with the site.

According to Patrick, “Braden and I had some great discussions while aboard DNCruise 2 last September which continued on land. After some negotiations and buying out my previous partners, Braden came into ScienceFiction.com, LLC as an equal partner in November.”

I think this growth story is a testament to how someone with a category defining domain name and a solid development and business plan can create a business. For Patrick, the revenue is not yet there, but with the growing audience, it certainly will be there very soon.

I reached out to Patrick to ask him some business related questions, and his responses are below.

ES: How have you been growing the site and what are you doing to drive traffic and awareness?

PR: Quality content and a lot of it. I can’t say any of our traffic success has been from SEO because we haven’t done much. What we have done is work on putting out quality content in bulk. With a team of roughly 15 writers we publish 7-13 articles per day. Beyond content, social media has been an excellent source of traffic for us. Also having 15 writers with their own social media outlets and being active in places like Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon is a bonus.

ES: Are you active in the Science Fiction community offline and on other sites? Do you think it’s important to be active in the community?

PR: Unfortunately I have not had the time, just yet, to be an active member in the community offline, only through social media and email. I do think this is important and something we plan to change in 2012.

ES: How are you monetizing the site and how is it working out?

PR: So far we have only done a single Google Adsense ad which brings in less than $1,000 per month. We did this more of a test to see what that specific location would generate on a monthly basis. With this in mind we can set a base price for that ad space. With the site now one year old, and certain traffic goals met, we plan on turning our attention to ad sales. We just hired our first in-office employee which starts next week. One of her primary responsibilities will be reaching out to potential advertisers with our marketing opportunities.

I’ll share this story, which gives me a lot to look forward to. Only a few months after our launch, a cable channel reached out to us for advertising. Their budget, to my surprise, was $25,000 for a theme-takeover of 10 days. Unfortunately at the time our site was only getting roughly 45,000 per month, not what they were looking for. We closed December with 439,000 visits and over 1.2 million pageviews, certainly closer to what they were looking for. Focus for us to date has been getting eyes to the website.

ES: We all make errors along the way. Have you made any missteps that you’ve learned from that others may benefit from learning? How did you correct them?

PR: Where do I start, there have been many. If dealing with partners, know their strengths and weaknesses. Without going into specifics this alone was the biggest stress on ScienceFiction.com until Braden joined the business. Know your product. Before diving into the business I wasn’t what you would call a sci-fi geek. That has changed as I now own hundreds of comic books and watch A LOT of sci-fi tv shows and movies. I’m still working on earning my sci-fi geek badge, getting closer every day.

ES: What advice would you give to people looking to build a brand as you did?

PR: I’m not just saying this as a domainer, start with a premium domain name. Operating under ScienceFiction.com has given us credibility from day one. The science fiction community itself may not be aware of domain name values, but they know with our address that we are serious about what we do.

And a second piece of advice, call it a bonus, hire multiple writers. Do whatever you can to get included in Google’s news feed. This has been the single biggest boost to our site’s traffic.

Thanks for the interview Elliot. Let me give a quick shout-out to my amazing team. They have done a killer job writing and getting the word out. Their love and knowledge for science fiction and website has helped us grow tremendously.

In my opinion, Josh Pelissero has become one of the most successful domain investors / domain flippers in the last several years. Josh secured many top domain names and has been able to successfully re-sell them profitably, often within days of his acquisitions. He’s an interesting guy, and I think you’ll enjoy reading about him and get some solid insight from his interview answers.

Usually for these articles, I write a person’s biography based on information I know combined with information they tell me. I think Josh’s self-written biography was pretty cool, and I wouldn’t do it justice by re-writing it:

Most people are a little taken aback to learn I never owned a computer until after I started domaining. It’s true, my girlfriend at the time (now my wife) owned an older Pentium II, I believe (which I later paid her parents $200 for and this was in 2005. So that may have been my worst investment lol).

While visiting her at her parent’s home, I would take a few moments to learn what the internet was all about. I had zero knowledge of computers. The one skill I always had is a nose for business– God given because to tell the truth I hated school, it bored me.

I was lucky enough while growing up to have several family members around me who owned businesses. Most summers and free days were spent working with them and learning to buy, sell, trade and all around hustle. By the time I was a young teen my uncle opened an account for me to trade stocks. We did quite well, but then again who didn’t. Clinton was in office and I always did my homework.

I earned my real estate license as soon as I was old enough and have it to this day (11 years now). It was crucial in preparing me for domaining. I learned what it meant to spin your wheels, get rejected and pound the pavement. It wasn’t until I was watching the first Godaddy Superbowl commercial that I even heard the term “domain name”. I was clueless, in fact I did two things on my girlfriend’s computer: one car forum and eBay. Who knew a whole world existed beyond that! I was curious and immediately went to that old P2 and started looking into what exactly a domain name was. Within weeks I knew exactly what they were and eventually how to buy and sell thanks to a few domain forums.

I had a small learning curve of $800, all new reg’s, all expired the next year. My first handful of transfers was exciting, frustrating and one of those learn as you go moments.

Since that time I have consistently traded in 7 figures a year, from LL to NN, incredible generics and everything in between.

My first “big” buy was literally $500.00 in 2005, I had no idea what that would lead to, in fact I was happy with the extra pocket money when I sold it for $XXXX profit, I took the girlfriend out for steak!

It is absolutely amazing at what you can accomplish with an email, phone and thick skin.

Interview with Josh Pelissero

EJS: Do you think someone could become a successful domain investor if they started today? What advice would you give them to succeed?

JP: I believe anything is possible with enough hard work and knowledge.

In saying that I do believe it is a more difficult time in our industry to see success if you’re just starting, take reselling, for example. I feel fortunate to have started when I did which still was not early mind you. Yet I found many avenues and opportunities that have become harder to come by today.

My advice in terms of what could help launch a new investor is to pick a niche to start. For me it was acronyms, the easiest to value and always in demand on the reseller market.

I remember some of my earlier buys of LLL .com and .net, I studied and read like crazy knowing the market would support X for any given LLL. So any name I bought for less was like money in the bank, and the market values were only rising. Through hard work and knowledge, I cannot tell you how many people I have contacted, be it via email, phone, fax or mail and some multiple times.

It is not an industry for those easily discouraged, try try again. Success rates when looking to buy are VERY low but scoring a name pays well enough to persevere.

Some of the most vital tools I have used include whois history, dnjournal, clickmojo any number of people search websites and a hidden gem dnsaleprice.com. I have made a very good living at finding people, you have to be willing to go that extra mile for what you want and I scored many times because for all the other domainers out there, no one else went the extra mile on that name!

I have seen far too many new investors spend large sums and end up becoming stuck, perishing for a lack of knowledge.

EJS: How has the domain industry changed since you started investing in domain names?

JP: The last nearly 7 years has flown by, I honestly do not pursue several avenues that I once did because frankly the opportunities in my opinion have virtually dried up and the competition priced me out of my comfort level. I no longer am heavy in drops. I no longer contact most pending delete names because most times for the better names the owner has been contacted already and given an uneducated offer over market value leaving no margin. This was a fantastic route I took for years, I am sad to say it is a rare occasion now if that works for anyone and leaves any type of margin.

I have come to enjoy reading the many blogs and domain news sites out there. When I started there was just Dnjournal which I still love. I owe Ron a huge thank you for doing what he has. It was because of Ron’s work on a sales report I had comparables and could get a feel for values in general each week. It also gave me insight into what type(s) of name(s) would see temporary increases in value among resellers.

The industry also continues to offer different and in some cases better ways to monetize your names that we didn’t have just 1 year ago. It is nice to see this evolve. Overall, I would say most changes have been for the good.

EJS: Domain theft is a major problem. Can you share some insight into how you’ve helped domain owners recover domain names in the past?

JP: Just to give a little background into why domain theft is an important issue for me you’d have to know my first “big” LL.net purchase ended up being stolen back from me.

That lead to domain lawyer John Berryhill recommending Zak Muscovitch to me since I am located in Canada. After a successful venture to recover the name I found myself wanting to help others recover their name(s). I would like to add that the two men mentioned above are in my opinion the very best of the best in their field.

Some of my earliest recoveries were actually (and now when looking back) unbelievable. For example, I discovered several LLL dot com domains were stolen while looking to buy one. I contacted the owner and I said I was happy to help.

Here is the best part, I simply put a small outline of events together and made a presentation to the head of Godaddy legal regarding theft. She was a wonderful woman and returned all the names in no time. That led to the recovery of many dozens of names for many domainers and non-domainers over the years. As long as someone needs help, is willing to tell the whole story and has enough of a case, I will go to bat for them from LL to LLLL.

The sad part and perhaps one of the changes in the industry for the worst is the lack of community that you find at a registrar now. They have either sold out, employees move on, expanded or become unapproachable. I could go on and on and tell many stories but the bottom line is it has been one of the most feel good moments of my career and earned me a gift basket or 2.

EJS: What type of due diligence do you do when you purchase a domain name to ensure it’s owned and being sold by the rightful party? What tools do you use to do this?

JP: Having had the pleasure of picking Zak Muscovitch`s brain a bit I have come to be sure I ONLY purchase the domain name from the registrant. It is crucial to realize the administrator is NOT necessarily the rightful owner. I think this is where some may get in trouble. As domainers we generally contact the admin; so the potential for a problem to arise is very probable. Even if the address and phone match the registrants you may just be talking to an employee. In order to ensure I am contacting the rightful owner I will first use the whois history to look for a nice steady pattern of matching information. It is not always the case of course but most good older names have been owned for years and years by the same people.

Look for unusual email, address, phone or dns changes. All can be red flags, again not always but I have caught many thieves this way. Once I feel comfortable at that level I will do a background check on the company to ensure the individual who claims to be the rightful owner or the company president, is legally listed as such. Again, I cannot stress enough when buying from a company, be sure it is a person who has the power to complete a transaction. In some cases if the amount justifies it I will do a background check on an individual as well. I may go the extra mile but better safe than sorry.

One case involved a situation where the seller stated the name is her’s now and that her husband passed on. However, the whois still showed her husband’s name. I did two things, requested a declaration from her lawyer stating she was now the rightful owner and I did a people search to find a death certificate, thus confirming she was telling the truth.

As for payment I like to use escrow.com and have never had a problem with them. Their support is terrific and after many transactions they aim to please every time.

I have been fortunate enough to do steady business with many other domainers over the years and a simple bank wire is good enough, after all an element of trust will always be involved.

EJS: What are your thoughts for the domain industry in the future?

JP: The future of our industry, it has been on my mind as of late and how strong I feel about furthering large investments in domains at the present time. My gut and experience to this point has rarely failed me and afforded my wife and I a great life. As we all know there are many paths to take when looking at investing in domains, from buying and selling to offering solutions, seeking end users, development, consulting and right on up to registrars.

My opinions are general in nature as I feel the future of the world’s economy will affect most facets the same.

It has been said that domains are as good or better than gold. While I cannot argue that great domains have in a lot of cases offered greater returns, I cannot ignore what gold actually is and its intended purpose versus domains. Should the world’s economy collapse we will not look to go to a domain standard again as a possible solution. I guess that best sums up my feeling on how I feel about the comparison.

To spell it out for you…domains like any other asset are potentially worth as much as the paper we print our money on. Whereas gold has ALWAYS held its buying power and still will after domains. I am not saying domains will disappear. Certainly not! What I am saying is they can see a deep dark time just like anything else. I cannot help but look around today and see a world in great financial trouble, enough worry that a greater depression is now a very strong possibility. That directly affects how I invest for my future. I have also heard it said that domains are recession proof. We all felt the impact on market values since 2008 and would have to admit they are not. We can always give examples that are exceptions but, since 2008 there has been a downward trend over all.

Remember the days prior to 2008 when a decent two word dot com combo at auction brought $15k like nothing? I believe when it arrives this economic slump will last for several years if not decades. This is not a slow down, correction or buying opportunity in my opinion. We need to be very cautious at how we set ourselves up. It is time to focus on those industries and niches we feel will pull through a depression and those industries which still make sense online and offline.

What I am saying basically is the days of investing in any random one word dot com or acronym to see a fairly quick buck are slowly coming to an end. The ” hey it’s brandable” logic will fizzle. Sure there will always be exceptions to the rule and if you can afford to take the risk, all the best. But again my opinion is in general. We are not there yet but I see a shift taking place, once in a deep depression the novice domainer, ad dollars and end users will melt away at a rate that will make 2008 look like a picnic.

Will there still be money to be made and will certain branches of domains be worth investing in? Sure, but over all we will suffer like any other industry because we forget that we need those industries, without them what is a domain worth?

I hate to have such an unhappy message at the end of this interview but feel for the most part there are a lot of us who live good lives, have beautiful families, money in the bank, a few domains and no worry about what we will eat tonight.What we do not see is there are more people out there who do not have the blessings we do and ultimately our countries are totally insolvent. To steal a line from ole Willie, “Turn out the lights the party’s over”.

I will not get into who is to blame, crooked banksters or how I would solve it. I will simply ask everyone to do their best to secure their families future before securing a domain name. Now is not the time to extend yourself.

I have heard quite a bit about Protrada, and I asked company founder Troy Rushton if I could do an interview with him. He agreed, and I asked him some questions I think will be interesting to you. I invite your questions as well. Keep in mind that Troy is in Australia, so it might take a bit of time for him to respond.

At the bottom of this interview, there’s a special offer brochure for readers of my blog, which is valid for 24 hours, and offers $100 worth of Protrada credits if you sign up. You can visit this Protrada landing page to read more information or to sign up. This is not a paid post, and the link is not an affiliate link (I am NOT being paid or compensated for this article):

For more information about Troy, here’s a brief bio:

Troy Rushton is a digital media visionary and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Winged Media, an incubator of innovations for domain assets, digital media, online advertising and publishing systems. Today he heads up a dynamic team of almost 30 technologists and marketing professionals.

Troy is the driving force for the development of Winged Media’s Intellectual Property. His ongoing commitment to Research and Development has led to the launch of platforms and tools that have developed into profitable internet businesses. These digital innovations include Protrada, Parklings, Shoppatube, Fruitful and Domainspike.

These innovations have all culminated in the launch of the world’s first domain exchange, Protrada, for the online and mobile trading of domain names.

EJS: Prior to Protrada, how were you involved in the domain industry, and how did you learn about it and become involved?

TR: My career has been built in the media industry and as it progressed this inevitably included the opportunities that the internet offered. In 2006 I launched a venture that was designed to provide web strategies for clients to build traffic and provide online market intelligence. This was my first exposure to the Domaining sector.

The next stage of my career was the establishment of Winged Media, an investment incubator to develop innovations for domain assets, digital media, online advertising and publishing systems. Our earliest innovation was created in response to the demand for domain parking and the challenges involved in this part of the market. In seconds, the Parklings Website Development Platform uploads builds-out, monetizes and renders domains – more quickly than any other system in the industry. It’s scalability is really a key competitive advantage.

One thing that Parklings taught me was that if we wanted to maximize economic returns on domain assets we had to have fast access to data and tools. I had to quickly allocate resources where they needed to go in order to make the best investment decisions. We became more and more exposed to the needs of domainers and realised that our core focus on scalability, speed to market and monetization was very similar to what we were aiming to achieve. Today Parklings technology is incorporated into our Protrada platform and this is key to managing and developing portfolios that provide greater returns for minimal effort and investment.

EJS: 2) What type of domain investors will benefit the most from using Protrada, and what are the platform’s most useful features?

TR: The domain investors that will benefit the most from using Protrada are the investors that are actively buying and selling domains – the investors that want to monetize their domains with clever technology that can generate a faster time to market cycle and better returns than parking.

We have recently enhanced our Protrada packages to cater for those new to Domaining and for power domainers. We want members of all levels to appreciate the benefits of Domaining with the power of Protrada.

Protrada is all about innovation and we continue to work hard to develop and extend the features of the platform constantly. The features that I would single out as being the most useful today though include our filtering technology which uses 35 different criteria to search through data and domains to help you find the latest Domaining opportunity; our bid security tool which automatically places a bid in the last minutes of an auction so that you win your domain with the lowest bid price; our ability to build out your domain for you to monetize that web site; our Dropping domains feature which lets members access available dropping domains for just $15 and our latest innovation – mobile Domaining with our iPhone and Android apps.

EJS: What is the most unused feature/aspect of Protrada that domain investors should know about?

TR: There are two key features that I would recommend that domain investors really investigate, firstly our automated domain selling & secondly, our drop catching. Both features are pretty powerful tools as Protrada members have the ability to automatically list their domains across SEDO, GoDaddy and AfterNIC with a few clicks & they can also grab domains on the drop Both features give us a competitive edge & really compliment other key features including the instant & timed bid management feature.

We really aim to save users lots of time handling the monotonous tasks in buying & selling as we enable them to access the world’s largest domain marketplaces and help them to trade with millions of potential buyers across different countries and languages.

EJS: Some people have trust issues in giving away their account and password information for various secure websites. How can you alleviate some of these concerns since it’s necessary to do with Protrada?

TR: The Protrada team takes security very seriously and in fact this is the highest priority for our business. We have a policy for our management of data both internally and externally and our actions on data security comply with our corporate and security governance policies.

From an internal perspective our small team that is responsible for data and its security undergoes a strict integrity check and our core data is locked down to this team of experts. All of the data that we use to provide information to Protrada members is contained within our internal data server environment. We complete regular internal audits so that we can track who is accessing this information and how this conforms to our governance standards.

From an external perspective, Protrada members can rest easy that we won’t compromise the security of their data in any way. We capture and store member’s data securely with the highest level security protocols available. We have strict control parameters with our domain auction partners and have established an initiative to integrate security tokens into each transaction to meet industry best practice guidelines wherever and whenever you trade a domain.

We want to reassure domainers considering using Protrada that we don’t data scrape your account and use that data for other purposes. Here at Protrada we push the information that you need to you and our interactions are at your request.

EJS: How does Protrada use private user information, like searches, domain names owned…etc?

TR: Protrada doesn’t use private user information at all; we simply rely on third party data from our auction house partners. In future we are implementing an opt-in for trending information.

====

About Protrada

Protrada is the world’s first aggregator of the major domain auction houses. It provides members with the data and tools to buy, build and sell domains automatically from within the Protrada platform. Launched in mid 2011, Protrada manages more than 150,000 global domain names. www.protrada.com

About Winged Media

Winged Media Pty Ltd was established in 2009 to develop a range of platform-based solutions for the domain investing arena, targeting professional domainers, internet marketers and share investors around the world. With offices in Australia and the United States of America, the company has launched a range of digital innovations, including Devname, kwIQ Tool, Parklings, Protrada and Shoppatube. www.wingedmedia.com

For more news on Winged Media:

• Visit their blog at www.wingedmedia.com/blog
• Find them on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/winged-media

For further information and media interviews please contact:

Corporate Enquiries:

Cathryn van der Walt | 12 Worlds | + 61 (0) 402 327 633 | cathryn@12worlds.com

Product Enquiries:

Craig Russell |Winged Media| +61 (0) 418 468 470|craig.russell@wingedmedia.com

If you’re a participant on a domain forum like DN Forum or Domain Boardroom, it’s very likely you’ve heard of or interacted with Donald Williams, Jr, better known as Biggie on DBR or Biggedon on DNF. Don started investing in domain names in 2002, and the first domain name he sold was EquityManagers.com, which he sold on DNF.

That first sale, the first profit he made, started the fire to continue investing in domain names. Other past sales include: 100calorie.com, JK.net, QE.org, ShopNames.com, IllinoisAutoInsurance.com, among others, and a recent auction of InsuranceChicago.com at sedo. In his time in the domain space, Don served as a moderator on DN Forum from 2003 – 2009.

Although Don and I don’t always agree on certain topics, I have a considerable amount of respect for his opinions and insight. I had the opportunity to ask Don some domain questions, and I hope his answers can benefit you.

ES: When did you begin investing in domain names and what got you started?

DW: I regged my first domain in 2002 and I got started in domains while doing some research for a coworker. She was interested in one of those “make money online catalog” websites she heard about and asked me to see how legit it was. ‘domainnameforum.co.uk’ came up somehow while searching for those keywords above and once I started reading about domain reselling, I jumped in.

ES: How has the domain “industry” changed since you’ve been involved and how has your business model evolved?

DW: I think domaining has changed from becoming a niche’ hustle for a small minority, to a full-fledged “industry”. One that has spun-off other profitable business models that lend support and encourage further investing in domains. Some of those models include the dropcatching and backorder services, auction platforms, news services, blogs and aggregators, stat finders and whois history services.

When I started, there was only DNJournal to report domain news, Snapnames/Snapcheck, Clickmojo, NameWinner, and later ClubDrop to catch expiring names and of course the all mighty Overture. So in that respect a lot has changed.

My biz model hasn’t changed too much from what I was doing the first few years in this biz. Although I bought a few LLL.com’s in my newbies years, I switched strategy and started investing in “domains with traffic that produced revenue” by using the Overture.com suggestion tool.

I wanted to build a portfolio of domains that would pay for themselves overtime, as well as provide income for further investments. That still is my basic business strategy.

ES: What piece(s) of advice would you give to someone who wants to start investing in domain names?

DW: The best advice I think I can ever give to a new investor, is to “READ”. I’ve always encouraged new users on forums to read the “Domains for Sale and Domains Wanted” threads. I think one could get a quick grasp on how the biz works if they view what domainers are trying to sell and at what price/range they are expecting, while the “domains wanted threads” indicate what type of domains buyers are looking for and what budget they have to purchase.

One has to have some idea of both sides of this biz to succeed, because if you expect to be profitable, you’ll have to know how to be the seller and the buyer.

ES: How do you think gTLDs will change domain investing and what’s your take on them?

DW: I think newbies will invest the most in gtlds because that space will be a new frontier. If they have no attachments to .com and no knowledge of what sells and what doesn’t, then they will be most likely to make the wrong investment choices.

I think gtlds will be more of a problem for mainstream businesses as they may have to defend their brands by being forced to register unwanted extensions. there is already an issue brewing in that regards by a major “Retail” association. Though I probably wouldn’t recommend investing in them, I do know for sure that some domainers will always find a way to profit from tld expansionism.

ES: What are your three favorite domain tools to use and why?

DW: As for tools, my fav’s are “the daily newspaper”, though one may not consider it a tool, I’ve found so many leads to names that turned a profit, just from reading newspapers. Overture used to be everyone’s favorite tool, but you know the deal on that.

I am not one to buy scripts or software to run programs that generate lots of data. I like free tools, which also lowers overhead expenses… so I use Snapnames, NameJet and Pool to generate domain lists then I leisurely check a group of keywords, based on that day’s subject of interest and hopefully find a gem or two that will pay off later.